A few years back I created a solo ceremony with which we might bless our boundaries. Since midsummer shines upon everything, you might wish to bless your own boundaries.
BEATING THE BOUNDS
The idea behind the ceremony that follows is a blessing upon the boundaries of where you live. Today, throughout Britain, there are still customs that mark the boundaries, from the Beating of the Bounds which still happens in Oxford (and many other places) at the Feast of the Ascension (40 days after Easter), where children are walked around the boundaries of the parish to learn where these are located: each child has a satisfyingly long stick of birch or willow with which to beat the boundary points, which helps them remember where they are. This national custom began in the reign of King Alfred, when maps were scarce, it physically helped everyone remember where the boundaries were, to check that there were no encroachments. In Oxford, most of the boundary points are marked in the ground, including in the middle of Marks and Spencer shop in Queen Street, where parishioners still come to violently flail away at the metal cross embedded in the floor to the bewilderment of non-initiated shoppers!
Similarly, in the Scottish Borders, there are the Common Ridings or the Riding of the Marches, where equestrian processions patrol the boundaries: this began in the 13-14th century where the borderlands were disputed between Scotland and England. It continued to be done because of border-reivers, to check on any encroachments that might have befallen. These common ridings are institutions in the Border towns, and still very enthusiastically performed, as you may see from the one done at Hawick in Roxburghshire, in the southern uplands of the Borders.
The mother and father of all these boundary attentions is the Roman Festival of Terminalia which was celebrated on 22/23 February on the last festival day of the Roman year, in honour of the god, Terminus, who presided over boundaries. His statue was usually a simple stone or post stuck in the ground to distinguish between properties. This worship was instituted by the 8th century legendary king Numa Pompilius, who also set up the cult of the Vestal Virgins and many other rites that defined later Roman culture. He ordered that everyone should mark the boundaries of their landed property by stones consecrated to Jupiter Terminalis. The joint owners of adjacent properties would, on this festival, garland the boundary point, making an altar where corn, honeycombs, and wine, and a lamb or piglet was sacrificed.
Don’t worry, no stick-beating, horse-riding, or sacrificing of small animals will be necessary today! There are two parts to this boundary ceremony.
PREPARING THE EARTH
The aim of this two-part ceremony is to bless the earth and the boundaries surrounding your home.
First of all consider the boundaries of where you live. Not everyone has a garden and few of us have a lot of ground, but the placement of our dwelling, even though it be 14 stories up, or a little flat squeezed in between other taller buildings, or a terraced house where all the houses are attached to each other in one long street, still has boundaries. It may be that the building where you live is utterly surrounded by other buildings, in which case you will have to adapt the second part of this ritual.
You will first need to do one of two things. If you have a garden or any ground surrounding your property gather a small cup of earth from the garden for blessing and take with it one small stone from your garden. If you have no ability to do that, obtain some earth from elsewhere or use some flour or cornmeal and use a small stone that you find somewhere else. Then you are ready to start meditating or journeying. You are going to visit four locations in your meditations, keeping your cup of earth, flour or cornmeal in front of you.
1. Meditate/journey to the place where you were born: this was where you first beamed down upon the earth in this life time – the place of your first encounter with life outside the womb. What was the blessing that you gained from that locality? Envisage what they might be. Breathe that blessing onto your cup of earth.
2. Meditate/journey to the place you lived when you left home: this was where you first struck out on your own for your education or training, where you had to depend upon a different set of values outside your parental home. What did you learn here? How did that new place support you? Breathe your blessing onto the cup of earth.
3.Meditate/journey to the place where you work: it may be you work from home, or your place of work is far from you now, or else are retired, but bring your last place of work to mind. How does or how did that place support your position on earth as a worker? How did your work tend the earth? Breathe your blessing onto the cup of earth.
4. Meditate/journey to the place where you now live: be aware of your hearth, the centre of your home. How does your living here tend the earth? What larger life does your home partake in? Breathe your blessing onto the cup of earth
WALKING THE EARTH
The ceremony is next to walk the boundary of your dwelling, to bless the significant features of it. This includes your front and back garden, if you have them. It may be that your share your home with others or that your house is joined to a terrace or another house, but you can go around the parts that include your building, if so, or around the square where your dwelling is situated. You may be able to do this in one complete circle, but you may more likely have to take several routes to include the complete boundary.
Decide where your start point is. If you can, start your walk from start to finish point in a sun-wise direction in the Northern Hemisphere, or in star-wise, (widdishins) direction in the Southern Hemisphere. Walk around your property from top to toe, its square acerage, taking your stone with you, and the cup of blessed earth.
At each significant point – that is gates, doors, corners, trees, shrines or other significant features, place a crumb of earth at that point. When you return to your start point, that is where you will site your stone. At each point, you are blessing - you might sing, rattle, or pray quietly, leaving your earth and finally your stone with a blessing. Be aware as you go of what happens as you proceed. You will be aware of things from a different perspective on your boundary procession. If you meet people on the way, should you have to go around a street or two to fulfil this ceremony, just nod or greet them if they greet you. You don’t have to explain yourself.
Finally, sit down outside, if you can, or go back to your home and consider your life-walk on this earth. Be aware of those others who share the space of your home/garden with you: those plants, trees, insects, animals, as well as the hidden people – the fauns, faeries and other folk. How do they want you to tend/attend them?
Be aware, too, of the spirit of your garden or the ground on which you live: How does it want you to tend/attend it?
Allow your vision of your home/garden to expand until it is seen as part of your town, locality/region, your country, the tectonic plate on which it sits upon the earth, finally upon the planet itself.
Finally, mediate your blessing to each of these circles of belonging. Ours is not the ownership of the earth, we simply belong to the earth.
Next time, I will post what happened when I did this ceremony.
May your Midsummer be blessed with the brightness of the eternal spiritual sun!
Lovely, thank you Caitlin. We may soon be moving to a new abode, seems apt to do this ceremony there...
Thank you for explaining the origins of this custom and how it is celebrated in various places. Also, thank you for posting variations on how we can perform this ceremony depending upon where we live. I live in an apartment in a high rise building and you gave me a way to perform this.