A Solstice Pilgrimage - To The Trees Edition #63

During this time of tiny fruits and towering flowers, when I’m laid down in the fields below the swaying grasses watching the narrow stems balance parasols of hogweed, cow parsley, and buttercup, I allow my mind to wander beneath the grass line, to imagine myself a tiny thing exploring a piece of life in miniature.

If I let this fantasy play out in its fullness, I am delivered into another world, one in which I might wish to remain for a while, and from which I return with epic tales.

This is one such tale.

We left home a month ago, once the fires of the Beltane party had faded and the fiery ball began to lift towards its apex. It is at this time, the centre of the year, that creatures of the tiny kind embark on an epic pilgrimage to the centre of the combe, called yearly by the sun, beckoning from its peak, to gather for the grandest of ceremonies, held at the altar of the flowering Grandmother Linden at Summer Solstice.

I join a merry band of pilgrims along paths clawed into meandering reaches by the repeated passage of creatures of small stature, over centuries, to guide this pilgrimage of immense proportions.

At this time of the year, the narrow-leaved grasses reach far into the sky, higher than any mast or spire of the human realm. Their golden flowering heads appear as a flight of hovering angels as they sway in and out of sight through the gaps in the canopy. The wind, blown across the roof of the meadow tickles their dangling anthers, releasing pollen in plumes of gold that drift and weave through the spears. The fertile dust floats in slow movement, glittering as it lingers in the spokes of light cut thin by grass’s blade.

So thick and quick is the growth of these grassy woods that the way ahead must be constantly cleared from encroaching foliage and fallen stems that have climbed into the way since the last passing. A band of crickets scout ahead, leaping from grass head to grass head to check the way, then orchestrate their findings over long distance with their in-built maracas.

Where paths are lost to overgrowth, the ants gnaw through with their secateurs. Where large branches have fallen, the spiders lift with their thread as strong as steel. Where earth has moved, the beetles make use of their stature and stability to dig and shove. The path each year is remade. Deep grooves deepened further into the soil of the earth, the ways of this journey ingrained in mandible, imprinted in wing, and resounding in tiny hearts.

These trails are not without their trepidation. The summer downpours, as welcome as they are, are deadly to those too small to stand against the current. When the sun’s shine is replaced by clouds’ roar and rain’s pour, we must take shelter. Paths become saturated, earth gives way underfoot as we climb to places of safety, heading for raised plateaus above the waterline, beneath the umbrellas of burdock leaf and field mushroom, upon plinths, between flutes and hollows, or within the doorways of badger cavern and rabbit warren. Anything suitable we can find, we prop up, tie down, and bind together to create temporary shelter from the deluge: rolled leaf, flower of dandelion, or rose petals wrapped to form waterproof skins, tied by the thread of nettle and fastened by thorns tip.

Where rivers form too quickly, or water bursts from breached puddles, some creatures are left stranded. The dragonflies take to wing, giant hawkers carrying silk worms in their clutches, dash with agility through the falling drops and the towering blades and spears, towards the cries for help. A stranded caterpillar, a family of ants. The hawkers hover like iridescent copters above the grass tops lowering the worms into the chaos, to pluck those who are stuck from the grip of a most certain watery end. A most daring and valorous stunt for which both dragon and worm are rewarded with a heroic status within the insect world.

As the sky clears and the sun chases the water away, our bearings are regathered, and we start again on our path.

As we proceed, our path joins other paths, and those paths widen into tracks which file into still wider tracks. Our numbers grow as we meet other bands of pilgrims, each having endured their own tests of nerve and endurance. For some, this is deep initiation, for others a walk in the park. Some have travelled on in uncertainty, others in peace and without trial having made the journey numerous times before. All the paths toward the Linden now begin to merge, and we know we are getting close.

From the orchards to the east, the trickling brook to the north, from the western folds of the combe, and from the peaks of Chalice Hill to the south, from the tops of the oaks they drop, and from the hollows they climb. Friends and kin of carapace reconvene from all corners of the combe, all drawn by the promise of the sweet scent of Grandmother Linden’s first hung flower, and a full cup of life-giving honeydew.

From between the grasses appears our sacred Linden, glowing gold and two shades of green, covered in tiny flower buds, all glowing too. Here, the grass ends, and we enter into what appears to be an arena sunken into the embankment of the combe. A tiered colosseum of such grand scale that one cannot see one side from the other. Within this halo of Linden, no grass grows. Such is the density of her canopy that a circular grassless swathe is cast around her, or, so they say, a ceremonial ground adapted purposefully by the tiny creatures for the task of harbouring their most important festival of the year.

As more wild life arrives, they gather in concentric circles around the vast Linden trunk to form an immense city of tiny living things that hums with song, writhes in dance and leaps like flame.

Fires are lit, offerings are laid, rituals held, fortunes told, circles danced, cycles completed. Distant friends, reunited by pilgrimage, gather to witness the Festival of Lime-Light. All have come to embrace the very specific moment when the enthroned solstice sun beams an illuminated corridor through the cosmos, into our atmosphere, past the clouds and over the combe. As it makes land on planet earth, it pours through the Linden’s canopy, to lay perfectly upon the first opening cup of Linden. The gift of a star, sent from a star.

Aphids – Honey dew

Sensorily consumed by the light and smell of this spectacle, we dance ourselves into a circular frenzy, creating a noise so intense that it is said to tempt the Linden to bloom further and encourage its bountiful fruiting. But moreover, it tickles the backsides of the aphids from which springs their most precious heavenly manna: honeydew.

The sweet, life-stirring honeydew is the most prized treat in this miniature land. A sugary, restorative gift, bestowed upon us by the holy aphids, and blessed by those trails of light cast by the sun at its height, through the opening petals of the season’s first Linden bloom.

We dance until dusk descends. And as night falls, the hubbub recedes. The specks of a million lime flowers are reflected back as the light of a million tiny fires, the illuminated encampments of our fellow pilgrims, freshly libated and met well once again beneath the Linden Tree.

—

I return from this epic pilgrimage, prising myself out of their tiny world and growing back into the land of the large, through half-closed, bleary eyes, I peer up into the buttercups toward the sky, just as a hawker hovers by.

Still unsure if I’m small or large, I climb on top of my legs and meander over to Grandmother Lime for a hug, being very careful where I place my feet.

End

MW – 11/06/2025

Grandmother lime entrance