Evoking the Goddess

Glastonbury Goddess Conference 2011

2011-08-05T15:06:00.007+01:00

Hidden Temple of the Goddess

2011-02-23T16:50:00.006Z

On Monday my daughter and granddaughter took us to Greenlands Farm near Carnforth in north west Lancashire so that Eleanor (22 months) could get some first hand experience of the farm animals and pets. Like many small farms they have diversified to help make ends meet and apart from the animals there is a delightful cafe and a "village" of small shops. We also discovered the studio of a local sculptor and ceramic artist, Wyn Abbot. It was immediately obvious that Wyn has a living interest in ancient Goddess cultures and her little studio is something of a treasure of Goddess art.

I was very taken with this "Hidden Temple of the Goddess" and after a little plotting with my daughter about my upcoming birthday it was purchased and now has pride of place at home. The photo cannot quite show just what an obvious work of love this piece is. It certainly passed from heart to heart.

Goddess Temple Budapest

2010-10-04T18:51:00.006+01:00

Thankfully there are now a number of Goddess Temples across Europe, the Americas and Australia. After a very busy few months it was a joy to visit the city of Budapest, meet wonderful friends and visit the Goddess Temple in the heart of Pest. The Temple is spacious, beautiful and filled with Her presence. The seed sown at the Temple's opening in Autumn 2006 had clearly taken root and grown strong. A peaceful sacred space where it is easy to be touched by Her love. The Mother Goddess image from the one-time Hungarian region of Transylvania is especially evocative.

In August I visited the exhibition of Goddess's from Old Europe at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Many of those images were lovingly crafted in the Danube valley five and a half thousand years ago. Such archetypes never go away and now once again the Danube has a Temple.

Discovering Bantock

2010-03-15T12:19:00.005Z

One of life's many pleasures is undoubtedly the enjoyment of good music. During my life I have attended numerous concerts and festivals and spent many hours listening to BBC Radio 3 and ClassicFM. After a while it is easy to think I am familiar with most composers and their works. But occasionally there is the discovery of some new gem. I well remember hearing "The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone" by the little known Scottish Composer, Sally Beamish at the Orkney Festival in 1999. A wondrous tone poem describing the neolithic solstice sun rising over the Ring of Brodgar at Stenness.

By a little serendipity I have recently discovered the works of a British composer whose very existence had remained completely unkown to me. Granville Bantock was born in London in 1868 and seems to have been a man after my own heart. There are photographs of him dressed in bardic robes and he was fascinated in ancient cultures. He loved the Hebrides and he loved exploring sacred sites and his Celtic past. He named his house, "Tir-nan-Og." Two of his symphonies are entitled "Hebridean" (1915) and "Celtic" (1940). Much of his music has a decidedly pagan association.

So this weekend I bought three Hyperion CDs (what would we do without the discography of Hyperion). Bantock's wonderful choral setting for Contralto and Orchestra of the extant lesbian poems of Sappho translated by his partner, Helena. His Symphony in praise of Aprhrodite in Cyprus and his Pagan Symphony (1928). Once I began to listen I was hooked and wondered why his music has been so neglected since his death in 1946.

George Bernard Shaw was apparently asked to write a tribute to Bantock and replied, "Never mind tributes - play his music." As I close this post Sappho's 'Hymn to Aphrodite' translated and set to music by the Bantock's is indeed playing.

The wonder of life

2010-01-04T15:34:00.005Z

Here in Brighid's Isles we have got rather used to dull, wet, mild winters. This winter has been rather different as we are now in the third week of settled, bright, cold weather with the occasional heavy snowfall. On the moor where I live the landscape has been covered in snow for some time now and as I look out of the window the sun is just setting over a beautiful scene of snow with naked trees and birds silhouetted against a clear sky. After a day of unbroken sunshine the outside thermometer climbed to -2C after having fallen to a low of -7C overnight. The recent blue moon was magnificent against the cold winter night sky. I hear snatches of conversation amongst the young rejoicing that they have had the first white Christmas of their lives.

I find it truly magical that if I carefully brush aside the snow I can find snowdrops pushing their way through Mother Earth searching for the light that will give them the energy to grow, flower and reproduce. Carefully brushing the snow back I leave them protected under Mother's own duvet; aware that these special flowers are the true heralds of spring. Sacred to Brighid, determiners of Imbolc I wait expectantly for the first tiny white flower to raise its head to the sun.

Meanwhile the clear cold sky is now shot through with red and the landscape takes on the twin colours of fertility. New life will soon spring forth, new possibility, new beginnings. The wonder of it all.

The strange invention of boredom

2009-12-31T12:02:00.004Z

In the general open house of the holiday season I was visited by a dear friend and her daughter. As always our home had numerous books scattered around. Looking at them the daughter said, "You know, I have never read a book except when told to do so at school." Then her mother said, "Neither have I". I am now going to misquote something I half caught on the TV recently making it my own. "Humans are amazingly inventive. In a world full of magic, mystery and wonder they managed to invent boredom."

Goddess has given us so much, the gift of life itself, an appreciation of beauty, music and dance, love and friendship. But above all a world shot through with beauty, magic, mystery and wonder. The world is so full of these things that you could contemplate a single flower for months and be no where near understanding its beauty. In such a world it should be impossible to be bored. There is just so much mystery and beauty and if the natural occurrence of these things is not enough then so much of them have been distilled into books just waiting to be opened and read. We are human precisely because we tell stories and in telling stories touch the divine.

At the end of the year I give thanks for the delights of life, love, friends, family and work. May 2010 be open to beauty, magic, mystery and wonder.

Solstice blessings

2009-12-20T12:49:00.004Z

On a dark, black night,
Love lights a lamp.
You can’t hear the voice
of the One whose love
carries your heart away.
Forests, marshes,
the deep tanglewood
where one fears wild beasts
with every breath:
those whose love is perfect
will cross wastelands, seas,
the dark forests of the heart.

Bo, this is so beautiful

Solas

2009-12-15T16:30:00.004Z

Its just four o'clock in the afternoon. It is snowing and already quite dark. The days are so short now and it has become increasingly hard to get up in the morning. I'm a natural worker, I really enjoy what I do and take a delight in doing it well. There isn't less work to do just because it is mid-winter and natural rhythms are beating slow. There is a need to take care. To give thanks that I am able to do the work I really enjoy. To give thanks for a loving partner, gifted children and a beautiful grand daughter. To give thanks for friends. To delight in being able to return home tonight and sit by the hearth with a lighted candle and spend a little time communing with the Goddess.

Earlier this week I despatched some material I had designed and printed for the Goddess Temple. A small way of helping to support something I hold very dear. So many things have happened this year - most of them wonderful, the birth of a grand daughter, the marriage of a son, a visit to the Outer Hebrides. Some of them, not so good - breaking my femur and the long recovery. Though such things are a reminder of how dependent we are on the skill and care of others and how thankful we should be for the miracle of our bodies. Sadly I haven't been able to visit the Goddess Temple since January and I am missing contact with the sacred space and friends. Hopefully the New Year will see personal contact renewed.

A dear friend took the photo above while in Cornwall last week and sent it, "with great love, thoughts and good wishes for a gentle season of Christmas and Solstice and Yuletide and New Year and anything else you think of celebrating". A beautiful reminder that soon we arrive at that still point known as Solstice when the sun pauses in the sky before beginning the long climb north. If we didn't know in our bones that in six months it will be light for over 18 hours day we might hardly dare believe it. But it will be so. All will be well and all manner of things will be well.

The same is true of Copenhagen. As always the so called leaders falter and fall. But we give thanks for thousands - if not millions - of ordinary people who really do care for the future. In the word of Desmond Tutu, “We marched in Berlin, and the wall fell. We marched for South Africa, and apartheid fell. We marched at Copenhagen - and we WILL get a Real Deal.”

Wild Ethics

2009-11-22T15:33:00.007Z

Here is a wonderful and beautifully constructed website to share, The Alliance for Wild Ethics. The home page contains only these words,

"We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human."

The section Why Wild? begins:

"Wildness is the earthy, untamed, undomesticated state of things - open ended, improvisational, moving according to its own boisterous logic. That which is wild is not really out of control; its is simply out of our control... beyond our ability to fully map with our theories or fully fathom with our thoughts"

The section Why Ethics? begins:

"Although 'ethics' is commonly equated with a set of rules or principles for right conduct, for us ethics has more to do with a simple humility towards others - an attentive openness not just toward other persons but towards the inexhaustible otherness of the manifold beings that compose this living world."

See why I am excited? Lots of essays and resources to explore in quiet moments - bliss!

Beings are relatives not resources

2009-11-19T18:29:00.014Z

The other day I came across an article by an American Catholic apologist refuting the premise put forward by many atheists that science and christianity are mutually incompatible. The writer began by asserting that many ground breaking scientific discoveries have been made by people who were both scientists and committed christians. He then went on to say that science can best flourish in a christian society. Pagan societies, he argues, hold nature sacred and if you hold nature sacred you may worship nature and honour nature but you can never use nature as the subject of an experiment. To experiment with nature you have to accept that nature is not sacred and that nature's creator grants man sovereignty over nature. Thus, he concluded, without christianity there would be no science and atheists need to accept this.

Now I would want to say that man's sovereignty over nature has produced a society that can only continue to exist through the endemic use of violence against nature.

Oil is a precious natural relative that nature has produced over vast tracts of time. When man accepts sovereignty over oil, land and oceans he takes up arms and heavy machinery to plunder and rape the land in order to make the maximum profit in the shortest possible time and hang the consequences. What should be seen as a sacred and precious relative whose gifts should be accepted with care and devotion becomes simply a commodity.

The Goddess spirit has no problem working with nature - accepting, refining and perfecting all she has to offer. This is science at its best. The Goddess spirit cannot accept violence against nature and will always seek to honour and tend our relatives in this world. It will accept with gratitude all that she gives whilst bearing in mind that our children's children will also long for a fair share of natural resources.

The countdown to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has focused my own thoughts on climate change. Anyone who delights in life and the beauty of nature will have been concerned for some time now and will already be making significant changes in their own life.

Like many others my partner and I have chosen to live in a small well insulated home. In that home we do our best to minimise energy usage and we buy our energy from 'Good Energy'. We try to buy local and in small quantities; to repair rather than replace. We travel by train and bus whenever possible and allow ourselves the possibility of one return air flight every three years. We take time to write and protest against violent exploitation.

None of this is probably enough to leave behind us the kind of world we wish our grand daughter will come to know, love, honour and delight in.

I am conscious that it is almost impossible to live within the resources of one earth whilst owning a car. OK our car is small, it's CO2 emissions are just 109 g/KM, we can often go three weeks between visits to the petrol forecourt. Yet, it would be so hard to do without it altogether. Addicted to oil? How else to visit those special, sacred, liminal places we hold dear? How else to make those difficult journeys that can seem endless by public transport? What would you do?

Blessed Samhain

2009-10-31T19:35:00.003Z

Dawn this morning was so typical of this time of the year - gentle light and rolling mists veiling the landscape. Beautiful! Watching the mists it is so easy to imagine the dead walking, barely veiled in the distance. Human shapes drifting in and out of focus, passing between worlds.

In the early evening I was watching the flames of the fire waiting for the first knock on the door from Halloween revellers. My mind passed through the ages to a time when some built round houses and buried the bones of their dead beneath the hearth at the very centre of the home of the living. Round houses are special for they mimic womb space. A place for the living protected by the Goddess. As I watched the flames and the sparks in the rising air currents I wondered whether the hearth fire was once conceived as a vehicle for the rebirth of the beloved dead. Almost as if the dead rose on the hot rising air, the sparks being the first sparks of life. All within the womb space of the home, the hole at the apex of the roof the place of rebirth. Whether this is true or not it always amazes me what the human brain perceives as the eyes stare into flames. No wonder this is also a season of divination.

Against nature?

2009-10-30T19:58:00.005Z

Some things leave me quite despairing about religion. Buried in almost hidden columns of our newspapers there have been reports of women in Somalia being stopped by the religious priests and told to shake their breasts. If the police then have reason to believe the woman is wearing a bra she is handed over to young men who lash her. Apparently wearing a bra is against nature, a fraud and a deception. The Shabaab Islamic movement in Somalia has banned plays, dance and all forms of music.

I have just been watching a programme on TV following desperate young families escaping similar horrors in Afghanistan by paddling inflatables across the sea to the Greek Island of Lesbos. Many of the young women said they wanted a better life, but above all an education. At home, as women, they are not even allowed to read. I wonder if these women are aware of the history of Lesbos? Sadly, even on Lesbos many of these young women have been beaten by the police. Is there anywhere in the world where policing is not built on violence?

Sadly Christianity has had its own share of this bleak horror. St. Ephraim wrote, "Dancing is the perdition of girls and women, the grief of angels and the joy of devils". St. Charles Borromeo advised three years of penance for women who danced. Canon Law prevented priests from attending the theatre and the law was only repealed in the late 1960's.

Countries like Somalia have multiple, intractable problems. I guess it is easier to check bras than to ensure people have a decent standard of life. Easier to pick on women than confront warlords and corrupt politicians.

And it is always the women who suffer. We never read, religious police have been stopping men in the street and insisting that they shake their testicles. If the police then have reason to believe they are wearing briefs they are lashed. Wearing briefs is against nature. I wonder why?

I really do want my grand daughter to grow up in a world where education is valued, especially for women as it has been shown that societies flourish best that way. A world where dance, music, theatre, books... are promoted in every possible way. A world in which what a person wears or does not wear is entirely their own choice and no concern of anyone else. A world that does not depend upon violence at every level.

May we all help to make it so.

Delight

2009-10-26T13:05:00.005Z

It seems a long time since I managed to post here. Lots of work is one reason, family another. Both are good. I really enjoy my work and get tremendous satisfaction from it. The family things are what life is all about. My son's wedding and seeing him and his partner off on a four month tour of Asia. Our first grandchild is now 6 months old and our daughter has been moving to a bigger house.

She is an absolute delight. The morning after our son's wedding all the guests came down to breakfast in the hotel and she was passed around them all. She smiled and communicated with everyone, treated everyone the same, took everything in, gave a great deal of pleasure. She takes delight in everything and is endlessly fascinated by the world around her. Surely just how we should all be in an ideal world.

It was lovely to be there when she discovered her own toes. The sheer look of wonder on her face. How could she be the proud owner of such beautiful things? But, there again the universe has spent 14 billion years preparing a place for her and 3 billion years perfecting toes. That is a good reason to be delighted.

Orkney Goddess?

2009-08-22T18:21:00.004+01:00

Orkney Today has just reported that Scotland's earliest human figure has been found at an Historic Scotland excavation at the Links of Notland on the island of Westray. The figure is carved from sandstone and measures just 3.5cm by 3cm so it can easily be held in the hand. A pair of circles representing breasts can clearly be seen and the body carries typical neolithic crossed markings. The Scotsman adds a possible date to the story saying the figurine is between 4,500 and 5,000 years old.

Cille Bharra

2009-07-01T19:22:00.003+01:00

I have just discovered a little gem on the isle of Barra. According to Celtic hagiography Christianity first arrived in Barra in the seventh century ce with a man called Finnbar. There is an Irish Saint Finnbarr of Cork but a Scottish life says that the Barra Finnbar was the love child of a Sutherland nobleman and a young woman. When the young woman was sentenced to death the unborn child spoke from the womb and saved her life. Cille Bharra is said to be the place where Finnbar built the first church on the island. Today the ruins of an ancient church and south chapel stand in a burial ground. To the north of the ruined church stands a sixteenth century burial chapel which has recently been re-roofed.

The site has a very special feel to it and opening the small door to enter the north chapel is a revelation. Although the site is dedicated to St. Finnbar, the interior is in a real way a shrine to Bride of the Isles. Bridget crosses are scattered around and there is a charmingly folksy statue of Bride as well as a traditional straw Bridie Beag adorned with ribbons and shells and a Bridget's cross. There are more Bridget crosses strewn across the altar and to the left a charming icon of Bride drawn on slate.

Places like Cille Bharra remind us that rational linear clock time is not the only time we experience. Whenever we are absorbed in someone or something we love we leave ordinary time and enter another world. It is Bride who is the focus for this here. A burial chapel is of course a symbolic womb and tomb, a cave built by human hands. It is a gateway to a place from which all life comes and to which all life returns. It is then natural that in such a place the Goddess should be manifestly present and that Her maternal, comforting energy should come to the fore.

Evocative names, evocative places

2009-06-30T20:12:00.011+01:00

A Celtic sense of place means that Gaelic place names are often highly descriptive and sometimes beautifully evocative. I thought I would just share two evocative names for two very evocative places. The first is Loch Druidbeag on South Uist pictured above. The name means Little Lake of the Druids. It is now a bird reserve, a special place set aside for nature. I love how the shapes of hills in the background remind one of the Goddess.

The second is Pobull Fhinn on North Uist. Pobull Fhinn is a stone circle dating from the second millennium bce. The name means, Fionn's People or The Fair People referring to the Fiannaidheacht of Gaelic Myth. It could almost be the stone circle of the ancient ones. A place to move between the worlds. A place that must have always had a compelling beauty.

Cille Bhrighde, South Uist

2009-06-28T16:05:00.006+01:00

After a very busy few weeks I am pleased to say that I am writing this near to Cille Bhrighde on the south coast of South Uist looking out to the islands of Eriskay and Barra. The sun is shining in a beautiful blue sky and the oyster catchers are making a wonderful noise as they come in to land. I love these liminal places at the very edge of Bhrighde's Isles. South Uist is almost 600 miles from London, 200 from Glasgow and a 5 hour ferry trip from Oban on the west coast of Scotland. From here there is only the Atlantic Ocean and the fabled land of youth, Tír inna n-Óc.

Liminal places like South Uist are thresholds, gateways, places of real enchantment with worlds within worlds and a different perspective on time. They let the spirit soar and see what is true. They are places that truly belong only to the Goddess, where women and men are only guests with whole areas that are reachable only by a long strenuous walk. Today, the first full day on Uist of the week we will be blessed by the island, my partner and I had a simple ritual and offering to Bhrighde. Thanking Her for allowing us to walk Her land, asking Her blessing and honouring Her presence.

Wise words from my parents

2009-05-21T10:29:00.009+01:00

As a child my parents would often say to me that the most important thing to remember in life is, "Never trust anyone in authority and always think for yourself." It took a long time for the real truth and meaning of those words to become apparent.

