What happens on Summer Solstice, stays on Summer Solstice! Also – Goddesses of Los Angeles!

Goddess of Los Angeles – Hestia or Hera?

St. Patrick’s day humour

Brighid – Eleanor Farjeon

I’m celebrating Brighid today not Patrick.

Saint Bridget

by Eleanor Farjeon

Part of a series of poems on saint’s lives and because I have been lax in my flamekeeping.

Saint Bridget she was beautiful
In feature and in deed
And she would give the world away
To anyone in need.
It was enough for her to know
Of beggars at her door
That women starved and babes were cold,
And ragged men were poor.

Saint Bridget gave the world away
And cut her golden hair
To dwell beneath the Holy Oak
Men speak of in Kildare.
The stick she put her lips upon
Broke straightway into flower,
The sunbeam in her greenwood cell
Lingered beyond its hour.

Saint Bridget laid her beauty by
That earth might leave her be,
And God bestowed it twice on her
Till angels leaned to see.
‘Look, look! There goes the loveliest one
In Ireland ever known,
Our Bride who gave the world away
And made all heaven her own.

St Patrick’s? Day

I say this every year. I hate St Patrick’s Day.

My great-grandmother’s family were Orange men. She was a Reeve which according to the geneology notes could be spelled either Reeve or Rive or Ryve. What difference does that make? Well, a Reeve could be a sheriff and in charge of an area but a Ryver is a cattle thief or worse. But knowing the professions of the Scots those Reeves were descended from it was probably the latter not the former. They probably landed Northern Ireland due to the Highland Clearances. (F.Y.I. Most Scots no matter where they are born still refer to themselves as Scots so even if you were born in Lower Slobovia and you have Scottish parents you are a Scot not a lower Slobovian and you’re parents might get mad at you for saying you were anything else but)

And what most people don’t know or won’t recognize is that the “troubles” started before there was a Catholic and a Protestant and has nothing to do with pagans or snakes either. The first time the Scots and Irish got into was in the 1200’s when Robert the Bruce was hiding in Northern Ireland and the Irish were coming to his aid and he attacked them by mistake but then Robert the Bruce was always a stupid cowardly git, the damn backstabbing son of a leperous twit.

My mother used to send me to school wearing a orange scarf and carrying an orange and fending off the pinches of little Jewish kids that had never been Irish in any lifetime because or neighborhood was mostly Jewish except for a few other kids. I felt sorry for the little Scottish kid down the street. His parents wouldn’t let him wear long pants to school. He had to wear shorts to school. The only other people who were that cold on a bad weather day were us girls since in those days we still wore dresses with petticoats. The only time I got out of wearing a petticoat was wearing a kilt. I always wanted to talk to him but he wasn’t in my class.

art by Joanne Colbert

Dearest Brighid,

May I keep my mouth shut today and not tell people “pog mo thoin”. Let me allow ignorant non-Irish to pinch me and not punch them. Give me the inspiration and the grace to be a person of peace on this day celebrating a misogynistic, intolerant, old Scottish troll. Help me not be tempted to take the hammer of your forge to the unsuspecting heads of the annoying.

Lady, give me strength of character not bludgeon people with history and let them keep their drunken hysteria.

So mote it be! Lady, please give me peace.

[Stan Rogers introduced his song on stage, “I don’t care what your politics are, when our children are dying in the streets, it’s time to put away the guns.” He said he’d never write a political song, but he did and we thank him for it. It is fitting that it be the last on the album as it was the last one he wrote.]

I took back my hand and I showed him the door
No dollar of mine would I part with this day
For fueling the engines of bloody cruel war
In my forefather’s land far away.
Who fled the first Famine wearing all that they owned,
Were called ‘Navigators’, all ragged and torn,
And built the Grand Trunk here, and found a new home
Wherever their children were born.
Their sons have no politics.
None call recall Allegiance from long generations before.
O’this or O’that name just can’t mean a thing
Or be cause enough for to war.
And mean-while my babies are safe in their home,
Unlike their pale cousins who shiver and cry
While kneecappers nail their poor Dads to the floor
And teach them to hate and to die.
It’s those cruel beggars who spurn the fair coin.
The peace for their kids they could take at their will.
Since the day old King Billy prevailed at the Boyne,
They’ve bombed and they’ve slain and they’ve killed.
Now they cry out for money and wail at the door
But Home Rule or Republic, ’tis all of it shame;
And a curse for us here who want nothing of war.
We’re kindred in nothing but name.
All rights and all wrongs have long since blown away,
For causes are ashes where children lie slain.
Yet the damned U.D.I and the cruel I.R.A.
Will tomorrow go murdering again.
But no penny of mine will I add to the fray.
“Remember the Boyne!” they will cry out in vain,
For I’ve given my heart to the place I was born
And forgiven the whole House of Orange
King Billy and the whole House of Orange.