Steam box insulated with hay bails

The water bubbled in the black cauldron and disappeared down a copper conduit into a steel box wreathed in flames. Steam hissed out of a second copper pipe and into the wooden box of ash poles, heating them to a temperature where water evaporated from them.  The tubes within the wood remained unchanged but the lignin, (a sort of tree glue) that holds the cells together, melted and allowed the fibres of the wood to be bent into an arc over a wooden structure.  Held in this position, the lignin will reform and harden so that the wood takes on its new curved shape.  The poles will have lost so much of their water content, they will be two thirds lighter than when we first cut them down. But first we have to wait five weeks…..

Moving the steam box into place

On a day of radiant summer heat and blue skies, the Wood Sisters met for the great Steaming Day of the Red Tent Poles.  This was the a fulcrum moment, when all the work of the past 3 months, cutting down poles, shaping them, building a steam box and former and drawing on paper the shape we wanted the tent to be, the moment of truth had arrived!  Either the poles would snap or refuse to bend, or…. the steam would work its magic and we would have a former taut with poles for our dome shaped red tent.

Precious poles

The pictures tell the story better than words:

A handful of petals to bless the fire

Cutting wood for the fire

The wood pile grows....

Baby Flynn gets in on the act as Jenny feeds poles into the steam box

Tying off round the poles to keep the steam in

The poles are cooking

Lintel and sill

While we wait for the poles to cook for an hour, Toby shows us how to mark up the lintel and sill of the doorway to the tent.

Time for lunch

The first pole out

And......bend!!

Tying off

First batch successfully bent on the former

So with 18 poles bent (and no breakages!), we put the second batch of poles into steam for an hour and turned out attention to keeping the fire roaring and working on the wheel rim.

Ash wheel rim

Glueing

and dowling

Now the second lot of poles were steamed and ready to bend.

We're now an experienced team

Each pole must be bent seconds after it comes out of the steamer

Then tied to the exact curve

Working hard in the glorious sunshine....

.......we all felt like this!

As pole after pole bent successfully.

Curved ash

Just one more - Lisa reaches out

Celebration!

Tops of the poles which will fit into the wheel rim

A glimpse of the Red Tent

We used corrugated iron and red plastic to protect the poles as they dry and harden and we caught a glimpse of what the interior of the tent may feel like…

It was a deeply satisfying and exciting day: successful, fun and inspiring. We headed home a little weary, a little sun burnt but glowing inside and out.

Precision cuts

This is the construction that will hold all the steamed poles in the exact curves needed for dome shaped alachigh frame for the Red Tent.  Its key attributes are strength and precision.

Exactly

Ronnie, Martin and Sue met up for two and half hours on Bank Holiday Monday armed with bolts, nuts, tape measures, set squares and some hefty timber and built the former in situ next to the steam box site.

Sawing in the sunshine

It took some minute adjustments but gradually the former became a thing of curved beauty that (we hope) will fit all 35 steamed poles next Sunday and for the five weeks after.  It’s raised on legs so that 1 foot of pole can poke out at one end (the foot of the pole and the tent) and nine foot of each pole can bend, leaving 4 foot of straight pole to fit into the roof wheel. We have a few spares but we have to hope that there won’t be too much splitting on Sunday!

Taking shape

There are still a few cross bracings and clamping bars to add, but the former is essentially built and tucked snuggly under some corrugated sheet to keep  dry for next weekend.

Curved cover

Steam bending day is Sunday May 13th from 9.30 – 5.30 at Sue’s house –  here are the directions:

A381, Kingsbrige Hill, out of Totnes towards Kingsbridge. Through Harbertonford and Halwell. Straight past the BP station at Totnes Cross (don’t take left turn to Dartmouth), then 50 yards on, take the second of 2 small unmarked turnings left up through a tunnel of trees. Left at the top small crossroads, and less than a mile down the road, first right to Hutcherleigh (straight on down the hill). At the bottom T-junction, turn left and Green Dragon Barn is the third on the right.