It has been a bad week for authority in these islands. In the United Kingdom the authority of parliament is in tatters after revelation upon revelation of duplicity, secrecy and attempts at covering up multiple expense scandals. There are so many Terry Pratchett books I cannot remember in which one a character says, "We always put our politicians in prison the day they are elected, don't you?" Then Terry goes on to explain, "It saves time later!" Perhaps it also speaks volumes that there is a greater outcry over our politicians use of money than there ever was of them lying to us and taking us into an immoral, illegal war. The police have serious issues with acting in a political way at demonstrations, violence and causing the deaths of innocent people.

In Ireland the full horror of children's lives destroyed by sexual, physical and emotional abuse over decades has been revealed in an official five-volume report. This whole matter made even worse by the fact that it's publication was delayed by years as the Christian Brothers sought legal action to withhold the names of those responsible. To quote Ruth Gledhill, "Torture, rape and beatings. That's the unforgivable story of Roman Catholic Ireland in the 20th century. Still the perpetrators have not been named, and may never be brought to justice. It would be no exaggeration to call this a holocaust of abuse."

It is particularly telling that although boys suffered the most sexual abuse, "Female witnesses described, at times, being told they were responsible for the sexual abuse they experienced, both by their abuser and those to whom they disclosed abuse." How the story of Eve ripples down the years!

And this, "P**** W*** was two years old when he was taken to court with his two brothers aged three and four and a sister of six months. The crime: their mother was in an unhappy marriage and had left her husband. She was viewed as the guilty party by Church and State. We were put in the dock, charged and sentenced for, 'having a parent who does not exercise proper guardianship.'" His memories of the next 14 years are of physical and sexual assualt, hunger, fear and privation at the Artane Boys' School near Dublin run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. And then there is the anguish of a mother who had her children ripped from her arms because she had the audacity to stand in her own power and demand a divorce. "For years we couldn't believe that she had tried to get us out but she made numerous attempts and was told it was impossible. She had to go back to her husband if she wanted her children."

Yesterday morning there was a discussion on the radio between a victim of abuse in Ireland and an Anglican priest who was clearly a good man who knew how to listen. One thing he said struck a chord, that authority - church and secular - tends to try and keep people like children. Or, he could have said lambs (to the slaughter). Authority cannot cope with people who stand in their own power and think for themselves. Authority thrives on secrecy and abuse.

If anything good can come out of all this it will be a total end to deference and the realisation by the majority of those words spoken so often by my parents many years ago, "Never trust anyone in authority." Of course I am reminded of some words of Karen Tate, "With this means of (Goddess) worship or thought, spoon-feeding from a pulpit is over and the journey becomes as important as the destination, The independent, intuitive, immense and immanent nature of Goddess can then remain a living tradition without the pressure of restrictive dogma created by a select few."

Time for a new way of living, may Goddess set us all free.

New life

2009-04-22T12:42:00.003+01:00

Our first grandchild was born this morning, Earth Day. Thanks be to Goddess, a girl. 8lb 1oz.

May Bride hold mother and child in Her arms and may they both grow strong in love, open to all that is beautiful and true. May she weave a beautiful web of relationships. May she learn the power of myth and story. May mystery and magic be part of her life. May the ancient grandmothers protect and teach her.

I am proud, elated, happy that we have been blessed with a girl, and feeling very broody.

Held in her arms

2009-04-21T09:09:00.011+01:00

In the autumn of 2005 I was able to spend two weeks exploring the Goddess sites of eastern Crete from a base in Makriyalos. I have very fond memories of that precious time. So many places evocative of the Goddess, such beauty in the landscape, peace and quiet to meditate and make offerings of devotion and thanksgiving.

One day I drove to Knossos the extraordinarily beautiful capital of Minoan Crete controversially restored by Arthur Evans. One of the rooms at Knossos is now called The Shrine of the Double Axes. In this room, as at other shrines in Crete, a number of bell skirted clay Goddesses were discovered. These are sadly identified at Knossos as 'votive clay idols'. Many of these bell skirted Goddesses have raised arms and birds or poppies or horns of consecration on their heads.

The road to Knossos is inevitably lined with souvenir shops and I idly spent a little time browsing. It was in one such shop that a reproduction of one of the bell skirted Goddesses very literally caught my eye. Her painted eyes met mine and there was this overwhelming sense of presence, real, raw, strong, vital, beyond words.

The bell skirted Goddess came home with me. I hope She is not homesick for Her beloved Crete. Since then She has had a permanent place on the hearth at the very core of home. That overwhelming presence has never left Her. It is impossible to look at Her without feeling drawn to Her, without holding Her gaze.

It is hard to know what these Goddesses meant to the Minoans. I look at Her oversized, strong, raised arms and long thick neck and wonder whether these represent the abundance of the Cretan earth? Crops growing tall and strong, rooted in fertile soil, warmed by the Mediterranean sun. Does the bird on Her head mean She is Lady of the Birds gazing to the freedom of the sky? Is She a messenger? Does the bird represent gifts beyond human capability? Does She guide us through birth, life and death with the clear sight and sure flight of a bird? Are we all born from Her skirts, held in Her arms before Her breasts, beautiful, strong and free? Is She calling us to an understanding and appreciation of mystery and magic? Is She asking us to weave stories that link us to our true humanity, to each other, to co-operation?

I am slowly recovering from my accident which has forced me to spend a lot of time at home. The bell skirted Goddess has caught my eye a lot. She has brought me to silence and in the silence tears of joy and of love. Her strong arms are a constant reminder of the wonder of friends who have sent cards, lit candles, waves of healing energy, phone calls, visits - the web of love that is woven around me. Once again my fingers have not touched the keyboard for many minutes as I am held in Her gaze, touching what it means to be alive, giving thanks for all that is. No wonder the Minoans could produce such wonderful art, spontaneous, fluid, full of joy, energy, self respect and a oneness with the natural world.

You never know

2009-03-22T21:27:00.005Z

All life is a risk and sometimes little surprises pull us up short. Thursday I crossed the road caught my foot in a pothole and fell heavily against the kerb. The fall was hard enough to break the top of my left femur. Within seconds women came across to check I was alright. When they realised I wasn't they held me, called for an ambulance and patiently waited for it to arrive. Goddess knows there are always caring people who will put themselves out to do the right thing.

The next morning I was in the operating theatre having a plate and screws inserted under a spinal block. Science is wonderful to provide a pain free operation whilst wide awake! Goddess thinks very highly of science and skilled anaesthetists and surgeons. She also delights in health care systems that provide first class care absolutely free at the point of demand :) This is Goddess thinking at its very best - no one asking for a credit card before surgery!

And it does not stop there. Since the op everyone has shown such care. Nurses, caterers, the cleaners, and the lovely physios who patiently showed me how to use crutches and manage stairs. Practically all these wonderful people are women. Probably none of them have heard of the Goddess Movement but all are truly following her ways.

I am writing this on my iPhone sat on the orthopaedic ward. Another wonderful reason for science! It weaves webs of communication worthy of the webs woven at the close of Goddess Conference. And thinking of webs thanks to all those special people who have woven a tangible web of healing and prayer. Such is the fabric of the mantle of recovery.

So it is 6 weeks on crutches and another 6 weeks light load bearing. Its a good thing most of my work can be done sitting at the Mac at home. Goddess hinting I should slow a bit and attend to the beautiful bits of the precious gift of life.

Dancing at Lughnasa

2009-03-15T11:56:00.005Z

Donegal, Eire

It seems a long time since I last contributed to this blog. Winter has given way to the delights of Spring and today the sun shines joyously upon newly blooming daisies. Truth is I have had a lot of work come in which in a recession has to be a joy in itself. I do enjoy my work. To be doing something creative that I love is itself a great blessing. In the midst of all the work I did manage to take time out to travel to London to see Brian Friel's play, Dancing at Lughnasa at The Old Vic.

The Old Vic is a little gem, almost two hundred years old, small enough to be intimate and now set up for theatre in the round. The stage play of Dancing at Lughnasa entirely takes place in the Kitchen and garden of a croft outside the village of Ballybeg (little town) in County Donegal. It is 1936 and the five Mundy sisters barely make ends meet. Kate, a teacher at the local school, is the only wage earner. Agnes and Rose knit gloves at home to make a little money. Chris and Maggie have no income of their own. Catholic propriety is the order of the day in a closed world. Yet beyond the kitchen is another world that even now is breaking in.

The play opens with the revelation that the sisters got their first wireless set that summer. "Maggie - she was the joker of the family - she suggested we give it a name. She wanted to call it Lugh after the old Celtic God of the Harvest ... But Aunt Kate - she was a national schoolteacher and a very proper woman - she said it would be sinful to christen an inanimate object with any kind of name, not to talk of a pagan god." But this 'inanimate object' is the dwelling of the spirit of dance. It brings music into a home, into womens' lives. The music makes them dance and, as their feet leave the kitchen floor, unquenchable passions are released.

The five sisters have a brother, Jack, a missionary priest who has spent all his adult life in Africa. In 1930's Donegal poor unmarried sisters have little status in the community. To have a brother who is a priest, a living saint who has devoted his life to lepers gives them a place in society. It is the festival of Lughnasa, harvest time, a time to dance, find a partner, gather in.

Jack returns home from the missions but all is not as it seems. Fintan O'Toole writes, "Friel spent two years between the ages of 16 and 19 at Maynooth training for the priesthood, and he later called it 'an awful experience' that 'nearly drove me cracked.'"

Jack has been sent home in disgrace and Kate is soon to lose her position as a teacher for Jack has discovered something beautiful in Africa. As the time of the pagan festival of Lughnasa plays out in Donegal Jack says, "Or maybe to offer sacrifice to Obi, our Great Goddess of the Earth, so that the crops will flourish ... we have two very wonderful ceremonies: the Festival of the New Yam and the Festival of the Sweet Casava; and they are both dedicated to our Great Goddess, Obi ... We light fires ... and then we dance - and dance - and dance - children, men, women ... dancing, believe it or not, for days on end! It is the most wonderful sight you have ever seen! ... Oh, yes the Ryangans are a remarkable people: there is no distinction between the religious and the secular in their culture. And of course their capacity for fun, for laughing, for practical jokes - they've such open hearts."

At Lughnasa the Mundy family harvest their passions and then all is scattered to the winds. Jack's 'disgrace' means Kate loses her teaching job. A new factory opens and home knitting becomes a thing of the past. With the family income gone Agnes and Rose leave to find work in England. Jack longs for pagan Africa and dies within the year. Yet dance has brought with it true humanity, blessed freedom of spirit, the release of passion, the blessing of the Great Goddess of the Earth. The play ends with these words, " When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes half closed because to open them would break the spell. Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary."

Glastonbury in January

2009-01-14T15:18:00.008Z

For the first time ever I drove to Glastonbury in January. One of those crazy things I occasionally find myself doing. Five hours down the motorways with the temperature hovering between -4ºC and -2ºC. An overnight stay in a motel and five hours back. Now I must confess that I hate driving on our overcrowded motorways so I have to have a really good reason for such madness. This was an invitation from the Goddess Temple to a supporters' day and an opportunity to visit the recently purchased Goddess Hall.

I arrived in Glastonbury in ample time to spend a while in quiet meditation in the Temple. It is such a beautiful space filled with love and abundant atmosphere. A place where prayer and meditation come naturally. A place to light a candle for my daughter with a prayer that her unborn daughter may arrive safely and grow in love, wisdom, creativity and magic. I then walked up to another favourite place, Chalice Well Gardens, arriving late in the afternoon with the setting sun low in the sky. I have never seen the Gardens in the light of a January sunset. They looked utterly magical bathed in a golden red. As I sat taking in the sheer beauty of it all a robin flew down and landed just in front of me. I noticed a plate of seeds had been set ready on the ground by my side and wondered whether to gently get up and move away so that the robin could feed. However, it looked me in the eye for a moment and then came right up to feed.

The following day was spent in the new Goddess Hall which now provides much needed space for ceremonies and functions. Over the last few months a very great deal of work, love and sheer artistry has been put in to make it a place of beauty and honour for the Goddess. I am sure it will be a place of blessing. I certainly came away feeling abundantly blessed and glad to have been able to renew fond acquaintances.

She changes everything She touches

2008-12-13T17:25:00.007Z

We are fast approaching what could easily be the most important of all the times in the year. The Winter Solstice is both a point of changelessness and a time when all changes. Of course the Summer Solstice is this too but I would argue that the darkness of Winter adds its own special magic that cannot be matched in the intense light of Summer. Our ancestors built many fine stone structures carefully aligned to the Winter Solstice. So it must have been a time of great importance for them also. Some have argued that they did this because they were fearful that the declining sun would set for ever bringing eternal darkness on the world. Personally I find this hard to believe for they must have known that the wheel of the year turns with utter constancy. Earlier still our distant grandmothers must have seen the faithful cycles of the sun and the moon carrying on through the dramatic climate change and floods of the ending ice-age.

I would guess that the Winter Solstice is important because it combines a moment of poise and stillness - that only the dark can provide - with a real change of direction. Everything goes on but nothing is quite the same again. This echoes our experience of those Solstice moments of life; birth, menarch, leaving home and cleaving to another, death ... Womb moments.

Almost by accident, or more likely through the magic of Goddess, I recently found myself having an email correspondence with a wonderful woman about some of the Solstice moments of my early life. It struck me that all the Solstice moments of life have been the result of one or both of two things; listening to another and / or being touched by another. To listen or be truly touched we have to be brought to the point of stillness. Only then can we be truly open to the other. Then we must enter the creative dark where all seems confused and uncertain and anything can happen. Then the light rises. Then all seems the same but there is that deep awareness that things will never be the same again.

The more we listen, the more we open to touch, the more frequent such Solstice moments become. Utter life changing Solstice moments are rare magical events but every day has its little Solstice moments. In the darkness we process them in our dreams and a new day dawns like no other. This is how the Goddess loves, nurtures and tests us. This is what makes life such an amazing journey.

My beautiful, magical, intuitive daughter is pregnant for the very first time. One of the questions that always arises is, what gender will the new child be? Without any collusion at all I have discovered that my daughter, my partner and I have all had a deep intuitive feeling that the child is a girl. Today, my daughter has had a scan and was told they are 99.5% certain it is a girl. We are all so thrilled. My deepest wish is that this new woman will be blessed with magic and intuition. That she will be a born listener, open to touch, wonder awe and beauty. That she will have many Solstice moments and find a worthy place with the Grandmothers. She is expected to make her first cry to the Goddess at Beltane.

Amazingly this blog has made it into its third year. Whatever you call your Winter Festival and however you celebrate it, may it bring you many blessings.

Your country wants you to spend

2008-11-25T15:42:00.004Z

It is almost four-o-clock in the afternoon and the sun is already setting in a clear blue sky. Here in Brighid's Isles we have already had the first snow of winter and the dark and the cold cover the land. Winter is such a beautiful time for introspection, for entering the heart with the Goddesses and letting them gently open us to all that is good and beautiful and true.

Meanwhile the news media are buzzing with government initiatives to help us spend our way out of a recession. It seems that our country wants us to shop and our government is willing to lend us our own money to do so for a whole year before they claw it all back in more taxation.

Goddess help us all! We spend all this money and have nothing to show for it. Buy a new car and it loses half its value the moment it is driven off the garage forecourt. Buy the latest electronic wonder and we are only happy until a new model is introduced eight months later. Buy a printer and it is cheaper to buy a new one than replace the ink; so the old one goes into the landfill. We repair nothing because we are told it is so environmentally friendly to recycle the old and buy new. But worse of all we have forgotten how to share what we have.

There is an old story - given a divine mandate - about a harsh and cruel man who goes off on a journey entrusting three of his servants with differing sums of money according to their ability to work the monetary system. It is a story that tells us how the weak always go to the wall and how violence is always inflicted upon the weak by the strong. One of the servants is so terrified of his master that worry and stress take over his life. The other servants do nothing to help because they are too busy making money for their master. When the harsh and cruel man returns he shows absolutely no compassion to the servant. He makes no attempt to help him. The servant is simply condemned. And this is held up as a model to follow. Indeed it has become the model that is followed.

Since I started writing this it has become entirely dark and the stars have appeared in the night sky. To be alive under a starlit sky is a wonderful gift. Creation shares its beauty with all. I have eyes to see, I have a roof over my head and food on the table so I am rich. I have others to love and I feel loved and cherished so I have riches beyond avarice.

If we can appreciate the beauty and wonder and magic that is all around us then the Goddesses have touched us. If we have learnt to share and be content with enough we have found Goddess wisdom. Sometimes less is in truth much more.

Stories around the fire

2008-10-30T13:23:00.010Z

A little while ago some of the newspapers ran stories about the kind of questions candidates for Oxford and Cambridge universities are asked at interview. One of the cited questions was, "Why is the sea salty?" It struck me that all the model answers, whilst true, were rather dry and practical. If I was sitting in a don's study in Oxford I think I may have answered like this.

"In the time before written history all the seas were pure and the waters sweet to drink. Men and women left offerings to the Goddesses of the seas and asked permission of the spirits of the sea entertaining them with dance before they set out to fish. When they returned with the sweet fruits of the sea the young women would dance wildly in thanksgiving. Then men began to covet the riches of the sea and called upon the one God of the sky to help them conquer all they beheld. Lords declared that it was wrong to leave offerings and ask permission. They asked the teachers to tell the children that the Goddesses of the sea were mere myth. That all worship and honour was due to the one God and the earthly Lords who worshipped him. And so the offerings and dances ended, the seas were raped of their bounty and the Goddesses of the sea forgotten. But in their homes beneath the sea the Goddesses began to cry for all that had been lost and lament the foolishness of men. They cried and they cried and their tears began to turn the once sweet sea salty so that today no man can drink of the sea's waters."

Would this get me a place at Oxford? I don't know but I do know that it is just as true as the model, dry practical answers given in the papers.

It is almost Samhain and we enter the dark time of the year when we sit by the fire, tell stories, enter our hearts, and touch ancient wisdom. May I wish you every blessing for the season and leave you with my own re-telling of the first part of the old Scottish story of Bride and the Cailleach Bheara. I promise to re-tell the second part of this story come Imbolc.

At the end of October the Cailleach Bheara took captive a beautiful young woman called Bride and locked her in a room in her palace deep below the Cairngorm Mountains. She was jealous of Bride’s beauty which brought warmth and joy to the earth. The Cailleach gave Bride old torn clothing to wear and put her to menial tasks like clearing the ashes from the palace fires. The Cailleach scolded Bride and found constant fault with everything she did. Poor Bride, her life was made wretched. As she wept the trees lost the last of their leaves, flowers died, and the sun lost heart and refused to climb to the heights of the sky.

One day the Cailleach brought a filthy brown fleece to Bride and ordered her to wash it until it was as white as the snow that now covered all the dying land. All day long Bride washed and washed, her hands becoming chapped and sore. But when night fell the Cailleach scolded the girl saying, “You are foolish and incompetent, look the fleece is as dirty and as brown as when I gave it to you. In the morning you will wash it again and you will go on washing it every day until it is white.”

