Mid Winter Celebrations

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 were blowing away the old and making way for the new and making way for a time of contemplation as we move through the darkness of the winter and begin to look for the lightening days of the spring at Imbolc.
I didn't manage to see the sunset as work took over

Solstice Supper

but where I was it would have been difficult to see anyway behind the clouds and drizzle! Before we sat down for our Solstice Supper which was bubbling away in the slow cooker, I delivered some presents to some friends grandchildren - plates with a space for Rudolph's carrot and a mince pie for Santa etc as a solstice gift from me and early Christmas Present for them, which seemed to me to tie in beautifully with the sentiments of the day, of blessings and of looking to the future and merging traditions and  customs of old and new beliefs. I seem to have read a lot about this recently online, I touched on it last week when I said that unfortunately I'd come across some Christian bashing on Pagan sites and this week there have been some arguments about what a true druid, follower of the Avalonian tradition, witch, wiccan or Heathen should believe in, when and how they should celebrate etc...I took myself off those sites and pages  pretty quickly - believe me! Hence my tactful heading this week - Mid WinterCelebrations! I wonder if these people would actually argue about this face to face about this or whether they are just brave behind their keyboard?

Solstice Altar

Anyway as my house and family are a melting pot of many tolerant beliefs and religions and recent articles that I have read suggest that Yule and Solstice were celebrated for more than a few days, I have also embraced the the celebration of Modraniht in my own way and my ancestral mothers have never been far from my thoughts over the last week. This continued connection to them has made them seem so close to me and whilst I haven't seen any spirits I have felt a strong and wonderful energy around me and my altar, where I have spoken their names to Ker and honoured them and their memories.  To celebrate at Solstice we had our fabulous 'Solstice Supper' -  Yule Chicken and Mid Winter Cheesecake....well ok Chicken casserole and vanilla cheesecake but I taken the time to lovingly prepare it and asked Goddess to help me when I made it, speaking my intentions to celebrate the solstice with my family as well as asking the hands of the ancient mothers to guide me and bless me whilst I cook, I swear it always tastes better and has more compliments when I do this! Ker must walk with me from the fields to the kitchens. With my lovely daughter I decorated the table with white and silver and lit lots of candles, before we sat down to eat, talked about Yule, Solstice and Christmas beliefs and traditions, before making merry with a few glasses of cava and just about qualifying as being musical by playing a name that tune game involving kazoos!

The Returning Sun

The following morning, after the longest night of the year, we were blessed with a spectacularly bright sunrise, a sure reminder that the light is returning to the land, even if only by a few minutes each day, leaving me ready to celebrate the Christmas period full of joy and hope with my loved ones ...and celebrate we did! I have been blessed with 3 days of celebrating with our families at our house, at my parents, back here again - days full of laughter, games, memories old and new, joy, presents, food and drink as well as a few  tears for those who couldn't be with us this year, but comforted by love, surrounded by family and I'd like to think we were in the company of a few spirits that weren't found in bottles!
So now some quieter time for some withdrawal and contemplation, whilst one of my cats snores gently and rhythmically behind me - plans for the future and a chance to reassess and redirect my focus on life, where I hope to visit and go this year, plans for holidays, the allotment, birthdays, study, written and  craft projects - you name it, are all whirling round my head, thoughts growing and taking shape and ideas nudging at the edge of my conciousness! With all this contemplative energy, reviewing my year, assimilating what's happened, evaluating it, learning from it and looking forward - it's easy to see where the custom of new year resolutions originated from.

I hope you've had a Wonderful and Blessed Yule 

and find Joy in the Returning Light

Blessed Be x x 

Solstice Blessings

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 widespread of Christianity, it is said to have celebrated motherhood, probably the female ancestors and it is

Handmade Hampers

suggested it went on for more than a few days encompassing the Yule period, this sounds like a perfect a celebration of Goddess! I've just found and added the second part to the facebook page....
Whilst brought up in a Christian household, I have to say I did always think that Christmas seemed to be unfairly all about Jesus, not much mention of the poor woman who gave birth in  stable, just a hint of my future path there then... anyway I'm not Christian bashing which sadly seems to be popular in some Pagan circles - not any of mine I'm glad to say. In light of this, every day I have made sure to thank my Goddess, my female ancestors and to remember them when I light the candle in the wreath decoration I made, especially as I found out that the holly and mistletoe berries only come from the female plants.  Still in a creative mood I managed to finish off the presents that I was making, so now two very special people have their presents complete at last! No spoilers as I know at least one of them will read this, maybe not tonight as she's on her work's Christmas do, but lets just say some of it is home grown! 

