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