Living and Learning

 My Goddess Journal Book..

What a long week that was, full of long days - I was so glad that I had decided to book myself a place at the last minute on a workshop on Saturday - An Introduction to Your Inner Goddess. To start with it I had looked at it and thought I've probably done this, no point, but something kept calling me back to it and I decided that despite it being the wrong end of payday in an expensive month I'd treat myself. 

So, dusting off my old Goddess journal book I had bought when doing the Discovery Workshops in Glastonbury, admiring it's gorgeous shiny peacock cover - very aptly symbolic of spirituality, vision, awakening, royalty and protection, I headed off for a spot of reconnecting. On arrival I was delighted to catch up with several friends, the hilarity and laughter that ensued set the tone for the day, who said that

Goddess Salt

Goddess wants us all to be serious ? Not my Goddess for sure, which is pretty handy as I only need to look at my friend Ricky to start laughing! Despite a few mini interruptions from people looking for the stamp collecting fair next door - they beetled off pretty sharp I can tell you we settled down to enjoy the workshop.

Led by the wonderful Sasha - as warm, funny, down to earth as she was knowledgeable, our cosy and intimate group explored our inner Goddesses in the context of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water and the emotions they create, using simple visualisations, deep meditations, discussions, stories, such beautiful stories from 'Women who run with the wolves' (now on order of course!) chanting, creating our Goddess salt with herbs, flowers, seeds and our energy, reflecting on our inner thoughts and voices through superbly poised thought and emotion provoking questions and drumming. 

What I Should Have Taken...

Oh the drumming, what an experience! We were a few drums short, I'd forgotten to take my tiny african drum or south american maracas, as I was waving a beater with no drum, the incorrigible Ricky handed me an empty bin to bash, me being me took it as a challenge and played it like a pro, well as much as you can be a pro in playing the bin, stomping from one foot to the other and trying to let fire rise inside you and let all your anger out! More like Stomp than Stamp, mercifully no confused philatelists attempted to join us this point, they were probably too busy running for the hills. I have a sneaking suspicion that there was a photo taken, which will probably surface in the near future and yes, I'll share it with you when it does! What a wonderful day, full of insight, much food for thought, shared experiences as well as laughter, I'm so glad I went into it with an open mind, prepared to learn new ideas, I was certainly rewarded with love and inspiration!

Tiny In Training To Be My Familiar.....

My precious Tiny cat who we bottle fed and kept warm as a tiny unlikely to make it baby, now a mischevious 4 month old likes to sit by my pestle and mortar on the kitchen windowsill in the sun and is completely unfazed by candles and incense! I've just taken a break with her in the garden blowing dandelion 'fairies' for her to watch with rapt incredulousness and then chase, marvelling at her innocence and her innate wisdom at the same time, watching her stalk a fly but not a bee! 

A Witch Bottle

Whilst sorting out the photographs for this I remembered the Traditional Witchcraft workshop I was going to tell you about and never did, another wonderful witty and inspiring workshop with many of the same lovely group of people with a few additional faces, shared with us by the amazing Ricky, yes he of incorrigibility and bin passing fame, in all seriousness a fantastic life long traditional witch, full of knowledge and wisdom and a born teacher. 
Talking us through the fascinating history and origins of his craft, we learnt about different energies, protection, types of healing and were shown basic skills, before making some simple items of the craft such as a witch bottle and healing cords. Obviously I can't share the total content or the spells verbatim as they aren't mine to share, but it was a wonderful day - an amazing opportunity to explore simple crafts that I suspect many of our ancestors would have recognised, understood and participated in only a few

A Mere Corner of Ricky's
Amazing Store Cupboard!

centuries (or less maybe!) ago. 

The more I think about it the more the two courses seem to blend together and compliment each other, a theme clearly running through both of them is listening to and trusting your instinct and inner voice, something I have learnt to do as I have got older. As well as this, authenticity was evident, not necessarily being right, but right for yourself and truthful to yourself, living what you believe and practising it daily, something which resonates clearly in my head with my beliefs. I must admit to being perplexed by people who say one thing and do another whatever it is, but especially their beliefs!  
So back to me, a few steps further with my plans, additional email and bank account set up - with no help at all from the IT department (my son Dan) and everything moving slowly forward, exciting times! 
Now off to read some of my to read list and do some more planning and plotting...

Have a Wonderful and Blessed Week