And if you get lost Sue’s number is 01548 521207.

Bolting on the legs

Bring and share lunch at 1pm.  Come for the whole day or part of it. We will need to keep the fires roaring for at least four hours to produce lots of hot steam. It should be great fun.

Former Glory

Hard at work

With a deadline to have 35 poles shaped for steaming before the rise of the Scorpio moon on Saturday May 5th 2012, nine of us set to work with a will.  Sue and Ronnie formed a formidable team on the electric planer: measuring, reducing and getting a general shape before passing each pole to the draw knife and spoke shave crew who sat merrily on their shave horses and finished off every curve and bump the electric planer couldn’t reach.

Ronnie on the production line

Thanks to Jo who came to help for the first time and Robin who set aside AS revision to lend a hand. By the end of the morning, the electric planers were confidently reduced to an 8-pole pile to finish, whilst there was a large backlog of poles waiting for hand-crafting.

Pole people

After another magnificent bring and share lunch, Sam, Jo, Tilly, Debbie, Izzy and Robin raced back down to the shave horses and by mid-afternoon the pile of finished poles was looking impressive. The electric planers were doing well too, but the hand-crafting team over took them and by 5pm were queueing up and waiting for each pole as it came off the planer production line.

Not many more to go....

At 5.30 on the dot Sam finished the last pole and a cheer was raised. 35 poles ready to steam – 32 for the frame and 3 spares (two slightly split…)

Sam on the shave horse

All through the day, work continued on the former,  but we will need a couple more hours to finish this before next Sunday’s steam day.

Preparing the former

It was a triumphant day in which we felt a true sense of achievewment. Conversation drifted occassionally to the “Why are we doing this intead of buying 32 lengths of planed 2 by 1?” to “This really is very hard work.”  But, we concluded that a frame that had cost us effort and sacrifice,  would have a human story and many lives woven into it. Including some of Tilly’s blood! As we had our second initiatory cut (one with a saw when chopping down the ash poles and one today with a draw knife being used slightly too creatively). Neither of them serious, thank goodness.

Done

The red tent has been an easy, enjoyable, inspiring journey in many ways: willing helpers, wonderful weather, community craft days, new friends and more but it has also taken a lot of planning and technical calculation, a huge effort to fund-raise, and more than one Saturday a month given over to tough physical work.

Sunday May 13th will be our steam day when we light the camp fire, heat up the water in the old radiator fed by the header tank and steam 32 poles in the steam box for an hour  before bending them over the former and leaving them for five weeks to create the perfect curve for our dome-shaped alachigh tent.

The poles are now so light to carry

If you’d like to be part of the day, do let us know: livingspirit@btintenet.co.uk.   It will be another 9.30 – 5.30pm day at Green Dragon Barn – you are welcome to come to the whole day or drop in for part of it.  There will be a bring and share lunch at 1pm.

Directions to Sue’s house (Green Dragon Barn):

A381, Kingsbrige Hill, out of Totnes towards Kingsbridge. Through Harbertonford and Halwell. Straight past the BP station at Totnes Cross (don’t take left turn to Dartmouth), then 50 yards on, take the second of 2 small unmarked turnings left up through a tunnel of trees. Left at the top small crossroads, and less than a mile down the road, first right to Hutcherleigh (straight on down the hill). At the bottom T-junction, turn left and Green Dragon Barn is the third on the right.

And if you get lost Sue’s number is 01548 521207.

All for one and one for all.. the red tent will rise!

