It will be close to the winter solstice - when the sun appears to stand still - as this newsletter goes out. Everything is coming to a halt. Schools will be shut, offices winding down, even the parties will mostly be over. The days are at their shortest, the nights quietest and growing colder. We have fewer birds in the garden now, no foliage on the trees, and even the cats have given up the outdoors as a bad job. The sap has sunk into the roots of our lives, and we are digging in, reflecting on what has happened to us this year.

It’s a good time of year to think about roots. In the past I have planted bare-rooted trees, harvested roots of herbs like elecampane, dandelion, orris, and marshmallow. I have a mallow flower as my logo on my website, simply because I got a photo of it I liked, but it’s a plant I can’t resist. The leaves are so soft and velvety, the flowers such a delicate pink, and then the stamens an exotic, unexpected purple. It it used for all kinds of soothing medicinal purpose, calming indigestion without irritating the lining of the gut, easing sore throats and coughs, comforting the itch of dry skin. I saw this week someone describing it as the singer’s herb, for strengthening overworked voices, which will please my older grand-daughter, currently in the midst of Christmas shows and auditions. Not so much this year. Everything is quiet and thoughtful, waiting.

What, no Christmas? - no parties and sparkle, angels and greenery, kitchens smelling of dried fruit and spices and mulled wine? No, none of that. We’ll get there, but not yet. This year I am feeling the need for a serious time of stillness and reflection, letting things settle, and maybe seeing a spark of light appear when all is darkest. I’ve had a hard year, and so have many people around me - illness, bereavement, the awful news constantly grinding, the weight of responsibility. It is time for a pause.

If you have read The Well of the Moon, you will know I have some experience of some of the less ordinary experiences of mental illness, but this year, things came to a head. Late last autumn I sought help, spent a long time going back to my roots, and I am thankfully in a much better place now. I’ve also had a cancer scare, which fortunately came to nothing, and a disturbing flashback to some of the more traumatic times of my life, which allowed me to put some issues to bed. It’s weary work, though, and I’m feeling rather beat up. Others in my family have had their own concerns too, and we are now familiar with more of the hospitals in the Glasgow area than seems at all plausible.

I would like to add that we are all extremely grateful to NHS Scotland who have handled everything we threw at them, and we are all doing so much better for their hard work.

Somehow in the middle of this I finally got the manuscript of Comrades of Dark Night off to my publisher, and though we have agreed to hold off publication until May, it should come out then. Readings have been provisionally booked in Dundee and the Highlands, but I’m looking for opportunities to read anywhere I can get to by public transport after that! In other pleasant news, the third reprint of Haggards (which came out in 2018) is almost sold out, and we are considering a fourth, after someone very kindly ordered ten copies to give as Christmas presents.

I’m planting the bare roots of some new projects too. The tagline of the burnedthumb blog is going to be ‘regenerative herbs, rooted poetry’ as I deal with the ways herbs and creativity - particularly poetry - can help to address centuries of exploitation, extractivism, erasure and a reductive attitude to the human and the more-than-human spirit, and create an environment of peace, mutual solidarity, and regeneration. I’m particularly focussing on herbs that are in danger in their native habitats due to over-harvesting, climate change, colonial oppression and the destruction of war, and I was particularly disturbed to find that my emblem plant, our own native marshmallow, is among them, through destruction of habitat. I have been looking for other people engaged in this kind of work, and I’m excited to say there are a great many. Please look out for this, as well as more news of the new book, as we go into 2026.

Here is my Christmas poem, with my good wishes to you all for a happy holiday season

Still

Like deep water

dark pools in quiet hollows,

under trees, behind the walls,

in shadowed corners

of hearts and cupboards.

Weeds and wriggling things

drift and settle, soften, take new shapes.

And in the northwest quarter of the sky

where all is darkest, look -

a star.

May a star shine on your lives at Christmas, and throughout the new year.