View Across the
 Medway Valley

Yesterday I joined The Kent Gorsedd a Druid based  Bardic group for a Winter Solstice ceremony at  the Coldrum Stones an ancient long barrow about 8 miles from my house. With stunning views like this you can understand why the ancient folk that lived here buried their dead in this remote place to rest for eternity - if that is what they thought? It's also a beautiful place to sit and think, so to me at least would have been  wonderful place for them to sit and connect with their ancestors.This is the land of my Mothers and Grandmothers and all the ancient Mothers that went before. I arrived early and was lucky enough to have the

Our Local Clootie or Wishing Tree

stones to myself for a while - this gave me a chance to thank Goddess for all my blessings and to ask for a few cheeky extra blessings for me and mine over the Solstice period ....one being a car that actually works! I clearly wasn't the only one as the local Clootie tree was adorned with streamers of ribbon and rags. Part of me thinks it's beautiful and part of me thinks it's littering, at least fabric will rot and go back into the earth but there are streamers of plastic bags too, gaily waving in the wind that sadly will not. 

Entrance Stones

After meditating for a while, I was concious of a drum beat and found that a fellow seeker was preparing the stones for  the ceremony and that the procession was making it's way through the fields. After everyone gave an offering to the earth - food, drink, leaves, berries the procession came to the top of the barrow, called in the quarters and elements and we sang Pagan carols then snipped Mistletoe from a bough despite being harried by the 'dark circle' pulling at our clothing and pushing hats off! After a lot of mirth we heard poems and sang some more carols before all partaking in a celebratory  sip of mead! Again the mix was extremely eclectic: druids, witches, wiccans and other paths and it is so beautiful to see so many paths come together to share the Sabbat - I had a lovely and interesting conversation with a lady about Goddess and my beliefs and her path with earth spirits, if only the whole world could share moments like that.
So as all cycles turn, here we are back to the beginning of this post - Solstice - time to welcome the light back, time to think about what has been, to think on of our ancestors and time to hope about what will be as the sun returns and Goddess brings life back to the land. 
This beautiful log I found on the path to the stones ages to about 40 years old not much different to me, the fungi growing on it was white and blue, forming a curious pattern that put me in mind of snowflakes and also the suns rays as it returns to our land lengthens days and warms the earth.

So How will I celebrate Solstice? A family meal on Tuesday after watching the sun rise and set on the shortest day, then burning our Yule log and offering thanks for all the beauty and love in my life, observing the dawn after the longest night and the celebrating a traditional Christmas with my wonderful family and hopefully seeing a fair few of my lovely friends, I don't think Goddess will be exacting about which day I celebrate - the Wise Woman will be revered and loved every day, candles will be lit, prayers will be said, carols will be sung, families will meet and have fun, ancestors will be remembered with love.

Wishing You All A Blessed, Happy and Wondrous Yule  x x 

Festive Cheer....

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 within us, however we choose to praise or worship and just reminded me that old traditions and beliefs were overlapped and amalgamated by Christianity, all but written out by it,

but gossamer threads of ancient  practice and knowledge managed to quietly lace its way through history,  hidden and protected  and Goddess has survived and Her path walking openly besides others again..... bearing in mind that this is the church that still proudly sports four 600 year old Pagan wooden carved roof bosses of the Green Man on the doors to it's bell tower that I wrote about in April's 'Connections'  I don't suppose these lovely ladies would be too phased by my Goddess or general Paganism!

How many rucksacks can
you fit in Dave's van? 80!

This Friday and Saturday I was lucky enough to be involved in the 3rd Maidstone Rucksack Project  that myself and my lovely friend Sarah have organised and run to collect rucksacks full of useful items for local homeless and vulnerably housed people in Maidstone and then arrange to distribute them to local charities, churches, shelters and soup runs to make sure we reach all those that need help in a small way through the winter period. Yet again we were completely bowled over by the generosity of pockets, time and spirit of the local community - people gave so very generously despite many having to scrimp and save themselves.... We collected an amazing 80 rucksacks stuffed full with essential items such as fleeces, underwear, socks gloves, hats, scarves and toiletries and some treats - chocolate,sweets, books

Hand Knitted Gloves,
Mittens and Hats.....

etc as well as about a dozen black sacks of coats, clothes, shoes and additional toiletries and treats. People's kindness never fails to amaze me - as well as the people who willingly give up their time to sort it all through and organise the donations or to take a couple of hours out of their day to drive round and drop  it off! Lots of festive love for the whole community roaming around the town over the last 48 hours .....
So lovely to see when we are living in such testing times and there is so much bad news, acts of pure love and selflessness.
This compassion doesn't appear to sit easily with the traditional Crone energies at a first glance - for me at least, She speaks of clarity and wisdom, death and change, but a closer look and deeper thought revealed a softer side of the wise beloved Grandmother, someone who is a survivor after reaching  her later years, She will have faced heartbreak, loss, grief as well as love, hope and kindness which could equally become compassion particularly as we enter the festive period and Yule where the light begins to return to the land. The Crone also represents regeneration, rebirth  and transformation - all of which lends itself to the energies we were surrounded with during the collection and distribution for those who have so little this weekend - the energies of a benevolent Grandmother as opposed to the evil hag of myth, folklore and literature.

