Living Spirit

Winter Festival Sanctuary

2012-02-15T11:52:00.001Z

Debbie enjoys a quiet moment by one of her side altars

Months pass... autumn gives way to a wet and mostly mild winter and now the earliest signs of Spring are showing. My Living Spirit journal continues rather neglected as the unfolding work of the Wood Sisters and our newest Living Spirit baby, Open Spirit, take centre stage and like all youngsters consume vast amounts of time!

Most recently, Sue, Debbie and myself have emerged happy and exhausted from The Wood Sisters Winter Storytelling Festival, which has its own website, facebook page and postings on the Wood Sisters online journal. On a personal note though, I'd like to record one of the highlights I experienced.

Other than being joint festival organiser(!) my main role was holding the Sanctuary Space, along with my friend and colleague from Open Spirit, Debbie. Together with Miriam, who is a veteran in the art of sacred space creation, we set up a warm and open space for relaxed and silent 'time out' in the Nursery at the South Devon Steiner School. Miriam worked her usual magic by creating a beautiful central altar with meters of muslin, fairy lights and early spring flowers and greenery... while Debbie and I bustled around her creating a spiritual reading corner, side altars and a 'cloutie tree' with space for drawing and writing prayers and wishes.

Quiet reading corner with Abigail's beautiful harp

After just a couple of hours the Nursery was becoming a spiritual sanctuary and people began to arrive for meditation, to light a candle or simply to enjoy a warm and peaceful place to rest. It was inspiring to see how well used the space was and all the very different and personal styles in which visitors discovered their own ways of being.

Some wrote in their journals or placed written prayers on the tree or altar. Others listened to or even played quiet music. Many simply sat in stillness or silence and some quietly slept. Over the two days, through guided meditation, simple ceremony and Abigail's soul full harp music a sense of depth, peace and wonder gradually brewed as people came and went and often returned. I and many others too were deeply nourished and uplifted by this simple sanctuary space.

Debt, Divinity...and a cabin in Cornwall

2011-09-15T10:36:00.000+01:00

Debt, Divinity...and a cabin in Cornwall

It has been a long and arduous journey since my last post in April. It's been more than enough to live through it, let alone write about it and so a third of the year has passed unmarked. I wish I could say I felt the same!

'An end in sight'... a cabin in Cornwall

Yet although I recognise that I am exhausted, for the first time in the five years since I discovered my husband was having an affair, I actually feel there is an end in sight. In this third of a year we have finally sold our family home in Scotland, after four years of trying and I have had the interesting experience of clearing several hundred thousand pounds worth of debt, mostly not my own. I now know more than anyone would ever want to about the many ways of moving massive sums of money without going over the banking limits...

Along with weeks of woman-handling property transactions and money have unfolded the closing chapters of a marriage... of what it means to unravel a shared life and to divide up everything from crockery to children. How can such a thing even be possible? And yet it has to be and it has to be done well, with as much grace and love as one can muster. One of the greatest temptations, I've found, is to allow oneself to be taken over by anger and blame and the accompanying greed for personal security and maximum spoils. It's a little like being the Narnian character, Eustace, who in 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes up as a dragon.

With my second son Tam... half the family is now based in Devon

As ever, the trick is to remain conscious, to remain awake. I have to acknowledge my inner dragons and sometimes I need their fire, their fighting spirit. But I don't need to unconsciously let them take me over because we all know what happens then...homes get destroyed and people get burned. So I've sorted through the hoard but not gone to sleep on it. In fact, mostly I've given it away and ended up both a lot lighter and a little free-er.

Everyone makes mistakes. Don't we know this really when we finally get tired of posturing and blaming others, trying to cover up all the shame and guilt and insecurity we each feel deep down about all the ways in which we too are ignorant and foolish, slow to learn and just plain wrong. In the end I've found I'm more interested in being fair than being right, because it feels better and it's easier to sleep at night. When I picture or think about divinity, for me it is imperfect, co creative, evolving...a divine process of growing and awakening that everything is part of.

In recent times, for the first time in a fair, few years, I've really struggled to find a way to survive, to make ends meet and my heart has gone out to all the many people in this country and beyond who are doing just the same. At such times faith becomes a truly radical choice... not a safe, middle class Sundays only option. There is every reason to despair.... in the face of our own sufferings and those of our loved ones, in the face of the sufferings of the world from earthquakes in Japan to riots in London... but the choice remains to hope, to have faith. I choose faith over despair, like I choose fairness over blame, simply because it works...it means I can get up in the morning!

'Keep calm and carry on...'

Recently, for the first time in many months, I sensed my life could start again to be about more than 'dealing well with difficulty'. I sensed it could be possible to create again. I've bought an eco cabin in Cornwall with its timber deck cantilevered over the lake and could imagine myself and others going on retreat or having time to write there. We'll see...

Underworld

2011-04-22T18:58:00.001+01:00

It's Good Friday...what better time to finally write about a meditative journey to the Underworld!

I've been thinking back over the myths we have worked with in the Wood Sisters Days, many of which centre around a death and resurrection experience:

In the story of Ceridwen, Taliesin's taste of spiritual reality, the Druidic Awen brewed in the cauldron of the goddess, propels him into the Otherworld. Here he is driven through a series of challenges and transformations until finally surrendering to the Goddess and passing through gestation, first in Ceridwen's womb and then in the 'skin bag' before being reborn into the everyday world at the salmon weir of Elffin.

For Inanna, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven, there's an unambiguous journey of descent into the underworld kingdom of her dark sister Ereshkigal. A process that strips her of all her status and wealth. She has to face the Underworld judges and their words of anger and shame and even give up her physical body to be hung on a hook...and the process of re emergence isn't easy either!

Facing the dark twin and passing through death and transformation are also central to the story of the Egyptian Osiris, and his queen the goddess Isis also suffers her own journey of loss and profound grief and suffering. Is all this starting to sound just a little familiar now on God's Friday? Myth as a vessel for spiritual truth may change its forms....the characters belong to shifting times and places and cultures but the core principles continue.

In Kabbalah there's an idea that every human soul is given at least one perfect taste of divinity, of awakening to the bigger picture. It's not earned through being good or practising deep meditation or whatever, but simply and freely given...one pure glimpse of what we may be. It can awaken in the soul a longing to return to its Source, a longing for depth, for Mystery, for we know not what.... This is the deeper meaning of 'conversion' in the Christian tradition, which means 'to turn'. We turn our gaze away from our everyday preoccupations and towards another way of seeing, little realising at first what the cost to the ego may be on the journey of waking up to Spirit... 'costing not less than everything' as TS Eliot says in the Four Quartets....as Taliesin, Inanna, Osiris and Jesus all discovered.

