Winter Solstice - Yule

Winter Solstice this year took place at 17.46 on Monday 21st December and marked the shortest day and longest night of the year. This time of year is for rest and renewel, reflection, dreaming and contemplation as we weave webs for the coming year ahead symbolised by the growing strength of the light from this time onward. With the going into the dark, there is a re-emergence into light and a celebration of its hope giving joy as we welcome the first promise of sun which will reach its climax at Midsummer Solstice on 21st of June. The Goddess is returning from the Croning of Samhain into the light and is reborn! Now is a time for hope and new beginnings; for letting go of what you no longer need and for making new wishes, new intentions and resolutions...re-solutions...maybe new solutions to old issues and a new resolve to move forward into your own power.

The spark of hopeful light is ever present at this time in the myriad of stars in the night's canopy; the crescent moon soon to reach a lunar eclipse on Thurs 31st with full moon in Cancer; candles flickering in windows and on altars; winter fires to protect against the cold; and in the magical displays of electric lights decorating harbours, towns and villages throughout the world. I am still awed by the lights here where I live in Mousehole as they welcome all with their wonderful evocation of childhood, the ocean, carols and Christmas. I feel blessed to be able to walk out of my door and wander the streets dancing with coloured lanterns hung from gables and telegraph posts; to enjoy the rainbow spectrums flickering in the ocean meeting the embrace of nature's own display above. On December 23, Mousehole celebrated Tom Bawcock's Eve with a parade of children carrying white home-made lanterns and the famous Starry Gazey Pie...I only smelt this as I was greeted by the happy band of children and parents at my front door and joined the procession through the narrow streets of the village to the beach where the tide was going out and the children let little paper lantern crowns float out to sea.There was a band of drummers and pipers on the beach, as well as a group from the famous male voice choir singing carols (the Cornish versions of course) which took me right back to childhood and the voices of Christmas in my local Methodist chapel....that sound reminds me of a deep yearning call from the depths, the bass calling us into the ocean under the sea or into the mines' deep shafts echoing underground and I am reminded once more of my ancestry of Cornish miners and fishermen, the importance of these carols and songs, of music making and unity in the face of poverty and hardship. This time of year is so much about a spirit of love,peace and friendship. It is a time for healing rifts and celebrating community. Like the tribes of old we gather around the fireside, the hearth of home and tell stories, share news, sing songs and enjoy food. The lights, community, starry gazey pie and carolling by the ocean at my door all reminded me of these simple rituals which are too often lost today.It is also so much a time for celebrating the wonder of childhood. Children ran down the street to see the lights and the imagination of adults and children is sparked into new life by the magical harbour displays.The new light is that light of hope, wonder, warmth and it is a guide for us to hold by before the first real buds of snowdrops appear through the hard earth at Imbolc.

Evergreens like Holly, Ivy and Yew are also symbols for us of that hope held in nature for constant renewel and rejuvenation. They offer protection. Evergreens are dressed with lights to attract back the sun and open the door to rebirth and new life. Hence the symbology of the continuing cycle of rebirth and change in nature.In the Irish Gaelic Ogham Holly is translated as tinne or 'fire'. In ancient times charcoal used from Holly wood was used to forge swords and axe heads. Again the Holly with its red berries is connected to fire and magical protection so it explains the wreaths on the door.Robert Graves in 'The White Goddess' mentions a tradition of a Holly and Oak king fighting over a maiden or goddess saying that this was the time when the Oak king overcame the Holly King...this is refuted by goddess centred critics for its Eurocentric approach and male centred gaze. It is felt to lack academic stringency and to be misleading.There is no factual substantiation for Graves' view and yet books on Trees and folklore associated with it mention it. The idea of Oak and Holly kings is also used in mixed sex pagan rituals. It is obviously up to the individual what they wish to believe but it is interesting to have already come across this debate in my own writing of the blog where I stand corrected for at first reading about a pagan traditions in books on Tree Lore and not realising their neo pagan origins.

Mistletoe is also a sacred palnt of the Druids and its wood is a protective talisman for love and healing.

The sun is now in the sign of Capricorn. Capricorn is Cardinal Earth and the sign is asking us to dig deep into the collective consciousness to find a worthy dream and then do the work necessary to take it to the mountain tops. It's time to refocus on the connections that ground us and root us to our past and to re focus our resolution to climb up toward the light. Make sure you have a worthy mountain to climb and that as well as having the kindness, integrity,organisation, wisdom and leadership to make the climb, you also give yourself permission to stop and savour the view every once in a while.

Full moon in the opposite sign of Cancer recinects us to our inner depths,the oceans of emotion and can make us homesick for our idealised home. We can either get sick and defensive or find home within ourselves, get cosy, nurture ourselves and reconnect with our true feelings. A cancer moon is a deep watery moon, it is a healing time, a time to bathe, self nurture and heal...take a bath, connect with the ocean, feel the tides ebbing and flowing in your womb.


Enjoy your own Solstice season and welcome the Lunar Eclipse on Dec 31st!

Blessed Bexxxx

More thoughts for the day

'Imagination is more important than knowledge' Albert Einstein

Today feels very still; the rain drips slowly from the gutter and down the pipes into the small road to the quay. The boats are drawn up high in the wake of last week's waves and the setting up of the harbour lights. The sea is a mossy green and the sky snow grey.The sand in the small harbour is swathed in coils of leathery brown weed intertwined with lashings of rope. Last night, the moon appeared through a halo of gauze..slightly out of focus. I came home to find a small live mouse with beady bright brown eyes sitting on my sofa; a small, soft mouse with trembling whiskers. My cat sat in the window unphased by this new arrival; her new friend I assumed. I was touched at this strange pairing as if she had brought in the mouse for company out of the cold and there it sat on the sofa while she sat in the window. I was oddly proud of her for not killing it or playing with it unnecessarily causing it more fear. I scooped up the wee thing in a tee towel and took it out into the hedge where it scuttled into a spiderwebbed hole soft and dry from damp. I live here in Mousehole and here were mouse and cat waiting for me to come home.I love my cat she is always here for me waiting and she is so gentle and aware. She even comes for walks along the harbour and the beach.There was a real sense of strange alliance in that pairing of predator and prey....a moment of being where they shared the space oddly together.

