Honouring Our Mothers

Mother's Day Gifts

Mother's Day blessings and love to you all! To all the Mums and Grandmothers with us or in spirit beloved by us, to all the fabulous Step Mums, Big Sisters, Aunties and Godmothers who have stepped in to help nurture and raise other peoples children and to all the Mums who for whatever reason can't be with their precious children. 
Without a doubt the toughest  and challenging job there is, but equally by far the most wonderful and rewarding labour of love!
Yesterday I was treated to the most scrummy breakfast of cheese and tomato omelette with rocket by Dan and David and today a gift of a beautiful card and an intriguing book that looks right up my street. I have to wait for tomorrow to see my baby as she is working hard all day making sure other people have a fabulous Mother's Day meal out - tomorrow being our day this year for our family to all share a meal and time together.
Being me, I was wondering about the roots of Mother's

Juno Lucina
storify.com/MDKendell/matronalia

Day - was it an ancient custom as opposed to being invented by Hallmark Cards or is that just an urban myth?  
A bit of both it turns out.
As far back as 275 BCE in Roman times, Matronalia or Matronales Ferie (Mother's Festival) was celebrated to honour Juno Lucina - Goddess of Motherhood, Childhood and Women in general on March 1st. This 'free day' or holiday meant that servants and slaves were free to attend and participate in rituals and feasts at temples honouring all things feminine, where they wore loose unbelted clothing and their hair loose as opposed to wearing it up which decorum of the time commanded - perhaps the origins of 'letting your hair down?' Gifts were received by women from their husbands and daughters.
Fast Forward a few centuries and Christianity had brought Mothering Sunday into being, traditionally marked on the 4th Sunday of Lent and 3 weeks before Easter. By the 16th Century in Britain people would celebrate at their 'Mother Church' - either at the local Cathedral or where they were baptised. Domestic 

Window at The Blessed
Virgin Chapel, Minster Abbey

servants being given time off to attend the services with their own Mothers and families and people would pick flowers along the way to place in the church - presumably to their 'Mother' the Virgin Mary and various cakes and sweet pastries would be made to celebrate.
By mid 19th Century in USA, both before and after the Civil War, a woman named Ann Reeves Jarvis had Mothers Day Work Clubs to promote better living conditions and reduce infant mortality through education and then post war Mother's Friendship Days to promote peace between divided communities and strive for peace. 
After she died her daughter Anna held a Mother's Day in 1908 to commemorate her Mother's work and those like her, this soon became observed throughout the USA as something like our Modern Mother's Day and before long the commercial element kicked in, sales of flowers and sweets rising annually and Hallmark producing  purpose made cards by the 1920's. Anna Jarvis fought against this commercialism for the remainder of her life.
Mix all of these elements together and you get todays flower, card and present fest, however  perhaps we haven't strayed too far from it's original roots if you minimise the commercial side. Most of us treat our Mums and buy flowers for them and for those who are no longer with us. It seems honouring our Motherline is a natural urge that has evolved in different forms throughout the centuries.
It was instinctive for me to buy flowers for my

A Shy Violet

family matriarchs that have gone before, I chose simple bunches of Daffodils that support a cancer charity and visited some of my Motherline who have gone before, some known to me, some only alive through stories shared to me by my Mum and her Mum before her. I am lucky that are real characters to me and I know where they rest a great deal of them in the same peaceful churchyard. Carefully arranging the bright yellow trumpeting blooms I cheerfully chattered away to these woman who are part of my DNA, telling them what we were all up to as if we were sitting round a table. Mercifully I had the churchyard to myself, though not for the first time a little bird followed me round the graves, joined today by a photographically elusive red admiral butterfly, alighting for a mere second near me to show me this shy violet peeping through the moss at me and then on the tiny forgetmenots that were budding on my Nan's grave. I felt so tantalisingly close to these women, talking about issues that they too would have dealt with and minutiae of life that even my great, great grandmother who I sat awhile with would have recognised.

Lily For Our Lily

Finally I spent a couple of hours with my own Mum this afternoon, took her some flowers and small gift of a set of personalised cards giving 10 reasons why I love her, well the top ten of anyway - owing our random collection of tea towels being one of them - the stock joke souvenir gift of choice in our family! 
We spent a lovely afternoon chatting, laughing, reminiscing and generally counting our blessings, looking forward to our Feast tomorrow. Yet more tales were told and memories shared, weaving together an invisible tapestry of our motherline that will be passed on to future generations when the time is right. How many times must this have happened over the centuries in my line alone? Generations of women bound by love and stories, daughters and wisdom. Truly a blessing.

