spiritus lociThe Threshold-Keeper
Waits at the lintel where inside becomes outside. Fed with salt; forgotten with the second coat of paint.
left an offering. the door stuck for a week after. coincidence noted, not dismissed.
introduction to
a codex of Indwelling Spirits
Part memory, part invention, part record. An exploration of the Spirit of the Place, of every Being who shares this space with us, and of the Numinous in everyday life.
the mark, quickened
The first note said
“Friendly Reminder:
Any thing might be a being.
The doorstep has a temper.
The well remembers who wished into it.
The yew hums birdsong it learnt many years ago.
This is an account of what has not, otherwise, been recorded.”
torn from a larger notebook
Some field fragments
14 · iv
The gate would not close until I said thank you aloud. I felt foolish but said it anyway.
03 · xviii
3:18am. Under casino light she ordered another drink and willed the 7's to align. They didn't. She had forgotten to tap three times.
29 · ix
The stair creaks on the fourth step only when no one is on it. I have stopped testing this.
71 · xviii
Sam, the pigeon, was not well. I said a prayer and was relieved to see the flock arrive and make a ring around him as he passed. The next day, I found a feather on my doorstep.
78 · iii
The Santa Ana winds come speeding off the desert and caress me like they mean something by it.
02 · vii
On Beltane, the border side pull a post to the top of the hurst and perform for the mosses and liverworts, hours before the choir on the tower have sung a single verse to the crowds below.
17 · xxvii
The gentylwomen of Godstow can still be heard 8 times a day by those who choose to listen. At vespers the cattle join in, too.
42 · xxxi
Hand out the car window, effortlessly gliding up and down with the flow. It would be good to remember this more often.
84 · i
Kate Bush.
11 · xi
Left bread on the wall for the fox. It was the birds, probably. I keep leaving it.
12 · xxxvi
The Palace of Fine Arts isn't an ancient temple, but we worshipped there quite regularly nevertheless, and on one star-filled night, I think we might have met Apollo.
12 · xxii
1996. The stadium not unlike a cathedral, the crowd hushed as Lisa sang her glossolalia. She said it was for her father, but it was not only me who cried.
01 · xii
The well still stands in Binsey, but the treacle has long since lost its power, not that it helped Henry and Catherine much anyways. I tie clooties just in case.
03 · ii
The old orchard remembers where the trees stood, in the way the frost sits differently there.
17 · iiii
The spider that has always been in the corner watches, and listens, and on the right morning might just very well spill it all to someone.
17 · v
Nothing happened at the crossroads. That, itself, felt like it really meant something.
13 · xiii
Age 13. Found a library book that had no business being on those shelves. I told no one, but have never stopped reading it.
a child's verse, said to improve harvests when repeated at least 6 times whilst spinning sunwise
The Good God
O lord of the harrow, O lord of the hearth, He gives the folk frith and the fruits of the earth. He shows the young churl how to care for the bough, And guides the old ox back home from the plough.
“Animists are people who recognise that the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human, and that life is always lived in relationship with others.”
often sought, rarely found
Numina
Sometimes the encounter is like finding
a tiny gold pin stuck in the mud,
and only because
this time
the light decided to reveal it.
after the monastic day
A little book of hours
Before clocks, the day was kept by chant and by light. Something of that keeping is still available, if the hours are still kept.
Vigils
the dead of night
Kept by monks for one reason: so someone, somewhere, would be awake when the rest of the world had gone under. 3am — technically the same hour as any other, and obviously not.
Lauds
first light
The hour of praise, said at dawn because dawn does not need to be told it is a miracle, and says so anyway, every day, to no one in particular. At Newgrange, on the winter solstice, the rising sun finds its way down a five-thousand-year-old passage and lights the spirals in the chamber for about seventeen minutes.
Prime
the first hour
The day's work, not yet begun. In the chapter house the saints of the day were read out and the tasks handed round, while the light was still deciding what kind of day it would be.
Terce
mid-morning
The world fully awake, not yet apologising for itself. Hildegard's nuns sang here. A good window still does the same work.
Sext
noon
The sun at its height, shadows pulled in close, the whole day balanced for a moment on its hinge.
None
mid-afternoon
The ninth hour, when the light begins to lean. Its name is the source of “noon” — the word slid backwards across the centuries, from three o'clock to midday, as if the day could not wait for it.
Vespers
evening
The lighting of the lamp, and of the incense. Gold leaf on a page catches this hour best — it was made for candlelight, not daylight, and knows the difference. At midwinter, the sun sets along the axis of Stonehenge.
Compline
before sleep
The last office, and the shortest. Everything that was going to be said today has been said. What's left is breath, and gratitude, and “yes”.
an antiphon, offered plainly, spoken or sung
A chant for Hildegard (cantus planus)
O greening power, unhurried and unasked: you were here before the word for reverence was ever spoken. All beings turn with you, and return to you: lover of life, sustainer of all, circle without end.
— sung low, repeated as the light requires
the attendants
Six attendant spirits
A small sample drawn from doorways, fires, wells, fences, lamps, and larders — important but least remarked spirits.
The Hearth-Ember
The bank of warmth a fire leaves in stone, long after the fire itself has gone out and been swept.
the hearthstone was warm at 4am. no fire since tuesday. we did not test this further.
The Water's Undertow
Every well is a mouth that has heard everything said over it, and repeats none of it back.
dropped a coin, greened, older than anyone living. we put it back where found.
The Boundary Stone
Older than the deed. Does not recognise the fence, the survey, or the neighbour's second opinion.
moved the stone eleven inches for the new path. it was back by spring.
The Moth-Light
Drawn to the lamp at dusk; circles the bulb like a small argument it can never quite win.
three moths, one bulb, forty minutes. none of them learn. none of them leave.
The Grain-Mother
Keeps the count of what is owed to the winter, and collects it, eventually, in full.
the jar was fuller than we'd left it. or we miscounted. we did not miscount.
We did not haunt the house. We arrived, and found it already listening. — marginal note, hand unknown
A Calculation
The name, reduced by the old method, comes to 33 — they say, a master number, said to increase the powers it's built from. The day at birth, as well, also reduces by the same arithmetic to the same 33.
The vowels alone come to 11. What's left comes to 22, and then both, reunited, come to 33 again. Numerology keeps 11, 22, and 33 apart from the rest — the ones that refuse to simplify any further, as if they'd already arrived somewhere.
A number he kept noticing.
so nothing is forgotten, all recorded as evidence in case it is required