I felt so touched by that sight; it is difficult to explain why, but it was such a small little mouse; so vulnerable yet so alive and brave.I guess I felt it had been enjoying the warm too. I have had a real intense feeling of the importance of hearth and home; warmth, comfort and the fire as a symbol of all that. The goddess Hestia was Greek goddess of hearth and home; home is not just an exterior shell where we keep possessions and which we own; it's a feeling deep inside; a warmth within; a place where we feel we belong in our own skin. It is the soul hoe where the flame of our being is kept alive and nurtured by positive, loving and inspirational moments. It is our sense of groundedness; we need to grow strong roots and light our own inner fire when times are hard and it is cold and forbidding our of doors. I am aware that now with the closing in of the days and the longer nights I keep my fire burning. Lighting that fire is not always easy; the sticks are damp from sea salt, I need to build it gradually not smother it too fast by piling on big logs or large coals. It needs to be slowly and gradually nurtured into life and warmth and is easily quenched. I have to persevere and have patience while the whisps of grey eddy and unfurl into flames. Maybe an hour later I am rewarded for my efforts with a steady glow of flames and then it is just a matter of keeping that fire stocked with coal and logs. I brush the hearth in the morning of cinders and clear the grate, letting in the air again so that tomorrow's fire has a good base from which to grow...simple stuff really, the stuff of every day but how important is that fire at the centre; it has been there from the beginning; it is the flame of inspiration, community, love, healing and light.It is comfort and food; self nurturing warmth. We need to remember the need to keep that flame alive in our hearts and share that hearth with others so that they too can feel its glow.

Prayer to Hestia

Goddess of the hearth, of home life and family, sister of Demeter.
Grant that my household shall always be a home -- a nurturing, safe, and creative environment for me; that my family and friends shall share this domestic part of me; and that the inner flame of life shall burn within my home and my soul.

Allow that my gardens will be nourished and prosperous, and that my endeavours at home be successful and fulfilling.


Hestia was Greek Goddess of the Hearth and the first born of Chronus and Rhea. She was sister of Demeter and was a virgin goddess. In Rome she is known as Vesta and was keeper of the sacred hearth fire in each home and in the temple where she was worshipped by the Vestal virgins.


Blessed Bexxx

Quote for the Day

The name Hopi is a shortened form of Hopituh Shi-nu-mu,
"The Peaceful People"
or "Peaceful Little Ones"
... Here is a message from the Hopi Elders about 2012 ...

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know our garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of
the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all
ourselves ! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lonely wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for

The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation

This was sent to me by a dear sister Priestess and it really spoke to me of these times we are living in I feel as if lately I have been forced to give up some security and push into mid stream. I am interested in who I know is beside me and who has clung to the bank. It feels as if I am attracting new influences and being seen rather than feeling powerless and invisible. Every day brings new feelings in a rush which I have to sit with and process rather than act on or rebel against. I am floating in the centre of the stream I have just got to have faith in the flow.

Here is another poem which I recently found in a collection of Rumi's poetry given to me by a dear friend on my birthday:

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

I am your moon and your moonlight too

I am your flower garden and your water too.

I have come all this way eager for you,

without shoes or shawl.

I want you to laugh, to kill all your worries, to love you, to nourish you.

Oh sweet bitterness, I will soothe you and heal you.

I will bring you roses. I too have been covered with thorns.

Rumi

I have also found a great website www.enlightenedbeings.com

Blessed Bexxx

Samhain Energies

Samhain is the end of the old Celtic year and the beginning of the new. It is the dark time; the time of the Crone, the Cailleach, the wise woman or witch. Now as night draws her cowl closer and the cold starts to seep into our bones we feel the creeping of memory deep within. We are called inside, into the womb, the cauldron of our deep knowing and asked to listen to guidance from spirit and soul. Samhain is traditonally the Great Fire festival and we celebrate it with bonfires and candles. The fire symbolises the burning away of the old year, the release of its attachments and memories, a purification into the new. Now the veil between the worlds of our worldly reality and the realms of the ancestors is at its thinnest. It is a time to honour the past and our heritage. We light a candle for those we have lost and for whom we mourn;they are with us at this dark time:we carry their love and wisdom in our bones. This tradition of contacting the dead was probably adopted by Christians in the festival of All Souls Day on Nov 2 and has its echoes in Mexico's Day of the Dead.

This is a magical time when we can slip more easily between waking and dreams and where time literally and metaphorically stands still for a moment; the clocks go back giving us in the UK an extra hour of sleep and with the onset of cold we are really happy to go inwards, curl beside a fire or in the blankets and hibernate as winter's
winds rattle the panes and the silhouettes of trees loom like hags outside. Now we can rest and pause, gather our resources, strengthen our roots in the earth. Take time to remember where you have come from, your past and gain wisdom from what you have learnt; the happiness and the sorrow, joy and pain of the last year. Now is a chance to reflect and listen to your soul calling; whispering to you; reminding you of who you are and why you are here. Now is time to develop greater awareness and to gain an understanding of what has come to pass. It is also a time to dream dreams and divine visions of your future. Tarot cards, scrying, psychic mediumship all transport us into the other realm of spirit and soul..but stay grounded and protected as the danger here is that you are at more risk now at this dark time.Spirits walk abroad remember.

Take any guidance that comes at this potent and powerful time for it is a time for healing and rebirth; for preparation for the new opportunities ahead and the possibilities within you for growth and regeneration.

This month's full moon was in Taurus, sign of stability and fixed earth. Moon in Taurus offers calm stability and a feeling of being unhurried, sensuous, secure and earthed. It can also make you feel possessive, stubborn and overly concerned with material possessions and security. Again I watched the moon appear for a moment between grey, shadowy clouds over the harbour where I now live. She was watching over me and I waited in anticipation for her to bless me with her gaze as the stormy clouds and rain threatened her loss. I was given a moment or two with her and again felt fortunate to be here by the sea with the surge of the waves and the call of memory.

I have spent much of my month so far in contemplation of the past year; for me it has been full of lessons; much personal loss; home, relationship and health for a brief period. I have found it hard to put the pieces together and to see a wider picture. I feel I have been stripped bare again and asked to endure; I have returned to the past and refelt its pain and its love. I have tried to hold on to what is dear to me and in many cases my holding on has been too hard and it has slipped from my hands; with Venus in cancer in the 12th house of my chart conjunct with Mars, I feel things deeply at a soul level. I have returned to West Penwith partly out of necessity, partly out of a deep soul calling. Out of tears and heart ache have come soul. I have found the latter half of the year a truly creative time; I have paused and grown my roots, rediscovered my self expression and a sense of identity I was in danger of losing.I have found true sisterhood in fellow priestess trainees and a way of being in tune with teh rhythms of the year that I have enjoyed and followed with ritual and ceremony. I have started to find my true voice and mediums for self expression like this page where I can mediate between words, photography and literature with an aim toward personal growth and healing. I have now enrolled on a Creative Therapy and Playtherapy course of training in Devon which will take me on a new stage of my journey.I have brought greater healing into my job and into my life by taking time
to reflect and 'be'. I am able to wait and see what life offers and from the mute carcas of my old self I can feel a new, brighter and stronger self emerging. I know that this time in the dark will bear fruit if I am prepared to wait, be patient, listen to the call of my soul and give my heart time to heal.

