A Healing Journey

So this time I was finally going to get round to talking about Dolls Houses as planned - can you tell I'm a bit obsessed? However it appears that healing is the topic of conversation for today. As most of you that are in any way connected to me on Facebook or Instagram will be aware, I've been in hospital. I wasn't going to talk about it, I get fed up with it, so I guess everyone else does too, and let's face it, other people's illnesses aren't exactly riveting stuff! 

However, when I was lying there wide awake in the wee small hours this morning, Trucker and a cat snoring gently, gratefully snug and comfy back in my own bed, I reminded myself that when I started writing my blog I promised myself and Goddess to always speak my truth, even about my darker moments and I knew this would be about my experiences and healing journey instead. 

To cut a long story, short just before Christmas I was taken ill and they found a small tumour obstructing my colon, damn it! As it was preventing my colon from working properly, ie at all, I needed to have an emergency operation to have a stoma or colostomy bag fitted to by-pass it, promptly named Nellie by my lovely friend Neene as it goes Trump, Trump, Trump! As a child I was a bit obsessed with spontaneous human combustion and used to pray that wouldn't happen to me, who knew my colon would take it as a personal challenge to improve on that concept and threaten to blow me up from the inside.... You have to laugh, if you don't you cry and damn that lines your face! 

Anyway this week, I was back in hospital - planned this time, having the tumour removed along with a lymph node which has now been sent off for a biopsy to make sure that it isn't the dreaded big C . Tests from before Christmas didn't indicate cancer, so we are half way there! Either way, the problem has been removed and I now have a tender belly the colour (and shape) of an over ripe Comice pear that looks as though Freddy Kruger has been let loose and used it as a pin cushion. I'm joking, the Surgeon and Nursing team were absolutely amazing, my care was second to none and they did an amazing job and my tiny little scars will all heal away to next to nothing before long. I hadn't wanted to write a drama filled blog about poor me and this isn't that, but it does just explain my self care posts over the last week and if you look back at my blogs you can see when I'm hermiting, when I've been working through grief or whenever I've been full of teenage truculent maiden mardiness but anyway I am well and actually as per usual the goddess had a plan for me, this time to talk about my healing journey and it was cathartic and healing for me mentally just  to have written that down and have you all witness my experience! So thank you.

Kitty Crown Chakra Cleansing!

So when I came to at 1.30am this morning,  and lay wide awake for hours, the sandcastles of my dreams being slowly eroded by the tides of consciousness - lots of wonderful and beautifully articulate ways of describing what's been happening to me were going through my head, I even emailed them to myself but they don't make so much sense now perhaps it was the morphine!  I've had some fantastic dreams; my son wearing a tree outfit, myself and my best friend Lu dancing about being green waves amongst blue ones, as well as rhinos running through mushrooms and being married to the wrong husband - don't even go there ! Lola stretched herself awake and kept me company, gently padding my hair, massaging me better until I went back to sleep several hours later....

After listening to Anita last week I took notice of what my body was doing at 1:30 this morning, gurgling, making a racket and very wide awake and it was my small intestine doing it's thing, letting me know it was healing and getting back to work - did you know that when you have a general anaesthetic your digestive system stops? Stands to reason I guess.  

Hedgie's Healing Spell

I'm blessed to be surrounded by lots of people who believe in healing and sending healing and I can honestly say that lying in my hospital bed, I felt so much of it coming my way, literally felt it, felt the fizzing power of Hedgie's healing spell energy. Those of you who saw my Talking with My Goddess with lovely Kayleigh in December might remember me talking about a blue light and energy that was around me last time I was in, which she said she thought was probably the Archangel Raphael? I had exactly the same thing happened to me again this time - longer and more prolonged. A dreamy blue aura all around me that came and went. I was well aware of patches of heat rolling over me, there are times when the  very air around me seemed to shimmer and time would momentarily stand still too! Now it could have been the morphine, fabulous stuff, but I genuinely think it was more than that. I know I was sent Reiki and healing by many wonderful friends, prayers were whispered on my behalf, spells were created and woven. I felt so held in love. Even the doctors, the surgeon and the nurses were impressed with how quickly I was up and walking around, looking like I hadn't had an operation without copious amounts of pain killers. One of the lovely, lovely nurses even commented on the vibe in my room, she said it was full of positivity and joy. Naturally! I was being held by so many amazing souls.

