Unexpected Connections

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, more similarities than we can conceive in looks, traits and personality, more family photos have been added to our family archives and it was a personal reminder from Goddess that life can be short and to appreciate the people around us (not that I don't!) which to me has meant to make more time to see my lovely parents, again not that I don't, but to quote Andrew Marvell - "But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near " With this in mind, I decided to fully embrace more opportunities to spend time with them as they arose, leading to an impromptu Fish and Chip Supper  at ours after the Funeral on Monday - one of Kevin's

Mosaic Floor at Lullingstone

favourites and then on Friday Dad randomly suggesting that I joined them for a trip to Lullingstone Roman Villa the following day -  well of course I said yes. On Saturday I sat in the back of my Mum and Dad's car feeling like an excited child again and resisting the urge to ask "Are we there yet?" as we drove to this local treasure, I recalled memories of being on a coach at junior school, Mum also on board as always, helping out with any trip that she could and making time for those that she probably would have preferred not to! At this point I wasn't looking for any special Goddess connection, just happy and thankful to Goddess that I was able to spend care free time with them so readily.
It didn't take long before I began to feel the familiar sense of reason, destiny

Four Seasons Mosaic
- Summer is missing

and dotting the i's and crossing the t's - watching the introductory film, telling us  how there was an unusually large Granary on site for the size of villa, ooh, my radar was up and in full search and retrieve mode, no wonder Goddess sent me in this direction and noticing the fabulous mosaics, more of Gods than Goddesses  I grant you, but still a pretty funky looking one with corn in his hair that miraculously still survive, as well as the wall paintings that naturally portray nearly 2000 year old images of Goddess.....of course! 
Sorry the pictures aren't of great quality -

Frieze of Water Goddesses By The Well

for obvious reasons to preserve the site the lights are low. In what might have originally been a cellar the archaeologists had found signs of Pagan worship including this beautiful wall frieze of water Goddesses by the well, which appeared to be in an underground room the modern day historians have called "The Cult Room" - which sounds quite menacing, which later had a Christian Chapel built over it but it looks like it was still used until the owners returned to Rome as well as the remains of a shrine to an unknown deity in the grounds. The photos really don't so the painting justice! 
The walls of this underground room still have bits of paint on them, not that I could pick them out in the lighting but it must

The Cult Room, the Frieze is on
 the left wall parallel with the well.

have been something special in it's day. So I stood there feeling slightly miffed that there was no magical or divine Scooby Doo ending here. 
Disappointed that there was no sign of a Corn/Grain Goddess to be found in the former shrine or "Cult Room", I suppose I had expected an all singing and dancing sign from my Goddess, an amazing relic that I instantly connected with or something, I turned to talk to my Dad who was engrossed in a wall display and well, there She was, albeit it a simple modern drawing on a display about Roman Gods and Goddesses, not necessarily in the form or the name that I would connect with Her, but a small

Ceres

simplistic drawing depicting Ceres as a Goddess of "agriculture, grain and motherly love" even holding a sheaf of corn. Not Ker as such, but a timely reminder for me at least all the same that my Goddess is around me, even when I am struggling to see, hear or feel her! I think I need to pay more attention to that clarity and wisdom that the Crone is trying to share with me and leave my own preconceptions of what it should be like behind. Thank You!
Slightly late post this week as when I picked Sophie up from work last night and asked her what she wanted to do for tea (as we had all already eaten) she decided that she wanted to go to Nanny and Granddad's for tea.... My poor parents probably wanted some peace but instead they had a couple of hours with their only daughter and only granddaughter looking at old family photos, laughing at anecdotes and memories and drinking tea, all thoughts of blog writing out of the window and you know some how I think that Crone / Wise Woman / Ancient Grandmother would have preferred that!

 Have A Blessed Week x x 

Artist's Impression of What the Villa
And Cult Room May have Looked like.