Blessed Bexxx

Lunar Samhain takes place on teh New Moon which is the 16th November. The New Moon is in Scorpio adn at a T square with Mars and Jupiter.'Earth Pathways' says it all...


No matter how many controls you try and place on your feelings, your love, your being and thinking, in the face of the intensity, with the threat of pain, each one is suddenly stripped to its central spirital core and you could just let that happen for now.

Lucille Valentine

Samhain

Samhain

The sea churns and spews
Her leather tongue
Licks hollows
Weed heaves a stink and
Sticks scatter like bones
This clawing of tides
Gnaws night’s womb
Weeping widow of the west
You shadow my stride uphill
Cocooned in your seal hide veil

Rooks fall and glide
I reach the top
Stragglings of memory scratch
In spare blackthorn
A mildew of blackberries
Spills its cach of flies
Upon a stile

The sun’s weak and dribbling eye
Strains grey brows seaward
Fields are furrowed mud
The cow’s eye bodes blood
This stile path stalls in green slurry
A block of wintering barns
Shorn bleak
Calves chomp dry straw

I am at standstill
No map
Hedging my bets
The track winds through
Paul with its tower
A falling crown
Crucified figures in crosses
A solitary sunflower
In a cabbage field

The cores of apples
Strewn on the path
Your ghost in the last seeds
Fading with the brittle petals of hydrangeas.

Saturday, 31 October 2009

Quote for the Day - The Soul Bird by Michal Snunit

''Deep down,

inside our bodies,

lives the soul.

No one has ever seen it,

but we all know it is there.

Not only do we know it's there,

we know what's in it, too.

Inside the soul,

right in the very middle of it,

there's a bird standing on one foot.

This is the soul bird.

It feels everything we feel.......''

Michal Snunit

This is a beautiful little book about the soul and its desire to express itself, be heard and most importantly, listened to......can you hear yours calling?

Blessed Bexxx

Links with Literature

The most obvious literary link with Avalon is the tale of King Arthur. Arthur and Guinevere are reputedly buried in the Abbey and a grave is centrally located to mark this spot. The most famous text is Sir Thomas Malory's (1405-1471)'Le Morte D'Arthur' - the death of Arthur, 1485.

Other links include Alfred Lord Tennyson's epic poem' The Idylls of the King' ( 1856-1885) and 'The Lady of Shallot' with its famous curse upon the woman in the tower who espies Sir Lancelot through her mirror:

'Out flew the web and floated wide-
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.'

Another source is the Welsh 'Mabinogion', collated from medieval manuscripts in eleven stories and translated in English in the mid 19th century by Lady Charlotte Guest - a 'foreigner' from Uffington, Lincolnshire who lived in Wales, learnt the language and helped revive Welsh culture.

John Keats too immortalised the romantic ideal of the lost and wandering knight in search of the elusive, faery child - temptress (Goddess perhaps) in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' - The beautiful woman without mercy. Here the knight loses his soul to her and is destined to wander the Lake for eternity. The atmosphere and setting of this poem dramatically evoke the 'sedge'that 'hath withered on the lake' of Glastonbury and the Grail quest for eternal life through woman/ love/ goddess.

More recently is the feminist reading of the grail legend with the protagonist as thePriestess of Avalon, Morgaine, traditionally depicted as a witch or sorceress determined to bring about the demise of Arthur but now rewritten by Marion Bradley as a strong and powerful Priestess. As a young woman reading this book for the first time, I was mesmerised by this tale of a woman's initiation into the secrets of the Goddess and the ancient lore. All female characters are given a powerful, real voice and at last the very patriarchal, Christian legend is retold in a way that revives a sense of the power and magic of the mysteries of Avalon, home of the goddess. An evocative, intense and life transforming book this book completely changed my perspective and my view of myself as a young woman, I cannot recommend it enough. The language alone is spell binding..and like my journey it begins by the ocean in Cornwall and ends at the Isle of Avalon.

'Behind her, as she took up the bronze mirror again, she saw her sister in the door. Viviane had taken off the breeches she wore for riding, and put on a loose gown of undyed wool; her hair hung down, soft and dark as the wool of a black sheep. She looked small and fragile and aging, and her eyes were the eyes of a priestess in the cave of initation, years away and in another world... Igraine cut off the thought, impatiently.' pg.19

''She turned her face toward the guesthouse. Should she go there and breakfast with the nuns, speak perhaps of the old days at Camelot? Morgaine smiled gently. No. She was filled with the same tenderness for them as for the budding apple tree, but that time was passed. She turned her back on the convent, and walked down to the Lake, along the old path by the shore. Here was a place where the veil lying between the worlds was thin. She needed no longer to summon the barge- she need only step through the mists here, and be in Avalon. Her work was done.'' pg.876

Enjoy xx

Pilgrimage to Glastonbury - Part 2

Wearyall Hill can be viewed prominantly from the Tor and it is to this spot that I walked next, following the path down the Tor past the White spring and Chalice Well gardens. Wearyall Hill is a spectacular spot with views toward the levels and the Tor as well as down upon the town of Street, now known for Clarkes Shoes. Upon the hill is the famous Glastonbury Thorn, according to legend sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arithmathea who visited Glastonbury in 63AD in an attempt to bring Christianity to Britain.( The idea of the sprouting staff has links with Shamanism and also lends itself to the imagery of the Ace of Wands in the Tarot). The thorn is said to bloom at Christmas and in Spring and is reknowned for its possible associations with Christ's crown of thorns and also Joseph's bringing of the Chalice or Holy Grail to Glastonbury. The original Hawthorn tree was cut down and destroyed by the Roundheads, but not before cuttings were taken and these planted around the town including in the Abbey Gardens. Whatever the truth of this legend today, it stands alone on brow of the hill blown and blasted by winds and decked completely with ribbons and healing votive gifts. I left my own ribbon as an offering and breathed in the special atmosphere of this wonderful natural spot. It certainly is magical with its direct view toward the Tor behind. This hill was once an island on the pilgrimage route to the Tor when sea levels were higher and the levels were wet and marshy. The idea of this sacred pilgrimage by boat up the River Brue around Wearyall Hill on the south side really captivated my imagination and increased my vision of the mystical nature of this place as the Isle of Avalon.

