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Over the next few days the rain relentlessly continued and the beautiful organic meadows full of butterflies which Tina had earlier described (and I DO believe her) were converted into a passable reconstruction of the killing fields of World War 1. Our small, sacred, still reasonably grassy space around Cal’s lovely garden deteriorated as the mud inexorably climbed the hills towards us. Spinning tyres had torn deep ruts across the virgin pastures.

Our beautiful reading domes, each one dedicated to one of the 4 elements, so colourful and welcoming at Glastonbury, were damp and forbidding. Here, embowered beneath dripping canvas and damp tulle we nestled by the flooded candles, our votive objects and altars soaking and tawdry, seated on soggy carpets, we tried to counsel, advise, interpret and console our clients. We studied their charts and cards and palms for some ray of hope for them while we ourselves were in dire need of some personal consolation and solace. I think we all had our share of people who brought us their griefs, hardships, complexes and, who knows, maybe it’s easier to confront and accept life’s more challenging tests when one’s environment is also harsh and challenging. It wasn’t as if we could tell anyone anything much worse than they were already experiencing – this had to be positive!

Some people simply couldn’t take it and had to leave, others, unable to drive across the devastation that was the site, had to camp miles away and commute daily across the deep, treacherous, slippery slime up to our space to give their readings and workshops. Then there were those wise few who arrived later for the final weekend just as the rain began to stop and the sun began to shine again.

Because this was the last of the rain.

Now, looking back at the end of October, I realise that there really has been nothing that could count as decent downpouring rain since that week at the end of July. Trees and gardens, reservoirs, rivers, streams and ponds have suffered and dried. The heat of August carried off many of the old and sick as the hottest temperatures ever recorded followed hard on the heels of that wet week of the BGG and we astrologers who scan the skies for meaning are left wondering at the extremes life puts us all through. Now we long to hear the song of the pattering rain and feel its life giving drops splashing our faces. Mud is no longer that threatening substance sucking us down into its bottomless maw, mud has regained its honoured place as the primaeval soup from which we all arise, the wet, nurturing body of our mother goddess Planet Earth. Mud has become a rare and precious commodity and we have seen the longed-for sun become an enemy and a merciless killer.

Pondering the reasons for excess or deficiency and how to compensate, seeing that there is nothing that is a good of itself but only in its usefulness and accessibility, understanding how hard times can scrape away the defended surface and reveal jewels beneath, belief in the cyclical nature of time, and finally, the grace of bowing in surrender to the unchangeable inevitability of personal loss and diminution, these are the gifts astrology offers us to share with others and boy did we live these truths in those fields in that week of the Big Green Gathering.

Suze