Golden spring celandines guarding an entrance to the Underworld

Often this longing of the soul for its source is couched in terms of a love story. We know this ourselves from every time we've fallen in love and longed for union and completion with that mysterious 'other'. This theme is very much present in all the mythic stories above, perhaps especially in Isis and Osiris and in our most recent story of Persephone and Hades. For Persephone that beautiful god given glimpse is initially the golden flower sent by Zeus, which she pulls at only to discover that it cracks open the Underworld. (Just like falling in love in fact!) Perhaps later it's the mysterious otherworld allure and love of Hades himself that draws her to taste the pomegranate that will change her self and life for ever, while for Hades it's Persephone that is the otherworldly source of longing and love.

Working with this in meditation, I wondered for myself and others...what draws us? I found myself imagining it like Mary Oliver's 'Wild Geese'...that call from the wild, deep core of ourselves....that strange pull of otherness and wilderness mixed with a paradoxical sense of homecoming. So the meditation that arose for the Wood Sisters Day had a shamanic feel as we travelled in imagination along an inner path until our attention was drawn aside by some small or vast wild creature and we were led onto a hidden path and to a dark opening into the earth.

Within those dark depths of each person was the invitation to surrender, to let go of our carefully constructed daylight selves and discover the dark fullness of who we are. Last night I dreamt of being cruel...of every part of myself that I push into the shadows...those plutonic treasures loved and reclaimed. It's interesting how we think we want to let go of our pain and perceived ugliness and hold on to all that is bright and beautiful. But the soul's longing is quite different...like the Celts, it's willing to sacrifice its brightest and best treasures to the Gods , to give freely what has been freely received and to love the darkness back to life.

I can't comment on what each woman discovered in her own dark Underworld Meditation place...what she let go of to be composted and what she let fall like a seed ready to grow. But for myself I realised again that I don't have to be afraid of either the best or the worst of what I can be. That I can tell myself the truth about the full range of life that flows through me and be open and vulnerable enough to show it to others too.

Palm Sunday and approaching the underworld

2011-04-17T09:37:00.000+01:00

Contrary to appearances, beginning with my previous post I am actually attempting to head towards writing about the underworld meditation from our last Wood Sisters day. But reflecting on it has led to many other thoughts, meanwhile the sacred cycle of the year rolls on and brings fresh preparations and reflections...

The perpetual huge pile of partly digested books beside my bed, has recently been topped by an eclectic mix of spiritual reading in preparation for Palm Sunday today. Top place has changed over the week from Buddhist Pema Chodron's "When things fall apart" to Edward Hoffman's "Opening the Inner Gates - New Paths in Kabbalah and Psychology" to Geza Vermes' "The Authentic Gospel of Jesus....interspersed with readings from the Bible and from the Bardic Grade of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. (I've come to the conclusion over the years that, in matters of spiritual reading, it can be wise to draw upon more than one tradition at a time....it helps to offset a mental tendency towards fixed ways of thinking!)

This rich diet probably goes some way to explain why, when shocked awake in the night by the wild sound of cats fighting under the bedroom window in the bright light of the almost full moon, I felt very in touch with the 'groundlessness' of life. I've had a lot of apparent 'grounds' swept away in my own life in recent years and especially in recent weeks and sometimes I wake in the night, or even on a sunny morning like today and feel afraid and sad. Years of meditation practice has taught me how to just about be present with this, with some kind of acceptance and kindness. Although sometimes, it has to be said, I fall back into old habits of taking my discomfort out on my family or falling into despair and eating digestive biscuits to cover the pain.

Reading Matthew's description of 'The Triumphal Entry' this morning, I felt no sense of joy or triumph but only sadness. For actually this passage marks the beginning of the end for the earthly Jesus. He enters Jerusalem in faith and hope and exits through despair and surrender to God and death on a cross. The palm lined path that we Christians imagine is an approach to an underworld of dark and difficult experience and death....and though many mythic stories hold in common with the Christian story the promise of resurrection...this liberation only comes through first facing the reality of groundlessness.

I feel great sympathy with and gratitude for Geza Vermes' scholarly work on the historical Jesus. I find it most refreshing to cut through the endlessly replayed christian hype around the 'Triumphal Entry' with a good dose of historical fact. Vermes explains how it was common for people to ride into the Holy city for Passover and that "the Palestinian Talmud records that before Passover ass-drivers did flourishing business in carrying pilgrims to Jerusalem. In particular the rich preferred to ride on donkeys to the Temple mount and thus publicly demonstrate their higher social status." (Pg 21)

This actually seems quite at odds with everything else we see about the historical Jesus as an itinerant rural teacher who actively eschewed wealth and status. Vermes points out how 'the authentic Jesus' didn't use images of kingship and powerful leadership for God or himself, these are a later emphasis in Christianity. Jesus stressed rather a relationship with God as a loving father and his own leadership role as one of serving others. The historic Jesus had nothing to prove in entering Jerusalem. He was a faithful Jew among other Jews simply entering the Holy City for Passover, probably with no awareness of the suffering that lay ahead. He wasn't a religious revolutionary or a political warrior but rather upheld the centrality of the Torah and a way of non violence.

It's really rather a relief to read Vermes' words that "In order to associate the event with a messianic prophecy, Matthew rewrote Mark, and introduced a she-ass as well as her colt. His story is laboured and artificial." It never made any sense to me as a child how Jesus would have written these two donkeys....surely he would have fallen through the gap between them! It's like the emperor's new clothes and the child in me experiences the relief of finally having a reality that was denied, acknowledged....Matthew "deliberately overlooks that in the poetry of Zechariah 'a colt, the foal of an ass' is a mere literary parallelism.....No native Semitic speaker would have made such a mistake."

So where does this leave me on the morning of Palm Sunday? With an inner picture of a ordinary and extraordinary man who probably walked quietly into Jerusalem with his friends, but would soon be facing difficulty and death. A faithful man fully engaged with the uncertainties and injustices of life in a way that gives me courage to face our own times of insecurity. Perhaps as the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa says "Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news"

Full Spectrum Spirituality

2011-04-16T19:07:00.001+01:00

As I move between reflecting on the Wood Sisters Spring Equinox meditation and preparing for the Beltane one, plus writing notes for the Tree of Life School on spiritual living, I am finding myself thinking hard about the nature and purpose of meditation and spiritual practice.

An interesting question arose at the last Wood Sisters' Day about how meditations based in creative imagination can seem to create the impression that 'spirituality' is somewhere else, in an imaginary other place that is somehow separate from the realities of daily life. I can understand a concern that spirituality is some kind of escape into an imaginary better world that might stop us from engaging with the need for action in a suffering world. Just as I can understand the importance of seeing our ordinary, everyday lives as intrinsically spiritual.

The relationship between contemplative and action for instance is a very old debate, certainly in the religious traditions I have a little experience and understanding of, especially Christianity and Judaism. But I can't help thinking that it's a debate with a built in contradiction. It seems to assume that there are two unrelated or even opposing worlds... the inner world of imagination, intuition and contemplation and the outer world of matter, action and the 'rationality' of what can be perceived and proved through the physical senses.