Have A Blessed Week

References: storify.com/MDKendell/matronalia

Heralding Ostara

Symbols of Fertility
consciouscompanion2012.com

Ostara blessings to everyone!

Day and Night are in perfect harmony again as the wheel turns, the light returns to the land. This spring festival celebrates renewal, rebirth and fertility. Around us we see the land becoming green and plants bursting into life, whist we also sow seeds for summer and autumn crops. The festival or sabbat is probably named after Ostara/Eostra - an ancient German or anglo-Saxon Goddess of dawn and spring who watches over the budding plants and the fertility of the land. Symbols such as eggs and rabbit reflect the fertility of the season, that were then adopted when Christianity arrived and Ostara gave way to Easter: read more on the Origins of Ostara here. It's worth making the connection between Ostara/Eostra and the names of female hormones estrogen and progesterone....
This year we had our own abundant Ostara

Sylvie and Her Babies

surprise, we knew one of our cats Sylvie was expecting in late March but we awoke at 3.30am on Wednesday to find her giving birth to her beautiful and squeaky kittens at the end of our bed - all 6 of them, pretty good going for her first litter! 
There are now 12 cats in the house, himself says it's like living in Longleat! Mum and babies are all doing well and friends and families are clamouring to offer homes.

Ostara Primroses
 at Coldrum Long Barrow

To celebrate Ostara I met with some friends from North West Kent Pagans for a quiet ceremony up at The Coldrum Stones,  an ancient Long Barrow high in the hills of the North Downs. This ancient burial place has amazing views across the Medway Valley - what a beautiful resting place. As it's only a few miles from where my family appear to have their roots I have often wondered if I have a connection to any of the ancient tribes buried there, maybe they really are my ancestors! I certainly feel a connection to this place and always feel as though someone is near.
I know I've mentioned it before but they there is a beautiful Clootie Tree there, bedecked in fluttering ribbons all year round - unusually there is no well nearby as is usually the case, legends also suggests these places are the homes of nature spirits and Goddesses. Maybe that's the attraction? 

Coldrum Clootie Tree

Yesterday I went a bit earlier to the stones than the rest of the group and sat in peaceful meditation asking the ancestors for healing for someone very precious to me before tying a ribbon on the tree. As always when I visit, I felt that I wasn't alone, sitting deep in thought, there were several occasions when I thought I heard my friends approaching, only to find I was still on my own apart from the deep barks of a nearby pheasant somewhere in the hedgerows. When they arrived we held a simple ceremony, calling in the 4 quarters and elements, honouring the God, Goddess, the Ancestors and The Spirits of the Place as well as sharing food and drink before offering some back to the land and discussing what the herald of spring meant to us all on our paths. I tentatively voiced my theory on the ancestors buried there being connected to me and was delighted that others who were local also felt the same!  My contribution to the ceremony was a  a short poem that I had written. Which I have shared with you below.

The Return Of Spring                    

Wrapped in it's blanket of the cosmos, the earth turns again.
Night and day resume their eternal dance in equal balance.
Light returns to our skies and lengthens our days.

Whilst spring winds blow life over the land,
Warming the earth and awakening it's cradled seeds
That unfurl and stretch themselves skyward.

Birds return to the trees amidst cheerful bird song to nest.
Lambs gambol playfully through newly green fields,
A joyful celebration of rebirth.

Trees and hedgerows burst into bud, 

Resplendent in their leafy finery 
And their frothing heads of blossom.

They herald the fruitful return of the Goddess,
Revelling in the abundant fertility.
The land calls joyously to us -

I have awaken,
I am renewed
I am reborn.




I've still got some things planned for Ostara which I will share with you next week - have a wonderful time celebrating whatever you do!

Have  a Blessed Week x x 

Patterns and Pilgrimages

Spiralling Steam and Smoke

Well I've had a bit of a weird week really - one of those weeks where nothing is quite going as I thought, plans get put on hold, leaving me trusting my intuition when it is telling me to expect the unexpected.
So there I was having a peaceful bath when I had an odd moment - to be fair I have plenty of them but this was a bit different. Unusually for me I had a leisurely bath in the morning and laid there watching the smoke from the candle mingle with the steam of the bath dancing in meandering spirals, different hues of grey, silver, blue, yellow and white glinting in the sunlight and in the glow of my candle. I remember the complete and total steamy silence and noticed the light seemed oddly yellow, it felt surreal and a little eerie, almost mystical. Straining to hear any sound of the outside world - the silence was broken by a cheerful trilling from a bird in the garden.