Upon the crown of the hill, I came face to face with a wild rabbit about to escape into the bushes but in time for me to get very close and feel a sense again of how strange it is that on these journeys one always has moments with animals or birds. I spent over five minutes very close to the rabbit who didn't seem bothered by my presence. Rabbit is a burrowning creature and in our Priestess of Kernow Wheel would most likely be associated with Earth in the North, but also has obvious associations with Easter.

''Rabbit (Coinean) and Hare (Gèarr) are symbols of fertility, intuition, rebirth, promise, fulfillment, and balance. He is the Goddess’ creature and represents the Moon, night and dawn. is also associated with abundance, rebirth and release and is symbolic of the ‘tween times, dawn and dusk. Their motions were used for divination. They’re also associated with transformation, receiving esoteric knowledge and intuitive messages.Read more: http://paganismwicca.suite101.com/article.cfm/rabbithare_tricksterfear_caller#ixzz0V3q3sjSS

I continued my walk down hill, through a copse of Horse Chestnut and Beech with shiny conkers and copper leaves strewn across the path, towards the river Brue across the main road through some of what is now an industrial estate to Bride's Mound. A wooden gate announced it had been erected by the Irish 'Friends of Bride' and here at last I felt a deep connection with Goddess and my own muse, Brigid. Bride's Mound is very unassuming and really now only a mound of long grass, bramble and bracken, but here I could again feel that direct association with an older landscape where this was once an island used by pilgrims from Wales and Ireland as a stopover vigil retreat before passing along the processional 'Perilous Way' or oak causeway to Avalon. It is a very peaceful spot, meditative and still, apart from the sound of birdsong. The site is dedicated to Bride, St Brigid, Brighde, who stayed here at the oratory of Mary Magdalene in 488AD. Two stone chapels were built and dedicated to her here.Legend also says that a community of women lived on Bride's Mound after the visit of St Brigid and a perpetual fire was kept there. In 2004 the flame from the perpetual fire at Kildare was brought back to Glastonbury, where it is kept alive today awaiting the restoration of Bride's Mound. A stone marks the site of the well and I was aware not only of the amount of hawthorn trees in the area, but also of one bedecked in clouties leaning over a small stream.There was an original holy well here, but it has since been lost and all that really marks the spot is the tree and a stone some distance away in the field. I spent a while there in my own reflective meditation thanking the goddess for guiding me to this special place and imagining myself as a pilgrim in vigil here in ancient times gazing toward the Tor beyond. There were a number of feathers on the top of the mound in a circle showing how well visited this site is and how rituals are often performed here. It felt like a special journey and I had not visited here before...now my relationship with goddess and landscape was really starting to create a web of links and synchronicites.

Blessed bexx

Photos - Glastonbury Tor Oct 09

Autumn Pilgrimage

Autumn is here...you can smell it in the air.....it reaches for us in wraithes of smoke and soaks our feet with dew...it is here in the swathes of leaves and the shafts of cascading sun through mottled green and copper leaves. The shimmering of dawn on the grey sea. The sense of needing to bask in the last rays of sun on the cliffs before they are hooded by mist.

I have just returned from a much needed pilgrimage to Glastonbury. The Tor too bathed in the melting mellow sun of Autumn as I approached it up Bushy Coombe between hedges of rosehips and hawthorn. The prayer wheels at Shekinashram as you enter the path welcome you and imbue a sense of sacredness. You walk with the meditative steps of a pilgrim, your awareness sharpened, your heart beating in unity with the blithe notes of birdsong. I have climbed the snake path many times, but I felt really peaceful on this particular journey. The golds, russets and burnt siennas of the trees juxtaposed with the blue of the sky. No cloud in sight; a clear, shining day. I was blessed.

I climbed the serpentine slopes, my breath heaving with the hard trudge uphill; my sights set on the tower above. The reward for the trek is the fantastic view over the Somerset levels and beyond to the Bristol Channel. Below hugged close to the church of St John and the Abbey ruins is the town of Glastonbury with Windmill hill to the right and Wearyall Hill and the famous Glastonbury thorn to the left. St Brigids Mound is beyond. Chalice Hill before you with the Chalice Well gardens and their famous healing springs. The Tor towers over all...St Brigid - the Mother Goddess-is here carved above the arch milking her sacred cow and on the other side what look like a pair of scales weighed by an Angel like the sign of Libra. The Tor is always wracked by winds which adds to its slightly gloomy atmosphere.. it is cold and shadowy inside and you are reminded that it is a place of execution..the last abbot was hung, drawn and quartered here in a Christlike martrydom. The Tower is dedicated to St Michael and is 14th century, replacing the older church dedicated to St Michael which was destroyed by an earth quake on the ironic date of September 11th, 1275. Here it seemed to me there was a union of male and female energies coiled in the labyrinthine womb of the mound and united in the Tower...like the energies depicted on
the Tarot card of the same name. There are always people here leaning against the tower basking in the sun..pilgrims meditating, locals walking their dogs. Two buzzards glided on the air as I stood there...soaring the eddies...and a butterfly spread its brown and gold wings in the
sunshine. One woman was from Michegan...she seemed into mother earth as she was asking about Blackthorn and its fruits. I enlightened her as to where to find it....most hedgerows! and a few others who didn't know that its fruits were - sloes!! Cornwall was also the topic of conversation ironically as one couple were on their way to Cornwall but their van had broken down....synchronicity that this was the topic I first overheard being discussed when I sat down!

I sat in the melting sun and soaked in what could be the last beams, gazing out to the levels bronzed and dusky in the mellow Autumnal light. Here there is a true sense of inner fulfilment, a goal achieved..the goddess slumbering and coiled beneath you and Bridgit here as Mother Goddess of fertility milking the green earth. the berries of the Hawthorn were like red sparkling jewels glossy and rich...the Hawthorn linked to Bridgit and the turning cycles of the goddess with its white blossoms in Spring and red berries in Autumn. This union of red and white echoed by the red iron oxide Blood spring in Chalice Well gardens and the White Spring at the foot of Well Lane. According to Legend Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury and buried the two cruets containing the sweat and blood of Christ here in the site of Chalice Well gardens and this is the source of the springs with their healing properties.