Solace

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 very real wind that stripped trees naked of their remaining leaves and whipped my hair so wildly that I looked like a cave woman. Luckily no one else was there to witness my bad hair afternoon and I was able to sit in silence and watch over the town in the valley below, hoping to find  the peace I was looking for. What I did find, was the noisiest silence you could get! Obviously my Goddess of the land is not a quiet one - as the wind whistled, roared and raged, the trees where clacking and rattling and even the grass was flapping so quickly it made a rushing sort of sound as it blew first one way and

A Gift To The Ancestors?

them another like a turbulent green sea, albeit one dotted with some very hardy dandelions. After joining in with the wailing, making a fair amount of racket myself as well as a bit of grizzling, which may have added to the cave woman look - my very ancient ancestors who may very well have been buried where I was sitting would have approved of, I felt oddly better in a primal and free sort of way. Inspired and slightly renewed I  noticed this tiny pumpkin, left maybe as a Samhain offering to unknown ancients amongst the stones and remembered the ancient people who would rest for eternity where I sat, these remaining stones on the hill once being the entrance to a burial long barrow that has long since been ploughed to oblivion. I've read somewhere that these were

A Bit Far from the Coast
For Shells....

also often used as temples back in a time when we called on the spirits of our ancestors to mediate with or appease our Goddesses and Gods. Is this where our desire to honour and achieve things in our departed loved one's memories comes from? This ancient ancestor worship? In all probability all they too sat with their bones and remembered those they loved, probably had the same gut wrenching feelings of guilt and regret about we did or didn't say or do, smiled at precious memories, wiped away tears and howled into the wind.

Illuminating The Town

Sitting overlooking the town, I watched rays of sun filter out one by one through the cloud, illuminating random patches where they shone, this photo could be mistaken for a UFO too! I sat meditating, still no clear images or thoughts but I felt as though the mists were clearing and felt sure that Goddess wasn't so very far away after all. With the hairs on the back of my neck rising and a growing sense that the patrolling hawk or kestrel circling high above and I weren't alone I decided it was time to leave and head back home, feeling a lot calmer and refocused again. I was taken with the tree lined tunnel that forms an avenue up and down

Heading Down to the
 Countless Stones

the hill that acts as an access route to the stones along the famous Pilgrims Way, I wonder how many years later that became it's official name from some ancient track? Yes more trees, I'm obsessed! I know there is no way they were the original ones there when the stones were first erected but they feel apt like a processional funerary route. Climbing back up to the car I still had the most curious sensation that I was not alone, but really didn't fancy staying to find out, that might be another trip with a friend or two to investigate further! 
Thanking the Goddess for the calm before the inevitable storm and the renewed strength I felt, I went home and laid the table with our best tablecloths, china and cutlery for us to have a final celebratory meal, even opened a bottle of bubbly to toast cherished memories and laugh at all the funny times we have shared with Kevin, and believe me there are plenty, many of them extremely colourful! 

Wishing You All A Peaceful and Blessed Week x x

Ivy Entwined with a Tree

It Feels Like An Ancient Route

Surrounded by Trees

The Crone

What's been on my mind this week? 
Not surprisingly perhaps - death, 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 young lady she is! In this sketch of a very old woman I can see so many emotions telling her story: humour, fear, hope, grief, love, warmth, pain, knowledge and joy. There is beauty in her wrinkled and lined skin and her work worn hands. I can still remember filing and painting my Nan's nails for her and being fascinated by the strength  and the stories in those tiny wrinkled arthritic hands, whilst listening to tales of her parents, grandparents, her childhood and her life. I also remember getting told off for remarking that she looked like a nice old witch to my Mum! I meant it in 

Tree Roots at Avebury Circle

the nicest possible way, she was beautiful and wise. In the mediation Goddess was sitting waiting for me on some raised gnarled tree routes not unlike these at Avebury Circle. Predictably just as I drew nearer I was brought back to the present by one of the cats! I'll need to revisit that meditation path again, I am still calling Goddess in as Ker, no Crone name has come to me yet, having learnt the hard way earlier in the year that other people's interpretations don't always work for others, I'm in no rush!
The phrase 'tree of life' kept floating through my mind and feels

