All the waters of the summer

Swimming in the Essex Stour

It's been a summer of travelling around the country, visiting friends and family, and along the way there always seems to have been water. I swam in the river Stour in Essex, as well as running and walking beside it. I swam in the sea at Hove, walked on beaches in Essex and Somerset. Stony beaches, sandy beaches, a beach where the sea retreated so far at low tide it was barely visible. There were canals and rivers in Somerset, Essex, and my own London.

The Stour at Flatford

Bridgewater and Taunton canal at sunset

Ebbs and flows, source and sea. I visited the springs at Glastonbury, the White Lady and the Red. The sound of rushing water, of gently lapping water, of crashing waves, is the soundtrack to my summer.

 At the River Dee in Chester, I found a shrine to the Roman goddess Minerva, which got me wondering about the pre-Roman goddess who was inevitably there. A little meandering research led me to the goddess Aerfen, a Welsh battle goddess, whose grove was near the source of the Dee in Snowdonia. Visiting Buxton in Derbyshire at the beginning of September, I found more waters, another sacred spring, and a Goddess of the Grove - Arnemetia. The Romans called Buxton Aquae Arnemetiae.

Finding these waters, and connecting to these goddesses, has been a powerful practice. I have followed the call of the water to find the stories, the local folklore of the land and the water. In awakening the stories, we bring meaning and enchantment back to the land, and to our lives. In awakening the stories, we re-awaken the spirit of the land, and bring the sacred back to the wild. In this age of secular materialism and political craziness, I'm increasingly convinced that there is nothing more important.