Now, as Vespers sings itself
to dusk’s silent sitting,
the beacons begin to burn.
Men watching for the moment
of Moon’s waning,
in twilight midsummer sky lit
by a Sun too lazy to truly set,
so to kindle flame for the Forerunner;
John.
He whose element is fire.
Both lamps now hanging
in cloth of such deep blue
that the world seems enfolded
in the mantle of one
who midwifed his birth,
even as she joined her magnificat
to old Elizabeth’s pangs,
and doubting Zechariah’s silence,
beneath the shining stars of desert sky.
Now, as Matins touches midnight
of Monks long vigilling,
the herbs are gathered.
Women seeking
the helpers and the healers
in wood, and dell, and garden bed,
where, blessed by dew and moonlight
and the long warmth of Sun’s summer,
the Yarrow and the Bracken,
the Fennel and the Rue,
the Rosemary and the Foxglove,
always the Elder and
the great yellow flower of the Forerunner
willingly give up
their essence on the night
that marks the first whisper
of the Word’s healing breath,
breathed through the one
who is His herald Voice;
John.
Dried, and hung,
and laid upon the Lady Altar
to become more than they are
they will bestow divine healing.
Twice gifted and graced
by Summer’s picking
and Autumn’s
Assumption blessing,
they reveal the medicine
present always, beneath.
Now, as Lauds’ psalms sun skywards
the pots and pans
and ancient drums are beaten.
The children sing the old songs
and the rhymes long lost to meaning,
as young men and women, harelike,
leap heedless across the
dying flames together.
Recalling he who leapt with joy,
filled with fire, even in womb’s waters,
so near was the One who first kindled flame,
rendered the rivers holy and made the wells
vessels of new birth.
Now, as Mass bell tolls dawn’s daily resurrection
monks and men,
and women, and children all
hear the summons of the Sanctifier
and His herald
loud upon morning’s breeze
as embers die down, and herbs are hung up.
Beneath the vaulted stone they gather
to join their voices to praise
that vastness veiled
in simple bread and wine,
and hear again the word first spoken by
the herald,
the lamp,
the flame,
the leaper,
the prophet,
the angel,
the voice,
the Baptist,
whose birth they have
blessed anew,
cry across the ages
“Behold the Lamb of God!”
I wrote this in 2016 to illuminate so many of the customs we have lost that wove the wisdom of the wild and the faith together so beautifully. On St. John's Eve, (The Vigil of the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist), the last official day of the solstice, bonfires were set burning to commemorate the fire of the Baptist's faith and the facing into the waning of natural light after the longest day.
Couples leaping across the fire was an old betrothal custom. This was also the traditional night for gathering the herbs that would be used as medicine for the year to come. Gathered tonight and dried until Assumption Day they would then be blessed in the Monasteries at the first Mass at Our Lady's Altar... The songs and noise making around the boundaries of the hills and the fields was to frighten away evil and stagnancy so as to refresh the fields and prepare for the Harvest... Our faith was and is both holy and holistic and we must return to such deep knowing again... May the Baptist pray for us on this the feast of fire!