Love and Magic from my favourite 11 year old and her Nan...

Of course it wasn't just this meta-physical, ethereal healing that has supported and nourished me, so many texts, messages, cards, letters, phone and zoom calls came my way too, just knowing people are thinking of you is an amazing energy to heal in, especially when Covid means no visitors at all.  

There was also the absolute bliss of being transported to my parents house for Claire-sitting whilst the Trucker was at work, my childhood home where four generations of my family have shared life, love, laughter and supported each other through everything that has come our way since 1967, being sent to my childhood bedroom for an afternoon nap and tucked in by my 70 something Mum again! A get well message from a childhood friend that included a video of me at her birthday party in 1977 that she had transferred to video from Cine 8 for her Dad, culminating in us both agreeing that our homemade 70's party dresses suggested our Mums did way more drugs than they ever let on... 

Cheers Nessa!! Can you spot me? 

Have a look at 22 - 25 seconds as I elegantly lope round the chairs .... 

This treat was followed by side and almost stitch splitting laughter with my Mum being Mrs Malaprop asking me if I wanted a slice of Fright Coke with my cuppa, fruit cake Mother, fruit cake! Before finally coming home to Unicorn letters and a hand made card from my best friend's granddaughter Brooke - my unofficial great niece, who thought I was Great Aunty because I was great as in amazing bless her heart, who's birthday wish was for me to be better - what magical wonder is that?! Cat cuddles and a crazy hour long  faced paced WhatsApp conversation with my friends from school this morning that would make your hair curl. Literally! So much healing on so very many levels, in so many shapes and forms.

centreofexcellence.com

Laughter, probably the best medicine there is. So here's my journey of healing so far, there's some way to go, another operation will be needed in a couple of months time to reconnect the pipe work so to speak but I'm going to make the most of the time off, put my feet up and heal. I'd say rest and do nothing but that's a step too far, instead that I thought I'd do a short course connected to work, which I can keep my brain occupied with during my month's necessary convalescence (which will be policed by Trucker and my parents!) The significance of what I had signed up for didn't occur to me until I started writing this... an Ancestral Healing Course, wouldn't be anything else would it? 

Thank You for sharing My Journey with me..

Have A Blessed Week x x 

As Imbolc Lingers

 

Belated Blessings of Imbolc to You All!

I hope all of you who celebrate had a beautiful day, with rituals or ceremonies  that inspired you, it already seems a long time ago now! I wasn't actually going to write about Imbolc; Dolls Houses and Brighid were my planned musings for this month but after I ventured out today I changed my mind. I think Goddess may have had a hand in it, to be more specific The Cailleach. And there is no 'may' about it.

As most of you know, I'm a firm believer in the folklore about the Cailleach collecting her winter logs - a dry Imbolc predicting more days of winter ahead, and along with Punxsutawney Phil The Ground Hog at good Old Gobblers Knob, in Pennsylvania (who saw his shadow and legged it this year for the record) the Cailleach was definitely abroad!

My February the first wasn't necessarily bright but it was definitely dry and then of course, less than a week later, like most of the UK, we've had more than a sprinkling of snow. So today I went out for lovely walk - some of you may have seen my little video I posted earlier on my WWMG Facebook page - which you can see here - Woodpecker Woods Live - I took you on a little jaunt through the woods with me, but at the time  I concluded that the woodpeckers had migrated, but guess what I heard as I walked back?  Yep Woodpeckers! I looked it up and some don't migrate, they sit winter out in their nests!

So I've included this little clip too! Dodgy cinematography I know, but it was the sound I wanted to capture!

I had a blissful, if freezing wander, I stood in the frozen wasteland of the old corn field, arms outstretched to ground myself and felt the reluctance of the Cailleach to give up her realm, felt her icy fingers in the wind pull at my hair and remind me that the maiden does not hold full sway yet. So I bade her come and join me. She didn't disappoint. As I walked back through the woods, The frozen snow on one of the trees and stopped in my tracks. For a minute it looked like an old woman, an icy Crone huddled against the tree as she gathered Her fire wood.... (and of course the old face in the tree?)