Somehow it's much easier to appreciate contrast in the colours of the natural world!

I remember having a bit of a 'breakthrough moment' as a young person in school studying the electromagnetic spectrum, which gave me a picture of how even at a very rational, physical level we know that there is a much broader band of frequencies than we can consciously perceive with our physical senses. It's a picture that acknowledges difference and yet doesn't create opposites... it's all electromagnetic radiation after all and no one is debating whether X rays are 'better' than radio waves, or ultraviolet is 'truer' than infrared!

A few years later I was studying Kabbalah, whose 'Tree of Life' diagram gives a similar picture of a 'spectrum of consciousness'...whose 'high' frequencies we call God and whose 'low' frequencies we call Earth. As with the electromagnetic spectrum, the Kabbalistic teachings as I received them, emphasise the underlying energy of the whole spectrum of consciousness and that each expression is simply a different aspect of one spiritual reality.

In this 'full spectrum' context there's no need to set contemplation against action for example ....contemplation is simply waking up to the subtler forms of Divinity and action is waking up to God as World and both have their own beauty and significance.

Serenity demonstrates the principles of 'full spectrum spirituality'
- by settling down with a Kabbalistic Tree of Life

When I allow consciousness to be a broad spectrum which takes many forms, I find I can be more accepting of different aspects of myself and others. I find it quite helpful to think about the different parts of the brain and their different functions and 'evolutionary age'. I like to imagine that when I try to be more aware of the physical present and engage consciously with the world around me, I'm using the cerebral cortex for example... but it's just as valid to use the 'older' parts of our brains which respond to myth, story, imagination and emotion and which simply show us 'reality' from another perspective.

Many more people would be able to appreciate the spiritual depth of their Christian and Jewish heritage if they could learn to hear how it speaks through story and symbol, not through the intellectual discourses we have been educated to expect and recognise. In my early twenties I was quick to dismiss my own traditions and to turn to the clear, rational spiritual explanations that I found in Buddhism. But though I judged my religious upbringing as lacking, it was really I who lacked the capacity to see the wisdom that had already been given to me.

Working with mythic imagination through meditation gives us access to a vast, ancient pool of human wisdom, wisdom that the rational, pragmatic parts of us don't always see... and this wisdom pool is about how to live well, how to engage with the everyday, it's just that it's expressed in a different language, the language of image, metaphor and symbol. When we bring all these different aspects of consciousness alive within us, life can be transformed...an inner grail becomes the communion chalice becomes a cup of tea shared with another and each perspective is enriched by the other.

So I for one shall remain a quiet champion of full spectrum spirituality. My meditation practice will continue to range from simple practices of breath and body awareness through to the intricacies of creative visualisation and mythic imagination.... and whatever the method the purpose remains the same....an ever more liberated and loving life.

Wood Sisters Spring Equinox

2011-04-03T16:20:00.001+01:00

Wood Sisters Wishing Well

It was a pleasure to welcome both familiar and new faces at our Wood Sisters Spring Equinox celebration on Saturday. Sisters started to arrive at 9am and got the day underway with a fair quantity of tea drinking before we settled down to 'stir our wisdom pot' of seasonal reflections from 10. It was great to hear of various springy new beginnings, from new books to new boyfriends! At least two sisters were moving into the unknown having sold their homes, while another had moved into a cabin in a pine wood next door to her horse...go wild women!

Sue was our priestess into the Eleusinian Mysteries with a spirited telling of the sacred myth of Demeter and Persephone. I'll leave her to tell more of this in her own post but the motif that most struck me was how Persephone was tempted towards the Underworld by a beautiful golden flower created by Zeus. Out in the garden I later saw a tulip open to the spring sun, its golden heart set with pure black, pollen dusted stamens. I thought of Persephone, whose desire for just such a fascinating flower (that was 'not of her mother's earthly garden') cracked open the ground to release the dark, mysterious otherness of Hades.

In meditation, we made our own inner journeys into the Underworld and then spent silent time in nature. I'd love to share something of the rich insights that were then added to the wisdom pot...but in true mystery school style, each woman's secrets must remain her own....

Making floating candles

The ever delicious bring and share feast featured various cauldrons of remarkably green soup, from nettle, to wild garlic and water cress and there were many other treats, including Sue's half light, half dark 'equinox biscuits'. After yet more tea, we moved on to our natural craft time, taking it in turns as some moulded flower like floating candles from beeswax, while others of us created three wishing wells in the garden. It reminded me of how I used to create lenten gardens as a child, as we decorated our wells with moss, spring greenery and flowers and I enjoyed staggering back with Sarah with from the nearby brook, with my mop bucket full of river water to fill our muslin strewn bowls.

We then gathered altogether again by fire and water, while Ronnie spirited us away, this time to the Celtic Otherworld and into the presence of the Goddess Arianrhod. I especially appreciated hearing of her castle by the sea...that sometimes could be reached by a causeway, while at other times the way was closed by tumultuous waters...the ultimate 'room of one's own'!

The day ended with simple ritual as each of us lit our candles and floated them on the water and threw in our copper, silver and gold and made our wishes for ourselves, our friends and families and for the world. All that wanted to, then had a chance to share their own poems, stories and songs and I've been singing Cat's "The dark days are over" ever since!

Vernal Equinox

2011-03-20T17:03:00.000Z

There was a surprisingly amount of howling happening in the sleepy hamlet of Week, Dartington last night... and while some was certainly coming from the Vicarage garden, we were not alone in noisily celebrating last night's especially magnificent and misty full moon.

Vicarage Japonica

I saw the moon rise as I was driving home, with a slight case of soul indigestion following a day spent sitting 'at the feet' of the ever characterful Robin Williamson (of Incredible String Band fame) and listening to all four branches of the Mabinogion...phew! The moon was coming up as I crested the hill above Buckfast Abbey and the combination of the deep blue twilight with the orange glow of both the huge full moon and the floodlit spire of the ruined Buckfastleigh Church was mysterious and moving.

I woke to this Equinoctial second Sunday of Lent feeling very grateful to be alive. A sentiment that I know is shared by many of us as we contemplate the losses and sufferings of people in Japan and New Zealand. Living and dying seems so incomprehensible and I think in this age of information and global awareness, we suffer a kind of collective guilt to be waking up safely in bed and not be floating out to sea on the ruined roof of our home. These are extraordinary times...

It seems strange somehow to be be focussed on the fact that the japonica is now enjoying flowery pride of place in the Vicarage garden...or spending the morning stalking Fred our resident pheasant with my camera. (Not helped by our long haired tabby, Serenity, who was also stalking him but with rather different intentions!) But I've read how when people are suffering in prison camps and suchlike, it's the small things that they focus on and that give them hope.

