We left the stone circle in lighthearted mood. The walkers we met all seemed to be smiling broadly… and that included the ones who hadn’t witnessed our antics up there. The grouse have a very peculiar call and seemed to want to laugh with us as we walked down towards High Lanshaw reservoir where we stopped to debate the temperature of the water, the merits of bathing whilst going blue and to share the chocolate one of our number had been thoughtful enough to provide.

The moors here are high, close to the top, and fields of fading heather hint at a glory just missed. We walked down towards the Lanshaw Lass and onward to the necropolis of Green Crag Slack. Here we stopped to examine some of the many carved stones… including the ‘pointy’ stone that re-opened the debate on the significance of this form. This ancient landscape of the dead is a happy place, strangely enough… it feels ‘right’ and holds neither fear nor sadness. You really seem to understand that it is a place of transition, and that death itself may be a birthing rather than an end.

So it is with many things and this too had been borne in upon us over the weekend as the fruits of the yesterdays of the world had become the seeds of its tomorrow. As we descended towards the Haystack, carved with yet more ancient figures and, for me, personal memories, there was both a gentle regret that the weekend was drawing to a close and an acknowledgement that in such an ending we were carrying new understanding out into our individual worlds. Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end… but which, after all, is which?

We sat beneath the old stone, talking quietly and sharing the last of the cedar given in spring by a dear friend we had held in our hearts over the weekend. ‘Ned’ would love these moors. It was a moment filled only by a poem, and it caught me right in the heart, marking the end of our present journey.

We come together sometimes with others who share a part of the way, then we part to walk alone again for a while. We hope, but cannot know, that our paths may meet again in the not-too-far-distant future, but in some ways we do not part at all. We share a single thread of a universal life, entrusted to each of us to weave our own tales into the greater tapestry of existence. And just as we would carry away from the moors their essence in the water of her streams and the sharp scent of bracken on our clothes, so too would we carry away the things we had each taught and learned from this shared time together.

The first of the School’s Harvest weekend workshops had passed. It had been largely unplanned, wholly unscripted, apparently unorganised and completely informal, yet by accepting the gifts offered by each moment and colouring them vivid we had shared a journey together that leaves none of us unchanged. And as we sat around the table in the hotel garden for a final coffee, one smiling voice spoke, I think, for all of us at that moment.
“Can we do it again?”

***

DOOMSDAY

The Aetheling Thing     Dark Sage   Scions of Albion

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Don and Wen, following the breadcrumb trail of arcane lore and ancient knowledge, scattered across the landscape of time, turn their attention to the myths and legends of Old Albion. They delve into the tales of King Arthur, asking some very strange questions about biblical family trees and exploring the many stories that abound in the very landscape of Avalon. Meanwhile, in Derbyshire, the voices of the past still whisper from the stones, opening a passage through time, place and memory to another world…

Doomsday: The Ætheling Thing

How is it possible to hide such a story… the hidden history of Christianity in Britain? Oh, there are legends of course… old tales… Yet what if there was truth in them? What was it that gave these blessed isles such a special place in the minds of our forefathers? There are some things you are not taught in Sunday School. From the stone circles of the north to the Isle of Avalon, Don and Wen follow the breadcrumbs of history and forgotten lore to uncover a secret veiled in plain sight.

Doomsday: Dark Sage
…. something was spawned up on the moor… something black that flew on dark wings. It heeds not time or place… but it seems to have developed a penchant for the travels of Don and Wen….
“Are those two still at it?”
“Apparently….”

Doomsday: Scions of Albion

Things are getting serious…

Exactly what is Wen doing with that crowbar and why is she wearing a balaclava?

All will be revealed…or will it?

Follow the story begun in The Initiate and the Triad of Albion,

as Don and Wen explore the ancient land…