Yule Tree

So today full of festive spirit, well with minimal bickering about who put the tinsel in the wring place or just where the screwdriver was that had vanished into thin air we out up our Christmas tree - this year decorated in white and silver so that it can be a Solstice Tree too! Dubbed the Yule Tree it is decorated in icicles, snowflakes, pine cones, stars and hearts to represent our family and our celebrations - which will be a Yule Meal at Solstice as well as Christmas Dinner - what's not to like?! It's also the first year that myself and Mark have decorated it without the 'children' helping which felt a little odd to start with, but a least I won't be secretly re-jigging it when they have gone to bed for once - surely I'm not the only one? I have to admit it was lovely though to decorate it myself - (I'd relegated Mark to outside lights by then) and to enjoy the silence and clarity of what I was doing, thinking about the Solstice and

Candle Wreath

the turning wheel, it will turn round again and doubtless in years to come there will be more little hands to help me, there's that Crone energy again - never very far away! I've noticed I've really quite unconsciously embraced the theme of the lights returning at Solstice this year with a multitude of white lights around the house along with simple colours and natural decorations such as this candle wreath - I'd love to tell you I made it myself but I have yet to wrestle with some holly, a candle and a chunk of oasis to create that masterpiece yet! 
The eagle eyed among you will notice a spectacularly early post tonight, due to the fact that to finish off my weekend we are heading into town for our December Moot with Maidstone Pagans that I have become increasingly  more involved in - hopefully some faces old and new tonight! 

Have  Blessed and Light Filled Week x x 

Ancient Wisdom and Woodlands

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 (a mere 35 posts ago - when I started this year long blog) and then getting braver mixing a blend that I thought would work and they smelt, well pretty luscious to be honest, even if I do say so myself! 
It felt like that Crone energy was working with me, some instinct was kicking in and some ancient wisdom was waking up deep within me and a familiar voice was saying 'oooh, try mint with the lemon verbena, what about a bit of rosemary?' as I looked at my collection of dried herbs and plants hanging on my dresser, some home grown  

Bath time 'Teas'
-  Bedtime Blend and Refresh

and some, like the rosemary, bargain hunted in the local supermarket late at night costing just 10p as it was going out of date and hung up to dry.  
I have to say that as I sat at the sewing machine, foot hard down on the pedal, happily humming away to myself and hammering my through making these muslin 'tea bags', I felt a curious mixture of satisfaction, pride and also sadness that these skills our grandmothers wouldn't have thought twice about using daily, were shed so easily in our bid for equality, to distance ourselves from our ancient and more recent mothers. That's not in anyway meant to denigrate the efforts and hard earned achievements of the hundreds of thousands of women who campaigned for equality and universal suffrage, and the women who have carried on the fight to this present day, far from it, I am incredibly grateful that they did, for what they fought to achieve, I really and truly am, but I just feel the loss of joy, pride and skill of 'homely' crafts is such a shame. On the flip side, I suppose our strength and sense of empowerment that they fought for means that we can chose to retake control, and elect to relearn and employ these skills because we want to and reclaim our creative joy and skills, not because we are told that's what we'll do! 
I deliberated about leaving that last paragraph in, but after a break, a glass of wine and some musing, I decided to, I know I'm mainly interested in the feminine divine, but further thinking suggests to me at least, that it could apply to men and their long forgotten traditional skills too - so as long as people are free to enjoy ANY creative skill, irrespective of their gender, we should gleefully reclaim them all!

Male Ivy Plant Flower

Anyway, apart from all that musing, I've been immersing myself in plenty of seasonal celebrations and moots this weekend. A visit to a spiritual and holistic fayre organised and run by some lovely members of the local Pagan group that I have just recently taken over the admin and running of - that in itself is quite a mission! I've been applying Crone logic, quite literally - bin what isn't working, start afresh and be creative! First new moot is next Sunday, I'll let you know how it goes! That was followed by just the three parties yesterday, with a surprisingly restrained earlyish home time and early start today.