Tree of Life
Pendant

 as though it's important for me or has an important lesson for me to learn. It also connects with me for family trees and the mother line which is still nagging away at me to research some more. Whilst looking for fresh tea lights in my Goddess drawer, I found a pretty silver pendant I bought last year and have yet to buy a chain  for it and wear it - of course it's the tree of life symbol - what else would it be? I beginning to think I'm getting obsessed with trees reflecting us or us reflecting them, even simply looking at them. I really will be hugging them next!

As the land is dying down, for winter, like a little death in itself, which interestingly translates in French as La Petite Morte and can also mean an orgasm, a final ecstasy perhaps - all sorts of connotations of seeds being planted there, but sorry I digress! I've been musing how life and nature reflect each other; that both have life cycles that have been played out for time immeasurable and have found myself watching trees as they shed their leaves literally in front of me, some at the end of their lives, clinging on until the bitter end, brown, dry and wrinkled they float away from the branches, whilst others spiral and dance away

Mistletoe Balls

in the wind - vivid wings of red, orange and gold even green, energetic to the last.  The rapidly disappearing leaves leaves have made the clumps of mistletoe visible, ironically it poisons the tree, despite being evergreen and associated with Christmas kisses, it's pretty noxious stuff! No wonder it was and still is so revered by Druids alongside the Oak tree. 
It's possible that these ancient oaks at the base of the Tor
were once part of a druid grove, this one known as Magog is between 1000 and 1500 years old "She" named after a legendary giantess, is still alive unlike her brother Gog, strange I've just today remembered having a dream as a child, where there were tiny devils under the bed called Gog and

The Ancient Magog

Magog, it terrified me at the time! Nearly as much as the afternoon walk round the bottom of the Tor a couple of years ago where I took this photo of Magog, up hill and down dale as my Discovery Sisters can probably well recall!  All these bare branches put me in mind of blood veins, arteries and capillaries that service our bodies and brains with the oxygen vital to our existence, which are also reflected in the trees root systems.... as above so below. Trees covered with foliage always look like brains to me too, perhaps I need to get out less! Walking this path with Goddess has made me stop and look at the world around me in a different way.

 I'll do my best to stay away from trees for a while, but don't hold your breath!

Have A Blessed Week x x x

The Veil Thins

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 history so I'm sure he would approve of that.

Samhain is referred to by many as the 3rd and final

Goddess and Tor Pumpkin

harvest of the year, traditionally when animals were killed to feed communities throughout the winter until the spring and when the veils between the worlds are at their thinnest, presumably why we tell stories of ghosts and ghouls haunting us - a far cry from the ancient traditions of honouring and remembering  our ancestors! Jack O'Lanterns or pumpkins are decorated to keep spirits away, the

Samhain Altar

opposite to what I was aiming for...with this in mind I decorated mine with an image of Goddess in front of Glastonbury Tor.....not a woman running away from a haunted house waving her hands in the air as my son suggested!
After cleaning our house, I cleansed every room with incense and asking Goddess to help us shed all the things that no longer serve us, for some reason, which seemed to make sense at the time, I did this naked, don't panic - everyone was out and the curtains and blinds were all drawn! It just seemed to fit with the shedding of things, the Crone energy and the clarity She brings, it also made me look at my bare self, which is not something I do often either.

Moon Bag

Just to reassure my family and neighbour - I won't be making a habit of it especially after I nearly had a nasty accident with a match, enough said! I then decorated my altar for Samhain complete with my unusually decorated pumpkin, a shiny black cloth, a 'hag stone' to represent Goddess as the Crone, candles and holders of purple and my moon bag that I made, what seems like a long time ago at a Discovery Workshop, which contains the photos and names of my Motherline and my ancestors. I took the time to ground myself properly, particularly as I knew that I would be walking around  the  final resting places of many later on.

