~seed intentions~

 

as i sit, with leveret and magpie playing around my feet (i never knew how entertaining it can be watching kittens play!) and flynt comfortable on the armchair and sandy denny on iTunes, i am thinking of the seed intentions i planted to germinate over the dark months.

 

its so dark here in this ancient forest, so much darker than this time of day only two weeks ago.

 

i had to spend some time this morning trimming back some long runners of the rambling rose over the nook or run the risk of impaling myself on the sharp thorns as i make my way up and down the pathway. i didn't take my time however because today is the day our council in, what i consider, their poor judgement, started to fell 5 of the 6 huge Monterey Pines that are just behind calvs house.

i tried to defend them but one person and a handful of signatures on a petition was not weighty enough to fight a government body.

 

so i could not bear to be in the garden and listen to the chain saws and crack of branches, as a result i have even had the windows shut to save my ears from listening.

 

instead i have sat and done some research into a new phase of production for the wylde apothecary~part of my seed intentions.

 

have you set your seed intentions yet?

~welcoming the long dark nights~

while getting dressed early this morning there was a distinct chill coming through the open window...actually it was more than a chill, it was decidedly cold.

 

so with a smile on my face i quickly put the kettle on and then followed flynt into the garden.

 

i have to say it felt

 

glorious

 

...the sky was blue, with just a little hint of mackerel (or buttermilk did you know that?) clouds,

the birds were waking up~starlings flew overhead chattering, magpies were sitting on a nearby roof chattering among themselves and i heard a crow in the giant old oak.

 

i stood up on what i now call my 'sky deck'~the area of decking that swampy built for me in the corner at the end of the garden. we live on a hill and the garden slopes down to the house...so raised up on my sky deck i have a wide view of the sky, helped by the fact the closest homes are all bungalows.

 

soon my view turned from the sky to our garden~it is looking particularly rambling, over grown and my nook is a under a layer of leaves that is dropping from the rambling jasmine and rose with long tendrils of rose reaching down to tangle in my hair.

 

with mabon/autumn equinox so close i really need to get out and sweep up the leaves, check i have dry wood for my fire and hope the wood sitting in my cauldron is dry.

 

i am loving the feeling i am experiencing at this time~the heat of the summer has passed, the heat that muddles my brain, makes me uncomfortable, unfocused...

 

the short, chill days and long dark nights invigorates me, wakes me  and it is during this time that i delve deeper into my spiritual path.

 

what do you do with the long dark nights?

 

 

~spoons & swimming~

 

well another long hiatus from yours truly!

 

i have no excuse other than that i become easily distracted and that recently i have only been able to do one 'big thing' daily before becoming so tired and sore.

 

let me explain...you all know by now the spoon theory, well i can only do one big thing or a couple of smaller things daily and some very minor 'pottering' before my spoons are seriously depleted and i need to re-charge and gain those lost spoons back.

 

we do our shopping once a week, although it wears me out i go and enjoy it because its one of the very few times i get out on a regular week. on shopping days i do shopping and that's it~i even plan a very simple dinner that day because i know that  wont be able to manage anything more than soup or a sandwich.

 

the thing is that as well as physically exhausted i become mentally exhausted as well which means that even coming onto my laptop, browsing the web and blogging is too much.

 

all of the aural and visual stimulation to me is totally overwhelming and exhausting.

 

it has taken me a long time to get over the moongazy gathering, then i had the excitement of seeing the moulettes and seth...

 

 

 

then last week we went to stonehenge with cor gawr for the midsummer sunrise which meant i was eating breakfast at 1am, after staying up to watch the full 'super' moon rise from my garden, and we were waiting to be let into the car park at stonehenge at 3am.

 

 

 

we met our friends taz, kit and mrb there and after, although sadly taz had to leave earlier, we sat in pretty pagan and warmed up with mugs of good hot tea and kits date and ginger cake.

 

so although it was amazing it was something else that used all of my spoons.

 

so i have been trying to re-stock those spoons...however my mind is in total overdrive right now with lots of craft ideas constantly spinning around, waking me in the night, plus i have to get enough wylde apothecary stock ready for the fairy festival next month.

 

so much to do and so many ideas with so little time!!!

 

*****

 

swampy and i have finally started swimming (which of course uses spoons!)

i am a real water baby and love being in water, be it indoor pool, sea, rivers and so even the aches and pains can be pushed aside for a little while. luckily there is little mental stimulation being in a pool, i just love swimming up and down at my own sweet pace.

although swampy is finding it somewhat of a struggle and he is not a good a swimmer as i am i get that 'competition' vibe emanating from him. he is convinced that for my 28 lengths he did 14 i know that at one point i was doing more than two lengths to his one, although of course  wont tell him that!