Fred the pheasant who lives here in the Vicarage garden with his rather reluctant harem of seven Frederikas

Our very own soft and furry killer...

In the warm and sunny afternoon, Ian and I walked down to the River Dart. The wild geese and goosanders were flying low over the shining water. I felt held in a quiet calm that mostly I experience in meditation, but is simply present in the natural world. I was watching the way the light patterns from the wind stirred water surface moved over the dark mud of the river bottom and how the impossibly green water weed was swirling sensually in hidden currents. On this day of equal light and dark, the world seemed full of contrasts, whether this be Japan and Devon, pale wood anemone against deep water or the half bright, half shadowed face of Serenity hunting. If you are reading this, I wish you may be blessed in your own balancing of impossible contradictions and darkbright Mystery moments...

A thing of beauty

2011-03-12T17:34:00.000Z

Spring arrived briefly this morning in Dartington (but had fled by tea time) and the sun was warm, the trees full of chattering birds and the playing fields full of footballers! Dartington Hall gardens get more beautiful with every passing week and now have the first flowering magnolia and delicate fritillaria, to name just two new arrivals. If only I had an elevated tower truck and could show you how beautiful the pink petals of those towering trees are against a pure blue sky. Or if only I had progressed further in my plans to mount very small cameras on snails or bumble bees and get underneath a shy flower...

However, I can offer the latest in my series on Dartington robins, yet more crocus and the first stanza of Keats poem Endymion, which does a much better job than I could ever do in celebrating the power and spirit of natural beauty.

For the rest of this small photo album (including my favourite grape hyacinth), please visit me on Facebook...

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its lovliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

John Keats

Wood Sisters and Sacrifice

2011-03-05T11:54:00.001Z

Dartington Daffodils

It's just a few weeks now until our next Wood Sisters Day on Saturday 26th March, when we'll be celebrating the Spring Equinox with our usual rich feast of meditation, myth and storytelling, simple ritual and sacred time in nature. More details coming soon from Sue...all I'll say for now is that we'll be drawing inspiration from the ancient Greek Goddess Persephone....so it's a taste of the Eleusinian Mysteries for the wild women of the Wood Sisters this time!

As Sue prepares a storytelling of Persephone, I'm reflecting on the themes from this story and the season for meditation...along the lines of my last entry. I'm very struck by how there is often a sacrificial element that is part of the transformation of the soul in its descent and emergence from the underworld (spiritual emergency). Inanna has to find a substitute in order to return, Persephone can only emerge for half the year. This feels to be very true to me...there is no 'returning to normal' after profound experience. Rather we become 'walkers between worlds'...with one foot in the otherworld and one in the everyday world...

I've been pondering this sacrificial element in reading celtic history. Many of the archaeological artefacts found in Europe and Britain are now understood to have been 'given to the Gods'. It seems that sometimes the best and most beautiful items, from weapons to cauldrons, were made specifically for sacrificial purposes, usually through being placed in rivers. (The River Thames has provided many examples).

This seems quite counter intuitive to most people in our postmodern materialistic times. It's hard for us to imagine giving up the best and most treasured aspects of either our belongings or ourselves. From the everyday ego perspective accumulating personal wealth and status is a driving force and our economies of 'growth' are based in it. But the soul is fed by myth and story, which upholds a quite different agenda...one in which the deeper aspects of our being are actually enriched and freed by the demanding process of letting go of purely personal preoccupations.

The subtle art it seems to me is to find some real way of experiencing a larger reality and going through a process of realignment. So it's not simply an unskilful business of self denial... I've found this is so often (in my terms) misunderstood in Christian contexts, where the beauties and talents of the self are downplayed or seen as 'sinful' in a way that has much more to do with self hatred than true sacrifice. The Celtic artefacts give us a clue here - they created the best and most beautiful things to give away... and this was in the context not of destroying them but releasing them into the larger life of the Otherworld. This is not a process of self harm, of cutting ourselves or throwing our beauties away, but rather a journey into re-orientating ourselves as part of some greater whole.

I feel this in my own life. I struggle with the deeper patterns of change in my life and sometimes I suffer as the forms I thought I knew are stripped away. But in my more conscious moments I see myself being gradually freed of confusion and rooted into some greater network of being, from which deep Source vitality and energy flows back into the world.

Approaching the Spring Equinox and Lent

2011-03-05T10:11:00.003Z

New moon at Sunset from the Vicarage

We met in that dark time, just before the new moon for the Circle on Thursday. As we fed ingredients into our shared 'wisdom pot', the equinoctial theme of balance kept recurring. During our meditative walking time in nature, the cold frosts of winter and the bright beginnings of Spring were equally evident. Here at home, how I wished I had photographed our beautiful Vicarage rhododendron before the delicate pink flowers were frosted to a sad brown!

The early Spring of Imbolc really is drawing to a close, as the snowdrops fade and the slow, veiled start of the season begins to move to a faster pulse. Everyday new shoots are emerging...wild garlic and dogs mercury especially are the great green pulse in our local hedgerows. I walked to the old ash by Bidwell Brook, past a bank starred with celandines shining in the sun and got down on my knees in the frosty grass to smell my first violet flowers. (Which turned out to be scentless 'dog'...rather than 'sweet' violets). Apparently we have Zeus to thanks for violets, who created them as a fitting food for the nymph Io, after turning her into a white heifer to hide his lover from his jealous wife... hmmm

Dartington crocus... on the 'lenten purple' colour theme!

I remember how the approach to the Spring Equinox in our shoreside crofting environment in the Highlands, often included storms and extreme tides. It seemed as if the full birth of Spring and the move towards a moment of balance between light and dark was something of a labour. There's a similar sense in the life of the world at present, with the 'Arab Spring', as the young forces of democracy struggle against the frosty grip of tyranny. I keep thinking of these people who are giving their lives to this new birth and how buffered we are here from that level of struggle and sacrifice. I think the only time I've had any personal sense of that was in home birthing...an experience in which power, pain and the real presence of death are the inescapable path to the wonder of new birth.

The theme of suffering and sacrifice as a path to renewal is of course central to the story of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and very close to my heart as we approach the start of Lent... by eating up our rich foods on Pancake Day next Tuesday and preparing to enter a period of austerity, reflection and preparation from Ash Wednesday. This motif is very much in my mind as Sue and I prepare for our next Wood Sisters Day...but more of this in my next post!

Beautiful Soup

2011-02-28T12:11:00.001Z

Spring is almost sprung and we now have flowering rhododendron and daffodils to rival Dartington Hall (almost), right here in the Vicarage garden. We also have our first crop of nettles, picked by Tam and his friend Benedikt who arrived on Saturday from Germany. Here's a photo of the two of them busy making soup, scones and flapjack in the Vicarage kitchen....you can just never start training young men too soon!

