Connections

Our apple trees are blossoming

I have to admit I was getting a bit worried about what I was going to write about this week. I've been carrying on with my usual daily practices, calling Ker in, feeling Her energies start to change as we approach Beltane and tending the allotment, watching our apple trees budding with pink blossom. I have also been trying meditation journeys, which have been quite frustrating as I seem to 'stuck' and not really journeying any further, so I felt that there wasn't really anything inspiring or 'Goddessy' to share!


I've tried meditating at home and later on the allotment, but every time in my journey we (the maiden and myself) stop near some water, I can't see it but I can hear it bubbling over rocks, I know I need to cross it. I can hear people working in the fields, singing and laughing and animals lowing. It feels like I'm watching and waiting for something to happen, feeling frustrated and impatient I asked Ker for some inspiration. The following day, I realised that to me, this represented the change in energy to that of Goddess as the lover, like a young teen yearning to grow up and walking by some water might be what I needed to progress, so I enlisted my husband in thinking up watery places that we could visit this weekend. 

Herne The Hunter

The same day whilst at work, I ended up at St Dunstans Church in Cranbrook and was walking round the church with the parish clerk when I spied these beautiful wooden shields - in pride of place either side of the main door, not what you'd expect in a church! Originally they were roof bosses, covering the joins in the vaulting, there are 4 of them altogether and they are 13th/14th century.  We had a lovely conversation about Paganism and Christianity, pagan sabbats being 'hidden' by newer Christian festivals such as Yule becoming Christmas, lack of inspiring women saints and there being room for both beliefs, and no, the church didn't collapse around us! 

Green Man

This made me think about a conversation I'd had earlier this
year when we were looking for sacred sites connected to our respective Goddesses. I'd asked on a facebook group page called 'Holy Wells and Sacred Springs of Britain' and while there were none linked to Ker, there was one nearish to me that prior to being renamed as St Edith's Well in the 10th century, was originally a shrine dedicated to Robigus a roman God of corn and it was suggested that it predated that as a sacred site. A well/spring connected with a Corn deity would do for a start! 

Further research that night suggested evidence of a lesser known roman Goddess  called Robigo who was connected with grain crops and their diseases or blights whereas the present day well is connected with healing. A festival known as Robigalia was held annually to protect the grain and the date - April 25th, the very day we were planning to go well searching! Definitely too good a connection to miss and definitely not just weird as I used to say before learning to trust my intuition!

The Sun, Kemsing Solar System

So, a short road trip yesterday first to Otford near Sevenoaks to look the antique and collectors shops, where we also found the worlds largest scale model of the solar system,a millennium
project which is a series of markers spread out throughout the playing field and surrounding fields showing the positions of the sun and the planets. I love this photo I took of the sun marker, it has a silver dome that reflected the sky and inadvertently I'm forming the symbol of Goddess as I take the photo! 

Kemsing Millennium Mosaic

We got chatting to a lady who's late husband had come up with the original idea, another divine connection and she pointed us in the direction of the local heritage centre where the volunteer told us about another millennium project, a mosaic, part of which depicts corn or grain being harvested and
highlights it's worldwide importance, connecting me once again with my Goddess.

We drove to Kemsing, just 5 minutes away and easily found this beautifully kept well, in it's own peaceful garden, complete with a little stream running through the grounds. It's at the heart of the village and is one of the few wells in Kent that still has an annual dressing at harvest/Mabon. After reflecting peacefully, I washed my hands in the stream and offered up a prayer of thanks, asked for blessings for fruitfulness for our allotment and left my offering I'd taken - a small posy of blossom and buds from our garden.

       

Wishing you all a very happy Beltane, I'm hoping to go to my first ever Beltane ceremony at Folkestone with a friend, which I am so looking forward to!

       Have a blessed week )0(

Roots

Wow - a very big 'Hello' to all you lovely people taking the time to read my blog in the UK, USA, Ireland - 'Dia Dhuit!' and Sweden - 'Hej!' 

What lovely weather we've been blessed with this week in Kent, warm and sunny.This is the beautiful view outside my office. I managed to take this photo before the cherry blossom started to fall like confetti to the ground, appropriately enough for the ceremonies and rites of the upcoming sabbat of Beltane and the sheep well I surprised them with a impromptu photo shoot as I drove to an appointment last week, they seemed so typical of a  Kentish Spring, if a little shocked!
Roots have been a recurring theme for me this week- literally, physically, historically and metaphorically. 

First root first - the Cardoon is here! Unfortunately it didn't take too kindly to being uprooted and within the hour of arriving at work it had wilted despite all our best efforts to protect it.         