This beautiful image (by John William Waterhouse) of Psyche opening 'the box of beauty' sat on our hearthside for the day, thanks to Linda

After our second round of tea, we were ready to settle into listening to and learning from Sue’s spirited telling of the story of Psyche and Eros. To me this seemed very much an initiatory tale of the awakening of the female soul through the journey of relationship, whether with a beloved in our outer and/or inner life. Psyche begins the story as a beautiful and much projected upon young woman who unwittingly incurs the wrath of Venus, the Goddess of Love. On her journey of awakening she bravely engages with a ‘marriage to death’ as she leaps from a high rocky crag into the unknown. She is carried by the west wind to a dreamlike palace where she is united with a mysterious lover, whom she never sees but only meets in the dark, in bed at night. This part of the story reminded me of the early stages of a love relationship in which ones delights in passionate feelings and lovemaking, while not really knowing the other person at all! Psyche’s desire to see and know her partner more fully reveals him to be Eros himself, but leads to them both being hurt and separated. The quest for a mature experience of love and inner balance is driven by the impossible tasks set by Venus. Does this sound at all familiar? Who among us has not been similarly hard pressed in both outer relationships and in learning about the depths of ourselves?

The tasks set by Venus are worth reflecting on; one involves sorting seeds (something we face during every springtime of our lives as we have to discern what is creative and life giving) another involves gathering soft fleece from angry rams and another brings back sacred waters from a seemingly impossible height. Each task is accomplished with elemental or animal helpers. The final task is like a deeper re-visting of that first brave leap into the arms of death, as Psyche travels to the Underworld to bring back a box of beauty for Venus. When Psyche decides to open the box for herself, unconsciousness overcomes her until she is rescued by Eros. With the help of the Gods, Psyche and Eros are finally united and Psyche becomes a Goddess.

Sharing what had touched us in the story shed light on many different motifs…meeting the Beloved, sacred wounding, achieving the impossible (with help), realising our true divine nature…to name a few. We then took some of the themes and images into meditation. In imagination, we too were invited to leap into the unknown and to journey into the otherworld and meet with our inner Beloved in the lovers’ chamber with both its sweetness and its wounds. Going deeper we encountered the Goddess as challenger and initiator and had to do some inner seed sorting of our own. The journey concluded with a sacred marriage and immersion into the divine light of the deeper Self. Returning to the everyday we quietly explored any inner impressions received through journalling and art before coming back together to share our experiences and creations.

A taste of our Beltane 'Bring and Share' Feast

The bring and share feast seemed even more abundant than usual today and reflected the bounties of late Spring, featuring local greens from tender hawthorn leaves to wild garlic. There was also a strong ‘orange’ theme in our food (from sweet potato soup to mango ‘nocheese’ cake) which seemed like a rather wonderful intuitive response to the creative and sexual energies which in some spiritual traditions are associated with the second chakra, the womb and the colour orange.

Space for being crafty in the conservatory

After lunch, we took four themes inspired by the morning; of love, lust, longing and letting go and explored them through listening to and writing poetry and getting creative in the newly installed ‘craft conservatory’. Some deeply personal and powerful creations emerged from this time, which we shared in the final ceremony. Some sisters took the opportunity for ‘letting go’ as poems were released into the fire, while others lit candles for prayer or blessing and each of us had the chance to be a May Queen and wear a beautiful crown of hawthorn and crab apple blossom as we took our turn to share.

To end, here is a poem written by that champion of sacred love poetry, Hafiz, which we read that afternoon and which seemed to particularly touch many hearts…

BEAUTIFUL CREATURE

There is a beautiful creature living

in a hole you have

dug,

so at night I set fruit and grains and little pots of wine and milk

beside your soft earthen

mounds,

often I sing to you,

but still, my dear, you do not come out.

I have fallen in love with someone

who is hiding inside

of you.

We should talk about this problem

otherwise I will never

leave you

alone!

Under the Greenwood trees...