The flapjack was made to my mother's original 'toothbender' recipe and in honour of our friend Philip Reeve, who has his birthday today.
Happy Birthday Philip!
We had a blow over the Moors with him and his lovely family yesterday, before getting stuck into serious quantities of Devon cream tea and cake. Do check out his blog on the link below

http://philipreeve.blogspot.com

Not only is Philip one of my favourite authors, but he's a talented illustrator too and often posts his drawings of both Dartmoor and the W.O.M.E (That's the World of Mortal Engines to the uninitiated... which took me months to work out, even after reading all the books. Actually this is due to a medical condition known as post church acronym traumatic stress disorder.)

Here's our tureen of beau - ootiful green Soo - oop...
aka awful green scunge & worthy of the Soup Dragon
This photo is for you, Philip!

Our first nettle soup of the season, toothbender and time with the Reeves has brought on an attack of nostalgia for much loved stories from my childhood and I found myself cleaning the kitchen, while singing Lewis Carroll's parody of 'Star of the Evening'. Here are both James M. Sayle's original and Carroll's 'Soup of the Evening'. Personally I much prefer Carroll's version...

Soup Of The Evening
Lewis Carroll

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Soo - oop of the e - e - evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Soo - oop of the e - e - evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Star Of The Evening
James M. Sayle

Beautiful star in heav’n so bright,
Softly falls thy silv’ry light,
As thou movest from earth afar,
Star of the evening, beautiful star.

Chorus
Beautiful star,
Beautiful star,
Star of the evening, beautiful star.

In fancy’s eye thou seem’st to say,
Follow me, come from earth away.
Upward thy spirit’s pinions try,
To realms of love beyond the sky.

Shine on, oh star of love divine,
And may our soul’s affection twine
Around thee as thou movest afar,
Star of the twilight, beautiful star.

Early Spring Delights in Dartington

2011-02-12T14:00:00.007Z

Vicarage Hyacinths

I woke just before sunrise this morning and was indeed delighted to see a clear blue sky. Walking through to the living room, still warm from last night's fire, I was met by the sweet scent of hyacinths...and our long haired tabby Serenity who can't eat her breakfast until someone has walked up to her bowl and said "biscuits!" while looking meaningfully at her and then the aforementioned biscuits.

Once the sun was well up Ian and I set off for Dartington Gardens, which is a constant source of transformation and wonder at this time of the year. If you are reading this and live anywhere nearby...get yourself to Dartington gardens! As Walter de la Mare wrote

let no night
seal thy sense in deathly slumber
till to delight
thou hast paid thy utmost blessing

My first honey bee of Spring

Dartington Gardens has drifts of species crocus with honey bees. Hallelujah! The first honey bees of Spring! No doubt many of us are concerned about the bees and if you haven't already signed the Avaaz petition to help protect them... please do it now at the link below

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?copy

Robin at Dartington Gardens
Dartington also has...the first daffs, a robin at every turn, deep purple hellebores in full bloom, shocking pink rhododendron and camellia flowering amidst dark, shining foliage, more snowdrops then you can shake an intricately carved shamanic walking stick at....
and even an entire avenue of flowering witch hazel with the Goddess Flora at the end, waiting to bless and greet you! What more could anyone ask for? (And to see the rest of the photos, visit my 'soon to be less neglected' facebook page)

Dartington Camellia
In the face of such a bubbling up of Spring optimism and delight, I'll return to my usual theme of light and darkness with the rest of Walt's wonderful poem

Fare Well

When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?

Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller's Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.

Walter de la Mare

Wood Sisters Imbolc

2011-02-07T14:13:00.004Z

Dartington Witchhazel - Early Spring Light in the Darkness

Once again the gathering of the Wood Sisters was a total inspiration to me. I think I will never cease to delight in all the depth, wisdom, creativity and laughter that a group of wild women can conjure up together.

We started the day sharing seasonal reflections on Imbolc/Candlemas and early Spring. As we spoke around the circle, a wild wind was circling around the house... with sudden silent moments in which the pure, delicate notes of bird song would ring clear . We spoke of clearing away old leaves and discovering and delighting in the tender green shoots of snowdrops emerging from the dark, moist earth...of working through dark, difficulties in our own lives and feeling the vulnerability and hope of new beginnings.

Soon we were moving into meditation, where in both inner stillness and walking silently out in nature we each had our own encounter with the spring goddess, Brigit. I was struck by the diverse and vivid images and words that later emerged as we each spoke of our inner experience. Sharing and giving form in this way to our inner worlds is a brave and beautiful work.

Lunch was a resplendent feast as ever. If anyone out there is wondering about joining the Wood Sisters, I would say...put aside all other doubts and come for the lunch!

Wood Sister Brides

In the afternoon we moved from a quiet, reflective mode to a dynamic, creative one...starting with making Bridie Dolls (and a marvellous mess!) I wish I was better at seizing photo shoot moments...such as the one when a line of finished dolls were lined up along the kitchen window sill. It was the ultimate catwalk with a rich range of styles from twiggy gatherings of greenery to glamourous women with round woollen breasts and sumptuous red satin skirts!

After we'd all drunk our umpteenth cup of tea, Sue spirited us out of the damp celtic lands and into the hot sands of ancient Egypt with a storytelling of Isis and Osiris. This is a epic tale that really deserves a journal entry of its own, especially with the resonances it now has with the present political struggles in modern Egypt.
For now all I shall say (in a lighter vein) is that, like my woodsister Maggie, when asked what struck me about the story, images of Osiris' golden penis came to mind!

The day concluded in quiet again, with a simple candle lighting ritual. For all that I love the juicy discussions, the rich images and crafts of women's mysteries...it is these quiet, sacred times that really touch me. Watching as each woman lit her own flame and planted it strongly in the earth....listening to the carefully chosen words and songs...seeing how each light dipped and danced in the still spaces as that wild spring wind circled the house...this is what shines in my mind's eye now as I remember and give thanks for our wonderful Wood Sisters Imbolc.

Serenity helps sort out the lost property and tries Daphne's bowl for size!

Closing Song
(traditional Canadian folk song)

Land of the silver birch,
Home of the beaver
Where still the mighty moose
Wanders at will

Refrain

Blue lake and rocky shore,
I will return once more
Boom-diddy-ada, Boom-diddy-ada, Boom-diddy-ada, ehaaa

High on a rocky ledge
I'll build my wigwam
Close to the water's edge
Silent and still.