I sat and meditated, back to the tower along with my fellow pilgrims...meditating on what had led me back and feeling blessed and grounded by this homecoming...back to Avalon and her mysteries. (To be contd)

Blessed Be xx

Poems by Paganlite

The Lie of the Land

Out on the island gulls splatter suffocated air
It is pale dawn
The glassy ocean
Rolls, shards, splinters
And somewhere deep
It surfaces
Seal hooded
Nuzzling rocky clefts
Nudging this winkling of tears
A muted calling
The pebbled shore knocks its shoal of eggs loose
Right to the heave of my door
Beached high
In my mind’s turning a shadow
Wafts
Fragile shell
Bone silver
Dipped in dew
My lungs are straining caves
Breathing you in the cut air
Behind the shutters of my eyes you lie
Still balanced above me
Rocking with the waves spitting on my pane
Your golden iris open as a star
Your lips embroidering
Seamless letters on my throat’s shore
Forever forever forever


29/09/2009

Wracked

We are still the same here
Wracked by trite syllables
Tapped in code
On the ocean drawl
We cling to wreckage
Survivors of your cunning craft
Shored on sticks of memory
And other inky stains
Blotted envelopes, bedraggled cards
Drowned caskets
You screamed a shallow warning
Like some rag rent cormorant
Hermited at sea
On a cool cape of moon
Barren as urns

I am not raided by your bone rattle
My heart’s shell clammed close
Tight lipped
Anemones hid red eyes between webbed toes
And guppies open jawed flashed scales
Between the barnacled ventricles of my heart
I have been dry as a salt pan for weeks
Mobilising ribs into a shoal of forgetting
My mouth’s purse babbling on
Currents pulling in deep
My ears lopped off
Hollow gilled
Hooked by strained lines
Flung on brine with no weight
To anchor them
My seal pelt skinned
Hung out and nailed
Flapping on blistering winds
My tongue a stone
Knocking knocking
In the addit of my mouth
Waiting a break in the tide


Tuesday, 29 September 2009


Beachcombing

I comb the pebbled shore for bits of you
Your smile a curve of wood sea smooth rimed
Your laugh a bubble of oystercatcher bursting on calm skies
Your iris the flame of lichen on freckled boulders
Your touch the glide of a sail feathering waves
Your taste the salt on the spray
And the last trail of sweet peas
Your heart the deep pulse of tides
Your voice the seal’s call
Out out on banished rocks
Bereft
Mewling
In the midnight deep

Tuesday, 29 September 2009


Thankyou to Rene and Carol Anne Duffy for the inspirationxx

Full Moon 12 degrees in Aries - 07:09am Sunday 4th October

Full moon approaches again and over the past few nights the sky above Mousehole has given me a dramatic display of indigo sky with the moon nearing fruition between the sweeping silver clouds. Full moon is a potent and powerful time: sow seeds now as plants grown from seed at full moon are stronger. The moon is in the fire sign of Aries giving access to our inner fire, our temper, impatience, passions. We are urgent to get back on track, re-centre in ourselves, but can lose empathy. It is a time to do what truly makes us feel vital and alive, to initiate projects, set boundaries and buffer our temper. As a Moon in Aries woman myself I am very aware of my inner fire and emotions which can run very high. I feel for me Moon in Aries is a force for action, an impulsive need to create,to sow the seed of ideas, to follow my muse, to be independent and create my own path. It is an emotional placing for the moon: my moods are intense but also quick to fire and just as quick to ebb away...unfortunately leaving wreckage in their wake at times but good as an energiser: I get things done quickly. I feel inspired to be true to myself. I love travel, adventure and the freedom to be. I don't like feeling stuck in one state and have a restless fire inside, eager for movement and a zest for life. I like challenges and inspiring others, but I can also find my emotions have driven me to pursue a more independent existance..I have challenged the statue quo often where I feel injustice. Moon in Aries is a warrior energy and needs focus. The challenge for a moon in Aries person is to learn the lessons of the sun sign Libra....applying the drive and inspiration of Aries to learn dynamic group co-operation and greater emotional balance. Aries is a great driving force for action but we must not rush in like fools where angels fear to tread ...think about the needs of others and work together toward our goals.
Aries Moon falling two weeks after Autumn Equinox is very symbolic for us at this time for in Aries we need all the energy and enthusiasm to harvest our thoughts, decisions and ideas and then to sift through each and only bring the good ones to the table.


Spend some time sky gazing tonight, breathe the full moon deeply into your belly and make a wish....be adventurous, try something different,trust your instincts, be healed and inspired!


Blessed Be

View to St Buryan and The Piper Standing Stones Sept 09

Autumn Equinox Sept 22 - Mabon

Autumn Equinox is a time of balance: day and night are equal as at the Spring Equinox, but from now on the sun descends into the underworld; days grow shorter until Winter Solstice when the sun grows stronger and the days once again become longer than the nights.This balance is symbolised by the sign of Libra: the scales.This brings balance and harmony but also signals a time of change and transformation.It is a time to balance inner and outer, to clear away what is no longer needed, releasing the past and moving forwards.
This is the time of year when the last harvest is gathered and we celebrate with a gathering in of fruit and vegetables: gourds, apples, berries, nuts, mushrooms - the harvest festival. Now is a time to gather with friends and celebrate the fruits of your labour during the outward time of the year since Spring Equinox. What can you celebrate as a personal harvest? what are the fruits of your labours? What have you created and achieved? Celebrate all of your creations. It is also a time to clear away in preparation for the coming winter: release anything you no longer need with thanks and blessings; rest, replenish, make ready for the colder days to come. Now is a time to balance inner and outer, masculine and feminine, materialism and spirituality, light and dark...explore your own dualities and attempt to achieve some harmony and balance of these inside yourself...in what ways are you still not listening to your inner voice, your instincts? Are you overly affected by outer forces like society's expectations and past conditioning? Listen to your true self and dig deeper..prepare for your own healing journey into the dark.

This waning of the sun and descent of the goddess into the underworld is mythologised by the descent of the Greek goddess Persephone and by the Sumerian goddess Inanna. The dark descent into the womb of the goddess is celebrated in the Welsh myths by the descent of Persephone's male counterpart Mabon into the magical Otherworld; his mother Modron's womb. Modron is the Great Mother and her son Mabon was stolen when he was three nights old. He was eventually rescued some legends say by King Arthur; others by the Blackbird, Stagm Owl, Eagle and the Salmon. Mabon is linked with the Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. He is the Green Man, seen as the cycle of Nature and the plant kingdom. He is harvested and his seeds are planted in the earth so that life may continue and be more abundant.

Now the Harvest Lord and Harvest Queen are symbolised by a straw man whose sacrificial body is burned and its ashes scattered upon the earth and The Harvest Queen or Kern Baby made from the last sheaf and bundled by the Reapers who cry ''We have the Kern''. In Cornwall this is celebrated with the ceremony of Crying the Neck. Corn Dollies are also representations of the harvest goddess.