This made Bride even more sorrowful for it seemed as if she would be washing until the Moon no longer had the strength to complete its monthly cycle. As she grew ever more sorrowful all light was ebbing away from the world above.

Then one morning whilst Bride was washing a grey-haired old woman came to her and said, “I am Grandmother Winter, if you give me the fleece I shall wash it whiter than the snow for you.” Bride gave Grandmother Winter the fleece and she shook it to the North, to the East, to the South and to the West calling upon all the ancient grandmothers. When she had finished the fleece was as white as newly fallen snow.

Bride was filled with joy and she gave thanks to Grandmother Winter and all the ancient grandmothers. At that moment Bride’s joy and thanksgiving shook the whole world above and the sun regained heart and began her slow climb back to the heights of the sky.

Grandmother Winter then told Bride that she would return towards the end of January with a special present for Bride. True to her word, several weeks later, she came to Bride whilst she was smooring the ashes and said, “Take what I hold in my hand.” Bride reached out and took a bunch of pure white flowers. Bride’s eyes lit with happiness as she beheld their beauty. Then Grandmother Winter spoke to Bride, “If the Cailleach scolds you show her these flowers.”

Sure enough at the close of that day the Cailleach scolded Bride saying, “Will you never learn how to smoor the ashes you stupid young woman.” Then Bride showed the snow white flowers to the Cailleach. The Cailleach’s face turned grey and in anger and frustration she asked, “Where did you get these flowers?” Bride replied, “The snowdrops are now growing in the woods and the adders are beginning to stir from their long sleep.” “Bad news!” the Cailleach shouted and stormed out of the kitchen. But a new profound joy had entered Bride’s heart.

If the world could vote

2008-10-29T16:37:00.006Z

Hat tip to Don't stray from the path for pointing me to this great site that lets the whole world vote in the forthcoming American Presidential Election.

Shame the vote isn't for real as the results so far are an absolute landslide and are a good indicator of what the rest of us think.

With a US military spy base just down the road from home I guess I am in-line for a missile strike should there be a war. As everything the US government does effects me and most others throughout the world we should all really get to vote. Now that is only fair isn't it? You put a spy base near my home without a by your leave so we get to vote you out.

Remembering how to move

2008-10-28T16:26:00.004Z

Joy, a group of us are spending the whole Samhain weekend exploring sacred dance. For me dance is liberation, it is subversive, it is passion, it is magic.

Time and time again authorities of one kind or another have tried to regulate or even ban dance. They have claimed it is immoral, that it is wrong for women and men to move together. They have shunned the body and denied its beauty and grace. They have feared the renewal and change that dance brings. They have recoiled from the idea that creation is danced into being and have tried to convince us to accept the unchanging word incised in stone instead.

If dance was denied me I would do everything I could to subvert that law. I would sway with the trees, move with the leaves, dance with my eyes as I watch the butterfly. I would dance with my very breath. In utter stillness I would be one with the dance of the genes within me.

The mistrust of dance in the major religions of the world is a symptom of the fact that they have, by and large, forgotten how to move. If you dance you move, adjust, change, discover new ways of being, new patterns in the world. Inerrant scripture and fixed law deny the truth that we live in an ever changing universe where all life is constantly adapting, changing, evolving. Our genes are not fixed. If they were we would stagnate and die. Thankfully they have not forgotten that they were danced into being by the Goddesses and Gods and they will continue to dance until the end of time.

And here is the heresy major religions fear. As we dance and move and change with the Goddesses and Gods our imaginations expand and we touch the mystery of being, of divinity of sex and creation. In so doing we become free to re-invent the Goddesses and Gods as they link hands and bodies with us in the dance of life, wonder, magic and renewal. Dance opens us wide to new possibility.

Terrorists of disarming charm

2008-10-26T11:48:00.014Z

Anyone who has been bullied at school or at work will know that bullies generally have not learnt how to love themselves or accept their failings. Picking on someone weaker than themselves is one of the few ways available to them to help them cope. They have low self-esteem so they try and reduce the self-esteem of those they attack.

It is interesting how often governments follow the bullies example. Things are going badly, self-esteem is low so lets launch a gunboat, wave the flag and bully a scapegoat. Just as you can never trust a bully with power so you can never trust a government with power. You can guarantee that power will always be abused.

In September prime minister Gordon Brown and the UK government's self-esteem must have been at an all time low as their popularity plummeted. Following the lead of bullies everywhere they looked for a victim.

You really couldn't make this up if you tried. On the 8th October the UK government misused their draconian Anti-terrorism Act against the interests of another state, freezing all the financial assets of that state in the UK.

Which state did the UK government choose, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Zimbabwe perhaps? No these states are already on the government's list. So which state joined this list of shame. Would you believe Iceland? Unbelievable - but in the daft world of government true.

This, of course, is the Iceland famed for its friendly, happy people. The country that consistently comes in the top three best places to live in the world. A country with excellent social services and equitable distribution of wealth. A country - by the way - that has no armed forces and spends a record breaking 0% of its gross national product on weapons. A country indeed that puts the UK to shame.

According to Vision of Humanity's Global Peace Index Iceland is the most peaceful nation on earth - ranking 1st of the 140 nations listed. The United Kingdom comes a disgraceful 49th and the USA a jaw-dropping 97th. Icelander's trust each other, have very low levels of crime and a very high respect for human rights.

Two weeks later something happened which shows just how wonderful people can be. Icelanders are not terrorists appeared on the Internet asking people to sign a petition to help stop the abuse of the UK Anti-terrorism Act. In a few days nearly 51,000 people from Iceland and the UK have signed and the numbers are rising all the time.

With the kind of disarming charm that only a "terrorist nation" like Iceland can muster Icelanders are not terrorists is full of the most amazing postcards that wonderful people have sent to Gordon Brown. Go and have a look at them now and sign the petition whilst you are there!

Update 30/10/2008

The number of people who have signed is about to top 70,000. And I have just noticed this quote in the Independent:

"The Labour MP Austin Mitchell, who chairs the all-party British-Icelandic parliamentary group, urged David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, to resolve the impasse. "Our government has been heavy-handed and abrupt in dealing with the Icelandic problem," he said. "We should have helped but we bullied and made the problem worse." The Icelandic government said that Britain had "set a tone that is difficult to get away from".

The emphasis is mine and maybe, just maybe, there really is one honest politician left in the UK.

Six random things

2008-10-24T15:57:00.005+01:00

I've been tagged by Mary (hi Mary good to know you follow this blog) and Brian to write six random things about myself.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself. (See below)

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (See further below...)

5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Well now 1. and 2. are done and I have been pointed to Mary's great blog - thank you!

So here are my six random things

1. I'm quite a mongrel having Belgian, English, Gypsy and border Scotch ancestors.

2. I am totally non-competitive and not even vaguely interested in sport.

3. I love bookshops and libraries, the feel of paper and the look of typography.

4. I love dancing barefoot on the earth.

5. Freshly baked bread and Wensleydale cheese is my idea of heaven.

6. I have been utterly, madly in love with one extraordinary wonderful woman for 36 years.

Now I have just checked and all those who I would have tagged have been tagged already. That will teach me to be too busy to blog for three weeks. I will have to think about this one but in the meantime I will let Mary and Brian know that my response is posted.

Has Sarah Palin heard about St. Kilda?

2008-10-05T18:11:00.009+01:00

Following a wonderful reply to a tag from Anne Johnson, Aquila ka Hecate has tagged everyone on her sidebar to give their opinions on "The hilarious" McCain-Palin ticket for the US presidency.

I gather that Sarah Palin is Governor of Alaska and Commander-in-chief of the state’s military forces. I have never been to Alaska but have always regarded it as one of those special liminal places that exist at the edge of the world. I, therefore, offer Sarah the story of another liminal place at the very edge of Europe.

The BBC has a little known TV channel called BBC Alba which broadcasts programmes in the Gaelic language of the West of Scotland. Earlier this week BBC Alba televised a programme dedicated to the history of St. Kilda.

I guess that Sarah has never heard of St. Kilda so I will tell her that St. Kilda is not a Christian Saint but the most remote place in the British Isles. A group of tiny islands and stacks forty miles to the west of the Outer Hebrides. St. Kilda literally lies at the very edge of the ancient world. Despite being lashed by winds and rain and an average July temperature of just 12 degrees Celsius St. Kilda was inhabited for more than two millennia until it was abandoned in 1930. The Norse settled there and then the Gael.

The BBC Alba programme was narrated by a wonderful man whose ancestors had lived on St. Kilda. His beautiful Gaelic words cut straight to the heart. He spoke eloquently of the Gael of St. Kilda and how they had lived a hard subsistence life surviving on the countless seabirds that nested on the cliffs. They knew little of the outside world. Held almost everything in common and gave everyone an equal say in the running of day to day affairs.

As the narrator knelt lovingly by Tobar nam buadh (the Spring of virtues) he spoke of the offerings that were once left to the spirits and fairies of the hills and the springs. How life was guided by the sun and the moon. How all work was done sunwise. How there were special festivities at midwinter and midsummer. How the people loved song and dance and story and games.

The Gael of St. Kilda had no arms or money yet had to pay rent to the Clann Mhic Leòid who owned lands on Harris and Skye. They paid this rent in gannet feathers which were subsequently sold to the British army to make pillows for soldiers. Thus these peaceful people were taxed to further colonial battles.

The narrator then went on to tell of the decline of the St. Kilda community. In 1822 the Church of Scotland sent a minister to bring religion to a people “who knew nothing of religion”. At first this mission brought benefits. New agricultural methods were introduced, better houses were built and a Gaelic Language school was set up for the children. Then the Free Church of Scotland sent their own minister, a religious zealot who began the downward spiral that would lead to the destruction of life on St. Kilda.

This religious man introduced compulsory three hour Sabbath Day services. All offerings to the spirits of the land were stopped. Song, dance and games were banned and the only stories told were from the Bible. In 1875 a visitor to St. Kilda described the Sabbath as, "A day of incredible gloom when all the Islanders hurry to church their eyes fixed to the grounds as it was regarded as a sin to look to left or right." Those who made any noise in the chapel were lectured at length and warned that they risked spending eternity in hell. Children were forbidden from playing any games and had to carry a bible with them wherever they went.

Religious duties began to take over valuable time that was needed for subsistence. A famine ensued and when a boat arrived with food on a Saturday it was not allowed to unload until the following Monday so as not to interfere with the Sabbath.

The new capitalism of the Victorian age brought tourist cruise ships to St. Kilda full of people who knew nothing of the Gaelic language or way of life. The islanders were viewed as curiosities and began to loose self-respect. Visitors brought influenza and infantile tetanus.

During the Great War of 1914 to 1918 the Royal Navy decided St. Kilda was of strategic importance as an ideal place to watch for ships in the North Atlantic. The Navy brought their own rules and the gradual introduction of money which made the islanders less self-reliant. In 1930 the Gael of St. Kilda asked to be re-patriated to Morvern on the Scottish Mainland.

Sarah is noted for her ‘Pro-Life’ views. I have never understood how someone who says they are pro-life can approve of hunting for sport, belong to the military and have little or no regard for the environment. But then Pro-Life and pro-life are in reality very different.

Anyway St. Kilda is a warning to us all. It reminds us how easily a people can be exploited by the rich and powerful. How easily a way of life totally in harmony with the natural environment can be destroyed. How dangerous are the men who are so sure they hold absolute truth that they deny a people access to their own traditions and all joy and pleasure on pain of eternal punishment.

But St. Kilda is not alone. History is full of stories of peoples whose joy, happiness and way of life have been severely limited by the power struggles of the religious, the military and the profit seekers. Politicians are not noted for their ability to learn from history and the experience of those on the edge of their world. Maybe the only question we ever need to ask anyone running for political office is, “How would you treat those whose language and culture you do not understand, those who live on the margins of your world?”

The light of the hidden world

2008-09-28T16:52:00.008+01:00

The last two mornings I have awoken to see early morning mist veiling the land. As the sun declines in the sky and the summer heat dissipates it is as if the earth becomes coy and shy. She cloaks herself in mystery and becomes all the more beautiful. In response the trees put on a glorious display - before they are revealed in all their winter beauty before the darkening sky.

Is it just me or is the light of the hidden world brightening earlier than usual? Maybe it is because I am getting older, or that we are now under a new moon, or maybe it is true. Every evening this week I have been welcomed home from work by a lone crow on the drive who has eyed me with intelligent curiosity before flying onto the garage roof, her eyes following me as I enter the house; utter magic.

As people regret the passing of summer it is good to rejoice in the turning of the year. To look forward to Samhain, to the thinning of the veil. As winter approaches and the robins and wrens busy themselves in the garden I look forward to a time of candles, open fires and story telling by the hearth. But above all a time to enter the silence of the dark and be touched by the beautiful light of the hidden world.

Balancing on Air

2008-09-22T15:49:00.009+01:00

My local paper has been covering the closure of a number of churches in the area. Each church has its own unique history. Each has faithful people who have invested a great deal of emotional and spiritual capital in the living community that makes up the local church. It is obvious that a church cannot be closed without breaking a chain of history and hurting a lot of people. We should all be sad at their loss. Those in authority need to be blessed with more than their fair share of tact and sensitivity when they are faced with closing a church.

In the days when churches were normally open and anyone could enter freely at any time of day I would often spend time in one. To leave a busy city street and enter a church is to enter a different world where history matters, where the veil between the living and the dead is thin, where silence prevails, and where prayers spoken through the ages hang like magic in the air. To enter a country church you usually have to pass the graves of our ancestors who encircle the building in an embrace of love. Their presence reminding us of our debt to them and our duty to honour them.

Our historic churches have become part of the landscape and now appear as benign and beautiful as the trees. Walking into their peaceful interior spaces it is easy to forget that this was not always true. Indeed most historic cathedrals and churches were designed and built as much as symbols of power and authority as places of worship.

The gracious Norman cathedrals of England were a potent sign of Norman power and superiority, built strong, huge and impressive to remind a people that they had been conquered. Within decades of their construction there were expulsions of Jews from England, France and Spain and legislation against homosexuals was enacted across Europe. Many town churches were built to proclaim the power and prosperity of craft guilds that actively worked to exclude women from membership. Rich and powerful men filled cathedrals and churches with their tombs and memorials and stained glass displaying their coats of arms. Military flags festooned the ceilings. Special pews were installed for the local gentry, the rich rented seating at the front and the poor were sent to the back.

I mention this because Geraldine Charles has written an excellent article entitled, ‘Balancing on Air’ for the current issue of Goddess Pages. In this incisive article she addresses the question, "Yeah, but what about balance?" She writes:

"It should hardly need to be pointed out that a Goddess Temple exists for a reason – in part to redress, in a very small way, thousands of years of complete imbalance ... On the right hand I will put the x thousand years of patriarchy that affect my every thought in ways I cannot begin to enumerate, particularly as many of them probably aren’t even conscious. On the left – how shall I symbolize the deliberate decision to have no representation of the god, the male principle, in a small, one-roomed Goddess temple in an English country town?"

For me, discovering the Goddess Temple in Glastonbury was an absolute revelation. It is beautiful, peaceful, prayerful, overflowing with love, alive with creative energy and totally devoid of hierarchical power and authority.

In a world obsessed with power and dominion this small, one-roomed Goddess temple points to a better way.

In a world where fundamentalist, creationist leaders proclaim that only a God powerful enough to create an entire universe in six days is worthy of worship; it points to Goddesses who are present in a grain of corn and the hum of a bee’s wing.

In a country that spends £34 billion pounds on offensive capability and sells the means of death to nations around the world; it proclaims the true beauty of life, produces a riotous flowering of creativity and reminds us that we are all divine.

Our human society is desperately imbalanced. In England a small church closes and people are hurt and feel powerless in the face of authority. Not everyone has a car, buses are infrequent on a Sunday and some will find it hard to travel 2 or 3 miles to the next church. In Africa a woman regularly walks 15 or 20 miles to church in the tropical sun.

The Goddess Temple is 260 miles from my home and I know many who travel that distance and more just to be in this special place. When we cannot travel our hearts are our temples and the Goddess inspires all the choices made to work towards a better world.

Thank you

2008-09-22T14:36:00.001+01:00

It seems a long time since my last post on this Blog. I have had a lot of work to cope with as well as preparing and printing the two UK Goddess journals Goddess Alive and Goddess Pages for their editors. Then there have been some delightful family happenings too.

I would really like to thank those who nominated this Blog for the "I Love Your Blog Award". That was all of a month ago and I have only just found time to say thank you. My apologies, it is really good to know others enjoy it. I feel doubly chastened as Andy, one of the bloggers who nominated me, wrote, ..."I just wish he would post more often!" Here, in no particular order are my own nominations lots of whom have been nominated already because they are just so very good.

1. Anne Johnson of "The Gods Are Bored" simply because she is such a good writer and always makes me smile.

2. Aquila ka Hecate from Johannesburg who reminds me how the seasons turn in the southern hemisphere and who shares an interest in mathematics and science.

3. The team at "Medusa Coils" for providing such a brilliant information service for the Goddess Community.

4. Brian Charles at "House of Inanna"

5. Andy at "The Spiritual Journey of a Somerset Pagan" Andy and Brian both write interesting, utterly honest blogs that I look forward to reading and, for me, are all the more interesting because I have met up with both of them in Glastonbury.

6. Lee Hutchings at "Panthea" for her beautiful, reasoned and joyous writing about the Goddess.

7. Bo at "The Expulsion of the Blatant Beast" (landofspices.blogspot.com) who writes so well on so much that it is almost overwhelming. Bo also keeps me struggling with the Irish language whenever I falter and I am in utter awe of his knowledge of medieval and modern Irish and Welsh.

Honouring Sulis

2008-08-11T18:41:00.006+01:00

After the Glastonbury Goddess Conference I went to the Somerset town of Bath to honour the Goddess Sulis. Bath is famous for the only hot spring in Brighid's Isles. For thousands of years hot water has risen here. Today over a million litres rise every day at 46 degrees Centigrade. In ancient times the spring bubbled out of open marshes. It was sacred to the Goddess Sulis (Sul) a Goddess of healing, childbirth and lactation. The Romans drove oak piles into the mud to provide strong foundations for a lead lined stone pool to hold the water. They united the British love of Sulis with their own love of Minerva and erected a Temple to Sulis Minerva. Many came for healing, to give thanks and to seek justice from the Goddess. More than 12,000 Roman coins have been found in the Spring, the largest votive offering in the Isles. Many bronze and ivory models of breasts have also been found. These were possibly worn whilst breast feeding so the Goddess would provide a plentiful flow of milk, then offered to the Goddess in thanksgiving.

