Gooseberry and Redcurrant Jelly and Cailleach and the Getting of Wisdom

Now we have the recipes and the stories!


Sunday 24^th June 2001
Gooseberry and Redcurrant Jelly


'Today we picked the gooseberries and it was a lovely crop – 5 pounds already from one bush. (Stoke Road)
I froze 4 half pound bags, made a crumble with some and added 2.5 lbs of gooseberries to 1.5lbs of redcurrants with 1.5 pints of water. I boiled it for ½ – ¾ hour and am now straining the juice for jelly though a pillowcase into the big glass bowl. More later.'


'Today (Monday) I boiled the juice (1.75 pints) with 1.75 lbs of sugar and it made 3 pots of jelly. Very wasteful of fruit but a beautiful colour and very clear. Tip: Never squeeze the jelly bag it makes the juice cloudy.'






You will be glad to know that I bought a jelly bag after this, consigning the pillowcases to the beds, or the rubbish bin, and have made good use of it over the years. Sometimes there is a glut of apples, especially here in Avalon, and I made apple jelly and add mint with spiced vinegar, or sage, or other herbs. They are better left for a good three months so that the herbs infuse through the apples.


Shall I tell you my apple story? At one time, when we first came to Glastonbury, I was in the Goddess Movement before I went back to the Church. After we had moved into AppleTree House in Autumn 2002 to run the bed and breakfast we had made some apple nectar with the last of the Bramley apples and I had taken it all to a ceremony for Samhain that year.




I was Cailleach that day, and stirred the apple nectar in a cauldron over a fire. One by one the priestesses came along a line of black veiled and gowned figures who were scrying into the future and speaking prophetically to each woman.


Finally each one came to me, sitting alone behind a screen, to be given apple nectar and Cailleach's words, or not. Sometimes I didn't speak at all to them. Anyway, as I was sitting gowned in my black velvet cloak with my hood up and stirring the cauldron I heard a Voice in my head.



'What do you want?'


This Voice had not been heard so clearly by me for a long, long time. It wasn't asking 'what do you want?' as if you had knocked on a door, but more 'what is it you need – ask for anything and you can have it.'


I knew what the answer to this question should be, I had read my Bible a lot as a girl and I had been an R.E.Teacher. Even so, I kept on thinking – money, health, grandchildren, etc. etc.


Finally the voice spoke again with huge impatience -


'Hurry up.'


This made me laugh a lot inside and I said


'Wisdom',


which of course is always the right answer to this question – see Solomon!


Wisdom is also Sophia, the Female energy principle, the Holy Spirit within Judaism and the place where the Goddess Movement meets the Church, and one day the men in dresses will recognise this!


Within four months I had left Kathy and the priestesses and had been welcomed back into Mother Church. She always welcomes you back, and sighs when you leave again. But She knows you will one day come back for good.



Always ask for wisdom, if you are given the choice, that is my recommendation! As with Solomon, everything else will probably come along with it, eventually anyway, God be praised.