My Own Personal Cailleach!

Or perhaps I'd just been out there too long! Either way it made me smile and wonder - not for the first time, what message She had for me. My own personal winter is going on a little longer than normal, I'd love to be gadding about like a spring lamb - well when we can of course, but this year, winter is going on for a little longer for me, as I'm having a operation next week, much to my initial irritation - "like I have time for this!" lol, it's no big deal but it's going to slow me down... which I suspect is the plan! It was after I saw Her, that I heard the woodpecker and when I looked their meaning up, once I had defrosted, their spiritual meaning and symbolism? Wisdom, strength, opportunity, resilience and determination - don't mind if I do, please and thank you! 

Grinning to myself at another lesson about to be learnt, I headed for home, and immediately had a more gentle reminder than Brighid hasn't completely abandoned us.

New life peeking through the snow..... She's biding her time.

Brighid's Reminder...

So that's me for now, I shall await the return of Brighid and ponder more on my Dolls House thoughts, allowing them to grow and take a deeper form, until they are ready to spring forth and entertain you all! Until then...

 Have a Blessed Week x x 

Wind Wailing - The Cailleach's Voice

Hello Everyone! It's been a while I know! 2020 just got crazy didn't it? I have been so busy with so many things, work and so many other projects. So I thought I'd ease myself back in to the swing of blogging again and share this little piece of writing with you that I wrote for my Sunday morning live today on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/walkingwithmygoddess which I also upload to a YouTube channel of the same name if you would like to hear me read it but don't do Facebook. Perfect for such a cold and frosty morning here!

So this week I have been looking at The Cailleach and wrote this. I titled it The Wind Wailer as the sound of the wind as it rushes past our house makes me think of Icy Winter Goddesses and as it squeezes through the vents it calls in an unearthly wail that exactly fits my imaginings of the voice of the Cailleach!

I hope you enjoy it x x 

The Wind Wailer

I am Cailleach. Cailleach Bhéarra, Cailleach Bear. Bone Woman, Stone Woman. Goddess of Winter, the Wild Wolf Woman.  They call me Hag, Crone, Witch, Ogre, Giantess. Yes, I am She of many names. I laugh at these names now as I whistle and wail my path across the land doing my work, wind wailing through the darkness of winter. They say I am old, and I am ancient… It is true, for I am as old as time itself.

Many millennia ago, I helped create this land and my mysteries have been spun into stories and tales over these lands since those who first dwelled here learnt to talk. My stories have been lost in the mists of time in all but a few places now. And in those myths and poems that remain, I am oft reviled and hated and feared.

But once, I who am now as old the world, was young and fresh faced, beautiful and shining. I was a Maiden in 7 lifetimes. In each of those lifetimes I loved, and I was loved.

Courtesy of : aweewalk.com

My dwellings may be long emptied and discarded, but I am loved and remembered. In one incarnation millions of moons since, we travelled to Taigh na Bodach high up in the forsaken glens of The Land of the Scots.  Ancient men and women of the glen loved me then too, one winters night I sought shelter with my man and my child, they took us in with hearts as warm as the fire in their hearths.

So, I fashioned stones as a shelter shrine and moulded stones in our likeness, at Beltane the Glens men and women release us from this crude house for a joyful summer amongst the fragrant purple heather and at Samhain they carefully restore us back into the shelter to keep us from the winds that wail and whistle down the mountains and the bitter freezing ice of the dark winter months.  In gratitude, I watch over their land and the valleys are fertile and prosperous, the winds and ice blow over them, but the winds wail less fiercely there.

Before that lifetime even, I created the lands or Alba, Eire and Manx – have you not read of this?  I was all seeing and all-knowing Queen of my realm then, striding this way and that way, jumping over the waters that part the lands, for I made great Ben Nevis with my vast fearsome hammer as a seat to rest on in my labours, but the land slept and slept on beneath my icy cloak – and as I watched from my lonely eyrie and I saw that all of life beneath me was still and frozen then I was sad and forlorn.  