I didn't think much more of it for a while, I cherish pleasant and odd moments like that and then let them go, however that day I decided I wanted to identify the bird in the garden and knowing the usual suspects

Wren
Courtesy of bridgetsfire.blogspot.co.uk

that would be found there I sat and listened to recorded bird song online to identify it, only I couldn't -none of them sounded quite right. Refusing to be defeated I listened to random bird song until I found it. 
To my surprise it was a Wren, something I would never have considered. As you can imagine I did a bit of research into it's symbolism. Wow. Wrens were and still are considered sacred by the Druids who considered them symbols of wisdom and divinity, so much so that they foretold events from their chirps and bird songs, and apprentice druids were revered if they saw one on the solitary travels as they were believed to have gained sacred inner knowledge as a reward for seeing such an elusive bird. Ok, so what was this wren doing in my back garden?

Spring Flowers

According to the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore and The Occult Sciences Volume 2 by CL Daniels & CM Stevens; Wren Birdsong heard  'If from the south and not between you and the sun, you are going on a delightful pilgrimage' So not for the first time that was me told! 
Incidentally while looking for a picture of a wren for this, I chose the one above and  was blown away by it's source a blog called Bridget's Fire, how wonderfully appropriate! Read more on wrens and their mythology here: Wren Folklore.

So off I ambled into the week, looking for this delightful pilgrimage, not quite expecting thunder, lightning and fireworks or a massive illuminated neon sign saying 'Pilgrimage This Way' but maybe a few signposts hopefully along the way. I clearly didn't have the right sat nav code for this wonderful sacred journey...
Never mind, undeterred I curled up with my cats

Hellebore - A Natural Mandala

to read my new book about the life of Katherine of Aragon and took myself off to the newly returned local Mystical Forum where I discovered a whole new world I didn't know that I didn't know anything about  - Acupuncture - more than just needles and Mandalas - not just pretty patterns, but ancient spiritual sacred symbols of meditation and wisdom. Fabulous speakers, warm and knowledgeable, subjects entwining into to each other and opening doors of wonder and discovery - so much so that I came home and dreamed about mandala like kaleidoscopes!

Wood Carving Mandalas

Still no signposts for my pilgrimage jumping out of the hedgerow at me, we decided to take a quick trip out to the nearby Ightham Mote - another National Trust property local to us, no reason other than we wanted a bit of fresh air and a change of scenery, no planned hike to a remote ancient stone circle or a forgotten spring this weekend. Normally touristy stuff. Normal however was not the word for this impressive timber framed and moated manor house set in beautiful ground. We wandered around the gardens, me slowly realising that flowers are natural mandalas, as seen in this beautiful Hellebore above. All of a sudden I could see Mandalas everywhere, natural ones and man made ones like this wood paneling on a stair case. All depicting journeys and travels inside the mind. Pennies starting to drop slowly for me, not for the first time I was laughing gently at myself for having pretensions to a grand pilgrimage, when all along I have been walking it every day, simply, naturally - learning daily from my world around me. Settling back on my bench to listen to

A Reminder of My Own Pilgrimage

a talk from the lovely tour guide, my eyes wandered round the room taking in all the features of note, finally alighting on a simple posy across the room on an old settle. Wheat.... Of course it would be - a gentle timely signpost, just when I was no longer looking for one! Exploring the house further we found a simple plaque commemorating the former owner, an American Anglophile who had saved the house from demolition by purchasing it and  then left it to the people of Britain in his will. His epitaph reflected his English roots, his family having arrived in America on the Mayflower simply read - A Pilgrim Returned. Looks like we are all on a journey.

   Have a Blessed Week x x

Wrten references : http://bridgetsfire.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/wrens-in-west-virginia.htm

Divine Felines

I'd love to say I was feeling totally better this

Camera Shy Lola

week and full of the joys of spring but that would be a bit of a fib! 
This bug is certainly lingering and I've crawled home to bed after work this week and done nothing at all. So much so that I woke this morning worrying about what I could blog about, I had a sort of notion about heading out to explore somewhere today but I felt rough as a badgers arse, no offence to badgers and the weather wasn't enticing me to go anywhere any time soon. Huffing and puffing my disgust, I absent mindedly stroked a cat that had decided my chest was the optimum place for a morning nap, my cat Lola reached her paw out and gently batted my nose in sympathy. Having an imaginary conversation with myself I thought I can't write about cats it's not an 'I Love Cats Blog', Lola batted my nose again and yawned, which I'm pretty sure is cat for 'No you silly woman, but you could research Goddess and cats and talk about that' or she might have just been