To this day there is a tangible sacred presence at the Spring which, for me, makes it a real place of pilgrimage. As I honoured Sulis and asked for her healing I tried to imagine what the Sacred Spring must have been like before any of the oak piles had been driven into the mud. A liminal place, the red waters of the Goddess rising hot in the marshes amidst the groves of trees. A healing gift from the very womb of the Earth.

Powers always want to flaunt their wealth and strength and ambition by building grand public religious structures. Roman Temples, mediaeval cathedrals, grand mosques all speak eloquently of the wealth and power men find in religion. Yet none of this can compare to the natural beauty and grace of a natural spring. The Goddess is truly to be found in little, seemingly powerless things.

Today the Sacred Spring is a World Heritage Site. It is always busy as tourists take bustle about, but some of us come just to bless each other with the water and stand in silent honour of the Goddess Sulis. To do this is to do something personal, small and powerless and yet of great significance.

Amidst all the displays of Roman engineering, power and wealth there are two displays that always move me to wonder and to tears. They are displays of small household goddesses honoured by ordinary people in the sacred space around their own hearth. the first is a small celtic carving of a triple Goddess. The second is a display of Penates, the Goddesses of the Roman household larder and kitchen. It is these beautiful things that offer the gift of a link between my own practice and those who lived and honoured the Goddesses in this beautiful land so many years ago. I leave you with the photographs I took of these very special icons.

Blessed Lammas

2008-07-31T17:32:00.005+01:00

A very blessed Lammas. Time to pause, take time out for oneself, time to give thanks for the first fruits of the earth. The beginning of a month of warm days and summer vacations. Time too for the Glastonbury Goddess Conference. I just thought I would take time out to post photos. And a blessed Imbolc to all friends in the southern world.

Lammas Goddess

Priestesses on the Temple steps

Conference Welcome Circle

A walk in ancient woodland

2008-07-15T12:59:00.004+01:00

It is good to take a walk in ancient woodland, a place where light and vision are filtered by the presence of trees. Here is beauty aplenty. Here is the surge of life nurtured by the very Earth Herself. Here is a deep ancient presence. For all the beauty ancient woodland remains a wild place. The bears, wolves and boar may be long gone but wild energy remains as strong as ever.

Trees have a very special presence which is immediately apparent as you walk beneath their overarching branches. To pass under the shade of some trees is to find a place out of time where all seems different. It is as if the whole of reality is here mediated by the tree.

I love this picture I took recently of fallen trees like guardian spirits. The wild garlic turning their leaves in adoration and filling the air with the fragrance of their incense. Such scenes are an important reminder that there is much that we cannot and should not control. A reminder to ask permission to step into the presence of such ancient energy. A reminder to honour the spirits with prayer and offering.

Truth is we need to honour boundaries and accept that we are totally dependent upon the fecund power of our Earth. Our lives are bounded by womb and tomb imaged in our own homes by threshold and hearth. Humanity has overstepped so many boundaries, destroyed so much woodland from the cedar forests of Lebanon to the rain forests of South East Asia. We have become so addicted and dependent on the oil left by the forests of deep deep history that we would kill our grandmothers and deny our grandchildren life in order to obtain our next fix. But the ancient woodland has the power to bring us back to reality if only we look, listen, feel, face our fears and let the guardian spirits touch our imagination.

What defines us?

2008-07-11T09:25:00.011+01:00

The comments posted on blogs are often very revealing. I hope Athana doesn't mind me quoting from an anonymous comment on her Radical Goddess Thealogy blog. Anonymous writes, "Do you have a regular job? If not, when is the last time you actually worked full time to make a living? Are you really a hippie?"

It is disturbing that today we often define people by their job, their spending power and their postcode. As if any of these things come close to defining who a person really is. The idea of working long regular hours away from home using artificial light to work in the dark of winter and oil to commute many miles each day is really quite novel. Most human societies have worked close to home according to the flow of the seasons and the lengthening and shortening days. Indeed, they have also given a lot of time to dance, music, play, storytelling and honouring the invisible world.

Life is such a precious thing and the elderly remind us how short it is. If we have not found more to life than work, retail therapy and a mini-mansion at a fashionable address then we have truly failed to live.

I have a great respect for good teachers, who despite all the restrictions placed upon them by government, still manage to open young minds and hearts to the beauty, mystery and magic that is all around. For it is such things that truly define a person.

Do you wake up on a morning and stand in awe and amazement at the sheer beauty, diversity and fecundity of the world? Have you learnt to truly love and delight in your own beautiful body? Have you learnt to truly love your partner? Are you passionate in your work for justice and peace? Is there a lightness in your step, do you dance and sing, do you delight in story and myth? Do you sense the magic in all things? Do you give freely of your time and talents to make the world a better place? Do you find time for play, for silence?

These, and many more like them are the things that truly define a person. Beside these, issues such as our job, bank balance and address pale into insignificance. Answer yes to some of the above and your are walking in the footsteps of the Goddess.

Summer Solstice

2008-06-20T16:40:00.005+01:00

A blessed Summer Solstice to all friends in the North and a blessed Winter Solstice to all in the South.

Today the sun shines in a clear bright blue sky and it will still grace us until almost 10 p.m. tonight. The days are long and everything is strangely energised. Hawthorn has given way to Elderflower and St. John's Wort is just beginning to bloom. The further north you go the later there is light. In the far north of Brighid's Isles they speak of the "summer dim" a gentle light all through the night.

To celebrate an abundance of light I thought I would post a photograph I took at the Calanais Stones on Lewis as the sun set one Summer Solstice eve and the stones picked up the reddening light.

Brighid's Runes

2008-06-09T19:12:00.004+01:00

I can hardly believe that it is over a month since I last posted on this blog. Truth is I have had a lot of work designing and printing for the Goddess and other communities. Also the weather has been set fair and the great outdoors has beckoned. One of the projects I have now despatched is a book entitled, "Brighid's Runes" a delightful new collection of women's soul poetry edited by Rachel Mica McCann.

Rachel writes, "'Brighid's Runes' is a collection of around 40 poems by over twenty women from various parts of Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland. The poems celebrate the sacred in every day life and our relationship with the earth. They are funny, poignant, eloquent and passionate! Some of the poets are well published, others are new to print. The money raised from the sale of the book will go towards supporting Women's and Earth healing projects, especially the Green Belt Movement in Kenya established by nobel prize winner Wangari Maatthai which has empowered women through planting trees and community development."

It will make a welcome addition to any library and can be purchased directly from Rachel, e-mail: rmicamc@yahoo.co.uk.

Dandelions and Daisies

2008-05-05T19:02:00.008+01:00

Bealtaine is such a riotous time of year. Suddenly everything is growing as if there is no tomorrow. The whole land is covered in a mantle of vivid new green decorated with the colour of flower and blossom. Pause for a moment and look and you can almost see things grow a little taller. All this in response to our great provider, the sun, longer days and warmer temperatures. Everything is utterly, unashamedly fecund.

Bealtaine is a time that confirms me in my path. There is a human tendency to desire order and structure, to lay down rules and laws, to want someone in control, someone to blame when things go wrong. As if on cue the British electorate have just blamed the prime minister for just about everything from the price of fuel to the sudden arrival of 'weeds' in the garden. The structure of the last three millennia has upheld order, laid down commandments and supported absolute monarchs. In its quest for order it has tried to banish anything contrary to its way of thinking. But nature isn't like this. She gives everything under the sun a fair chance, she loves diversity and blames nothing. Nature abhors order and delights in the chaos of the dance of life.

Today is a public holiday. Many people will have spent some of the day in a garden centre buying the things they need to bring summer colour to their homes. I was taken aback by a sudden outbreak of adverts for weed killers on the television showing people how to eliminate vibrant plants like the dandelion. Some contain glyphosate that may be linked to congestion of the lungs, kidney damage and reproductive problems.

This is the control approach. There has to be order and everything has to be neat and trimmed and in its right place. Yet Bealtaine would not be Bealtaine without the overnight arrival of a carpet of dandelions and daisies greeting the sun with their riot of colour. A lawn can hardly be called a lawn unless you can blow dandelion heads to the wind and make a daisy chain for your love.

As May began I drove down the lane by my home and the verges were a shambolic delight of dandelions. What special flowers they are. There just has to be a goddess whose sole purpose is to protect dandelions and daisies and whose only desire for worship is that we give these very special plants the honour they are due. I guess She would also be delighted if you scattered a few wild flower seeds on your travels.

Goddesses restored to memory

2008-04-13T11:15:00.008+01:00

Far away from home? Longing for loved ones so far away? The weather damp, cold and miserable? I guess this is how many Romans must have felt after traveling to the North of England to take up an official post. Yet their longing for home and the warmth of the mediterranean has left us intriguing insights into their devotion to Goddesses in Brighid's Isles.

There is ample evidence that Roman officials took to local Goddesses and received many graces from them. At Arbeia, in the far north-east of England, a Roman called Congenniccus received blessings from the Goddess Brigantia and in thanksgiving set up an altar with the inscription, To the sacred Goddess Brigantia Congenniccus willingly fulfilled his vow. This altar, pictured above, is one of many now in the Arbeia Museum.

The blessings these Roman's received from Goddesses and their desire to give thanks by setting up a stone altar is bringing to memory Goddesses who otherwise would have been long forgotten. The Goddess Verbeia in Wharfedale is a good example. Now there is news of two more Goddesses restored to memory. At the Roman settlement of Mamuciam (which means breast shaped hill) in Manchester archaeologists have just unearthed a 2,000 year old altar in pristine condition. It is inscribed, To the Mother Goddesses Hananeftis and Ollototis, Aelius Victor willingly and deservedly fulfils a vow.

It makes me wonder what blessings and graces Aelius Victor received from these Goddesses at the breast shaped hill. Whatever the blessings we should be thankful to Aelius Victor for fulfilling his vow. For 2,000 years later these Mother Goddesses Hananeftis and Ollototis have been restored to our memory. (Inscriptions to Ollototis have also been found at Binchester in the north east of England.)

This find comes less than five years after the rediscovery of the Goddess Senua in Hertfordshire. Treasures from her shrine and ritual spring were carefully hidden in the late 3rd century ce at a time when pagan temples were being destroyed. One Servandus from Spain gave thanks for blessings received on a plaque inscribed, Servandus Hispani willingly fulfilled his vow to the Goddess. At the time Senua's name was revealed Ralph Jackson, Roman Curator at the British Museum, said, "It was an extraordinary moment, like seeing Her reborn before my eyes.

The Inaccessible Pinnacle

2008-03-23T11:03:00.006Z

My love for the liminal places and ancient stories of Brighid's Isles has, of late, led me to a discovery of Celtic Languages. I am currently attending Irish classes and each week the teacher asks us all to tell a story in Irish. I love this, for storytelling is at the heart of community and tradition and I have long held that truth is to be found primarily in story.

I have just finished watching a very special film, Seachd, The Inaccessible Pinnacle. It is the first full length feature film ever to be produced in Scotch Gaelic. The DVD has subtitles in English, Irish and Welsh so it is boon for anyone wanting to increase their vocabulary of Celtic language. But this is also a powerful film in its own right.

Seachd has an interesting subtitle, Lan fhirinn na sgeoil (truth is in the story). Aonghas is a boy painfully coming to terms with the death of his parents in an accident on a mountain. He and is siblings are raised by their grandparents in the Hebrides. His grandfather is a storyteller. For him, truth, tradition, culture, magic, all that is of value is to be found in story. Throughout the film the grandfather tells powerful ancient tales to the children. Tales that are set against the stunning scenery of the Highlands and Islands. Tales that hold valuable lessons for the children. For Aonghas these tales are merely the distraction of an old man, dead words in an old book. He drifts away from his grandfather and seeks consolation in the "real world". There is a moment when Aonghas argues with his grandfather in English and attempts to run away to Glasgow.

As a man Aonghas fulfills his wish, moves to Glasgow and makes his way in the world. Then he is called back to the Hebrides where his grandfather is terminally ill in hospital. With what strength he has left the grandfather leaves the hospital with Aonghas and takes him to the mountain where his parent's died, determined that he will not lose the most precious thing a person can have - a place in a living tradition.

On the DVD there is an interview with Aonghas Padraig Caimbeul, the Gaelic writer and poet who plays the grandfather in the film. In this interview Aonghas tells us that every word spoken in Gaelic is a a triumph and a victory, a thing of beauty and strength. Today, there may only be 58,000 people who can speak Scotch Gaelic but every word spoken by them means that the story and the tradition and the culture is part of a living present. He talks about another storyteller who was asked how he remembered oral stories that were so long they took several nights to tell. The storyteller replied that it is easy, just look at the stones of the wall and the whole story is laid out in the stones.

So, in truth, we all learn who we really are, the meaning of life and of death, through the stories we hold in our hearts. Stories make the wisdom of the past active in the present. Stories hold eternal truths that are a stronghold against the worm-tongue words of politicians. A community can be most fully measured by the stories it holds dear.

Today the old stories are very much alive. The Goddesses are once more present in our world through the stories we tell about them. Stories that jump from heart to heart bearing the truth that tells us who we are and secure in who we are we can scale the inaccessible pinnacles of life.

Juniper Hill

2008-03-22T12:54:00.010Z

My partner spent her childhood in Oxfordshire and has fond memories of the area around Juniper Hill. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that she introduced me to Flora Thompson's Lark Rise trilogy. Flora was born in Juniper Hill (Lark Rise) at the end of 1876. In 1891 she became assistant to the postmistress in the nearby town of Fringford (Candleford Green). She fictionalised her experience of rural Oxfordshire life at the end of the nineteenth century in manuscripts submitted to Oxford University Press in 1938. The Lark Rise trilogy is now regarded as a minor classic and is a finely crafted, intimate description of life in a rural backwater of England.

I doubt that without my partner's personal interest I would have heard of Flora Thompson or read her books. Until recently mentioning Lark Rise to others has almost always produced a blank look. However, this year, all that has changed as the BBC aired a television series loosely based on Flora Thompson's work. This series has been a surprising success with audiences of around six million people and a second series already promised. I guess the series has been such a success because in an increasingly cynical world Flora Thompson's light touch simply celebrates the goodness of human nature and the beauty of the English countryside.

To film the series the BBC lovingly re-created the village of Lark Rise and the market town of Candleford. Sadly the landscape around Juniper Hill is now despoiled by the geodesic domes of Croughton United States Air Force Base which handles one-third of all U.S. military communications in Europe. If the Goddess is saddened by this overt display of military power that has been firmly planted in the landscape She may also be disheartened by another change.

The villages the BBC re-created are faithful reproductions of villages in the late nineteenth century. However, the BBC seems to have forgotten about the wild flowers in the fields. In the late nineteenth century the meadows would have been full of wild flowers. Today even the most common wild flowers are rare in the English countryside. The charity "Plantlife" regularly examines more than 500 sites across the country for the presence of sixty-five varieties of wild flowers. The latest survey is very worrying. Of the 524 sites surveyed 121 no longer had any of the sixty-five varieties. Cornfields are particularly barren of wild flowers today. In Flora Thompson's day Scarlet Pimpernel and Poppy would have been present in every cornfield. Today 52 of the 107 cornfields surveyed showed no sign of either of them. The situation is hardly better in our woodlands where again once common wild flowers are increasingly hard to find.

The truth is that our land is much lesser healthy than it was when Flora was raised in Juniper Hill and she would no doubt be horrified by the state of the fields and woodlands. "Plantlife" estimates that every English county loses one wild flower species every year. But she and the Goddess would be pleased that "Plantlife" was formed to protect wild flowers, fungi and lichens and the habitats in which they are found.

Rooted in the land

2008-03-19T10:26:00.003Z

With the approach of the Spring Equinox there is just the very first sign of greening on some trees. The beginnings of a surge of new growth and renewal in response to the brightening light. Trees are special, they have a very deep presence which is impossible to ignore. We are drawn to them, we have our deepest thoughts beneath their boughs. Though very different we have much in common. Trees are deep rooted in the land. Their connection with the land is firm and fixed. In a real sense they and the land are one. As free roaming creatures women and men do not appear at first to be deeply rooted in the land. At best they are fee to roam freely across the face of the earth. Yet this is to belie a deep truth. Women and men are just as deep rooted in the land as trees.

We all know where home is. After many years or even generations that may not truly be where we live. Wherever there is a diaspora there is a longing for home, a need to visit, to connect, to know. A longing to learn the language and customs of our forebears.

To dispossess someone of the land is one of the greatest crimes that can be committed. To dispossess someone of their land requires terrible force. It is like uprooting an ancient tree that has clung to the land for generations. There is always death, burning, torture and the rape of countless women, the deaths of many children. And then there is the cultural annihilation. The attack on culture and language. The ridiculing of the Goddesses. The forced worship of one all-powerful god or warrior leader. The pain of exile. The cry of the refugee. The tragedy of homelessness. The utter sense of loss.

This month has seen reports of the continuing agony of Darfur, the five year destruction of Iraq and the pain of the Tibetan people. It has seen the un-satiable greed of a few threaten the homes of many. In many ways a typical month in a world of patriarchy in which weak, unthinking men, always fail to learn the lessons of history. A world in which weak men who avoid at all cost war for themselves and their families, send the daughters and sons of others to kill, maim and die on the sole justification of fabrication, lies and Orwellian use of language. They are men guilty of enormous crimes against peoples and their land. They are men in whom we can put no trust.

The Spring Equinox is a brief time of poise and balance when the whole world is equally bathed in life-giving light. Trees achieve their own poise, balance and presence in response to the nurture of their native earth and the call of the light. From them we have much to learn.

Present in the present

2008-02-21T16:11:00.007Z

February has definitely been a month of changes. The temperature has risen as high as 17C and has fallen as low as -9C. There have been sunny days with bright blue skies and barely a breeze. There have been days when thick dark cloud has rushed along the skies as if they expected no tomorrow. There have been times of incredible beauty; especially after several days of sub-zero temperatures. Days when every tree and bush was adorned in sparkling white array. Every day there has been some new sign of life. An earlier sunrise. A later sunset. Crocuses and daffodils and the first signs of green.

To be alive is to be open to change. To live with the Goddess is to be utterly present to change. To be aware of the changing patterns of the moon and the planets, the hours and the seasons, cold and heat, light and colour is to delight in Her. To be conscious of the effects of these changes - small and large, change within change, in a myriad complex patterns - on my own body is to honour Her in my very self.

Some speak of past paradise. Some speak of future heaven. But we are present in the present which is the gift of the Goddess. The present is full of wonder and beauty and magic. It is ever changing, ever unfolding. It is utterly sacred to Her. It is Her present to us and She expects us to delight in it. To align my spiritual practice with the cycles of nature, life and my own body is completely natural. It feels absolutely right. It uplifts the spirit and makes me want to savour every single moment; to dance in joy and thanksgiving.