I had to cut it right back to not much more than a root ball and pop it in a pot in my front garden
where I can make sure it has plenty of TLC to help it look more like it's glorious relative in the photo (courtesy of http://www.flowerspictures.org) 
These odd plants were first mentioned in the 4thC BC and were popular up until the late 1800s. Will keep you posted!

Earlier in the week when I was researching the origins of  the actual names of Ker, Kernel, Keridwen I realised that these roots are connected all over the world and that I needed to provide a little background for some of you. 
Since time began each civilisation has a Goddess, sometimes a God that is the bringer of the corn or grain, usually seen as a Mother deity.

In Roman mythology Ceres seen left, depicted holding several  sheaths of corn (courtesy of http://theinnerwheel.com)
is the corn Goddess and Demeter her Greek counterpart, both are identified as Mother Goddesses, both with daughters (Proserpina and Persephone respectively) whose abduction or fall into the underworld gives rise to their Mother's sorrow and decline of interest in their 'earthly duties' and hence the change of season to winter. In both stories their daughters return to earth signifies the return of life and the season changes to spring.Today, 19th April is purportedly Cerealia, the festival that celebrates Ceres. 

The importance of grain/corn and it's mythical or divine origin is reflected around the world, to the Cherokee, Selu is the Corn Mother sometimes seen as an old woman who produces grain by rubbing her body or giving birth, persecuted and killed as a witch or sometimes as a young maiden below left (courtesy of https://journeyingtothegoddess.wordpress.com)

Young Selu marries into an impoverished tribe, produces grain in a similar way before being rejected by the tribe. However in Hopi culture She is seen as a bountiful provider -The Blue Corn Maiden and Sakwa Mana watch over health, harvest and joy and to the Aztecs She was Chicomecoatl bringer of abundance, fertility and death - possibly representing the seasons. Every culture has a corn or grain Goddess, too many to tell you about in detail but Her roots lie in the very existence of woman/mankind.

Personally, I am very much enjoying working with the British retelling of the Mysteries of the Grain in Brigit's Isles as told by Kathy Jones in The Ancient British Goddess (Ariadne Publications,2001, p131-5)
In this version, Kernel the Maiden Goddess tumbles into the Middleworld whilst picking flowers for her Mother Ker - The Grain Goddess and has to live with her Grandmother Keridwen the Crone for a while, which plunges her Mother and the Middleworld into despair, bringing Winter to the land. She is ultimately found by her sister, The Lover Goddess Kerhiannon, and returns to the Middleworld after developing an affinity with her Grandmother and promises to return each year, completing the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of new life. A very potted version, I plan to expand on this in my next blog !

History and Anthropology lesson over... This week  I have been very busy on my allotment. I am trying to plant in sync with the moon also known as bio dynamics, again I will talk more about this another time, before you all nod off! 
This week has seen me planting mainly fruit and flowers as it is deemed to be a fortuitous phase of the moon for them, so raspberries, gooseberries, a plum tree and Marigolds to keep the black fly away from my legumes (Get me - I mean Veg!) have gone in this weekend. 
Feeling braver then last week I took my candle and incense and was just about to set up an altar on my work bench when I noticed Poppies randomly growing, just a small sign from Ker! Incense and candle re-positioned instantly before offering up a happy prayer for guidance and then happily humming and singing devotions around my plot asking for guidance and blessings, as well as thanking Her for the signs of growth and Her fruitfulness. No incense loving dogs in sight today unfortunately, probably a good job with my singing!

More roots - My family have been born and bred in Kent for 100s and 100s of years, Mum has traced them back as far as the 1600s and pretty much all my ancestors on my Motherline have been involved in farming and agriculture. I did wonder this week, quite what they would have made of me having an allotment for fun and walking through fields,looking at plants and crops just because I can. Hopefully they would be proud, that what was the core of their existence so many years ago, still fascinates me and means so much to me today.

Final root, more of a funny sapling - my beautiful daughter Sophie is 17 and she often jokingly calls me a 'major hippy'. Last week she was chilling and sunbathing  in a park some friends and her boyfriend,when she started waxing lyrical about beautiful trees and flowers there and seemed surprised when her boyfriend and best friend told her she really was her mothers daughter!

Have a blessed and fruitful week x x x 

                                         
                                          

                                      

Please feel free to find me, add and share my Walking With My Goddess page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/walkingwithmygoddess   

Sowing the seeds...

Well, what a week....

It occurred to me after my triumph in managing to start and post my blog last week, that I hadn't a clue what I would write about and it was a bit presumptuous to announce my grand ideas before asking Her to work with me! What if nothing happened, no great inspiration came or I was stumped for words? Would my Goddess approve?

