Walking Between Worlds is a guided online walk. Saturday 20 February, 4 - 5pm (gmt).
Book via Audacious Women Festival.
This guided tour is for anyone who is ambulant or not, in Edinburgh or not! No need to brave the weather.
Anthony Gormley sculpture, Water of Leith, Edinburgh
We will visit the Rosebank Cemetery, the North Leith Burial Ground and the streets in between, in a special format with information, photos, video, maps and conversation about the wonderful women associated with Leith's past and contemporary connections.
Find out about Ida Bononomi who accompanied Queen Victoria, and discover who was Eliza of Elizafield (off Bonnington Road).
“The North Leith Burial Ground is ‘the dead centre of Leith’ according to The Spirit of Leithers”
The Leith Coat of Arms, ‘Persevere’
-Walk with me in the comfort of your own home!
Leith - old engraving
Leith was separate from Edinburgh between 1833 and 1920, when the Edinburghers ignored the public vote and subsumed it into its city. It still has a clear identity and sense of place. This online walk is a chance for Leithers to celebrate part of their boundary (there’s a Leith boundary map here) and for those who live elsewhere to see some of this historic area and find out about the lives of women who are buried there.
The annual Terminalia Festival
23 Feb 2021. Terminus was one of the really old Roman gods – he didn’t have a statue, he was a stone marker! It was he who was associated with boundaries and borders, and his origin may have originated from animalistic religions. He had influence over less physical boundaries too, like that between two months, or between two groups or communities of people. Terminalia was celebrated on the last day of the Roman Year, the boundary between periods of time.
Rogation Sunday or Beating the Bounds
This is the practice of walking around your village or farm ‘for the purpose of maintaining the memory of the precise location of these boundaries’. (Wiki) I came across it in Gail Simmons’ book The Country of Larks, In the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson and the footprint of HS2. It is also related to the old Roman custom (Robigalia), and a part of the Christian calendar in which people ask for protection for their crops. It doesn’t seem to be so much to do with a ‘this-is-mine / you-keep-out’ culture, as it was about reacquainting yourself with your surroundings, paying attention to them, and calling for blessings on them during the coming year.
In these Covid times when we cannot travel far from our homes, our immediate surroundings are precious, and many of us are walking around and around them, perhaps getting to know them better than ever before. Adopting this practice of appreciating and getting to know the places we live and spend time in, alongside others in our community, is a way to feel safer and more secure, to know where and who we are.
“during February, houses were purified by sweeping out and by sprinkling with salt and toasted spelt (a kind of wheat). Pagans also had a custom, still performed today, of blessing a new house or ‘Beating the Bounds’ of the perimeter of the property, sweeping the front steps and walls with besoms to banish unwanted elements.”
““You can still keep the ancient Rogationtide tradition alive by beating the bounds of other open spaces enjoyed by the public, or by walking your parish boundary. You could even help define some other important local rights by having a special walk along public footpaths.””