The season is one of ripeness, abundance, mellow days when we enjoy the last of the fading sun and walk in nature. The leaves are spotted and changing into russet, yellow, red and brown, Michaelmas daisies in their light mauve are the last flower to bloom, the bracken is burnt and rusty on the moors and the air clear and slighty chilled. Swallows fly south for winter leaving their last signs in the barred skies and the gnats gather around rotting summer fruits.....Keats put it better:

John Keats (1795-1821)
TO AUTUMN.

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Blessed Bexxx




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harmon lists To Autumn as the most anthologized poem in the English language. It was written on September 19, 1819, and published the following year.

Men an Tol Ritual - Goddess in Kernow 09

Last Friday, I walked the heather clad moors to Men an Tol holed stone to meet up with the participants of the Goddess in Kernow for a rebirthing ritual. The spot was significant personally and I felt a need to enter into ritual space and be rebirthed. The moors were bright with mauves and purples, gorse and heather blending in a patchwork of colour that only nature's canvas can create. The skies were September mild blue with scudding clouds and the rooves of old barns stood starkly in rusty reds and ocres. The path to the stones was clad in brambles blessed with helpings of glossy blackberries and the mine at Green Barrow stood starkly sentinel on the horizon..the group of women came into my view as I sat bathing in the melting September sun.I joined the group and we chanted to the goddess and joined hands in a dance. The ritual had begun.

Afterwards, I felt lighter and less heavy with the loss of things over which I had no control..it was a feeling of letting go and of trusting what would be and what would come in. I felt at one with myself and also it re enforced my strong sense of guardianship of these sites and rootedness in my homeland of Kernow..I had recently returned to West Penwith and the moors seemed to celebrate the return with me as they danced with the joy of a mellow breeze and the starlings swirled in the skies.The women moved naturally into a healing ritual and into a close circle.There was also the need to feel rooted to these stones to this place as a solace from the bustle of city and town and a temporary release from everyday roles and responsibility.

The Men an Tol (Cornish:maen=stone; tol=hole) is a strange site...some say it is the remains of a stone circle, a worn rock basin weathered by the elements,the entrance to a chambered tomb,others more cynical, that it was drilled by miners.It was first recorded by Thomas Tonkin in about 1700. He noted that it was reknowned for curing pains in the back by going through the hole, 3,5, or 9 times.To destroy disease you must move anti clockwise but to get better again you must move with the sun. It nevertheless has a profound mystery which goes with all great sacred spaces; we shall never know its true origin or purpose, but it is ours to want to crawl through it head first, or breach and to touch it and stroke it, to hug it and to dance around it. With the two upright stones it has a sacred symbolic code...like the female womb it sits between two phallic pillars, it is the hole of memory, of entry into the underworld, of renewel and rebirth as we shed our own trappings and enter like mud babies, ungainly, our own naked need for healing screaming from the depths of our psyche. We naturally enter this strange, magical ritual when we visit this space with its allignment to Chun Quoit and Mulfra Quoit and its promimity to the Nine Maidens Stone Circle at Boskednan and Men Scryfa..the lone menir opposite.That entry is significant for women...we are borne through the womb of the goddess and rebirther into our new, healed selves with other women chanting, stroking, guiding us as midwives and elders; initiating us anew into her mysteries.

Christy Moore – Motherland – Video & free listening at Last.fm

Christy Moore – Motherland – Video & free listening at Last.fm

West

Curl in your barnacled shell
Hug craggy shores
Coracle queen
Swathed in waves
Dowsed in salt spray
The mermaids are singing
Far out in night waters
And seals siren on the deep
Your heart unfurls in a weedy pool of longing
And desire sweeps her anemone fronds
Bled under the moon
And weeping
Ride ride your indigo tides
Dolphin arced
Dance mad with the flow
Downstream
Slippery water birth
Silver wriggling blue
Little fish
Webbed and gilled
Gasp into being

The Element of Water

In the goddess wheel of the year the West is traditionally the direction of Water.living by the sea in the far west of Cornwall I am very aware of the presence of the ocean and the ebb and flow of tides beneath the moon. The West is the place associated with feeling,emotion,menstruation, the womb, generation, fertility and the unconscious, as well as with the obvious features of landscape:ocean, streams,lakes, rivers, springs, pools and wells.

Animal associations are obviously sea creatures like dolphins and seals, porpoises, whales and all fish species as well as dragons, snakes and serpents.The direction of the west is linked with mystery and an entry into the womb of the earth goddess at Mabon or Autumn Equinox. The coiling of the snake or kundalini energy into the root chakra. This direction marks the twilight of the year.

The element of water is represented by the suit of cups in the tarot with their symbolism of the chalice and on an unconscious level the womb. Zodiac signs are the water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

The element of water is fluid, changing, purifying, cleansing and transformative. It hints of mystery and the undefined aspects of the unconscious, a place of deep wisdom and dreaming,where emotions intuitively guide us to a greater understanding of the world and ourselves. It is the place of healing.

The element of water invites us to go with the flow of our instincts and impulses, to trust our intuition and gut feeling and go with the heart not the head.Our body is made up of mostly water; blood, sweat, urine, tears. As women we are governed by the tides of our menstruation and the blood line with our mothers.

The ocean at my door reminds me of my link to the sea. It is a place of nourishment and reflection. I am hypnotised by tides and feel cocooned here in the arms of the small harbour. This afternoon a male voice choir will meet on the Old Quay and sing in deep bass and tenor to the sea. It is a sound unique to the Cornish and the resonance of the song lulls one into a heady nostalgia evoking memories of the past and resurrecting the voices of drowned men and women, of sailors and fishermen, the siren song of the ancient sea kingdoms and the mysterious drowned landscape of the fabled Lyonesse out beyond toward the Scilly Isles. It is a haunting sound....you can hear the knell of the ship's bells, the boom of sea caverns, the call of the mermeid and seal on rocks...this is a drowned land and beneath Mounts Bay lie the wrecks of hundreds of ships rocking in the weedy deep.

Search – Last.fm

Search – Last.fm

Demeter and Persephone

Sun enters Virgo

This morning the sun entered the sign of Virgo at 0.38 am. Virgo Sun asks us to weed, harvest and separate the wheat from the chaff. It is a time for introspection.The leaves are still green with summer, but there are spots of brown;the sun is mellower and evenings are beginning to draw slowly in; the hedgerows are a final flourish of blackberries,convovulous, nasturtiums and buddlia;the waves on the ocean are choppier as the wind starts to strengthen.