La Fheile Bhride

2008-01-31T19:02:00.001Z

Imbolc is my favourite festival. The days are noticeably longer. The earth stirs. The first signs of Spring are evident. There are snowdrops everywhere. The greening has begun. Bhride is once more abroad and will bless the hearth and the home of all those who make Her welcome. May you make Her welcome and may She bring healing and protection all the year long.

Mointeach gun Mhuileann - Moorland without Turbines

2008-01-25T16:10:00.000Z

The Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides is home to the stunning sacred landscape that surrounds the Calanais standing stones. Looking over the moorland from Calanais you cannot fail to see Cailleach na Mointeach (the old woman of the moors) a recumbent landscape Goddess often known as the Sleeping Beauty. Every 19 years the moon rises from the Sleeping Beauty's womb, travels along her body and passes through the Calanais stones. The moorland itself is one of the most important peatland areas in Brighid's Isles and a haven for wildlife.

In 2004 plans were put forward to build the UK's largest onshore wind farm on the peatlands of Lewis. The plans proposed the construction of 234 turbines along with their supporting infrastructure. This was reduced to 181 turbines when the plan was revived in 2006. The hope was that the 181 turbines would provide renewable energy to 425,000 homes and also provide new employment opportunities for the remote island.

Campaigners are concerned that the wind farm would cause severe irreversible damage to the peatland. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are concerned about the impact on the habitat of important populations of eagles and black throated divers. A survey of the people for whom the island is home showed that 41% supported the wind farm and 40% opposed it.

Opinion is clearly divided. One member of the Scottish Natural Heritage Board famously said, "If it comes to renewable energy or the rape of the countryside, I am for the rape of the counryside."

In February 2007 councillors on the local council voted 18 to 8 in favour of the wind farm but the final decision rests with the Scottish Government. Today the BBC's Gaelic news service, Radio nan Gaidheal, has announced that Scottish Government ministers are, "minded to refuse" the 181 turbine scheme because of environmental concerns. It is now up to the developer to respond with any new evidence for the wind farm before a final decision is made.

I would love to know what readers of this blog feel as the issues are complicated. As a sacred goddess landscape Lewis is second to none and any development close to Calanais or the Sleeping Beauty would have a huge impact. Deep within me there is something that cries out, this must not happen. On the other hand like any goddess loving person I am aware of the importance of renewable energy, particularly in a country which is once more contemplating following the nuclear option. And of those who live on the Island there will certainly be many who echo another local councillor's comment, "They must make clear what the vision is for the islands. Are we to become an environmental museum? Is any development at all to be allowed in the Western Isles? Clearly the young of Lewis need to feel they have a future on the Island for if they leave for the cities of the mainland a vibrant gaelic speaking culture may itself be in jeopardy.

And the bird sang

2008-01-20T16:05:00.000Z

This morning I settled down for some quiet meditative time. Very soon the sound of a single bird singing drifted through the window. My first rather selfish thought was that the quiet had been broken but then the song was strangely beautiful. Soon the song became the focus of my meditation. I have no way of knowing what it must be like to be a bird. Yet the bird's song was entering my heart.

Then the thought struck me. This bird was being utterly true to itself. It was singing its own song. It was singing with all the grace and beauty, talent and gifts at its disposal. It was proclaiming its life to the world. I am here, alive, in this place, on this morning and it is good, it is very good.

Surely this is what the Goddess asks of us all. That we sing our own song, dance our own dance of life. That we do it with grace and beauty. That we are thankful for our gifts, for our freedom. That we rejoice in the present moment and the present place - not only because they are all we have - but because they are very good.

And so I thanked the bird for all she had shown me and my heart flew.

Ghosts on a lazy Sunday afternoon

2008-01-14T10:09:00.000Z

Lazy Sunday afternoons sometimes lead to idly watching odd programmes on the Television. For as long as I can remember there has been a community hymn singing show called Songs of Praise. Not the sort of programme I would normally watch but the programme also focuses on local communities and yesterday the programme came from Orkney. Now I have a long standing love affair with the sacred landscape of Orkney and so I watched the programme hoping to see a little of those beautiful islands.

During the programme the presenters went to Isbister Cairn, sometimes called, The Tomb of the Eagles. Outside the Cairn there was a discussion about the coming of Christianity to Orkney. Sometimes statements can be breathtaking like:

We have no idea just when Christianity first came to Orkney but we can imagine how the people must have felt when they were rescued from the darkness of their lives.

I just cannot begin to express how misleading this is. To begin with there is a huge span of time between the building of the Isbister Cairn and the first stirrings of Christianity on Orkney. The cairn was constructed around 3000 bce so there is a gap of some 3,500 years - almost twice as long as Christianity has existed. There is simply no connection between the people who built the cairn and the people who encountered the first Christian missionaries other than their common humanity.

More importantly there is plenty of evidence to show that life on Neolithic Orkney was good and probably much better than for most of the time Christianity has held sway.

Orkney is a treasure house of Neolithic sacred landscape. The people who built the many stone circles and cairns were clearly well fed, well housed, highly skilled and had both the time and the energy to give to ritual.

The hymns for Songs of Praise were sung in St. Magnus' Cathedral, a beautiful stone built ritual building. No one would call this Cathedral a tomb even though it is full of memorials to the dead, intimations of death and even the bones of St. Magnus himself. No, for all this the cathedral is a place for the living. My guess is that the many stone cairns of Orkney were also places for the living, for festival and ritual, and for being at one with the ancestors, for seeking their guidance and protection in a very similar way to which Christians ask for the guidance and protection of the saints, who though dead are seen to be very much alive. To put it simply there is nothing new under the Orkney sky, cairn and cathedral fit the same human need.

Today we have our own darkness, exploitation, war, torture, inequality, hierarchy... need I go on.

Comparing our own society, modelled on patriarchal faith, with that of Neolithic Orkney does not show us up at all well. Just who is living in darkness.

The Neolithic village of Skara Brae was continually inhabited for over 600 years. In all that time no one seems to have seen any need to build any fortifications. In all that time no one seems to have seen any need to proclaim his or her status by building a bigger house. Indeed all the houses were built and then rebuilt to the same spacious plan. This was a nurturing, highly stable community that probably only ended with the later emergence of a ruling male elite that ultimately led to the darkness of our own society.

Blessed Solstice

2007-12-22T13:01:00.001Z

A Blessed Solstice to you all.

"Hidden old ones, far lost old ones, we are breathing life's seed, come to our fire, let us warm you.

from Ice by Carolyn Hillyer

A `Ghrian

2007-12-18T15:14:00.000Z

As we approach the Winter Solstice I am reminded that in the Celtic tradition both the Sun and the Moon are perceived as feminine. Each year, close to the Winter Solstice our group dance the sun up to a very ancient song from the Isle of Barra in the Hebrides. It is a beautiful Scots Gaelic song to the sun, "a `Ghrian".

Failte ort féin, a sharian nan tráth,  
`S tu siubhal ard nan speur,
 Do cheumaibh treun air sgéith nan ard,  
`S tu máthair áigh nan reul.

Thu laighe sios an cuan na dith,  
Gun diobhail is gun sgath:  
Thu'g éirigh suas air stuagh na sith,
Mar rioghainn og for blaith.

Hail to you, sun of the seasons  
As you travel the skies aloft,  
Your steps are strong on the wing of the heavens,
You are the glorious mother of the stars.

You lie down in the destructive ocean
Without impairment and without fear;
You rise up on the peaceful wave
Like a queenly maiden in bloom.

This afternoon there was another perfect sunset at Maeshowe.

And for the first time this year the Winter Solstice sunrise will be live on the Internet from Newgrange, see www.newgrange.com/webcast.htm

Maeshowe Webcam

2007-12-07T15:01:00.000Z

Anyone who has visited Maeshowe on the Orkney Islands cannot fail to have been deeply moved by this ancient earth womb. The chamber is 35 metres in diameter and reaches a height of 7 metres; the entrance passage is some 14 metres long. It was constructed around 2750 bce in such a way that the midwinter sunset light shines down the entrance passage into the womb.

As you may have read from my post this time last year, three webcams broadcast the sunset daily around the Winter Solstice. This year all new higher resolution equipment has been installed. If you can't visit Maeshowe itself around the Winter Solstice it is best to point your web browser at www.maeshowe.co.uk between 2.30 and 3 p.m. GMT.

In such northerly parts of Brighid's Isles the winters tend to be cloudy and wet. I guess our ancestors must have been people of real faith as they waited for a clear day so the Winter light would pour down the passage and bring new life. Yet, today there was a beautiful sunset. My spirits are uplifted. It now seems right to prepare for the Winter Solstice celebrations. By a strange bit of serendipity I also received my first Winter Solstice card in the post this morning.

Blessed, sacred days.

Goddess Economy

2007-12-05T11:19:00.001Z

It is always a joy to give and receive gifts around the Winter Solstice and I love the adventure involved in searching for beautiful things that will bring a little magic into someone's life.

Here in Brighid's Isles it isn't always easy. Somehow we have all been asleep whilst the big chain stores of the corporate world have cloned our high streets. Now they all have the same stores selling the same boring things, much of it manufactured by women working long hours for poor wages in the far east. In truth our high streets have become battlegrounds of domination and competition aimed at relieving us of our money as quickly as possible.

I live between two cities, Leeds and York and they couldn't be more different. Leeds is a typical british clone town whilst York is filled with small independent shops offering a veritable cornucopia of magic and delight. In Leeds people look rushed and harassed. In York you can see the delight on people's faces and they seem to have time to stop and socialise.

So York seems to me to be closer to a Goddess economy, one based on beauty, magic, nurture, co-operation and real social interaction. In Leeds you go into a shop and buy. In York you still go into a shop and buy; but you also receive gifts, personal service, the delight of an artisan in her own work, the chance to talk and exchange ideas.

By now you can guess in which city I bought my Winter gifts ! However, Leeds didn't seem to be all corporate greed for there was one oasis of difference which made it actually worthwhile to get the bus into that city. The old Corn Exchange is a beautiful building which was a haven for small independent shops selling their own kind of magic and every weekend the floor was filled with artisans selling their wares. The place buzzed and had its own special atmosphere. It rapidly became THE place for the city's teenagers to socialise. A little Goddess economy in a world of corporate greed.

Then came the bad news. It was suddenly announced by the owners of the Corn Exchange that it was "under-performing" and all the small shopkeepers and artisans were given notice to quit. Instead, the Corn Exchange was to become an expensive restaurant and a luxury food hall.

Needless to say "under-performing" is all about greed. As a value added, gift added, magical, Goddess economy place to socialise and shop the Corn Exchange was quite clearly performing very well indeed.

So last Saturday I took the bus into Leeds to visit the only place that made it worth the effort to travel to that city, you guessed it - the Corn Exchange. Over the last few weeks many of the shops had given up and closed and there were few artisans left weaving their magic on the floor.

But, one thing gave me real hope for the future. On a cold, wet, winter afternoon some 300 teenagers dressed in the finery you could only buy in the magical shops of the Corn Exchange stood outside protesting the closure. Their spirits were high and their behaviour impeccable. Three corporate heavies watched them closely, their presence and their attire quite incongruous. I felt really, really proud of our young people and they gave me real hope for the future and for a truly Goddess Gift economy.

Happy birthday

2007-12-04T16:07:00.000Z

This blog is now one year old so just a little celebration. A big thank you to all the women (and a few men) who have been an inspiration over the year. A prayer for freedom, joy, love and all the blessings Goddess will bring to Her world during the coming year.

The suppression of freedom

2007-11-27T09:30:00.000Z

I hadn't realised it was so long since I last posted on this blog. Samhain always seems to be the busiest time of the year, particularly when it comes to preparing goddess and other journals. It is also the start of that special time of the year when the darkness gives the spirit time to descend into silence and one can just curl up by a single candle flame and be.

I also took a little time out to attend part of the Raise your Banners festival of Political Song. This festival brings together a "number of writers, singers (solo performers and choirs) and musicians as well as sympathetic and supportive people who are committed to songs that comment upon the state of our world and call for a peaceful and democratic society - music and songs that unite like-minded people across the world." This year Julie Felix was one of the solo performers and Seize the Day one of the bands. I am old enough to remember Julie Felix as a special presence on television and it was a delight to rediscover her at the Goddess Conference. She is a truly beautiful person and I have come to greatly admire her and Seize the Day too.

Shortly after Estonia won its independence from Russia I visited Tallinn and well remember the obvious pride of my guide as I was shown the stadium where the people had sung the songs that had marked the beginning of the end of soviet occupation. Song and dance are true ways to tell the story of oppression and bring about liberation.

Today the Independent has published a long article on the feminist and writer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was in London to address the Centre for Social Cohesion. Some of her experiences of patriarchy are deeply harrowing:

"When she was five years old, she was made "pure" by having her genitals hacked out with a knife. It was a simple process; her grandmother and two of her friends pinned her down, pulled her legs apart, and knifed away her clitoris and labia. She remembers the sound even now – "like a butcher, snipping the fat off a piece of meat". The bleeding wound was sewn up, leaving a thick tissue of scars to form as her fleshy chastity belt. She could not walk for two weeks."

Equally harrowing are her descriptions of the suffering her mother endured and how the horror of patriarchy burned into her soul:

"When Ayaan first menstruated, her mother screamed at her: "Filthy prostitute! May you be barren! May you get cancer!" Ayaan tried to commit suicide not long after. But now she says she knows that "all the abuse wasn't really directed at me, but at the world, which had taken her rightful life away.""

As the Solstice approaches this year's must watch film has to be, The Golden Compass. Philip Pullman clearly writes against those who, "pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms."

Ayaan writes, "The Enlightenment cut European culture from its roots in old fixed ideas of magic, kingship, social hierarchy and the domination of priests, and regrafted it on to a great strong trunk that supported the equality of each individual and his right to free opinions and self-rule."

The experience of Estonia reminds us that the "apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms" can just as easily be secular and atheistic as religious. The truth is that patriarchies will always tend to pervert everything that is good and true in the pursuit of power and the desire for dominance.

We all need space and freedom to be and then to grow and to love. We need a touch of magic. At its best spirituality is about just this. In the Golden Compass it is a young woman, Lyra, who evokes the oracle of the Alethiometer with clarity of mind and heart and weaves a web of freedom and truth. May the Goddess help us all evoke freedom and truth and work towards a time when all can truly have a place to grow.

Where the fae are tangible

2007-10-18T10:06:00.000+01:00

I have always enjoyed Neil Gaiman's writing. I took American Gods with me to read in the USA and thoroughly enjoyed Stardust. Last night was the first opportunity to see the film of Stardust in my local cinema and I must admit to going to the very first showing. Films of books are often disappointing if you have let your imagination run riot over the books but I really enjoyed the film and the two hours of screenplay was over all too soon.

There is definitely something deep in the human spirit that hears the call of wild places where the fae are tangible, magic palpable and a Goddess dwells in every spring and grove. I loved the wild landscapes of Stormhold in the film as I love the landscapes of the liminal places of Brighid's Isles. The open grandeur of the North East of England and Highland Scotland; the seascapes of the outer isles are places I visit whenever I can. They bring beauty and magic and wildness to the spirit and we cannot live without such things. Indeed a true teacher is one who opens a child to the beauty and mystery and magic in books, landscape and the human spirit.

It is such wild places that the imagination creates as internal places to enter and explore whenever there is the need to hearken to the Goddess or find healing or sanctuary from the pressures of life. Such landscapes of the heart are a true gift and blessing of the Goddess.

Maybe the rise in the popularity of Halloween has more to do with this than with its obvious commercialism. In the midst of our cities and suburbs, in the midst of our controlled human lives in safe environments, we still need to sense the presence of wild things, to feel magic in the air, to dare to knock on the stranger's door and meet the unknown.

Laa Souney

2007-10-17T15:22:00.000+01:00

The Isle of Man is a small island that stands at the very centre of the British Isles. It has its own Celtic culture and language which is seeing something of a revival. With Samhain approaching I thought it would be interesting to look at the tradition of this small community. On the Isle of Man the Celtic New year is called Sauin, or Laa Souney, in Manx and Hollantide in English. Laa Souney literally means November Day.

The House of Manannan museum's presentation on Celtic life includes an interesting piece about the Goddess Breeshey (Bride) passing by all the houses of Man on Laa Souney to bless them for the coming winter. To catch a glimpse of Her passing was seen as a special blessing.

Sauin's association with the death of the old year, ancestors and hopes for the new year can be seen in two customs recorded on the island.

The ashes of the fire were carefully swept to the hearth and evenly spread by the women just before they retired to bed. In the morning they looked for marks in the ashes. If these marks pointed to the threshold there would be a death in the family but if they pointed away from the threshold there would be a marriage.

Young women would listen at a neighbour's door with salt in their hands and water in their mouth. It is said that the first name they heard would be that of their future husband.

In recent times Laa Souney has given way to Hop-tu-naa (Halloween) but a traditional rhyme still tells of the moon, visits to the well, feasting on a heifer and the possibility of meeting a witch.

This is old Hollantide night;
The moon shines bright;
Cock of the hens;
Supper of the heifer;
Which heifer shall we kill?
The little speckled heifer.
The fore-quarter,
We'll put in the pot for you.
The little hind quarter,
Give to us, give to us.
I tasted the broth,
I scalded my tongue,
I ran to the well,
And drank my fill;
On my way back,
I met a witch cat;
The cat began to grin,
And I ran away.
Where did you run to?
I ran to Scotland.
What were they doing there?
Baking bannocks and roasting collops.

Fifty years of shame

2007-10-11T14:42:00.000+01:00

The true face of patriarchy - the war god's erect weapon

On the 15th of May 1957 a Valiant bomber of the Royal Air Force released Britain's first atomic bomb over Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean. At 10.38 a.m. local time it successfully exploded. Thousands of miles away - and safe from harm in England - Prime Minister Harold Macmillan smiled. He and the patriarchs who rule had achieved the one goal they really, really wanted - a place at the top table of leaders in the post-war world.

By the standards of the biggest player - the United States Government - Macmillan's weapon was desperately small, a very unmanly 300 kilotons. So enlargement was hot on the agenda and everyone had to work flat out to achieve it. At the end of the very same month an 800 kiloton weapon had been exploded. This was followed by a 1.8 megaton device in November and a 3 megaton device in April 1958. At last the Prime Minister had a weapon every bit as manly and as satisfying as anything the US or the USSR governments could erect before the world.