 

****

 

well now i shall make a start in popping by you all to see what you have been up to...it could take me a few days!



~earth goddess~

 

well i set out to post this a few days ago but became tied up with all the usual things of 'normal' life~my mum popped in to have swampy look at her telephone bill (she was paying for things she did not need) and order her some strimmer wire, we popped out to a large camping superstore where we became over excited and made a list of some new things we quite fancy, shopping was yesterday and we had to take little Inca to the vets for a jill jab to bring her out of season.

 

today i have been catching up with e-mail and looking at a possible campsite for next years Stonewylde camp...north wales is looking interesting.

 

***

 

so...

earth goddess...

 

this has been coming up a lot in my books, dreams and oracle card readings just lately...

i have been writing it all up in my 'soul journey' journal and ended up having to do a flow-chart kind of thing to try to make sense of it all.

 

as i cannot do a flow chart here i shall just try to write up the big things and how they link...

 

firstly...re-birth/new beginnings~snake/dragon/snake spirit/cernunnos*green man/earth goddess/brighid

 

then...re-birth/new beginning's~primrose~flower of the bard~adder stone~regeneration of self

 

i also had a dream about being in a goddess circle with a small group of other women, with one of them revealing herself as a good friend and soul sister.

 

i am thinking that a more in depth card reading is in order to see if i can make any more sense of this.

 

what is your relationship with the goddess?

 

 



~stonehenge~

 

 

i have had to take an extended break from my laptop as my bout of bruxus continued through most of last week, its only the last few days that i have really been back to 'normal' and felt able to fire up the laptop again.

 

i am so glad it has passed because sunday was the

 

gorsedd of cor gawr midwinter gathering at stonehenge

 

the gorsedd has been meeting at stonehenge since the 1990's for rituals the dawn on midsummer's...

 day and again on the sunday before the winter solstice at around sunset...

 

 

a group of us met up in the main car park and waited until the site was closed to the public and then following the sound of a drum we all made our way onto the site where we waited just outside the huge outer circle of saren stones before walking in one by one, being smudged as we stood under the trilithon.

 we all then walked around the huge inner stone gates and ring of bluestones where we found a place to stand.

swampy and i chose to stand by the two remaining bluestones that are just inside from the sarsens we walked in through, directly opposite the alter stone...i found this picture of the exact stone on wikipedia...

 

 

the space we walked through is the central one here and i spent the entire ritual connected to the rounder of the two bluestones here.

the stone in the distance on the right is the heel stone (research suggests there were two of them) which shows the point of the mid-summer sunrise.

 

 

i love this photo as it shows the waning moon slightly to the left of where i was standing with 'my' bluestone.

 

this was a very special time for, not only was it my first trip to the stones in 28 years-during which time the opportunity to get up close and personal with the stones became all but impossible but un-beknown to me at one point there was the opportunity to choose to be initiated as a bard of the gorsedd of cor gawr.

when it was announced about an hour into the ritual that initiation into the gorsedd was going to happen i thought it might have been for people who had been previously selected to undertake initiation but i was soon aware it was for anyone there.

when those who wished it were invited to form a ring around the great bush of mistletoe hanging from a tripod in the centre of the circle it was as if  something took over my feet, in fact i don't even really remember the feeling of physically 'walking' up to the mistletoe...its as if my body was just 'transported' and i joined the group of about 20 people who all then turned to face outwards and joined hands and recited three times the dedication....
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*there are various translation options for cor gawr, one being 'giants dance' which i think is most perfect*

 



~dark moon & equinox~

so within days we have had the dark moon and coming up is the autumn equinox.

 

my stonewylde clan had a dark moon ritual working on the protection of the badgers of this land who our near-sighted government have decided needs culling.

 

on the night of the equinox we are having a simple 'non ritual'-i will be sitting by my fire and thinking, meditating and we will be sending out blessings to each other.

 

so the last harvest, a day of equal light and dark is upon us and we give thanks to the great mother for her gifts.

 

i have been thinking of the ancestors and how they would spend the dark months.

 

many of mine were farm hands and so would have had intimate knowledge of the land and the changes throughout the year, many more worked with the sea and rivers so i imagine they would have knowledge of the seasons via the water.

 

i wonder if any of them followed a nature loving/pagan path?