Entrance to the Barrow

It was then time to head off for an afternoon out with a local group - Maidstone Pagans for our Samhain visit to local megaliths, we have quite a collection along the river valley. We went to Chestnuts Long Barrow, the site of an ancient neolithic tomb constructed a mere 6000 years ago which is only open by private appointment and spent a wonderful hour walking among the stones,honouring unknown ancient ancestors, feeling the energy immediately and then used divining rods, which is something I have never done before, the results were amazing! I honestly thought people twiddled them around with their thumbs, apologies to anyone

Side view of the Long barrow

I have just offended....
At one point, Sally, Ricky and myself all followed our rods independently and reached the same point towards the back of the body of the barrow, where they all crossed just on the right of this picture, sorry no pictures of that, we were all too busy divining, where we all felt different things, personally I felt that someone had walked through me and was tingling all over, I was pretty glad I'd taken the time to ground myself earlier and had asked Goddess to walk with me as I visited the ancestors.
As darkness and mist fell, I drove to Folkstone for a Samhain Ceremony on the

Samhain Fire
 - resting place
of self doubt and fear

Beach with the lovely members of Folkestone Pagan Circle- old and new, unfortunately I kept driving and ended up at Dover, but made it back just in time, however my calm practised calling in of Goddess that I had been asked to do as poor Laura was ill, went right out of the window. You can have hedge witches that practise their craft solo, ergo that must make me a hedge Goddess girl, quiet  whispered words are more my style, yes really despite my extrovert ahem, tendencies! This coupled with the fact that this Pagan circle is an eclectic mix of Druids, Wiccans, Witches and other beliefs, and it's quite safe to say I was right out of my comfort zone. One of the things we had been asked to bring to the ceremony was something to let go, ironically l had decided to throw fear and self doubt into the Samhain fire..... Unfortunately I had to call in before that part of the ceremony, deep breath and I did it, it wasn't amazing, it was brief and simple but it was honest, true and I did it! Self doubt and fear well and truly thrown in that Samhain Cauldron, only peeping over the top of the cauldron with a smirk again when Jason asked me to close unexpectedly..... However by then we had honoured our ancestors, talking about them and placing a photo of them on our beach altar and with the love of a thousand ancestors behind me, it didn't seem so daunting somehow and it came to me more naturally, not an Oscar winning performance,

Samhain Moon

but a purely heartfelt one which is what matters to me. Out of nowhere a huge glowing orange moon looking just like a giant pumpkin rose from behind the Hotel Burstin (the one that looks like a ship sideways on), not a great photo, it really doesn't do it justice, but it had us all spellbound. Thanks for a beautiful ceremony everyone, I think all of us managed to let go some unhelpful and unhealthy elements as well hearing some beautiful tales of our ancestors. I drove home thinking about my grandparents, whose memories and photos I had shared at the ceremony and wondered, not for the first time what they would make have made of my beliefs, before laughing and remembering that they themselves come from multiple lines of non conformists as opposed to

Misty Samhain Moon

the more commonplace faiths. Bearing in mind that on both sides we seem to have been in this area for centuries that we know of, it did make me wonder if these neolithic tombs I love to visit contain any ancient ancestors? 1000 years is only approximately 40 generations ago, 40 people back,  so maybe 160- 240 people back in total -that seems feasible, in all probability it's likely that those original few farmers who made the hilltops above the dense forests  I mentioned last week their homes and farms were the original matriarchs and patriarchs of the millennia of generations to follow....

As I was writing this a friend posted these words on a facebook page: 

Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. "Be still" they say. "Watch and Listen. You are the result of the love of thousands"  Anon as far as I know.

How Apt. How Wonderful. 

A very big thank you to all of you who have sent words of love and comfort to myself and my family this week, it is most gratefully received

Samhain Blessings  x x