Refrain

My heart grows sick for thee
Here in the low lands
I will return to thee
Hills of the north

It may also be mixed together with another short song that is used to keep time while paddling a canoe:

My paddle's keen and bright Flashing with silver Follow the wild goose flight Dip, dip and swing Dip, dip and swing her back Flashing with silver Swift as the wild goose flies Dip, dip and swing

Bride's Day

2011-02-02T18:09:00.000Z

According to the ever marvellous 'Moonwise Diary' yesterday was officially Imbolc and today Candlemas. In my mind imaginary pagan selves are gathering around a spring pool, where golden catkins hang from the wisdom giving hazel trees and the sacred salmon circles and circles in the cool, deep waters. Meanwhile imaginary High Church selves are blessing beeswax candles in the rich, dark, incense laden depths of an old, stone church. Within myself, these selves each feel equally true...though no doubt if they were to meet in the outer world they would judge and disapprove of each other!

While Pagans and Christians often misunderstand each other, to be able to, within oneself, look back over a long continuum of spiritual tradition and embrace it all, is a wonderful sacred marriage. In this the archetypal Bride seems the perfect symbol as she is beloved as both the goddess Brigit and Saint Brigid. At this time last year, Sue wrote a wonderful poem which she has given me permission to share here...

Bride

Winter's nails

Reach up,

Achingly slow,

To pull back the grey cloak and hood.

Thin white bones

Fracture

Into ice dust

A cover of cold white glory

Bride arrives

In droplets

And vapours

Laced with a burning hidden light

Green limbs

Poke up

Promises dangle

Behind the veil of her approach

A whisper

Of hope

A buried heartbeat

Soft dreams of wild colours to come

Purpose

Forgetfulness

The worlds are married

Bride is breathing: asleep, awake, asleep, awake.

Birthday

2011-02-02T17:50:00.000Z

This weekend I celebrated my fortyfifth birthday with a seasonal blend of light and dark moments... and by finally cutting the Christmas cake, which was hastily converted to a birthday cake by virtue of swapping the tasteless silver plastic 'Happy Christmas' sign for a 'Happy Birthday' one. Let no one say that I am anything but dedicated to the principle of recycling (cake).

The dark side was well represented by spending the morning rehearsing a favourite argument with Ian, while the afternoon was lightened by tea, cake and good friends (followed by more tea, cake, champagne and good friends) Early spring seems rather like this... a delicate blend of tender hopes and new beginnings, which nevertheless have to remain rooted in all the dark, deep winter moments that have come before...and at any time can reoccur, like an old argument or a sudden, sharp frost or a dark, wet day.

I continue to work with this in meditation as well as in daily life. I had something of a small revelation as I reflected on the stories of Inanna/Erishkigal and Cailleach/Brigid. These are not masculine, hero tales where difficulty is braved, overcome and left behind.... these are cyclical, women's mysteries where the dark side is discovered to be your sister and the underworld, once truly entered, is never fully left behind but regularly revisited. This may seem depressing but actually it's liberating. There need be no more pressure to be 'normal', to have to maintain some ever bright, electric lit way of life where everything should be fine...

Rather we get to wax and wane like the moon. Sometimes full of creativity and energy, sometimes empty, hidden and dark...and everything in between. What a relief...I don't have to wait for my life to get less difficult in order to feel ok about myself! In the last Circle meeting meditation I was walking away from the Cailleach's cave again. This time I saw a tiny pile of twigs and realised it was another perspective on the deadwood blocking my way forward. This time I strode over it like a giantess! But whether by this way or by the slipping through as a small snail...still the Way goes on...

Come and celebrate Imbolc with the Wood Sisters

2011-01-19T13:19:00.001Z

We are really looking forward to our next Wood Sisters gathering for Imbolc on Saturday 5th February. As the days start to lengthen again and we look for the first signs of Spring, Sue will be drawing us into the mysteries of rebirth through the story of Isis and Osiris, while Sam will be guiding us into a deep meditative encounter with the celtic goddess Brigid. Woven into myth and meditation will be sacred time outside in nature, creative time to make your own 'Bridie' doll and a closing candle blessing ritual to include all our own contributions of story, songs and poems... plus, of course, the ever delicious bring and share feast!

We currently have a very full house with 20 wonderful women already booked, but do get in touch if you want to join us as there may be last minute cancellations. Dates are now out for future days, with the next being a Spring Equinox celebration at the full moon on Saturday 26th March.

The Living Spirit website has now had its new year update with further details, including contacts, for Wood Sisters, The Celtic Circle and Devon Kabbalah Group. Steam is rising from the Vicarage office as we work on an all new site, including a dedicated Wood Sisters page. (We hope you like the new logo above that Graphic Alchemy have created for us). We also hope to soon be launching a new blog page to include reflections, contributions and pictures from the many creative and soul full women who are the Wood Sisters. Watch this space!

Signs of Spring

2011-01-19T13:02:00.000Z

Dartington Snowdrops

Although Spring is late this year in my personal life, it is a great encouragement to see that the natural world is now full of change and new beginnings. I'm sure I am in good company here in Dartington, in having taken great pleasure in the clear blue skies (and sharp frosts) and warm sun over the last couple of days.

Our local walks are full of wonders...yesterday we were blessed to see a goldcrest in the wonderful flowering witch hazel walk at Dartington Gardens.... and later the same day we enjoyed a remarkably close encounter with a little blue tit in another witch hazel by a neighbour's wall here in Week. I've also now seen my first open snowdrops (Dartington Gardens again) my first primrose and hazel catkins all dusty with golden pollen (both here in Week).

Blue Tit in a Witch Hazel at Week

In my meditations at present I am preparing for a guided meditation to form part of the next Wood Sisters day for Imbolc. I've been re-visiting the dark cave and deep source pool of the Cailleach that I started exploring before the Winter Solstice. The Cailleach's power has now gone underground and she sits still as stone by the spring source, from which flows a small but steady stream of water. As I follow it to the cave entrance that opens into the early Spring sunshine, I find the opening completely blocked by dead branches. I've spent some time reflecting on how to respond to the obstacles and challenges in my inner and outer life as nothing I do seems to resolve or remove them. Today an image finally welled up in meditation as I found myself becoming a very small snail. All thoughts of grappling with difficulty dissolved and I simply and quietly slipped through a very small space in my insurmountable issues and left them behind...

Beginning Again...with Dying

2011-01-12T15:42:00.001Z

After Christmas I travelled through a thaw fog to visit my father who is dying of cancer. Spiritually we often speak of death and rebirth...but how often do we speak of simply dying? Perhaps I could cope with death, but I can't cope with dying. I can't cope with it in my own life, nor with being with the suffering of a beloved other. I wish I could write about the power of compassionate witness, but sometimes I simply struggle and 'awareness' sounds like 'a good idea I heard somewhere but can't remember what it means just now'...

As we moved into the 'New Year' I was utterly disheartened to have to acknowledge that I was still going through the dying of my marriage (and still not divorced), the dying of my career as a christian priest, the dying of my material and financial life... Just how many years does this have to go on for? When does one get to be just plain dead to something and have a chance for beginning again?

