The Great Round of life is the circle of all birth to death, out of which comes life….that reality that all that has lived before is the very soil out of which life renews itself. Life lives on death, and in death (particularly with natural burial) we have the potential to give back to life.
A beautiful granite stone has recently arrived as part of an upgrade to an existing gateway at Epona.
The stone was carved by local craftsman and sculptor Matt Diffey. It both acts in practical terms as the “slam post” for the gates either side, and also evokes something of the mystery of Tolmen stones and gateways between things.
Next to it is a new pedestrian gate making the footpath more easily accessible than when there was just a stile.
A gate and one of a couple of beautiful new granite gate posts replacing wooden ones, are part of support from a small FIPL (farming in protected landscapes) grant, via the National Park. This will help improve access and protect Epona’s orchard and other trees across the land, so that cattle can be reintroduced.
The support at the gateway in particular ties in with the Park’s policy both to improve accessibility, creating “more miles without stiles,” and also the use of granite when possible, being such a beautiful feature of Dartmoor.
Like some other ancient features on the moor this one ties in with the solar calendar and the turning of the year. In this case it faces towards the summer solstice sunrise, at a high point on the horizon, indicating that from that point forth the length of day will begin to shorten.
We are applying to improve the road entrance to the access track and our neighbour’s field, replacing the current stile with a gate and widening the turning room for vehicles.
Poet farmer Wendell Berry speaking on the nature of top soil:
“The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past enters its future.”