Slightly daunted, but very excited,I started with a simple cleansing ceremony to clear any Crone energy I was still holding, walking round my house room by room with burning incense and a beautiful feather, asking for negativity and fear to be released before calling in Ker in Her maiden energy and asking for Her blessings.

The week before I'd been saying to my 
husband Mark that I wanted to grow
something 'different' on the allotment and within hours of asking for Her blessings - a beautiful book called 'Gifts from the Garden' was given to me by one of oldest and dearest friends for my birthday - and you guessed it, packed full of ideas for unusual plants, flowers and fruit to grow and gorgeous ideas of things to make such as teas, bath bombs, jellies, soaps, room sprays, all things lovely! Though unaware of my decision to work through the year with Ker and to blog it when she chose gifts, she'd also added a couple of beautiful notebooks, a pen and a gardening for dummies for Mark's birthday. What a blessing - All set then, no excuses please!

I was planning to head down to the allotment first thing Tuesday, I'd decided to clear the energy and bless the land before planting anything, hoping to get down there before anyone else was around so that I could perform my little ceremonies privately. Lesson 1 of the day, that just wasn't happening! Ker had other plans for me, by the time I got there, the allotment was busy and my bordering neighbour and his dog were obviously there for the day and feeling chatty. Not a good a good start when I was feeling anxious and self conscious. I'm fine doing ceremonies on my own, but still get a little flustered even in our Discovery circle and wasn't really keen to have a potentially less understanding audience.                  

After about twenty minutes of looking at the plot, walking round it, looking in the shed and generally hoping people would go home so that I wouldn't be seen, I plucked up the courage to light a candle (albeit hidden behind the shed!) and offered a little prayer to Ker to bless my little patch of land with fruitfulness and to guide me. Taking a deep breath I lit a charcoal disc and added some incense and inched slowly round the edge of my allotment, grateful that we have a plot in the far corner -clearing energy and blessing with my feather. 
Before I knew it I was out in the open, no longer hidden by the shed, wafting away and repeating 'Goddess Ker, bless my land and guide me' and had circled the whole plot. I stood there actually laughing at my five minute previous self, what on earth had been so scary or awkward about that? Nothing - just felt natural and part of my journey. 

Buoyed up and energised, I planted some mint, lavender, cat mint and chamomile that I had bought with birthday money after deciding on some great ideas to make from my new book, my neighbour even stopped for a chat and suggested a sunny spot for them and later advised me as I  built a couple of wigwams for my peas and beans, before planting them as well. Obviously hadn't seen then, all that fuss for nothing! As I was leaving, he was taking his dog for a round the field and stopped for another chat and to inspect my handiwork, his parting comment was 'Dog happens to like the smell of something over here' before smiling and walking back to his plot! 

        

So Lesson 2 of the day, even the week for me is to be open about my journey and people are more than likely interested, if not helpful! The following day I was explaining a little about this to a delightful lady who I share an office with, 'Do you have a Cardoon?' she said, my bemused look was evidence that if I did, I didn't know it, so tomorrow when she's back in she's bringing me one freshly dug from her garden. I've googled of course and it appears to be the oddest combination of a thistle and an artichoke, with an edible stem that sort of resembles celery, oh and it attracts bees, so what's not to like!! 
Photos to follow....

Have a blessed week  x x x

Welcome...

Welcome to my year long project! 

After finishing two thoroughly enjoyable Goddess discovery courses with the lovely Michelle, a Priestess of Avalon in Glastonbury and a group of fantastic Ladies, I have decided to continue the journey I feel that I have only just started.

I have spent the last few months working closely with Ker, The Grain Goddess - holding Her energy in the four archetypes Maiden, Lover, Mother and Crone. 

Time, I decided to spend a whole year walking with Her, working round the actual wheel of the year - in real time so to speak - working with, holding, exploring and sharing Her energy, contemplating what it means to me and my life, as well as to those around me, creatively celebrating Her in whatever form inspires me - such as the banner I made to represent Her or the cushion that celebrates Her many forms.







I am lucky enough to live in the Kent countryside so I will be walking Her land, searching for Her in all Her beauty as well as asking for Her blessings on my allotment!

An odd time of the year/cycle to start you may think, a  strange place in between sabbats and archetypes - but I have chosen to start tomorrow 6th April as it is my birthday - so I will spend the whole of my 44th year walking with Her, starting by calling her Maiden energy in before it  begins to shift to that of the Lover later in the month.

Hopefully you will share my journey with me - Blessed Be