Soup, saws, sex, sore muscles and sunshine. That’s the digested read for last Saturday’s Red Tent crafting day!  Seven of us gathered: Sam, Ronnie, Martin, Sue, Debbie, Kes and Linda. We decided to concentrate on preparing the 35 poles for steaming (including 3 spares), They were sawn to length and reduced in width, then planed and finished with draw knives and spoke shaves.

wiggly poles

We shared a luscious lunch of soups, salads, savouries and sweet things before really hitting the production line and trying to get 16 of the poles finished completely. Despite the pressure, draw knife workers found themselves drawn into a leisurely and Beltane-inspired seasonal conversation round the subject of sex (whilst some us worked with power tools in a cut-off world of our own under goggles and ear-defenders!) And we achieved our goal! All the poles are now stripped, cut to length and sawn. Half of them are finished completely and next Saturday we will polish off the last 19 poles and also make the former so that we are ready for the grand steaming day on May 13^th.

Ronnie power planing

Meanwhile down in Dorset, Toby and Sarah had met the day before to steam the wheel rim. Both on Friday in Dorset and Saturday in Devon, we had no rain to dampen our endeavours. Which was a small miracle since the days before and after were wild, wet, windy and would have made work almost impossible. So the elements are with us so far and the Red Tent is becoming a reality.

wooden production line

Last week also, Sue, Ronnie and Sam met up with Dee and Kay to discuss the finer points of the groundsheet, canvas cover, door frame and flap, flashings for the wood-burning stove, cap, fastening, tension straps and belts and other intricacies of the tent design. We came away with a clear picture and a skip in our step!

Roof wheel rim steamed and bent

On Sunday, at our Beltane gathering, a number of new Wood Sisters joined for the first time and have volunteered to help in a various ways with the Red Tent. We will need lots of rugs, blankets, throws, cushions, (all red) benches, stools, small chairs (wooden) etc so that at Quest and WSF this year, the inside of the tent feels warm and cosy and comfortable. Then over the next year or two, we can work on felt hangings, greenwood seating, decorations, sculptures and perhaps even weave our own carpet flooring, who knows?

good to have a stash of draw knives in your boot...

If you’d like a last chance to help with the frame before the glorious steam bend, we are gathering at Sue’s house (Green Dragon Barn, Hutcherleigh, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 7AD) from 9.30 – 5.30 on Saturday 5^th May – you can come along for the whole day and have a bring and share lunch or just pop in for an hour and do your bit! All welcome, including family and friends whatever gender!

Sam amid the shavings

Directions are:

A381, Kingsbrige Hill, out of Totnes towards Kingsbridge. Through Harbertonford and Halwell. Straight past the BP station at Totnes Cross (don’t take left turn to Dartmouth), then 50 yards on, take the second of 2 small unmarked turnings left up through a tunnel of trees. Left at the top small crossroads, and less than a mile down the road, first right to Hutcherleigh (straight on down the hill). At the bottom T-junction, turn left and Green Dragon Barn is the third on the right.

And if you get lost Sue’s number is 01548 521207.

Finishing off

Interestingly the sore muscles were from wielding the heavy power tools not from the hand tools, although these Red Tent days do leave us all with a glow of satisfaction from outdoor physical work with our hands that includes a sense of having stretched ourselves a bit! There is now a real thrill of excitement as the work reaches the critical stage where some dreams and tree trunks are about to become a vibrant, red, hand-made, portable sanctuary space for myth, meditation, mysteries, crafts, conversation and many a cup of tea.

sawing to length

The Red Tent Roof Wheel Rim

The Steam Box

Steam-box Saturday at Green Dragon Barn saw eleven Wood Sisters gathered on 14th April to build the steam box that will steam the Red Tent Poles, ready for bending in the former.

Huge thanks to  Martin Whitlock, self-builder of Grand Designs fame, who helped us to source free wood for the steam box and develop a design for the formers that could be reused afterwards, substantially reducing costs and environmental impact.

Box interior

Toby Fairlove, yurt-maker, was there, too, to help us advance work on the poles and to discuss finer details of the frame, roof wheel, cover, groundsheet, doorway and internal arrangements. We ate a scrumptious and wholesome bring and share lunch (with a delicious contribution from Sam who couldn’t be there) and considered everything from public liability insurance to the aesthetics of a curved lintel.