 

~*~*~*~

 

i have been thinking of course how i will be spending the dark months, looking at my list from my previous post...

 

but what has been strongly in my mind just lately is my spiritual path, my soul journey.

 

for a few years now i have been thinking of doing the bardic grade from the

ovate of bards, ovates and druids

 

i would love to sit here and just join but like many people in the world right now i have money to think of, to some £12 a month is nothing but to many its £12 of fuel, or towards shopping, or a bill.

 

...maybe if i made £12 a month through my etsy shop then i could do it!

 

now there is something...what an idea...

 



~turning the page~

i have been such a miserable blogger of late~such moaning!

yesterday, probably because i had such a horrid previous night~spending an hour locked in the bath room being very sick indeed, which also meant i couldn't take my tablets as my tummy wouldn't even tolerate water, i had difficult day.

but as i perked up during the afternoon i started to read a whole ream of writing i downloaded from the druid network as well as another chapter from philip carr-gomm's 'the rebirth of druidry'.

as the day darkened i lit my lamp that sits in the corner of the room that is 'my' corner

*do you have your own part of a room? a spot where you sit and where your own things gather?*

in my corner at this time i have my phone, my moleskine, a bowl which holds my glasses case and a pen sitting alongside my lamp.
on the pine chest that sits in front of the floor to ceiling window are my green man oracle, a bill bryson book and on a footstool in front of this sits my two bags of crochet~my corner of our room

i also lit the three candles on my mantle/alter and drew the curtains against the darkening chill.

i continued to read and think.

the words i read and the thoughts and pondering that the words stirred in me has helped a page turn in my life.

i have realised there is no point in fighting the things that i cannot change~like my illness's~yes i can help them by taking my medication (as much as i hate too in this i have no option) but ultimately i have to live with them, day to day.
but i realised that i cannot let the negativity that they, and other things, bring out in me, to rule my life (thank you juilana for making me think of this!)

today i feel good~i am keeping all the symptoms of my illnesses firmly in the background of my mind~i cannot wipe them out with medication nor totally ignore them~but i wont let them get the better of me, wont let it all overwhelm me and distract me from better things.

~for i have so many good things in my life~
i have a soul partner who loves, supports me and accepts me as i am
i can afford to pay the bills each month
i have a roof over my head...and a garden
i live in a very special,ancient forest where branches of my ancestor tree grow back hundreds and hundreds of years

there is much more to add to this list, but you get the idea.

i feel more peaceful today, settled and even better, by fighting the negativity and embracing the positivity, i feel i have rediscovered the track i have been following through the woods

~out of a pagan closet~

i have never 'broadcast' myself as following any particular pagan path, i have always kept any particular leanings, one way or t'other, tucked deep inside me

i have found myself wandering more and more down a certain path and recently i finally felt an invisible push to take a leap...to be more open about my path and celebrate it

its only a matter of days now until the winter solstice and since samhuinn i have been working my way thorough the perennial course in living druidry and reading emma restall-orr's 'what is druidry?', provided by the druid network~going from leaf dance moon to fire friend moon and soon, to move onto the quickening moon~a blue moon which falls on new years eve.

anyone who has read this blog for long enough will know i have had times where my spirituality tucks itself away deep inside me and there have been times when i felt as if it was gone from me forever.
but no, it would always come out from its warm hiding place, if only briefly, to remind me in small ways it was still there~to deep within me for too many years to ever leave me...

~a glimpse of the moon
~stopping to dip my hand into a brightly running stream
~walking some sacred or ancient space and being aware of the ancestors~of the feeling of being so at one with the land beneath my feet and with those who had walked here before me...

my spirituality has been as cyclical as the the turning of the wheel~over the years i have dipped into different strands of the pagan path, satisfying myself with knowledge gained,friends met, but never feeling settled, never feeling that particular path was right for me~never really feeling at home.



about two years ago i discovered the order of bards, ovates and druids and the british druid order and was introduced to the druid network by a fellow blogger.
i dug deeper and bought some books on the history of druids and finally i found druidcast ~ listening to the the music, interviews and stories it felt as if i had finally come home~things fell into place and made more sense than anything~in a way nothing has ever done in my spiritual life.

i have been creeping my way around the perennial course for some time now and listening to druidcast gave me the gentle push i needed.



i have found the work and thinking needed for the perennial course and the words from 'what is druidry?' to be really inspiring~really sparking my awen into life and bringing me such joy.

of course like anything you only get out of it what you put into it and i would say to anyone here looking for more insight into druidry to check the links i have here on this blog.

~all photos*laoi~