For the prize of power our patriarchs were willing to compromise safety at Windscale where, on October the 10th 1957, the core of the nuclear reactor used to provide material for these weapons caught fire releasing substantial amounts of radioactive material. They were willing to risk the lives of their own military assembled to witness the firestorms. They were willing to ignore the peoples of the Pacific. They were willing to release radioactivity across our Mother the Earth. All this when Britain was bankrupt after the war and desperately needed resources to be channeled towards housing, education and health care.

And for what again - so our leaders could be "real men" before the United States Government and the world. So they could be proud to have the capability of far surpassing the worst biblical genocides with a weapon that could destroy not just cities - like Sodom and Gomorrah - but entire regions.

Fifty years later Britain is still a nuclear power - our leaders still want to stand erect as "real men" in Iraq and throughout the world even if only from the safety of their bullet-proof vehicles in London. Fifty years later Britain's offence expenditure stands at 33.4 billion pounds a year, second only to the United States. Fifty years of shame.

Fifty years later some interesting reports have been produced. The Economist ranked 111 countries on the quality of life of their citizens. They looked at important factors like gender equality, health, well-being and freedom. The top ranking country on this scale was Ireland, followed by Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. Britain came a poor 29th. The 2006 Human Development Index of the UN ranks Norway, Iceland, Australia and Ireland as the top four countries with Britain a poor 18th.

There is a pattern here. Countries with low offence budgets whose leaders don't feel the need to prove their "manhood" before the United States Government and the world are by far the best countries in which to live. Ireland is right next to Britain but does so much better.

Now, if you haven't already, take a look at Athana's blog. She points the way forward far more cogently then I.

Hare Moon Gazing

2007-10-05T18:18:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I visited Oxford and the nearby village of Woodstock and happened to glance in the window of an art gallery. My eye was met by a beautiful moon gazing hare and I knew she was just meant for my altar and hearth. So I went inside and asked to see her. The lady in the gallery was obviously puzzled by my description but brought the hare from the window for me to see. Whilst I was getting acquainted with the energy of the hare the lady was looking for information on the artist and the ceramic. The artist turned out to be Linda Heaton-Harris who specialises in hand built one-off pieces of British wildlife. She had entitled the ceramic, "Hare Moon Gazing." The lady said, "Full marks for getting the name right. He will be going to a good home." "Yes" I replied, "She will."

All over the world the hare is a character in the myths of our ancestors. She is always associated with the moon and fertility and often associated with immortality, wisdom and bravery. Although in Britain people now talk about 'the man in the moon' most cultures know that the moon bears the image of a hare. In China the moon hare carries a mortar and pestle in which she mixes a potion of immortality. In Africa there is a story of how the moon goddess was so pleased with men and women that she sent the moon hare with a promise of immortality.

In Britain hares were once seen as royal animals and it was forbidden to hunt them. Many Celtic goddesses and legendary women are associated with hares. There are many stories of women shape-shifting into hares. Certainly their beautiful courtship dances, wild sexual energy and night activity make them fascinating, magical animals.

Sadly hares were maligned by the church, associated with madness and decried as animals of ill-omen. Dancing hares at night were said to be covens of witches dancing. Shape-shifting witches in the form of hares were said to dry up the udders of cows and cause women to miscarry or give birth to a child with a hare-lip.

But, I will have none of that. Like the hare I will dance about the moon and let her work her magic and I know that my beautiful hare will evoke the goddess in my heart.

Mi Mean Fomhair

2007-09-20T09:00:00.000+01:00

The Irish have a long tradition of starting seasons at the very first sign of their coming. So the summer months are May, June and July (Mi Bealtaine, Mi Meitheamh and Mi Iuil) and Autumn begins at Lunasa. The months of Autumn are then August, September and October (Mi Lunasa, Mi Mean Fomhair and Mi Deireadh Fomhair). And Winter starts at Samhain. Mi Mean Fomhair can be translated as Middle of Autumn or Middle of Harvest and Mi Deireadh Fomhair as End of Autumn or End of Harvest.

I love the way this system for Autumn links in with harvest and how it places the solstices and equinoxes at the centre of the seasons. I love the way each season begins at its conception rather than its birth. How even in the summer heat of August we know that Autumn is here. How in the cold chill of February Spring is already stirring. In a very real sense the Goddess is always pointing us to the first stirrings of hidden possibility.

And so in the middle of Autumn we stand at the Autumn Equinox - a point of balance all across Mother Earth - as the North moves into the dark and the South into the light.

Mi Mean Fomhair is such a beautiful month, the light, the climate, seem just right. The leaves are beginning to turn and soon the trees will be a riot of glorious colour and we can dance through the fallen leaves. It is a time when our Mother gives us such abundance. A time to pick apples fresh from the tree and gather blackberries from the hedgerows. A time when the moon and stars appear to shine more brightly than in the summer as if they exult in the Earth's good fortune.

And so the North moves into the dark. The Goddess has taught me to love the dark. Dark is not evil - it is the womb from which all is born. Here in Brighid's Isles we are blessed with many Neolithic womb spaces. In remote places you can just curl up inside and let the Goddess birth visions in the soul. But every home has its own womb space in winter where visions come to birth. As the dark rises it is time to draw the curtains, turn off the lights, curl up before the fire and dream dreams that can be envisioned in the reality of our world.

Patriarchy will be the end of us all

2007-09-18T13:48:00.001+01:00

The news is full of reports that Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record this summer. Scientists monitoring the ice are saying that the reduction this year has been extreme, way beyond any models. There has been a drop of some 1,000,000 square kilometres in just one summer. Since 1980 the arctic sea ice extent has fallen from 7,800,000 sq. km to just 4,200,000 sq. km - an average of 133,000 sq. km a year.

And what is the spin on this given to us by the media? Would you believe they are talking up the "opportunities" this will give for vessels to trim thousands of miles from Europe to Asia by bypassing the Panama Canal. And if that is not bad enough they then go on to tell us that 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden in the Arctic and there is now going to be a rush from countries including Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States to claim territory and exploit the oil and gas.

So our patriarchal response to an environmental catastrophe of monumental proportions brought on by our over use of oil and gas is for nation states to prepare for war to claim the right to extract even more oil and gas so that an environmental catastrophe can be turned into an environmental cataclysm. And a once pristine environment which has become a sink for human pollution is to become even more polluted by ship owners and multinationals making a quick buck.

I am utterly speechless.

How did we become so disconnected from our Mother's body that we seek to disfigure and rape her for our own short term satisfaction and sense of power ?

When we treat our Mother like this it is so easy to treat women like this too. According to amnesty international 1 in 3 women have been beaten, raped or abused in their lifetime. Seventy percent of the casualties of recent conflicts have been non-combatants and 80% of these have been women and children.

Reporting on Darfur amnesty said, "Women and girls are being attacked, not only to dehumanize the women themselves but also to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and to persecute the community to which they belong… The suffering and abuse endured by these women goes far beyond the actual rape. Rape has a devastating and ongoing impact on the health of women and girls and survivors now face a lifetime of stigma and marginalisation from their own families and communities." One harrowing interview includes the following, "Five to six men would rape us, one after the other, for hours during six days, every night. My husband could not forgive me after this, he disowned me."

In the face of this amnesty international called for women to have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion, when their health or human rights are in danger.

And the patriarchal response to this massive human tragedy in a land that has no oil below its deserts is to call for a cut of all funding for amnesty's work. No wonder one of the fathers of this patriarchal sect included this line in his daily prayer, "Father, I thank you that I was not born a woman."

I am utterly speechless.

I long and yearn for the day when to be born a woman is the highest honour and all people are re-connected to our Mother. My Goddess prayer is that it is not too late.

Joys and Trials meme

2007-08-21T16:33:00.000+01:00

Eirsinitiate from Birch Grove has tagged me for her meme.

"I really want to know what everyone loves about the religions they call their own, and what trials they face in adhereing to those beliefs. I think we might have more in common than we all think.

Here are the rules:

You have to use your own belief system for the meme. No fair using someone else’s to make a joke or satire. Being humorous about your own religion is encouraged!
You have to have at least one joy and one trial. More are encouraged. And no, they don’t have to be equal in length, but please be honest.
You have to tag at least one other person. More are appreciated!
Please post these rules!"

Many thanks, and just to quietly and gently say that I am happier with belief system than religion to describe my affinity to the Goddess Movement.

Joys in no particular order

Accepting that I don't have or need absolute truth - indeed that absolute truth is dangerous and illusory.

Belonging to an open accepting family that is open to all without any pre-conditions.

Touching a more loving, more caring way of living that acknowledges the rhythms of life and the universe.

Touching magic and mystery and wonder in every aspect of life.

Owning my own faith and practice - no professional clergy - oh yes and it is OK to be wild and ecstatic and dance and drum and feel free in my body at rituals.

Having a belief that upholds activism and supports things that really just should be - like justice, peace, equality, delight in the body and sexuality, acceptance and delight in difference, care for the environment ...

I could go on with a much longer list but just read the rest of the blog.

So what of the Trials

Living a six hour journey from the Goddess Temple I love. OK sacred space is everywhere and I am happy to drop into the nearest church and light a candle to a Goddess but there is something very special about a Temple that is not only dedicated to the Goddess but is filled with the beauty so many people have contributed.

Knowing that so much has been forgotten that should have been remembered and may never be fully recovered.

Having to be a little practical when burning candles and incense, which I do - a lot :)

And I now tag the folk over at Medusa Coils

BBC Coverage of Goddess Conference

2007-08-15T12:54:00.001+01:00

Goddess Conference postscript

2007-08-09T19:50:00.000+01:00

I wanted to close these posts on the Goddess Conference with a note about two events connected with the Conference, Caroline Probyn's exhibition and Alessandra Belloni's drama on the Black Madonna.

Caroline was asked to paint a Goddess for each of the eight festivals of the wheel of the year to hang over the altar in the Goddess Temple. She writes, "The opportunity to paint them was brought to me by a friend and priestess of the Goddess temple and it was only in the process of painting that I began to experience a tangible presence beyond myself that then became my inspiration for the rest of the cycle. As such, these paintings were a gift to me from the ‘beyond’! "

The result of her inspiration are the paintings that were beautifully displayed in the Miracles Room in the Glastonbury Courtyard. To enter the sacred space she created was to be enfolded in the living presence of the Goddesses - a truly healing experience. She writes, "Perhaps these works will act as a mirror, bringing you closer to her aspects within yourself. That is my hope. So please don’t look for her in the paints on the canvas or in the beautiful cloths that shroud her different forms ... you won’t find her there, though Her name can be heard through all of those things. The truth of her living presence breathes in the Silence of your own heart. Listen for her there and honour her, because our world really needs her just now ..."

Alessandra's powerful singing to the sound of the tambourine and her dances are well known. It was a delight to spend a last evening in Glastonbury at a sacred drama at which the story of the Black Madonna was beautifully expounded through her song and through dance. The Black Madonna tradition includes black and enthroned representations of the mother and child. Most are from the 12th to 15th centuries. Stephen Benko says, "The Black Madonna is the ancient earth-goddess converted to Christianity." His argument begins by noting that many goddesses were pictured as black, among them Artemis of Ephesus, Isis, Ceres, and others. Ceres, the Roman goddess of agricultural fertility is particularly important. Her Greek equivalent, Demeter, derives from Ge-meter or Earth Mother. The best fertile soil is black in color and the blacker it is, the more suited it is for agriculture.

Goddess Conference Days 4 - 5

2007-08-07T19:30:00.000+01:00

Saturday began with a superb illustrated presentation by Max Dashu on The Old Goddess of the Witches. Her research on the persistence of Goddess Paganism in mediaeval Europe is fascinating. She ranged over reverence to the Goddess in planting and harvesting, in spinning and in weaving; the Goddess as spinner and stone raiser, shamanic myths of flight and much more. I found her study of the etymology of Goddess names particularly interesting - Erda, Hulda, Holle, Holt, Perchta, Perhta, Habonde, Abundia...

This was followed by a celebration of Lady Olivia's 90th birthday. Sometimes pagan bloggers talk about the pretentious titles some people love. Well Lady Olivia really can claim that title and an ancestral home, Clonegal Castle in Ireland. She is, of course, the co-founder of the Fellowship of Isis and a quite remarkable lady! I am always amazed how easily she organises a whole hall full of people and gets them moving in beautiful ritual in no time at all.

Rose Flint led a short (too short but time was pressing) presentation on Ecology and encouraged everyone to weave very practical work to honour Mother Earth into their daily spiritual practice.

The morning ended with a beautiful ceremony to crown Queens and Crones and honour their lives, their wisdom and their work for the Goddess. Each woman spoke her own truth and received a beautiful crown. Two men were also crowned as Sages.

The afternoon is given over to an Abundance Fair where anyone at the Conference can sell their own beautiful hand crafted work. Goddess loving women seem to be especially talented and it is very easy to spend too much money on the most wonderful items.

Saturday evening by tradition is time for a masked ball. Amazing costumes, lots of fun, wonderful music provided by Julie Felix and the Daughters of Gaia. Lots and lots of Goddess Songs and the opportunity to dance and dance and dance.

On Sunday Morning everyone processes from the Town Hall up the High Street along to Chalice Well and then to the top of the Tor. It is always a colourful and noisy occasion with Lydia's Banners, colourful dress, drums and horns and voice. A treat for the tourists who all stop to take lots of photographs. This year it was also filmed and broadcast live by the BBC on their Sunday morning religious programme, Heaven and Earth. The BBC also included interviews with two Priestesses, Annabel and Katinka who gave clear and intelligent answers to the interviewers questions. Now in its twelfth year the Goddess Conference goes main stream on the BBC, the world is indeed beginning to change!

The procession stops at the Chalice Well for song and ritual and fun with the water ! It then wends its way up the Tor with the banners flying proud in the wind. The Goddess always seems to shine on the Conference and the climb up the Tor was made in the intense heat of the hottest day of the Summer so far! The Tor fruit fest provided welcome refreshment before we all danced the spiral dance around the summit.

Sunday afternoon and the Conference is almost over. A time to draw the raffle in support of the Goddess Temple, to exchange gifts and to thank all those wonderful people who work so hard to make it all a huge success. Then the closing ceremony, jubilant singing of, "The circle is open but unbroken. May the peace of the Goddess be ever in your heart" and lots of hugs and farewells and promises to meet again next year.

I hope to conclude tomorrow with a short piece on the Concert on the Monday evening after the Conference and a note about Caroline Probyn's beautiful exhibition in the Miracles Room during the Conference.

Goddess Conference Days 2 - 3

2007-08-06T14:12:00.000+01:00

Well my good intentions to post everyday throughout the conference went totally awry due to the sheer energy of the event. Now the conference is over and I am staying in Glastonbury one more day to gently ground and write a little more.

Thursday morning was given over to some excellent speakers who wove a loving web of story around the crone. Sheila Rose Bright began the morning by linking our passage through life to the passage of Saturn around the sun. By the time we are in our 59th year Saturn has made two complete orbits and we are ready to become elders with an acquired wisdom to share. Sheila was followed by the author, Donna Henes, who gave a persuasive argument for a four fold staging of a woman's life. The Maiden, Mother, Crone paradigm was defined by a man. Yet there are four seasons, four elements, four directions so why not four stages of life - Maiden, Mother, Queen and Crone? This is becoming much more important as many of us live longer in energy and strength well into our later years.

Jane Meredith then gave a fascinating exposition of the Dark Queen who lurks in so many fairy tales and myths. It is this character who is so necessary for our growth to maturity and power. For she is the one who leads the young woman through a death experience to find her true strength. To find that strength is to stand against a society that does all it can to keep women young and weak and vulnerable.

Thursday afternoon is given over to a series of eleven workshops and you have to choose just one ! Mike Jones led one for men on "Embracing the Dark Goddess." In this we explored how the Dark Goddess pushes us into the present and how important it is to be present to ourselves and the world. We looked at ways to be present to our world and to bring focus to ritual tasks such as smudging and calling the quarters.

Thursday evening there was a procession to Chalice Hill for a hilltop ceremony followed by the Lammas bonfire. The conference can be very intensive so at this point I took a little time out to meet up with friends over a meal and a glass of good beer.

Friday proved to be a very special, powerful and emotive day. The morning's talks by Leslene Della-Madre and Janet Childs were woven around the theme of death, dying and grief. These were followed by a whole hour given over to singing with Carolyn Hillyer songs of ancient spirit, hidden memory and unseen power - utter magic !

The Friday afternoon was given over to a session, entitled Transforming Deep Wounds of the Feminine. By its very nature this was a very private, safe, deeply moving event. Precisely because of this it would be wrong to say more except just to add that personally I found it to be very very healing and releasing.

Goddess Conference Day 1

2007-08-02T18:18:00.000+01:00

Registration at the Conference is a time to meet old friends, decorate the central Goddess and light a candle at the altar. It is also a time to take in all the wonderful work that has been put in to decorate the sacred space. Lydia Ruyle's banners always hang from the ceiling and this year the hall was bedecked with a myriad of crone banners representing the sheer breadth and depth of the human imagination of the crone. Lydia, herself began the afternoon with a visual journey through the crones on her banners. She reminded us all that, "Crones don't whine, they do!" They use their wisdom and their power to work for justice and peace. They make sure that women are heard and honoured.

As Lydia spoke I thought of Lindis Percy who has refused to accept the presence of US military bases, or indeed any military bases on the land of her grandmothers. Well into her sixties she has been detained over 150 times. During the conflict in Iraq, she was arrested after she breached security at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and spent two hours underneath a US B-52 bomber being prepared for deployment to the Gulf. She was jailed for nine months for trespassing on on the US Spy Base at Menwith Hill and served nine days of a 14-day sentence for climbing over a perimeter fence and trespassing at RAF Alconbury. Just think how different our world might be if there were more crones like Lindis. A timely reminder to those in power from another crone at the Conference, "Remember you really get on the wrong side of the crone if you try and pull rank - she really really doesn't like that!"

Lydia was followed by another great crone, Julie Felix, a truly professional and inspiring singer who has been singing protest songs since the 1960's. She always receives a warm welcome at the Conference and gets us all on our feet dancing in the aisles.

The evening is given over to the Opening Ceremony. This year the nine clans of the Conference called in the nine grandmothers with powerful song to the accompaniment of drums and the rhythmic clacking of dozens of crone stones. The priestesses enacted a scared drama acting as oracles for the grandmothers' messages. Then there was lots and lots of dance and song and humour; poetry that moved to tears and finally a dance evoking the Descent of Innana into the underworld. It is always impossible to even begin to speak of the power and vigour of these special ceremonies.

