O, the merrye greengrass

How magical it would be to come across a Jack-in-the-Green or Morris Dancers in London today, on Beltane!

I'm told those very, very old traditions are celebrated in some towns, but not really in London anymore. (This despite the fact that a whole area of London is named after the Mayfair it hosted each year, until the well-to-do got fed up with the riff raff and sent the May Fair packing.)

All the same, by whatever name he is called, the Greenman strides in his leafy cloak down London's streets and across its squares and parklands, heath, hill and vale, lighting each tree with green fire...coaxing the fat candles of magnolia trees into pale flame, whispering the songs of growing to every tender blade of grass, each leaf, each heart.

Today, I left the city for the Heath, where I heard the sound of nothing but the wind and birds calling as they winged overhead.

Even through the soles of my shoes, I felt the blessed moisture of the grass, the soft give of the turf, so cool and sweetly scented. I walked over tussocks of grass growing in whorls and cowlicks, rippling in the wind, following its own wild order.

Atop Kite Hill, hair swirling in the wind, I may have thought myself Catherine Earnshaw on Wuthering Heights for a moment...the passionate girl who drank in the air of the heights and smells of the heather like nourishment. Heather...heathen...hmm.

Then I descended into rolling hills of woodland, trickles of tiny streams, and snags...the homes of owls, rabbits, foxes, and hedgehogs, ducks and crows and inquisitive Blue Tits.

I relearned what I'd forgotten—that gorse flowers smell deliciously of coconut—and learned what I've not known until now: the delicate vanilla scent of one tiny blue bell.

And at the end of it all, my left knee burned from stinging nettle, my eyes itched from tree pollen, and I smelled like a cotton sheet hung to dry in the wind and sun. Glorious.

I leave you with the words of the Bard. Blessed May to all.

Under the greenwood tree 

Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note 

Unto the sweet bird's throat, 

Come hither, come hither, come hither!

Here shall he see

No enemy 

But winter and rough weather.

—As You Like It

The possibilities

It was lovely to see such a huge sky.

One reason why people love and need open spaces is that they create a sense of possibility, a mirroring openness within ourselves. I visited Hampstead Village for a guided walk and wandered a bit on Hampstead Heath yesterday, breathing in the peace of London's largest open space and one of its highest spots.

A few days ago, another London Walks guide, Corinna, a sixtyish lady who lives in Highgate Village bordering the Heath, told us that she swims in one of its bathing ponds every morning, year round (like Katharine Hepburn, who swam every morning in chilly Long Island Sound).

I want to go back for a proper ramble, in hopes of spotting one of the foxes, owls, hedgehogs and grass snakes that make their homes here.