The Virgoan is often linked to 'The Hermit' in the Tarot; the thinker and analyser, an intellectual and one who is of service to the world.The Hermit goes inward to be alone and to reflect; here we see the shy, retiring side of the virgoan nature and that sense of turning inwards with the waning of the sun. The sign of Virgo is the sixth sign of the zodiac and marks the half way point between the outward growing time of the year beginning with the fiery, impulsivity of Aries and the second half of the year with the growing dark and inward contemplation that this signifies. Virgo from August 22 to Sept 21 is the sign that acts as a gateway to the soul: from Aries to Virgo the personality is developed and from Virgo through to Pisces the soul is seeking perfection. Virgo is traditionally the sign of the virgin and is associated with purity. Virgo is the energy we use to purify and evaluate our lives: Virgo always seeks to find the best way of doing things; analysing the raw material of Taurus and asking how it can be used, how it can be of service, how can it be perfected.

As an earth sign and associated with late August and September- harvest time we can see the obvious link between Virgo and the earth mother; goddess of fertility and abundance. Virgo is often depicted holding a sheaf of wheat and crowned with stars. In the depiction of Virgo, the Greek goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone are united in a single image. Demeter is the greek goddess of plenty, Mother earth herself and Persephone is her daughter, virgin bride of Hades, God of the underworld who abducts and rapes her. Because Persephone is tricked by Hades into eating a few pomegranate seeds she must return to him for six months of the year.Persephone's journey for half the year into the Underworld can be linked to the demise of the sun and the turning inwards of the wheel of the year. Persephone is Queen of the Underworld for half the year and returns with the Spring to her mother Demeter as virgin daughter. Hers is the classic cycle of descent, death and rebirth. The link with the sign of Virgo as gateway to the soul can be seen symbolised in Persephone's story. At this time we are starting to reflect, to turn inward with nature. We eat our own feast of fruit and vegetables, a cornucopia of Mother earth's bounty before we go into the dark and descend like Persephone into our own psychological underworld where we learn the inner mysteries and gain knowledge of death and rebirth. Obviously there are links between Persephone and Eve..eating teh forbidden fruit of self knowledge, awareness of our own mortality.Virgo is also the sign of health and wellbeing; now is the time to prepare our own health for Autumn and to use her skills of empathy and pure thought to heal the world soul.

Quote for the day

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

Julia Cameron 'The Artist's Way'

River Bride at Little Bredy.Dorset

PLACES LINKED WITH BRIGID IN DORSET

The Irish Brigid or Bridget, Scottish Bride, or Manx Bree, or Breeshey derive from a common root, a female deity who almost certainly served as the tutelary goddess for the first Iron Age peoples to enter Britain in the first millennium BC. Her cult lingered through until Romano-British times, most obviously as the divine patron of the Brigantes, the powerful northern tribe famously led at the time of the Roman conquest by the warrior queen Cartamandua.
1. Brigid or Bride as earth goddess could be associated with Long Bredy and Little Bredy in Dorset; two villages nestled in the Bride Valley where the River Bride emerges and flows to the jurassic coast. Other possible associations could be with Bridport or Brideport ...linked again to the river and Brideton. Upon visiting this area, I was captured by its rural, pastoral beauty. The hills of Long and Little Bredy like the breasts of the goddess and the fertility of the river valley with its 'gushing', 'boiling' stream....Bride originating from the Celtic 'gushing or surging stream'. Here there seems to a topography naturally feminine and, just as Brigid is linked to Imbolc in February, a time of surging rivers and streams, so the river emerges at Little Bredy. Along the coast at Abbotsbury there is a swannery!!In Britain, the cult of the swan is likely to have come under the protection of Bride, whose feast day, 1st February, marked the northern departure of the migrating swans. The mark of the swan's foot was anticipated by the Scots of the western Isles on the hearth on the morning of her feast day. The swan was the form she most often took and in her role as Goddess of childbirth she was associated with The Milky Way teh celestial realm where the swan flies.

Obviously Dorset is Hardy country and an obvious link he makes with this landscape is with the figure of Sue Bridehead in 'Jude the Obscure'..the modern woman who defies Victorian morality by living with her cousin Jude and bearing his three children. Yet she remains virginal and strangely chaste, despite her modern outlook, in an unconsummated marriage to the former school teacher Phillotson to whom she returns wracked by religious guilt after her childrens' tragic deaths. Here we see the classic dichotomy of virginal whore and a tenuous link again with the goddess Brigid as maiden and mother.

I seem to be returning again to literature and the goddess as a link running through my posts.

Literary Links to Lammas or Lughnasa

I have spent some time researching literary links to the first harvest. The most obvious and accessible is Brian Friel's play 'Dancing at Lughnasa'.

Dancing at Lughnasa is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in Ireland's County Donegal in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator. He recounts the summer in his aunts' cottage when he was seven years old.

This play is loosely based on the lives of Friel's mother and aunts who lived in the Glenties, on the west coast of Donegal. Set in 1936, during the summer before de Valera's new constitution was approved by referendum, the play depicts the late summer days when love briefly seems possible for three of the Mundy sisters (Chris, Rose, and Kate) and the family welcomes home the frail elder brother, who has returned from a life as missionary in Africa. However, as the summer ends, the family foresees the sadness and economic privations under which they will suffer as all hopes fade.

The play takes place in early August, around the festival of Lughnasa, in Celtic folklore , the festival of the first fruits, when the harvest is welcomed. The play describes a bitter harvest for the Mundy sisters, a time of reaping what has been sown. Wikipedia

Other references include Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles with a reference to Tess as dancing at the local 'Cerealia' a custom only upheld by the 'women's club' of Marlott and described as a 'votive sisterhood'!! obviously this links with Ceres, Roman goddess of Agriculture: ' Ceres was personified and celebrated by women in secret rituals at the festival of Ambarvalia, held during May. There was a temple to Ceres on the Aventine Hill in Rome and her official priest was called a flamen. Her primary festival was the Cerealia or Ludi Ceriales ("games of Ceres"), instituted in the 3rd century BC and held annually on April 12 to April 19. The worship of Ceres became particularly associated with the plebeian classes, who dominated the grain trade. Little is known about the rituals of Cerelean worship; one of the few customs which has been recorded was the peculiar practice of tying lighted brands to the tails of foxes which were then let loose in the Circus Maximus. There was also an October festival dedicated to her when women fasted and offered her the first grain of the harvest.' Wikipedia. She was mother of Proserpina and here we see again links with Tess as maiden descending into the underworld of The Chase and Alec D'Urbeville with its tragic results.

A final reference to this time of year and the notionof the earth mother or goddess can be found in Wordsworth's 'A Solitary Reaper'. Here he selects an ordinary Hebridean Highland lass as his muse and presents her affinity with her natural environment so that maiden, song and field are etched upon 'that inward eye' of the imagination long after he has passed and this tradition has also been lost.




Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;
A voice so thrilling ne'er heard
In springtime from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the planitive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago;
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of today?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Solitary_Reaper

Lunar Lughnasa Full Moon and Lunar eclipse 6th August 09

Celtic Lammas,Irish Lughnasdh,August 2nd: time of the first harvest and the great festival of the summer's height; a time for the gathering of grain, vegetables, fruits before the onset of darker evenings and the weakening of the sun. Traditonally, this is a time of markets, fairs, festivals, outdoor gatherings of all kinds; a time to enjoy the sunshine and the outdoors and to share ideas, network, enjoy companionship and friendship. It is a time of shooting stars, contemplation of the night's sky and a fire festival when we can share camp fires and stories. It is a time to reflect upon your own personal harvest; focus on what nourishes and sustains you, what feeds your soul and gives you joy.You may have been working hard and energetically or expending alot of energy to bring about change, now the tides of enthusiasm seem to be ebbing with the sun and a gentler, mellower rhythm takes its place. This is a time of abundance and ripeness, a time to contemplate what you have sown over the last six months since Imbolc and what harvest and rewards you can reap for your efforts.In the hedgerows the leaves are starting to show the first signs of turning, the blackberries are appearing and the flame coloured Monbretia, purple heather and golden hues of gorse carpet the moors. The air is softer and the sun more golden, even the grass is drier and whiter. There is a sense of August as a lull, a gentle wave held in suspension before the awakening of Autumn. The air is full of scents after rainshowers and a symphony of bees and gnats gathers to a
crescendo. It feels like a final surge of joyful living, a celebration of life energy before the lull of Autumn.

In Celtic mythology, the Lughnasadh festival is said to have been begun by the god Lugh, as a funeral feast and games commemorating his foster-mother, Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. The first location of the Áenach Tailteann was at the site of modern Teltown, located between Navan and Kells. Historically, the Áenach Tailteann gathering was a time for contests of strength and skill, and a favored time for contracting marriages and winter lodgings. A peace was declared at the festival, and religious celebrations were also held. A similar Lughnasadh festival was held at Carmun (whose exact location is under dispute). Carmun is also believed to have been a goddess of the Celts, perhaps one with a similar story as Tailtiu.

Last night the moon was full, shining clear in Aquarius over the small harbour where I live. I went out into the indigo silver night with my black cat and we moon gazed for an hour while she was at her height.It was a blessed, gentle night with only the sound of gulls crying and the odd lost song of a seal out on the island. The tide pulled and pawed softly over stones. It was a time to bathe in the beams of the moon and reflect upon the way what affects myself as an individual affects all. The sense of a role to find for myself within a greater community and of not forgetting the outer signs of change: current talks between North Korea and the USA, the part the individual can play in bringing about a peaceful harvest and more harmonious community. Lammas was traditionally a time for baking bread...Loaf Mass...and bread is our staple food source, grain the basic food supply for all agricultural countries:

Only 40 days of global grain stocks left

Two days ago, the newly appointed chief scientific adviser to the UK Government, Professor John Beddington, warned of coming food shortages for the whole world. In a speech given at the Govnet Sustainable Development UK Conference in Westminster he said: "There is progress on climate change. But out there is another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty." (quoted from The Guardian, 7 March 2008)found on 'Green Living' another blog at blogspot.com

This page has given me a link to transpose thoughts, ideas and intuitions into some shape or form. It is a connection of inner and outer, the inner psychic experiences and phenomenon of the subconscious given shape in a pattern of thoughts written on a page. Each page a record of some chain of connection that has found a place here in this moment of 'being-ness'. E.M.Forster coined the well known phrase 'Only Connect'. Today the connections have been many from the symbolic feasting and harvest gathering of community to enjoy music, tradition and the first fruits of Lammas at Morvah Pasty Day to the link between harvesting the fruits of my own soul journey. The church at Morvah is dedicated to St Briget of Sweden, there is also a holy well and the remains of a Celtic chapel near the cliffs; a connection with this page and my chosen muse. I connected there with a very dear friend who I was only thinking of yesterday and met another who claimed it was 'very strange seeing me as only yesterday I had popped into her head unexpectedly...';the other irony being that I am now living in the same village as her... We sat in the pews of the church eating pasties and drinking cups of tea. The church full, probably for the first time all year, with the 'gassing' of locals and inquisitive wide eyes of tourists.It is outside this very church that I found a gold ring three years ago and the week after, a golden brooch. St Brigid the Smith blessing me. This page links my outcast self (the fool at that time) wandering and metaphysically wondering to a wide web community. I trust that here I may discover soulful connection. One final link was a brilliant film about 'Re-skilling for sustainable communities' by Plan-it earth.org.uk. It started me thinking about sustainable living and my dream of a sustainable community living with the rhythms of the land...straw bale homes....co-operation...sharing.....'soulful kinship'.

Blessings

Paganlite

Quote for the Day

"There is an odd phenomenon that occurs when one keeps trying to fit and fails. Even though the outcast is driven away, she is at the same time driven right into the arms of her psychic and true kin, whether these be a course of study, an art form, or a group of people.It is worse to stay where one does not belong at all than to wander about lost for a while looking for the psychic and soulful kinship one requires. It is never a mistake to search for what one requires. Never." pg 184

"The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands - all these are the making of something, and that something is soul. Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase."
from Women Who Run With the Wolves (Ballantine/ Bertelsmann 1992, 1996) (p.14)


'Women Who Run With the Wolves' Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Brigid - A Poem

Brigid

Rusty pins in holy wells
Washed clean
Snowdrops bowed
A flush of rain
Love budding in branches
A tangling of moss and harts tongue
Virgin blackbird notes
Scoring blue scryed skies
Cows clumped at the byre
Warm breathing beasts
Chewing time
In a fleet of soft throated doves
St Brigid’s feathers fall
On scraggy thorns
Marsh grass
Hearthstones

Paganlite Feb 2009

Quote for the Day

'We can only approach the gods through poetry, and if disease is the disguise of the gods, then our medicine wil have to be full of art and image......'

Thomas Moore

Welcome to Brigid's Oracle

Brigid was Irish goddess of inspiration, poetry,healing, smith craft and the hearth.She is also goddess of midwifery. Her festival is celebrated at Imbolc on February 2nd and heralds the first light and the beginnings of spring.She is at once a fire and water goddess with her limks to the hearth and to childbirth. She appears when the first snowdrops appear and the valleys run with streams as the earth emerges from the sleep of winter. Just as the outer world awakens, so Brigid's flame of inspiration ignites our inner emotional and imaginative world of creativity and poetry. This site will be dedicated to her as source of inspiration, poetry, creativity and self expression.

Blessings