Speaking of dance it was a delight to once again dance at the Conference with the amazing Alessandra Belloni the leading exponent of the erotic trance dance known as the Tarantella :

"The wild ecstatic dance known as the Tarantella was originally performed on both the summer and winter solstice. Dancers dressed as witches and devils gathered around the famous tree known as Benevento to celebrate the darkest night with a musical exorcism to expell the evil spirits and welcome the rebirth of the bright light for the new coming year.

This form of ecstatic dance originated in ancient Greece as a rite of devotion to the god Dionysus (god of ecstasy and wine). The participating women were called Baccanti, and later, in Italy, Tarantati, and they danced in a wild frenzy to free themselves of repressed sexual desires. By jumping like spiders, lying on their backs, spinning and stomping their feet to a fast 12/8 beat, the dancers symbolically expelled the poison from the imaginary spider bite and release themselves from their fears and repression."

The Goddess truly liberates, breaking all the chains of convention that bind us. She lifts us above our sense of self-doubt. She frees us to truly be, to do, to make things happen. She changes everything she touches.

Woman Shaman

2007-07-31T21:22:00.000+01:00

I have been looking forward to meeting Max Dashu ever since I knew that she was making her first visit to the UK to attend the Goddess Conference. Today fifteen of us had the privilege of meeting with her for a workshop on Woman Shaman. She definitely lived up to the expectation with her scholarship and sheer depth of knowledge about women as drummers, dreamers, oracles, healers, ecstatic dancers, shapeshifters and spirit-riders across the continents and the generations. A fascinating slide presentation was followed by the opportunity to engage in ecstatic dance, to cast off all that holds us back and to receive healing. To learn more take a look at her website The Suppressed Histories

Today has been a special day, meeting Max Dashu, the Lammas Ceremony at the Goddess Temple, a flame day as a flamekeeper of Brighid and now the moon is rising just past its fullness but utterly beautiful in the night sky. Tomorrow the Goddess Conference itself opens.

A blessed Lammas to all.

Quality Time

2007-07-29T09:06:00.000+01:00

It seems a while since I last posted. July was a very busy month and also very wet! But now the sun is shining, the forecast is set fair for the week and I am in Glastonbury for the Goddess Conference. Quality time to catch up with good friends, climb the Tor, relax in the Chalice Well Gardens and enjoy the Conference. The Conference itself begins on Wednesday but before that I am looking forward to some of the Fringe events. Singing the Bones with Danu Fox, a celebration of the ancestors and a day with Max Dashu on Tuesday.

More posts as the week progresses.

Midsummer madness and a tag

2007-06-26T09:03:00.000+01:00

It seems a while since I last posted. As you know I took a three week vacation in May to celebrate some significant life events. I usually don't take anyway near so long at once and, of course, returned to a large backlog of work. Also this time of year I have the joy and great privilege of designing and printing the programme and other material for the Lammas Glastonbury Goddess Conference which takes up quite a lot of time. And, if all that is not enough, I finally took the plunge and signed up for an Irish Gaelic summer school at a local college.

Since I last posted Medusa has written a very good article entitled, Why Goddess Temples. Sadly I live a five hour drive from the Glastonbury Goddess Temple so my visits are quite limited but when I am in Glastonbury I always make a point of spending quality time there. So here are three reasons why the Temple is important. Firstly, the very fact that the Temple is means that there is a living community attached to it. The priestesses and priests, the melissas who keep the Temple open, the artists and craftspeople who grace it with their beautiful creations, those who see it as their spiritual home, the madrons who help pay the bills... This community is a place to be, a place to grow, a place to give, a place to receive... Secondly, the Temple is a focused sacred space graced by the presence of the Goddess and the practice of those who use it. It is one of the few places I know where it is possible to spend two or three hours in personal spiritual practice with consummate ease simply because the atmosphere is so conducive to it. Thirdly, but not finally ! a Temple open to all regardless of race, creed, gender, etc. is a sign to all that the Goddess is very much alive in our land.

Thinking about the Temple and midsummer; Domnu, Queen of the Deep and Lady of the Springs and Wells is one of the Goddesses honoured there at the Summer Solstice. I am delighted that Caroline Probyn, one of the Temple artists, has given me permission to place her beautiful image of Domnu at the head of this post. Thank you Caroline.

June in the North of England has been a very wet month 280% above average. In fact where I live it is not only the wettest June since records began in the mid-nineteenth century, it is also the wettest month since records began - beating even the records for traditionally very wet months like October. On several days more than a month's rainfall has fallen in a few hours resulting in widespread floods. Now, of course, there have always been floods. The climate in Brigid's Isles has always been variable and unpredictable. However, climate model predictions are showing that very intense rainfall is going to become much more common here. I recently read that a one degree rise in average global temperature results in a 6% increase in water trapped in the atmosphere, all of which has to fall as rain somewhere. Here we have been treating our Mother very badly, demanding of Her more than three times as much as Her wonderful bounty can provide and yet we still talk about growth and demand more and more. Maybe a Goddess Temple is a small public stand against the psychosis of patriarchy and the insanity of looking for rapture, a saviour or a prophet but we have to begin somewhere.

On a lighter note it was a delight to join a group of Goddess loving people in Nottingham to celebrate the Solstice and give honour to Domnu.

On Saturday I was tagged by Terri Moore in Johannesburg. Here are the Rules: Players start with 8 random facts about themselves. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Now I am not sure I can play simply because I have not been blogging long enough to tag 8 other people who have not already been tagged themselves. But I hope this does not preclude me from providing 8 random (and probably useless facts) about myself for Terri's delight.

1. I am never happier than when I am in a liminal place close to water. I love the outer isles of Brighid's Isles particularly the Outer Hebrides and Orkney.

2. I worship the Chocolate Goddess especially if She is Fair Trade.

3. I have never been south of the equator although I have been 15 miles north of it.

4. I have been using computers since the 1970's and would find it really hard to give up my Apple Macs.

5. I am a great lover of myth and story and delight in spinning a good tale.

6. I really appreciate silent starlit nights.

7. The hearth is the centre of my home and my altar.

8. I am very good at mathematics and very bad at sport.

Now just to play along a little I tag Nichole and Pammy

Thinking Blogger Award

2007-06-02T17:45:00.000+01:00

Whilst I was on my travels in New England I was surprised and delighted to discover that I had been nominated for a "Thinking Blogger Award" by Nichole over at A Pagan Sojourn. On my return home, after three weeks away, there were a hundred and one things to catch up on. So I didn't get chance to say thank you or nominate 5 blogs that make me think. One person I was going to nominate was Terri Moore at Aquila ka Hecate but this morning I discover she has also nominated me. I am not sure I deserve one nomination let along two, but a big thank you to you both. Now I get to nominate five bloggers who make me think and they are in alphabetical order :

1. Anne Johnson - the one and only out of 341,000 in the United States. She not only makes me think but she always brightens my day with her wonderful writing. I really do wish I could have met one of her pet dinosaurs whilst I was in the USA.

2. Athana - for her relentless posts encouraging us all to gently replace bronze age war gods and messianic delusions with some good thealogy.

3. Kay - for her honest exploration of spirituality and for daring to turn out the light and dream dreams.

4. Richard Bartholomew - for his meticulous research on mainstream religion and the utter insanity that comes from being sure you possess absolute truth.

5. The Keeper of the Grove - for her delightful blog on life, Norse Paganism and the Goddesses in her life.

If you have been tagged this is how you play :

1.Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote

Roots

2007-05-27T23:43:00.000+01:00

This is the close of my last day in New England. At 8.10 p.m. tomorrow my flight leaves Boston MA for Manchester UK. In 15 days I have driven over 1,000 miles around six states. It has been quite an experience, day time temperatures have been as low as 42F and as high as 94F. Miles and miles of forests and lakes have filled the soul with beauty and the coast of Cape Cod has its own special charm.

In days gone by when people travelled they often took with them a little of the good soil from home. We are truly rooted in the place we live and we loose something of our soul if we are away for too long. The followers of big monotheistic faiths are sure their omnipotent God is everywhere and seem to have little regard for place. Christmas is still celebrated in December and Easter in March or April south of the Equator. But what about those of us who are polytheists, who touch "smaller" more intimate Goddesses and Gods?

At home in Brighid's Isles my roots go deep into the soil. I know all the places that Brighid has been honoured. The places She was celebrated by my ancestors, and is still celebrated today, are etched into the map of my heart. I know deep within my soul that Verbeia can be found in the Wharfe Valley, Rhiannon and Cerridwen in the valleys of Wales, the Morgans in Avalon.

When I travel the Goddesses I love come along in my heart and soul. I know they are with me. I know they watch over me as I travel. But I know too that they, like me, are divorced from their roots in place.

Here in New England Spirits of Place I cannot name have touched me. Like the American people themselves they have given me a warm and friendly welcome. I have honoured them in my heart. I have left offerings in thanks for their welcome and their guardianship of this beautiful part of the world. But I know they will never be part of me in the way Brighid, Cerridwen, Rhiannon and Verbeia are - for we are rooted in the same land.

Maybe this is why many Americans still long for a connection with Ireland or their ancestral home in Europe. These ancestral connections run much deeper than many people today are even willing to contemplate. One of the great advantages of being a polytheist, apart from the fact that it is the natural human religious state, is that it deepens one's roots and sense of place.

So it is good to travel, to see new places, to expand the mind and the heart, but it will be good to return home and to push my toes into the soil of the Goddesses I love, the soil of the ancestors I call upon each Samhain.

Green Mountains

2007-05-22T23:01:00.000+01:00

We have been exploring the Green Mountains of Vermont. Total beauty, the Goddess arrayed in all her finest garments, ancient guardians of place, the soul totally uplifted. Birch trees, sacred to the Goddess in abundance. Beautiful villages with large churches of all denominations and more but who would want to worship inside when the Goddess beckons from Her land. For the past two days we have had perfect blue skies, Goddess putting on her very best show.

We have friends who are setting up an organic farm and trying to generate all their own electricity from solar panels. We visited them for the very first time at home and were stunned at the sheer beauty of the view from their verandah. I think they will have their work well and truly cut out for the coming years but well worth the effort.

New England

2007-05-19T23:30:00.000+01:00

Well my wife and I arrived at Logan airport, Boston MA, late Monday evening looking forward to two days to look around before picking up a car for a tour round New England. Boston turned out to be delightful. The weather was warm and sunny, the city historic and attractive, the people, polite and helpful. Tuesday we did the usual tourist thing.

Wednesday we decided it would be an idea to take the train to Salem for the day. Somehow trains around the world always seem to find their way through the most unattractive part of any city. Salem proved a mixed bag. The Salem Witch Museum, interestingly located in a former church, did a good job of narrating the history of the witch hysteria that took over the town. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the girls caught up in such a restrictive environment. One comment rang so true, the puritans had fled intolerance and then became totally intolerant themselves. After the history they also made a passable, if brief, attempt at explaining contemporary Wicca. In contrast the Witch Village was so tacky that the nearest thing I can compare it to is the ghost train at Blackpool. And to make matters worse everything they said about witchcraft was utter rubbish. Still we found a couple of interesting shops to brighten us up before getting the train back to Boston.

After picking up the car on Thursday we drove up to Wiscasset which proclaims itself to be the, The Prettiest Village in Maine. It certainly was very pretty though by Friday the temperature had plumetted to 42F and it was pouring it down with rain. Despite the rain and cold we explored Boothbay Harbor. A very pretty place with one of the strangest shops I have ever been in, Enchantments. Two floors with every nook and cranny filled with pagan and new age paraphanalia of every kind and description and a decent selection of books on witchcraft. So many things to make us smile on a wet day.

Saturday morning and the rain has stopped and the temperature rising. We set the satnav to guide us to Lincoln in the White Mountains by the shortest route which took us down lots of little roads, some unpaved, through endless woodland to the start of the Kancamagus Highway. Unutterably beautiful - lots of places to stop, each with their own very special spirit of place. We made many offerings at rivers and falls and places of total beauty. I took the photo above just as the warming day was raising a magical mist from the river. If ever there is a place beloved of the fey this has to be it.

Oh, and I brought Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" with me to read which I have now nearly finished. I love this author and the way he weaves his own special kind of story. Maybe more from New England if I get internet access again.

Glastonbury

2007-05-11T15:06:00.000+01:00

I am in Glastonbury for a few days meeting old friends and spending quiet time in the Goddess Temple. I Just couldn't resist posting these photographs I took this morning of the Temple arrayed in Beltane glory. The beautiful evocative painting over the altar is by Dorrie Joy. I can hardly express what an utter joy it is to be back in this very special space.

Beltane

2007-05-09T15:08:00.000+01:00

The Beltane period has been very busy and I have not had time to post. So what have I been up to?

The page layout and printing of the Beltane edition of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple Newsletter. This quarterly newsletter is full of Goddess articles and news and is mailed to supporters of the Temple. As good things never come singly another page layout job came along - the summer edition of Northern Earth an excellent quarterly journal that caters for anyone with an inquiring interest in historical landscapes, folk lore and custom, earth-based consciousness and spirituality or a 'Gaian' vision of the Earth.

But Beltane was not entirely spent with InDesign on my Apple Mac! I spent two days driving around some of the sacred sites of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire with a delightful lady from the USA who was on her first visit to Europe and wanted to see things, 'off the main tourist trail.'

The first day we visited two turf labyrinths (Julian's Bower at Alkborough and the Caerdroia labyrinth at Dalby north of York) before visiting Britain's tallest standing stone, the Rudston Monolith. Rudston is at the heart of a sacred site recorded by the Romans as a centre of worship of the Goddess Brigantia.

The second day we visited The Three Sisters at Boroughbridge - triple standing stones that are unfortunately better known as The Devil's Arrows. These stones must have also impressed the Celtic Brigantes as they built an important settlement nearby. Then we drove to various sites along the river Wharfe, sacred to the Goddess Verbeia, before dropping into Ilkley to see the Roman Goddess Altars that are displayed in the parish church.

Thornborough Henges are not far from the Three Sisters. This is one of the most important Neolithic structures in Britain. The Henges are on private land so it was a joy to visit the central henge for the Sacred Brigantia Beltane celebrations. This is a relaxed gathering to celebrate the return of the sun and the start of summer. Heading this post is a photo I took of Brigantia and Herne at Thornborough.

Oh and I have finally taken the plunge and started Irish Gaelic evening classes. Now I am travelling for a while beginning in Glastonbury before flying to Boston (USA not Lincolnshire :) )

Blackthorn

2007-04-18T09:44:00.000+01:00

This Spring has seen an absolute abundance of Blackthorn blossom. The Blackthorn blooms earlier than the Hawthorn because it fills its bare branches with snowy white flowers before it comes into leaf. This makes it one of the great messengers of the promise of warmer longer days. A dazzling display of tender white flowers filling the hedgerows - life is restored from the death of winter.

Yet whilst the Hawthorn is honoured the Blackthorn is thought to bring bad luck and has even been decried as the tree that provided the crown of thorns for Jesus' crucifixion. So I would like to give a little honour to the Blackthorn to give her thanks for her wonderful display of blossom in the early Spring. To cherish her for the way she offers protection to small creatures. To thank her for helping to build woodland by protecting the tender shoots of tall trees from the hunger of large animals. For the tonic of flowers and fruits and the wonder of sloe gin. She truly evokes the nurturing magic of the Goddess.

Now I cannot wait for the Hawthorn blossom, its heady, erotic scent and the promise of what a friend calls, The Festival of Sockoff. In case you do not know Sockoff is that special moment when it is warm enough to free the feet of shoes and socks and press your toes into the loving embrace of Mother Earth.

Aisling Dhuibhneach

2007-04-06T18:55:00.000+01:00

Here is your true spokeswoman,
who lives in the soul's many coloured barn.
Stay beside her and she will lead you
on the conscious path of the mantra
in over the threshold of quiet,
where you will hear
the heart and breath of the universe
beating rhythmically
in ecstasy's harmony.

As we enter the ecstasy of Spring I couldn't resist posting this beautiful poem by Brid Ni Mhorain.

"walk lightly in the Spring. Mother Earth is pregnant" (Kiowa saying)

Lady of the Labyrinth

2007-03-26T12:24:00.000+01:00

My partner and I have just returned from a weekend of sacred dance with June Watts deep in rural Wales. We stayed in a lovely early twentieth century house set in a delightful wooded valley. Lambs in the fields, swathes of daffodils in the gardens, everything bursting with life in the sunshine. We created a traditional seven circuit labyrinth in the garden and danced to honour Ariadne and explore Her myth. Beloved Ariadne, source of creativity in nature and human culture. Some words of Homer came to mind, Diadalos created a dancing place for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. How the Goddess loves the dancing place!

We remembered how the Greeks had spun the myth to discredit the Minoan way. The bull turned into a monster, The labyrinth as a place of human sacrifice. Ariadne portrayed as the betrayer. We danced for truth, for beauty, for Ariadne. One dance I found particularly evocative. Set to an ancient melody with an unfamiliar rhythm it became our processional dance for those who would leap the bull and find life.

One final thing made the weekend perfect. The secluded spot meant it was possible to experience real darkness. I live close enough to the city to be bathed in light pollution at night. At home it is never possible to experience real darkness and the utter beauty of star light. The human heart yearns for the peace and beauty of real darkness. To enter the dark is to enter the labyrinth, to walk an unknown path, to feel the Goddess there beside you and at the still centre touch timeless eternity.

Happy Oestara

2007-03-20T15:58:00.000Z

Vernal Equinox folklore relating to hares can be found in both Celtic and Saxon traditions. In Wales the Vernal Equinox is sometimes known as Gwyl Canol Gwenwynol. In that land a story is told of Melangell and the hare. Though the story is from Christian Times it seems to evoke a much more ancient Goddess of Protection. It is said that Melangell was an Irish princess who lived about the turn of the 7th century ce. She fled her native land in order to escape a forced marriage and settled in a beautiful valley in mid-Wales. One Spring day Prince Brychwel Ysgithrog of Pengwern Powys was out hunting. He started a hare and gave chase with his hounds. The hare darted across the fields to the place where Melangell lived and hid beneath her skirts. When the prince arrived on his horse he tried to drive his hounds forward but they would not move closer to Melangell. Chastened by the power and beauty of Melangell he gave her the land of the valley as a place of sanctuary for any woman, man or animal that needed protection. It is said that to this day hares are respected by the hunters of Cwm Pennant and are never ever killed.

Altar Stones to local Goddesses

2007-03-12T15:45:00.000Z

The north east of England has a surprising number of Romano-British altar stones dedicated to local Goddesses. Not surprisingly many of these are specifically dedicated to Brigantia of the Brigantes. There are some fine examples at Arbeia at the very eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The one pictured above is set in a quiet garden there and it is a joy to be able to leave an offering of altar plants (Verbena) and rest awhile in the presence of the Goddess.

