Walking with my Goddess

Solstice Morning Sky I hope you all had a Wonderful Solstice, Yule or Christmas, however and whenever you celebrated.  I think it's fair to say we've given it a pretty good go by fitting as much in as possible so far! After my usual grounding, I decorated my altar with holly and mistletoe and lit many candles to welcome the returning light, I celebrated Solstice morning on the 22nd by standing in my garden at the outdoor altar staring up at wild dark and cloudy sky, whilst the wind whipped my hair around my head and howled it's greeting, no amazing sunrises here for us but it still felt important to mark it and witness the turning point in the wheel. I did try to shield a candle - the tea light I had been given at the Solstice Ceremony last weekend to light over the solstice, but the swirling skies and heaving trees appeared to conspire to deny my request for light. Undeterred I asked Goddess for Solstice blessings for me and mine and definitely felt that the winds we

Holly Candle Decoration from my Gleanings Last Week Well we're nearly here, Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Yule or Christmas - the festive season whatever you choose to call it!  So many people celebrate in such different ways and even on different dates. By my reckoning, the shortest day this year by 1 whole minute  will be on 22nd and the longest night will the night of the 22nd/23rd so that's when we'll be doing some of our celebrating. I duly wrestled with the holly I had been given also found a few stray pine cones that had been part of an old bag of festive pot pourri but now just smelt of the loft (what is that smell?!) so they were treated to a quick dusting of silver spray and added just enough detail to the holly - I'm very pleased with the result.  I was inspired by the article I shared on my Walking with my Goddess facebook page last week about Modraniht - translated roughly as Mother's Night this ancient Germanic festival that was lost after the

Just Some of the Cakes... Well after a few weeks of frantic work activity preceding an audit, diploma drama and car troubles - just don't ask - I've had a beautiful and festive week! First off, we had two Christmas charity coffee mornings at work which had both teams and all the service users (the PC term for our clients!) working very hard to raise money for a local charity and Shelter - raising over £215 between them - so many gorgeous home made cakes as well as pickle, lavender bags and tree decorations made by our groups as well as some chutney from yours truly - so very proud of them all! Interestingly both were held in church halls and we had a high percentage of local lovely parishioners support  Pride of Place in the Local Church.... us, many of them elderly ladies so there was a really high level of Crone energy flowing round all be it in a different guise! Some Crone wisdom and clarity here led me to ponder positively about the inherent spirituality that is

Treats for the Cats! Wow, what a weekend! I don't think I've stopped since I got up yesterday morning, but all in a good way! In fact it seems to have been like that all week - both at work and at home! Spurred on by my new found faith in my creative ideas and buoyed up with wild and windy Crone energy buffeting us at the moment, I started with finishing mini Santa Sacks for the cats (yes really!) for their cat mint mice I made earlier in the year using cat mint from our allotment, along with their Christmas dinner treat of luxury cat food and chewy sticks! So, officially a crazy cat lady, I moved on to some presents for humans... Deciding to do the same as when I try a new recipe for food, I grounded and called Goddess in before I started, particularly asking for wisdom and intuition  then blended and mixed some bath time 'teas' for presents, first using an existing recipe from my lovely 'gifts from the garden' book I was given for my birthday back in April

Tuesday's Full Moon Well, what can I say, belated blogging - another new skill I'm getting good at! Mondays are always hectic as I work all day and then the evening, and it seemed to dawn on me over the weekend, particularly on Sunday that giving myself a tight deadline to write my weekly blog and rushing to finish it was totally contradictory to what I was intending to do, when I set out 34 weeks ago - That and it felt more important to enjoy some impromptu family time instead of beavering away at my computer! I've felt the energy of the full moon this last week, it doesn't show up in this photo but it had a beautiful crest around it as she shone her reflected brilliance through the clouds. I've picked up my Christmas cards and presents that Lots of Half Started Ideas... I've been planning to make and put them back down so many times over the last week, my kitchen table is crammed with projects waiting to have life breathed into them but I kept telling

Early Morning Sun in Linton Well I think it's fair to say that any remaining cobwebs have been completely blown away this week in the wake of hurricane Barney, torrential rain as well as a snow shower yesterday morning! I've felt so much more connected to Goddess this week, my daily practice has been natural and unhurried again, allowing me to focus again and feel the Crone energy around me: re-evaluating, clearing, clarifying and sharing a glimpse of ancient wisdom with me. Some unsought, some asked for, all of it a powerful learning curve, that will shape me and will help me grow, harsh lessons though they may be.  In particular this week the Crone energies have probably very naturally shouting ancestors and Motherline to me. After having a chance to chat with cousins I haven't seen for years, since past funerals and also meeting a cousin that even my Dad hasn't seen for 46 years, our accidental chance of birth into the same 'clan' gives us a shared DNA,

Solitary nest in a tree Late post again this week, sorry everyone - the end of the week seemed to evaporate and I hadn't managed to finish reining in all my thoughts that were whirling round my head by the time it came to write them down, they were elusive to say the least. Even grounding and calling Goddess in this week has felt perfunctual and I've felt a lack of depth, if that makes sense. I thought the week finally had come when there would be gap! However after trailing round half the shops in town with my son who suddenly realised that he needed a suit for the funeral the next day as his no longer fitted him, I literally decided to take to the hills, I wonder if that's where the phrase came from....fleeing to higher ground and departing quickly! Anyway off I shot to our lovely North Downs to escape the maelstrom gusting round my head and literally blow the cobwebs away. Kits Coty House  At one of my favourite haunts the evocative Kits Coty House, I braved the

The Crone What's been on my mind this week?  Not surprisingly perhaps - d eath, what happens afterwards, trees that look like brains and Goddess in her Crone aspect, not at all as grim as it sounds - I promise you! I thought I'd also share some art with you this week, this is an old oil crayon sketch I did earlier this year of Ceridwen the Crone weaving her magic huddled round her cauldron, in some other world under Glastonbury Tor, not a bear which it looks a bit like according to my son! When I did a meditation journey to meet Goddess as Crone a vision of Her flashed into my head immediately, it took a while for me to track the image down but eventually I realised it was a sketch my beautiful cousin Rachel had shown me of her A level art a couple of years ago, bless her, she has very kindly sent me  a photo of the finished work...   By Kind Permission of Rachel Weeden    It is is even more amazing than I remember, I know you will all agree, what a very talented yo

A Blessed Samhain to You All Samhain Sunset As some of you may have gathered, the veils between the worlds have been painfully thin for our family this week, as a much loved member of family passed over very unexpectedly. Nearly at the end of his gruelling chemo and radiotherapy, complications set in for my cousin Kev, who was so much more like a big brother to me. Mercifully for him it was quick and hopefully he was comforted in his last hours by having us all around him, reminiscing and talking about family members and parties, past present and future. I'd like to think that we eased his soul's passing, surrounding him with warmth, love and laughter.  One day he will tell me how annoying I was, I'm sure.  I wasn't quite convinced about lighting a candle for him on my altar to my Goddess as he had no faith of his own, but I did and simply asked that he was greeted with love and that he walked and talked with all our ancestors old and more recent, he loved his