Quite a number of good folks wrote to me over Christmas and New Year. They were experiencing their aloneness at a time when the pressure is on to be happy with others....or dealing with cataclysmic shock waves moving through their selves or their families. I wanted somehow to be able to show them how close we all were in our depths and struggles... and how much they helped me by telling the truth. As the year turned and bloggers were sending out 'best of 2010' messages and new year resolutions, I felt like the grumpy old hag of blogdom, as all I wanted to write about was shame or despair or waking up in the night again worried sick about paying the bills...

yes...I'm the rabbit...

I remember a story motif from time with the westcountry school of myth of 'riding on the back of the wolf' because getting up in the morning feels like that...it's another wild day of feeling terrified and vulnerable. Strangely, when I take hold of painful reality, it's full of power and fierce life and it finally comes home to me again that I'm having to just ride with it and begin again...with dying...

The farther side of death

2010-12-23T16:24:00.009Z

I just received the verse below from Abigail and felt it perfectly brought together images of life and death, of virgin, mother and crone and all such thoughts and images that are swirling around in my mind at this time...thanks Abigail!

O VIRGA MEDIATRIX

Alleluia-verse for the Virgin
By Hildegard of Bingen
(1098 - 1179)
English version by Barbara Newman

Alleluia! light
burst from your untouched womb
like a flower on
the farther side
of death.

The world-tree
is blossoming.

Two realms
become one.

2010-12-23T15:29:00.010Z

A very Merry Christmas
from Sam, Ian and Tam
at the Vicarage!

Click on the image above to view our Christmas message...

Wood Sisters Winter Solstice

2010-12-23T14:37:00.000Z

The wonderful Wood Sisters gathered just before the Winter Solstice for their second seasonal celebration.

The Old Mother Yew in the graveyard that we visited at Samhain

This time we started with a meditative journey to the Scottish Highlands to meet the Cailleach (literally Old Woman) who is also known as Nic Neven, Daughter of the Bones. Those who know their "Women who run with the Wolves' by Clarissa Pinkola Estes will recognise the Cailleach as a form of the Wild Woman, who calls us back to our deep, intuitive and creative soul selves. It seems this is so often not an easy process, but one of dipping down into the dark, neglected parts of ourselves to find the inner wellspring. In our story the young soul, represented by Brigid, has to work hard for the Cailleach and pass through a number of tests including a near death experience, before freeing the spring waters in a way that brings healing to both herself and the land....

The first (very small) snowman of winter

I found this a hard story to enter into, feeling that I'd had my fill of darknesses and difficulties...and yet when I finally stopped resisting the Daughter of the Bones, I found a restfulness in her darkness, in being able to become like a dormant seed in the deep, cool earth. All the tinsel brightness that has become Christmas, all the business and the relentless pressure to make others happy could fall away in the face of a grumpy old hag who doesn't need things to be nice.

Putting the dark back into midwinter and Christmas became a theme for me for the day. We were free to acknowledge death before new life, free to weep over people and things lost over this last year, free to feel low and sad and uncertain...

As the sun was going down we walked out to the river. Behind us were all the glowing warm colours of the sunset over the fields and the houses with their soft lights lit....ahead was the darkness of the longest night in the wild woods with the moon bright and cold and clear on the snow and the icy water. Who wouldn't want to leave home for all that wild beauty? Who wouldn't go looking for the wild, old hag of their soul down by the dark moonlit water? It was so painfully cold and beautiful as we lit our little beeswax candles in their walnut shell boats and floated them on the river. It was hard to turn for home and stop watching those tiny lights in the huge darkness. It seemed impossible they could survive (don't we all know how it feels to be a very tiny flame in a walnut boat on a huge river in the freezing air of the longest night?) and yet those little lights floated steadily on, each both moving slowly in its own dance and making shifting constellations of light with its companions. I can't really express how powerfully that very simple ritual affected me and how the picture of it remains in my mind, as if I had seen something deeply true.

Midwinter sunrise at the Vicarage

We came home to a shared feast, to lighting candles on the Christmas tree and singing songs and carols together (and to the inspiration of Abigail's magical harp playing). The evening concluded with our final story, as we travelled this time to Russia to meet another awe-full wild woman of the woods, Baba Yaga. Like the Cailleach she is a hard task mistress but the rewards are to be able to carry one's own sacred fire home to defeat evil and light the hearth. How wonderful it was to have a day with the dark mother. The virgin Mary, meek and mild, had taken on an older face and reminded us of the real labour of bringing new life to birth. I feel so strengthened and inspired by these 'tough as old bones' mythic women. They've given me a new sense of the fierce light of the new born sun and the creative power of all those darknesses and difficulties that are the birth place of all truly creative and soulful new beginnings. It's going to be a wild new year!

Goosanders and chai tea

2010-11-29T11:24:00.000Z

This Saturday, for the first time in a weekend while, I had time to do nothing much and so spent as much time as possible outside, walking by the river. It was cold enough to make my face feel rather stiff but the rewards were some wonderful bird encounters. Firstly I saw a brown and shaggy headed female goosander gulp down a writhing, shining fish... as her jealous mate motored across the water in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the treat for himself. Go girl! When researching goosanders online later, I came across this wonderful image by local photographer Nick Leslie of a River Dart goosander female and chick...a little unseasonal I know but irresistible...

Soon afterwards Ian spotted a little egret fishing in a sheltered, stoney pool and we lingered in the freezing cold to watch this exotic and elegant bird, also known as the night heron or Indian darter. While looking for egret images, this time I discovered a beautiful antique book by Oliver Goldsmith. Published in 1870 with the rather inspiring title of "A History of the Earth and Animated Nature', it features drawings by James Stewart, such as this print of various members of the crane family including the little egret with its delicate white plumage and striking combination of black 'stockings' with bright yellow feet!

As we turned and headed for home, the walk concluded with the ever magical flash of kingfisher blue as this small and speedy bird swept over the water towards Staverton bridge. What a blessing to live in this place and alongside such inspiring fellow creatures.

It was quite a different day from last Saturday, which I spent labouring over a hot urn in the Steiner Fair Chai Cafe. Although a less spacious experience, it was still inspiring to be alongside a wonderful team of fellow human creatures. One of the great things about the school is experiencing the range of creative talents people bring. We had a fantastic team cooking authentic Indian food from scratch (and from local, organic ingredients) and brewing spicy chai tea, while others had painted Bollywood posters and filled the cafe rooms with colour, flowers and live music.

In the afternoon, I went straight from the cafe to the Kindergarten 'Angel Garden' to spend two hours terrifying small children as the resident (and strongly curry scented) angel. I wasn't sure if I had discovered my true vocation...or had been transported into a bizarre comedy show. There were moments of real delight in meeting the children and being in this extraordinary position of representing in some small way a force of goodness and blessing in their eyes. There were also some painfully comedic moments, such as when one of my wings fell off...or when my attempts to gracefully pluck a golden star from the muslin covered heavens and draw it down to the carpeted earth, resulted in my singeing the other wing in a nearby tea light, adding a powerful smell of burning to the heady aroma of curry! So it's back to angel school for me....