Nearer home two unique altar stones were discovered at Ilkley. The parish church stands on the sight of a Roman fort and some of the stone from the fort was used in its construction. This included an altar stone depicting a Goddess in a pleated dress holding a snake in each hand. The second altar stone was found under the stairs of a house. It bears the inscription, VERBEIAE SACRVM CLODIVS FRONTO PRAEF COH II LINGON (To holy Verbeia, Clodius Fronto, prefect of the Second Cohort of Lingones dedicated this). The original became the property of the Catholic Church and is now hidden away somewhere but a copy can be seen in the Manor House Museum. It is possible that in these two altar stones we have both an image and a dedication to the Goddess Verbeia.

Verbeia is now recognised as the Goddess of the river Wharfe which flows from her source at Langstrothdale Chase in the Yorkshire Dales for 97 kilometres until she joins the river Ouse passing through Ilkley along the way. The Wharfe has always had a reputation of being very dangerous and many people have drowned whilst swimming. Upstream from Ilkley is the Strid, a narrow gorge at some points less than two metres across at the surface. The gap looks as if it can be jumped easily, but is deceptive as the many ledges on the sides are at different heights and often very slippery. Many people have fallen in and drowned. Fierce currents that run through this section drag people down where they become trapped among the underwater ledges, and hollows carved by the rapids.

Dangerous rivers are full of the wild powerful energy of the Goddess and their very power is reflected in local legend. It is said that whenever the Strid claims a victim a white horse appears at the spot. Another tale speaks of a pony that appears to travellers trying to cross the river but if the traveller mounts the pony it gallops off to the deepest whirlpool. And then there is the tale of Jinny Pullen a witch said to have lived on the banks of the Wharfe who was noted for crossing the river in a sieve.

All these cautionary tales remind us that our forebears treated the Wharfe - its awesome power and wild natural beauty - with a great deal of respect. In Spring she brings the dale to life again and in Summer she brings a greening to the land.

Thank you

2007-03-09T12:02:00.000Z

As a man I hesitated to post on International Women's Day but today I would very much like to take this opportunity to thank the many women who have touched my life and been such an inspiration. So I ask the Goddess to pour her abundant blessings upon the following wonderful women I am privileged to know.

My life partner of 35 years, a beautiful sacred dance teacher and weaver of magic. Our daughter who finds mystery, magic, beauty and wonder in words. All those who work tirelessly for peace and who stand against the tide of war, Trident and Menwith Hill. Amazing women who care for the terminally ill and heal the deep wounds of patriarchal religion. All the women whose sacred dance in circles and spirals honours the Goddess, Her cycle of seasons and brings wholeness and healing. The beautiful, talented women who gather for the Glastonbury Goddess Conference. All those who had the vision to found the Goddess Temple. The Priestesses of Bride.

A hundred thousand blessings upon all those women who opened my eyes, mind and heart to the Goddess and showed me a path of utter beauty. Blessings upon all those who taught me the healing power of touch and all those who have held me and hugged me during difficult times. You bring beauty, colour, inspiration and so many talents and gifts and life would be so dull without you all, blessed be.

How many times have you danced about the moon?

2007-03-05T12:10:00.000Z

It was my birthday last Friday and I was delighted to be given a copy of Merlin Stone's book, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood. Apart from reading it from cover to cover I know this is going to be a book I shall be dipping into a lot.

At the full moon I found myself reading a poem to Huitaca, the Moon Goddess of the Chibcha people in Colombia. Merlin Stone describes it as, "wonderfully rebellious." and that is what I love about it. It speaks against all those who would take the joy out of life and ban innocent pleasure. It describes Huitaca's defense against all those who would ban music, dance, wine and the pleasures of human touch. It rebels against all those who think that gross national product is more important than individual happiness. It stands against all who put law before love and all who would destroy another's joy for their own gain. When we rejoin the ancestors it will not be our wealth or status we take with us but the music, joy and love that is in our heart. Some people believe we will ultimately be questioned and judged. I guess that if we are questioned about anything the Goddess will ask, "How many times have you danced about the moon?"

Wonderful Huitaca,
wild and lovely Goddess,
appearing in the night,
some say as an owl,
some say as the silver moon,
leading us into merriment,
encouraging us to drink
the juices of intoxication,
encouraging us to feel the wonder
of the touch of our bodies against another,
until the time Bochica spoke against you,
saying that life must be completely serious
and that the joys you offered
must be seen as wrongs.

This joyless Bochica,
walked throughout the countryside,
preaching that the good drinks were bad
and pleasure from our bodies even worse,
crying out that to follow your ways
was a great mistake.

But just as the people of the villages
began to consider his ideas,
you appeared, laughing and happy,
teasing the unsmiling one
so that his anger rose
but all who watched and listened
soon laughed along with you,
calling you Chie and Jubchas Guaya,
Mother of joy -
and though Bochica frowned and glowered -
we dance about the moon
and called your name.

la Lirica

2007-02-27T10:20:00.000Z

Peter Popham has an article in The Independent today noting that Italy is celebrating four centuries of la Lirica (opera). He writes, "The first performance of an opera which is recognisably the ancestor of the masterpieces of Verdi and Wagner took place on 24 February 1607 in the city of Mantua, near Lake Garda in northern Italy. It was Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, a staging of the powerful Greek myth in which the poet Orpheus descends into the Underworld in search of his love Eurydice and persuades Persephone to release her - on condition that he does not look back while in the realm of the dead. Orpheus breaks the condition, and Eurydice has to return to hell forever."

Then he goes on to say, "It was fitting that a musical setting of this great pagan myth should have sired the art form which, in the centuries ahead, became a formidable rival to established religion as a crucible of high emotion and spirituality."

I have always been deeply moved by Monteverdi's music and simply love Ofeo. I shall be delighting in this opera again in March when I travel to Leeds to a performance by Opera North. Orfeo builds on the work of the Camerata, Florentine artists and musicians who wished to re-create the dramatic theatre so loved by the pagan Greeks and Romans.

The story of the Goddess Persephone is one of the oldest of all Greek myths. As such it takes us to the very heart of our being and universal concepts of life and death. It portrays the strong bond between a mother and her daughter and the difficult transition through puberty. Above all the three Goddesses - Demeter, Persephone and Hecate - show us how to stand against the suffering that women and children often have to bear in a patriarchal world.

And speaking of patriarchs, Orpheus fails in his bid to rescue Eurydice from the underworld. He has all the charm of his poetry and music. He has a deep love for his wife. But he lacks the one thing all men need to discover. He fails to trust the women in his life. He cannot trust Persephone to be true to her word and he cannot trust Eurydice to follow him. He cannot free Eurydice from the underworld because he cannot trust her to be wild and free.

It is here that this great pagan myth stands against established religion. It tells us that man's failure to trust women is a disaster. Wild freedom, life abundance all are dependent on this trust. Which reminds me to dance "Kore" this Spring - a beautiful choreography that evokes Persephone.

Divine Diversity

2007-02-26T09:27:00.000Z

The news that a previously unexplored part of the Antarctic sea floor has led to the discovery of new species set me thinking about a topic that has vexed me for some time. Evolution produces an amazing degree of diversity. Think of the little beauty pictured above as just one example of this incredible diversity. It has evolved to have no red blood cells so that it can live in extreme Antarctic cold

Thing is if you believe in Divinities and your "Scripture" is what you see, hear, taste and feel in the world in which we evolved then you sure have to believe that the Divinities are utterly head-over-heels in love with diversity.

The tragedy is that human activity is destroying natural diversity much faster than new species are discovered. Sadly religion has and is playing a big part in setting a milieu in which this is possible. The cry of one god, one faith, one belief has gone out for over three millennia and now much of the world believes it. Global faith, global economy, global uniformity. Since the cry of one god, one faith began just how many belief systems, languages, dialects, cultures, ways of life have we lost? How much wisdom has been swept aside? How many people have been killed or imprisoned in order to impose uniformity? If we do not value and support diversity in human culture how can we begin to value and support it in the world around us.

If the Divinities are utterly head-over-heels in love with diversity then they are going to reveal Themselves in so many diverse forms and be known by so many names. How beautiful and evocative that is. But more than that Pantheasm has to lead us to actively embrace and sustain diversity in our lives and in our world.

Awakening Earth

2007-02-19T10:00:00.000Z

On Saturday my wife led a day of sacred dance to celebrate the awakening earth. There is something unutterably beautiful about dancing with others to honour the sacred. For me dance is the herstory of creation; In the beginning was the dance and the dancer was a woman. Sacred dance heals, empowers and brings unity and joy.

The world and faith seem to have been seduced by the word. But the word divides - Credo, I believe - but what of those who don't? What about the guilt of not believing it all yourself? The word takes away our freedom by codifying dogma. The word makes us passive as we sit quietly and listen.

Dance unites - it unites those who dance together in the circle, it expects no credo other than a belief in our common humanity, it takes us back through generations of mothers and fathers to the first outpouring to the sacred tens of thousands of years ago. Dance makes us free, it carries no dogma, it brings profound power and healing. Dance makes us active in every sense as we embrace space and time with our whole bodies.

It is so sad that the patriarchal religions of the word are so suspicious of dance. Maybe they cannot abide the freedom and empowerment it brings? Maybe deep down they still see active, moving, raptured bodies as sinful? Maybe it is that women have always been the real power of dance? But that is their loss and I embrace the freedom, the grace, the beauty, the power and the rapture that dance brings. The sense that we are all divine parts of the one circle of life I know as Goddess.

Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading

2007-02-01T09:33:00.000Z

Last year, Reya suggested a poetry reading across the blogs, in honour of Brighid. This year the call has gone out again to honour the Goddess of Inspiration. I love this poem : -

Brige in February by Rose Flint

I saw her last week, coming down the sky
with a white following
billowing up in a furl of swansdown
loud as the quickening wind

She flew in over the blue rooftops
over the flatlands and the hills
over etched white horses and towers
over islands couched deep in the violet of snow

Her feet were gold, fire-blinding, striking
sparks from the earth-anvil, flares
and radiance coming off her
flash-fires of light – light storms

Lambs sip milk from the ewes
swan-clans strut the meadows
the snake has come from her hole
tongue flicking at the new
shiver of green in the wind,
the blind opaque squints of the furrows
are opening, transparent as sky

She’ll strip the iron habit of winter out of your bones
lick the glow of gold in a flush through your skin –
open your mouth to her kiss
she’ll inspire you,
her spark in your heart
the beginning of healing
the ancient beginning of new life’s song.

Imbolc blessings

Keeper of the Hearth

2007-01-31T16:41:00.000Z

Brighid of the Mantle, encompass us,
Lady of the Lambs, protect us,
Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us.
Beneath your mantle, gather us,
And restore us to memory.

Mothers of our mother,
Foremothers strong.
Guide our hands in yours,
Remind us how
To kindle the hearth.
To keep it bright,
To preserve the flame.
Your hands upon ours,
Our hands within yours,
To kindle the light,
Both day and night.

The Mantle of Brighid about us,
The Memory of Brighid within us,
The Protection of Brighid keeping us
From harm, from ignorance, from heartlessness.
This day and night,
From dawn till dark,
From dark till dawn.

Walking the labyrinth

2007-01-29T20:33:00.000Z

Last Saturday dawned bright and clear in the gentle late January light. Now is a time to look forward expectantly to the beautiful festival of Imbolc, sacred to the Goddess Brighid. High on the Howardian Hills to the north of York there lies a turf labyrinth cut in the traditional seven circuit Caerdroia pattern. I love to go there and walk the labyrinth as a journey with the Goddess, a little act of love. The journey to this remote spot was truly evocative of Imbolc. Snowdrops in full bloom dotted the verges. They look so tiny and vulnerable but they possess such spiritual strength. The first willow katkins were bursting from the branches and the light was truly beautiful. Blessed be the Goddess for the sheer beauty of this season. May we all be touched by Brighid as we welcome Her to our hearth and home.

Let the Goddess bring change

2007-01-17T19:00:00.000Z

Thanks to Grian at Panthea for this post which is full of common sense. PANTHEA: journeys with the goddess We men do very much need to find freedom from patriarchal institutions too. Patriarchy has been a bad deal for men as well as women. How many men have been drafted into the army, forced into slavery, schooled to hide their emotions, crushed by competitive work ethics or just plain forced into moulds they cannot fit by patriarchal institutions?

Working with and listening to women has been an utter revelation. The discovery of Goddess Religion life changing. The Goddesses are for everyone, women and men alike. I know that a man in a woman's group can change the dynamic and that sometimes it is absolutely right for women to meet alone. But Goddess Temples really do need to be open to all most of the time. I love the Goddess Temple at Glastonbury and thank the Goddesses for the warm welcome given to everyone. We sing, "She changes everything she touches and everything she touches changes." Let the Goddess bring change to our world.

Bigotry touches Orkney composer

2007-01-08T14:46:00.000Z

I love the beauty and the magic of Orkney. I love the music of Peter Maxwell Davies who is resident on the Isle of Sanday and founded the St. Magnus Festival in 1977. His music encapsulates the spirit of the islands. One of my favourite pieces is "The Beltane Fire" a wonderfully evocative description of the struggle to celebrate Beltane in the face of opposition from the Kirk.

It seems that Peter Maxwell Davies is now receiving some opposition from the Kirk to his personal life which saddens me deeply. The following is taken from today's Independent newspaper:

Homophobic' Orkney under attack for ban on civil partnership
By Andrew Johnson
Published: 08 January 2007

Gay rights campaigners have called for a tourist boycott of Orkney after one of the world's leading composers was banned from forming a civil partnership with his lover on the remote island of Sanday.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who is master of the Queen's Music, and Colin Parkinson, 52, planned to hold their ceremony next month on Sanday, where they have lived for the past nine years.

Sir Peter, 72, had even composed a piece of music for the event, which was to be attended by stars from the classical and pop music worlds.

But their plans were put on hold after officials at Orkney Islands Council unexpectedly said the registrar, a friend of the couple, was not authorised to preside over the civil partnership. Instead, they would have to travel to Kirkwall on Orkney mainland for the ceremony.

Matters became further confused yesterday when it was reported that Orkney officials had also cited fears of a media circus and "unsuitable music" on Sanday as reasons to move the ceremony.

A furious Sir Peter condemned the ban as "downright discrimination" and pointed the finger at "religious fundamentalists".

He said: "Everybody can get married where they live except me, it seems. Ever since the law on civil partnerships was brought in, we thought that finally there was an opportunity to get married and to have a little celebration.

"Fundamental religious people, who delve into the Bible to justify their hatreds, still hold great sway. That kind of malignant influence is wrong. Most of the people here are fine and open, those who disapprove are in a minority."

First Snowdrop

2007-01-07T13:59:00.000Z

Sunday morning and a walk through the village. I love the churchyard. It stands at the junction of three roads and faces ancient earthworks. It is blessed with yew and rowan trees and is quiet and peaceful. January has been warm and wet so far and the snowdrops are pushing through the damp soil, growing fast. Today just two were in flower in a very sheltered spot - a sure sign that Bridie is about and that Imbolc (Fhéill Bhride) will soon be upon us.

Bridie is a Goddess who presides over the hearth and home, over inspiration and the skills of sacred art and craft, and over the world of crops, livestock, and nature. In particular she is important to sheep who begin to lamb in Yorkshire at this time of year.

Winter Solstice Morning

2006-12-21T12:12:00.000Z

Such a beautiful morning, clear skies, frost, the most amazing sunrise and morning mist clinging to mother earth and the trees. The soft, gentle winter light is such a delight. The Goddess dressed in her finest winter gown on Solstice morn.

Sacred and blessed Mother
You raise the sun in radiant glory
to kiss Your body on Solstice Morn.
Soft, gentle, veiling mist
the promise of Spring passion.
My we, who delight in You,
know true freedom and peace.

Maeshowe Sunset

2006-12-17T19:32:00.000Z

A beautiful sunset at Maeshowe today and the webcam relay gave this image of the Winter Sunset light against the back wall of the womb space. It is always thrilling when I see this and I now feel ready for the Solstice Celebrations. (The shadow is from an observer's body privileged to actually be there and not just watching on the webcam).

A Flame in the Dark

2006-12-15T11:57:00.000Z

Every Wednesday at 6 pm a group of us here in Europe light a flame in honour of Brighid. At the moment I am reading, "Confessions of a Pagan Nun" by Kate Horsley and a line struck a deep chord, "The Christians and their tonsured messengers want to separate the souls of the people of this land from the earth they walk on." The news here in the UK has been centred around the murders of five women in Suffolk. Oh, how we have learnt the lesson separating the souls of these women from the ground of their being, even in death, by the use of words - prostitute, sex-worker, "girl", addict.

Stenness

2006-12-12T10:52:00.000Z

The Winter Solstice is fast approaching and I have come to love this time of year. The light is so soft and gentle, the trees are magnificent silhouetted against the sky and the fire burns bright in the hearth. It is also a time to slow down and attend to the things of the heart. If I was asked for the one place that had evoked the Goddess most clearly for me I would probably have to reply, Orkney. Those islands off the North East tip of Scotland are not only utterly beautiful but are also a treasure of Neolithic Archaeology.

The World Heritage Site at Stenness includes the Stones of Stenness, The Ring of Brodgar and Maeshowe and all are close to 5,000 years old. Maeshowe is by far the largest chambered cairn among the many in Orkney. Like Newgrange in Ireland its entrance passage is aligned on the Winter Solstice Sun (Sunrise for Newgrange and Sunset for Maeshowe). This means that for a few days each year the rays of the setting sun can shine down the passage into the womb space within. For this to happen a cloudless horizon is needed.

Unfortunately December on Orkney is often dull and wet. During December a webcam transmits images from Maeshowe and it is as well to check every day around 1445 GMT to see if the sky is clear and the chamber illuminated. The effect is quite magical.

Rhythm is the Cure

2006-12-10T12:34:00.000Z

My parter and I are excited because Alessandra Belloni will be in Glastonbury next May to conduct her 3-day workshop, Rhythm is the Cure after her rapturous performance at this year's Goddess Conference. Alessandra is a singer, dancer and drummer with a total mastery of Southern Italian Dance, the Tarantella and the Spinning Dance. The Tarantella originated as a healing trance dance to cure women suffering depression brought on by the constraints of patriarchy. The drumming and the wild erotic dance are totally liberating and just wonderful to behold.

Welcome

2006-12-08T21:45:00.000Z

Welcome to Evoking the Goddess. It is almost 10 years since I first became aware of Her. Since then I have been on a voyage of discovery that has taken me from Orkney across Europe to Crete and deep into memory. I have found a new connection with the land of my birth and sacred dance and I am grateful to the many wonderful women who have taught me so much.