Egyptian Goddess Bastet
www.landofpyramids.org

hungry.... 
Either way I was mulling it over as I padded round the kitchen yawning and feeding my motley crew of cats, just the 6 of them, officially 3 is enough for the collective noun of a Clowder, also known as a clutter or a glaring. Cloud of fur, Clutter to trip over or just plain Glaring at you when they are hungry I guess, or 'Bloody Longleat' as himself describes our house as!
So, I spent the morning curled up in a snuggly blanket, bedecked in felines researching Goddesses connected with cats. Happy Days indeed. The only one I knew of vaguely was Bastet or Bast an ancient Egyptian Goddess, I discovered that she was known as being the bestower of blessings to the good and the deliverer of wrath to the evil, as well as being the protector of domestic cats. 
Wow, that pleased me immensely as you can

Ceridwen

imagine! Freya the Norse Goddess was purportedly given 2 huge grey cats by Thor to pull her chariot and farmers would leave out offerings to farm cats to ensure a good harvest, whilst in Greek mythology Hecate the Goddess of magic, witchcraft, crossroads, herbs and ghosts, shapeshifted (a popular theme) into a cat to escape the monster Typhon - a deadly giant. Even Ceridwen was attended by 2 white cats that carried out her orders form her realm in the underworld... I'd have drawn them into this picture I did a few years ago if I had known!
This is turn had me wondering how long cats have actually been domesticated and how that came about, a bit more research dates it as between 9 and 12 thousand years. 
The most likely theory is that as tribes of people began to settle in communities in one place as opposed to leading a nomadic lifestyle and tilled the land, they ended up with surplus harvest stock of

grain that they stored for the winter months, which in turn attracted mice.

Sleepy Lily

Whether the wild cats came closer to humans for this easy prey or were lured in by the early farmers to guard their supplies is a matter of conjecture. Whatever the reason they appear to have coexisted happily for millennia, growing increasingly more tame as the centuries came and went
Made me smile too to think that the grain would have been the reason they came, the very grain that my Goddess Ker is the Harvest Mother of! Amazing what connections rainy days can bring, almost as amazing, is the fact that this sweet furball snoozing on the dining room chair, Lily who at nearly one follows us round to sit on us or by us, is actually descended from those feral wild cats. 
Before my frazzled brain cells decided to take

Anti Suffrage Poster
thesocietypages.org

a well earned rest, they also mused over the origins of the Crazy Cat Lady stereotype. Often levelled as mockery of 40 something single women, originally historically aimed at gay women or spinsters, it appears that the roots go even further back to Anti-Suffrage campaigns during the fight for Women to obtain the vote. Mocking posters such as these were distributed in an attempt to portray the Suffragettes as silly and fluffy headed women who didn't know what they were doing. Like that worked.. Tabby is another mocking term used for a woman, suggesting low morals most especially sexual.
Hmm.....There seems to be a massive leap from Cat Goddesses such as Bastet who was half Feline and Half Human, beloved mystical creatures who worked with Goddesses or were even shapeshifted into as a form of magical prowess or to outwit enemies to this mockery. 
The decrease of Pagan Worship and the rise of Christianity must be a massive factor. A pivotal point is clearly the Malleus Maleficarum, a book published in 1487, roughly translated as 'Hammer of Witches', which endorses the persecution and extermination of witches,

My Crazy Cat Lady Mug

something that was actually pretty rare until then. This massive shift in belief over the previous centuries, now meant that works such as this viewed cats as being Witch's familiars, proof of their evil doings and evidence of their being in league the devil. The objects of these persecutions were mainly single women who were already on the fringes of society; widows, cunning women, midwives, women who were different, maybe a little unusual, possibly perceived as crazy. We all know where that ultimately led to, the horrendous and infamous witch trials. With my 6 felines, they'd have been looking straight at me.
Fortunately for me these days it's quite cool to be a Crazy Cat Lady, my mug brought for me by one of my best friends was done so through love and anyway she's pretty crazy too in an OCD housework kind of way, only joking Tracy - No wonder we are friends! 

So there we are then, Goddesses and Cats, 2 of my favourite things!

Have a Blessed Week x x 

I Found these sites interesting when researching, you might too 
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-house-cats-158390681 http://catladyconfidential.com/2016/03/14/crazy-cat-lady-stereotype http://pio.tripod.com/magicpaw/catmyths.html