Feeling Childlike...

Early Blossom

Spring has Sprung! 

Well that's how it feels here this week - despite the rather fierce wind and the odd gusty shower, the plants are slowly unfurling their delicate faces and petals to the wintry sun that shines brightly with a sudden and sudden surprising brilliance, alternating with weak rays that struggle to filter their way through the dark clouds as the final vestiges of winter reappear to remind us where we are in the ever turning wheel of the seasons.

No one seems to have told this lovely tree at work though and the blossom is multiplying daily like a joyous bunting waiting to proclaim the arrival and festivities of spring.

After clearing away the old energies from my altar, I had a rummage amongst my candles and altar pieces and realised

It Appealed to My Inner Maiden!

I hadn't really got anything maiden like to redress it with. I lit a single candle, grounded myself and called Goddess in as her maiden aspect and spent a little while meditating and sitting with the new energies. Instead of dashing off out to buy something suitably 'Goddessy' to adorn it with, I decided to rummage in my bags of fabric and found a jazzy cloth of green gingham - that seemed to call the maiden energy to mind when I found it! I cut it and hemmed it to cover the window sill. Inspired, I then dug out an old votive candle jar that I'd kept for some reason or other, cleaned out all the old wax and decorated it with some pretty bird stickers that I'd found too, it really appealed to the inner Maiden, the little Claire tucked away inside - I  even showed Mark and my children with great glee - not unlike a child gaily waving a painted blob on a scrumpled 

up sheet of paper at their parents after school convinced they've just created a masterpiece!
I was that inspired and convinced of my own artistic genius by now, I even strung a handful of bells left over from a Christmas project onto a wire and decorated this old chutney jar to make another candle holder - Gee is there no end to my talent...and yes I do have to give it a shake to make it jingle every time I walk past! I even just grinned to myself and had to go and rattle it after writing about it!
I'd already treated myself to a miniature daffodil plant that was just about ready to burst into bloom which nearly completed the altar along with a green candle I was kindly given for Christmas and an old corn dolly that  I had made last year from raffia and banished to the top

Imbolc Altar

of my dresser that been mournfully staring down through the rest of the years Sabbats and a small bag of seeds that was a present from  my very first circle several years ago. To finish it off I found a beautiful green glass art deco style dish that had been my Nan's, then my Mum's - now mine and filled it with an offering of yellow and green sweets. An odd eclectic mix, but it works for me and represents Imbolc and the Maiden energy as I am feeling it this year, very young and childlike at the moment -those who know me personally won't be surprised! With the recycled items and older items I feel as though the maiden carries with her an essence of her Motherline and honours the departed Crone energy that has given way to make way for her.
A bit more research on the earthworks in the woods has also suggested that it was the site for a warning beacon during the Napoleonic wars and even further back when the threat of the Spanish Armada loomed over the land, this bright burning fire of wood and pitch would have been part of a series that linked the coast and London, as well as the South West, the distant fires would allow the warning to spread quicker than a horse and rider - this made me smile even more, how apt a huge blaze for the fiery Maiden energy of Imbolc/Candlemas, you really couldn't make it up! I really need to get to the local archives and delve a bit deeper.

Plans are being finalised for the Glastonbury Goddess Conference and being made for a new discovery day with my circle sisters again this summer, which made me both excited and wistful at the same time - I'll be delighted to see them all again, it made me realise how much I miss their energy and the strength of our circle when we are together. So for a while I felt very small and distant from that warmth and light, a flicker of doubt that I am not doing enough, that my childish altar isn't fit for my Goddess and the fear that I should be following a more structured path - maybe a proper training, where someone can guide me and can point me in the right direction, instead of 'pottering' about in woods and fields, staring at trees and hedgerows, admiring standing stones for hours on end and decorating empty jars with stickers and bells......
Out of the blue, but obviously a divine intervention - one of beautiful circle sisters messaged me her excitement about about all getting together again and so made me realise that it's not just me feeling the need to connect with a larger group every now and then,thank you Rity! Verbal and mental kick up the back side duly given to myself, my pottering along in my woodland and field pathways, is exactly where I should be walking. Walking the land so familiar and loved, discovering the old paths, listening to ancient voices that walked them, listening for new voices that walk them with me and adding my own steps and murmurs to them, a path of rediscovery that is my honour to walk, voices that are my privilege to hear and places that will be my joy to explore.

Have a Blessed Week x x