The Young and The Old

I headed off to Bromley this morning for a moot with other like minded people, up until now only known through the powers of facebook. Slightly anxious, I have to admit, I nearly ended up beetling off with the local re-enactment group, but the timely arrival of a member of the right group and his distinctive dreadlocks meant that I actually found the intended group and a very warm welcome and was saved from re-enacting some Saxon and Viking fight that I might have enjoyed but would have undoubtedly confused me no end and I was worrying about the amount of weapons they were carrying and my lack of matching attire! After some interesting discussions and exchanges of ideas we headed off for a fabulous walk and talk about sacred trees for a couple of hours in local ancient woodland, yep more trees - sorry! I was very much taken with this sprouting Oak, which was an estimated 600 years old but had new shoots of a few years growing from the base - an ancient grandmother and granddaughter

Woodpecker Hole

maybe? One of the group members gave an interesting and comprehensive talk throughout - who knew that oak bark is the only one to run purely vertically? If you look closely at the photo to the left of a Woodpecker's hole you can see the grooves in the wood where the bird has pecked and pecked to perfect the entrance to their nest. I don't think I've seen one at such close quarters before! It was great to have the chance to concentrate so wholly on the woodland for a couple of hours, cars and planes distant humming on the horizon that we somehow filtered out despite being in London, watching birds and

admiring the ingenious way nature survives, despite us!
I'll leave you with one last photo of a Rowan berry's underbelly, a perfect pentagram or five pointed star, which is apparently on all Rowan berries and coincidently apples - have you cut one in half horizontally? Just to take you back to Avalon - Isle of Apples! I came away with the added bounty of a pile of holly, mistletoe and a lump of the 'original' Yule log,  the Ash, gleaned by one of the gentleman who works as a groundsman and needed to trim the plants back to clear pathways. Let's see what I manage to do with before next week, all ready for Yule.

Have a Wonderful and Blessed Week x x 

A Creative Crone

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 myself it was too early to disguise to the anxious nagging voice that they will look amateur, not perfect and people will be scratching their heads wondering what on earth I have made them or it resembles something that a child made in reception or kindergarten... As I was driving to work musing about this, I remembered with some irony the fear and self doubt that I cast into the Samhain Fire as I  asked Goddess to help me shed things that held me back and no longer served me. When did they try and squeeze their way back in? 

It was at this point I decided that even if the results were childish, it wouldn't matter - some of my most precious gifts have been cards and drawings or ornaments that the children have made, even more precious because of it in fact and no one I would be giving a gift to would think "bloody hell she's been watching Blue Peter again"  but the complete opposite, they  would appreciate the time I had spent planning, making and creating something rather than diving in the nearest shop to purchase any old thing off the shelf. Turning the radio on, and intending to torture my own ear drums and poor car with some rather loud and

Ready to be Awesome Gifts

joyful singing, instead  I caught a timely and interesting interview -perhaps some of you will have heard of  a lady called Elizabeth Gilbert?  I had never heard of her, but had heard of a film called Eat, Pray, Love - based on her book about her journey of travel and rediscovery in Italy, India and Indonesia, but not really taken much notice of it before.She was talking about her new book which if I got then gist of this right, she was encouraging people to be brave and creative, keen to point out that the art or end product created was the result of the journey not the entire aim. Well, thunderbolts for me there and then for me! The icy wind of the Crone was blowing around me wild and wise, telling me to let go of my fears and self doubts (again!) - it couldn't  be wrong, just unique....

Certainly a
Kindred Spirit!

When I got to work, I joyfully started telling my lovely colleague Liz all about it, and although I kept calling the book "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat" instead (-that could be a gleeful wily Crone's way of telling me to dance again!) she knew what I was referring to and when I turned round to the DVD's - there it was on the shelf! Bubbling with ideas for gifts and projects, I stopped bending her ear and got on with some work, full of resolve to complete these unfinished products and inspired with fresh ideas, even a very big project or two that ties in with the idea of the art illustrating the journey...watch this space! 
The next day the same lovely lady whom I have shared many fascinating and interesting conversations about all things spiritual and weird and wonderful, came in with a couple of magazines for me to borrow, it's by-line being Sharing Spiritual Wisdom..... Certainly some wise woman energy flowing around me this week, Goddess pushing me forward and clearing

Homemade Gifts

my mind, shedding negativity and new wisdom helping me to develop and grow.
So, fully inspired, much to the disgust of my families noses,  I have spent the weekend making more chutney and pickle, some for coffee mornings at work and some for gifts as well as working on a variety of shall we say 'unique' bath potions as presents! So it should be a spicy and smelly Yule all round down here  in Kent this year...you have been warned!!
Christmas  and Yule Cards on the agenda for this week.

Have a Creative and Free Thinking week!! x x