April 30

​Great Grandmother leads up a small animal track beside the river. In the distance we can see a waterfall. But she stops before we reach it at a point where the river suddenly widens into a small beach of fine gravel and quartz chips. Here she steps down and washes her face and hands.
 
‘In our wartime migrations our journeys took at least a week and sometimes more. This river was our half way point. We always came to this beach to wash. It was as though we were shedding ourselves of our town life and preparing for entry to a new world of the summer pasturelands.

​ Here we used to make our wishes too. Some of us still do.’ She points to the tiny strips of cloth tied to the lower branches that overhang the river. ‘They carry to the goddesses of this place our hopes for good health, for fresh energy, for help over obstacles’.
 
I follow the example of Great Grandmother. I too feel the need for fresh energy, to wash away what is past, to make way for something new.