Great people....great poetry

2010-11-25T15:16:00.000Z

Life just keeps on getting the better of me and these blog entries don't get written (or only in my head) and as for Facebook....I can't seem to get into that at all!

But in amidst the general chaos of my life, good things happen and this journal is my way of marking that. So here at last are a few words of appreciation for Peter Brennan's wonderful day on 'The Transcendent Art'... a great group of people spending a whole day with great poetry...what could be better.

After a day in the company of Coleridge, I felt quite sane and together (though untalented) At least I can cross opium addiction off my list of life failings...but then I haven't written Frost at Midnight ... or the ultimate 'depression poem' ... Dejection... read this and weep!

II
A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear-
  O Lady, in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
  All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
  And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze - and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

Ascent/Return

2010-11-11T14:11:00.000Z

A Golden Yew that I photographed in Kent recently
...it seems like a fitting symbol of death and rebirth

The stories of Inanna and Ceridwen continue to circle around in my mind. My thoughts, as in my last journal entry, were initially very focused on 'descent', perhaps because I've been so aware of the 'descent' experiences of hurt and loss and letting go in my own life. But recently I've started to think more about the journey of coming back to life, more about the 'ascent' from the underworld.

I find it interesting that in Inanna's story, she returns not as a beautiful Queen of Heaven but surrounded by merciless demons seeking a substitute to dwell in her place in the underworld. Although she refuses to let the demons take her helper Ninshubur or her sons, she vents her rage on her husband Dumuzi and decrees that he is beaten, bound and taken away. This has a rather disturbingly familiar ring... isn't it often the case that we only show the darkest and most unmediated parts of ourselves to those we are closest to? As Sylvia Brinton Perera says in her Jungian study of the Inanna myth..."Often enough, in the modern world, a close family member or a therapist is chosen to bear the eruption of untamed energies when an initiate returns reborn, and initially demonic, from the underworld."

It seems that the process of return and rebirth is at least as arduous, if not more so, than the initial process of death and descent. While the descent includes surrender, the loss of control and suffering humiliation, judgement and 'death', the ascent is a much more dynamic but still challenging process. Later in the Inanna story, Dumuzi is 'driven' through his own series of transformations, which are very similar to the shamanic animal transformations that Gwion is hounded through by Ceridwen. I don't think I'm alone as a woman (or as a human being) in sometimes actually finding it almost easier somehow to understand and affirm the rather passive and collapsed 'loss and suffering' stage, than to engage with the pressing challenges of coming back to life. The hope is that we are transforming into a new creative self, just as the hunted Gwion is transformed by his trials into the bard 'Taliesin' - Shining Brow. But the process of turning rage into passion, or suffering into creativity involves a lot of effort and courage. Somehow we do have to find and keep affirming an inner drive for creative living.

Wood Sister Sarah carved a lantern with two faces...the other side scowls while this side smiles...
Sue reminded us that we can see a Samhain lantern as serving to scare away ghosts
....or to welcome the spirit wisdom of the ancestors

Today in the Circle it was wonderful to hear one of us describing just such a turning point. After months of plumbing the depths of grief and despair, a new sense of empowerment is unfolding and an awareness of really choosing to work on creating a happy life. In our meditation I too received images that I found similarly affirming. The meditation includes facing an inner obstacle. Mine was a bog of thick, black mud that seemed to threaten to engulf me, a feeling just like that I've had recently as I've slogged through the book keeping for our beleaguered finances! To make it through the mud without sinking, I had to lie down and roll across it - a counter intuitive act of surrender or 'descent'. Later, as we came to the central part of the meditation symbolising an encounter with the divine, I saw the image of a consuming fire. This engulfed my 'muddy' self and baked me into a hard shell that at first seemed entombing. But as I realised that the divine fire was within as well as without, the clay vessel shattered. Looking down I saw the broken pieces scattered around me and how each looked like a sumerian clay tablet marked on the inside with stories. The power of meditative experience is such this had a quality of reality that really helped me. I have seen my own mythic journey of return and it gives me strength and hope.

Wood Sisters Samhain

2010-11-02T17:14:00.004Z

Samhain was extra special this year thanks to the wonderful Wood Sisters. Twenty of us gathered to celebrate this ancient turning of the year and to make our own new beginning as a women's mystery school.

We started with Sue's spirited telling of the mythic story of Inanna's descent to the underworld realm of her sister Ereshkigal. I was struck by how much the great Queen of Heaven had to let go of as she descended through the seven gates of the underworld and all her powers and adornments were stripped from her. Those of us who have been through illness, bereavement, divorce or suchlike could certainly relate to the image of Inanna standing naked before the underworld judges as they spoke their words of anger and guilt. How difficult it was to hear that it was her sister who struck the mortal blow and hung Inanna's body on a hook! But at the same time I found it deeply helpful to have the reality of suffering and loss acknowledged. Our culture has so little tolerance for difficulty and death, which doesn't help us as individual's to witness our own and others suffering in a way that genuinely enables healing.

Another aspect that struck me this time in listening to the story, was that not only was there this dissolution of the ego and external achievements but there was also the presence of love and compassion. Inanna couldn't 'come back to life' alone and by her own powers. She has a community of support whose healing power takes the form of strange little beings created from dirt from the fingernails of the God Enki. These basic beings listen compassionately to the sufferings of Ereshkigal in labour and in return are given Inanna's body which they bring back to life. This acknowledgement of the life giving power of compassionate witness seems so true to me and I experience again and again in my own life the transformations that follow from cultivating this for the darkest and most challenging aspects of myself and others.

Miriam's shrine to Inanna and her dark sister

While there remains much more of the story to be explored, for now I want to stay with this first stage or 'descent', the acknowledgement of the depth, power and meaning of 'underworld' experience and the importance of our capacity to engage consciously and compassionately with it. In this vein, I'll fast forward to where the story ends with a hymn to Erishkigal. It feeds my soul to hear the dark sister praised... as it did also to hear the poems, songs and stories that some of the group then shared (before I had to nip off and stir a few soup cauldrons in the kitchen.) After a resplendent feast of a bring and share lunch, we shot forward in time from ancient Sumeria to Welsh myth with a telling of the story of Ceridwen and her cauldron. I'm working on some further thoughts on this in another journal entry. The day concluded with quiet reflective time, which for some of us took the form of a silent walk to the ancient yew in the old graveyard on the Dartington estate. Walking silently through the rain with my sisters, surrounded by the rich autumn colours shining out in a dull day, was quietly inspirational for me and perfectly summed up by Ronnie saying afterwards..... "how beautiful dying can be..."