Spoke shave contraptions

Ellie, a Wood Sister for the day from London, proved to be a fast worker with the electric planer……thanks for helping out in the middle of your AS revision, Ellie!

Ellie on the planer

Alice and Ronnie worked with Martin on the steam box which was ready by lunchtime.

Building the box

And was tested in the afternoon. Feeling a little like coffin-bearers, we  manoeuvred the box into place….

Box on the move

…plumbed it into the little radiator attached to the small header tank….

Outdoor plumbing

….and lit the fire….

Cooking the radiator

Steam was produced!

Boxful of steam

Izzy, Linda, Sarah, Kes and Sue all worked on poles and the afternoon saw a section of the former finished, too.  Even with power tools, it is clear we have at least two days work to do with 10 people each time to have the poles ready for steaming on 13th May, so watch out for dates being announced shortly.

Pole and plane

We will then have the five weeks while the poles are in the former to finish the roof wheel. We’re on target to test-run the Red Tent at Quest Festival at Newton Abbot 12 – 15 July – JUST!

Despite forecasted rain, we spent all day outdoors in the sunshine, sometimes in our own worlds with ear defenders and power tools

Sarah, planing

and sometimes chatting as we used spoke shaves to finish the poles.

Alice spoke-shaving

We were tired at the end of the day but proud of our endeavours and clear that we still have a challenging, if rewarding,  path ahead to make the Red Tent a reality. To work together in community, with such fantastic support, makes working fun, less daunting and empowering.  When the tent frame is finished it will have been co-created and will feel co-owned. The memories of sunshine, aching muscles, laughter, learning new skills, becoming friends and meeting challenges will all be part of its structure, its strength and its beauty.

Plane sunshine

I felt something of the strength of the vessel as well as something bigger than the sum of our individual presences. I could feel the space being opened by those who shared before me…how much we lay footsteps in the snow for one another not just today but over time.It is quite something to share at depth our truths, our inner journeys, to trust one another, as well as to laugh and play together.  There is a co-creation and I felt both the steadfastness and relaxnessed of the holding. This is a balance that receives us. I, for one, am very grateful for that.   (Abigail)

a quick note to say thank you for a wonder full day.. i really appreciate how you and Sue weave together.. and the qualities of how and what you share..i feel affirmed..held and inspired by your presence.. and i loved making my wand/sword!! and i notice more and more how i am increasingly curious about myself and women..the distance and closeness between us..and much more.. (Kes)

The day started as ever with a sharing of seasonal reflections on our experiences of Nature and our inner natures. Many Sisters were moved by the power of spring energies in their lives, which can be both vitalising and rather disturbing! Sue then transporting us to ancient Egypt through the story of Isis and Osiris. Different aspects of the story touched each of us in unique ways. I was struck by the image of Isis, grieving for her lost love, sitting silent, still and unrecognised beside a pool and receiving visions that lead to deep transformations…. I was touched somehow by this meeting or balance of stillness and power.

In meditation we made our own inner journey to encounter Isis, followed by time in silence for journalling, drawing or simply being outside in the beautiful, warm spring sun. Returning to gather around our Wisdom Pot and reflect together, we shared a wide range of experience and for me some kind of theme continued to unfold about ‘the strength of vulnerability’ (to use Abigail’s words) …of what it is to be both a Goddess and a vulnerable woman all at the same time.

After our bring and share feast, with many delights including nettle soup, beetroot salad and more, we set off into the garden, woods and fields, to commune with the local trees and ask for some wood for wand making. This turned out to be both a simple and sacred craft and, as can be seen in the photo, each wand was as unique as the sister who created it.

The day ended with a shared ceremony around the hearth. We each had space to light a candle, burn some sage, or drop a jewel in the bowls symbolising our own spring pools. Thoughts, prayers and poetry were shared, with both tears and laughter… and to conclude, we joined together in song. Thank us, dear Wood Sisters, for another rich and deep day…