Yes - me the harsh, cruel hag of winter, yes I was sad ….

Great tears sprang from my eyes, and as I wept and wailed, great floods fell across the land and the rivers and springs were brought into being where they landed. In my joy I jumped from my great seat and all the rocks fell from my apron and made the hills and mountains, and in delight and wonder of this new landscape I had made, I cleaved the valleys and gorges with my hammer, for I am creator too.

And bountiful mother. Did you know that? Some knew me as Mother Earth, As She who Creates, as Gaia and the Great Mother. From me sprang the spirits and the Sidhe – the fairy folk of the Emerald Land of Eire. I am Mother Goddess to all the goddesses My children, you do know that you descended from me and the Men I have loved?

Oh the men I have loved in all lands… The Old Man of Bodach, Manannan Mac Lir and others whose names even I forget now.  Ahhhh Manannan, how I waited in vain for you to return to me my love. I have known sorrow too, deep, deep sorrow that etched so deeply in my face that my wailing and the wind carved into the rocks themselves at Collough Bay taking the shape of grieving visage for all eternity.  I am not indifferent to suffering as some would have you believe of me.  

Gentler tongues name me Queen of Winter, as Carlin- the Queen of Witches and in the remote coasts of Alba amongst the hardy fisher folk, I am ‘Gentle Annie’, she who brings the winter storms and gales and those who dwell in my sacred glens and forests know me with fondness as Lady of the Beasts. The animals of these blessed realms love me too – the deer and reindeer are protected by me from the greed of mankind and many is the storm I have whipped up in fury, wild and whirling snowstorms descending on greedy hunters who sought to take more than was their need, but the folk seeking what is fair have nothing to fear. I am ancient goddess of this land, I command the wolves too and have led hungry packs to their quarry, their predatory howls echoing on the wind as I wail beside them.

As the months of winter draw close, just afore Samhain, my ancient servants of time immemorial stir and whisper their spells over the great whirlpool of Corryvreckan - The cauldron of the plaid…. 8 wild and powerful Goddesses - daughters and others of my kind, my Cailleachan  I called them, awaken from their slumber deep below the seat of Ben Nevis and toil a while with me as we wash and prepare my great white plaid of winter in its watery depth and if you listen in the carried shrieks of the wind you will hear our spells and our voices...

As midwinter draws closer, I don my sparkling clean plaid and wander through the realms I command. The once green fields and forests are slowly dying back into their yearly decline of death, waiting for the rebirth of the coming year. As my great plaid cloak of white touches their shrivelled leaves and branches, it frosts and freezes them into icy stillness and wintry splendour. Amongst this icy chill and the endings there is hope and there is beauty.

Into the infant new year, I continue to walk the earth, my cloak of winter still commanding frost and ice wherever it touches the land. But as the year grows steadily stronger, slowly, teasingly, I release my icy grip a little and allow the first signs of spring to trail from my great footsteps. I have a magic of my own, but few can see it now, every year without fail I complete my cycle and not unlike the Merlin I grow younger, until at Imbolc Eve I undertake my final labour as Cailleach and I visit the hidden well of youth, keeping vigil until sunrise when I drink the waters of revival and then the Goddess of Spring is born again.

So, as you jolt awake, with the wind battering your home, hissing and wailing down your chimney, whistling through the nooks and crannies of your rooves, your windows or your doors, hear me and know that I am just going about my work settling the land to sleep for long dark nights and all is as it should be.

What looks like destruction, is the cycle of rebirth and renewal. As my freezing fingers pluck away at the foliage and the land transforms under my fearsome touch to a cruel and frozen realm, just pull up the covers and rest deeply knowing that this always comes before fresh growth, renewal, before the green shoots and the brave budding petals of Imbolc.

Soon, I will be but a distant memory, as you embrace Spring, I shall be consigned to the harshness of winter past but allow yourself a quiet minute to remember that each year I come to my death and to my rebirth.

Each year, I change my name, I am reborn. I am Bride, Breed, Brigit, Brighid, Bridie, St Brigit. I am She of many names and I am She of many mysteries.

Have a Blessed Week x x x