July 26th, 2010
Here I am in Glastonbury! Getting ready to do a Fringe workshop on Healing Sexuality… and then the whole Conference! this year it is dedicated to the Goddess of Love, so I feel I am in exactly the right place. the colour is RED and everything, everyone, everywhere is red, red, red. Luckily I have a lot of red, even in my travelling wardrobe.
Coming towards Glastonbury on the bus last night, first it was very dark and then I saw drifts of clouds lighting up… we had been in a kind of low tunnel of road but the hill dipped slightly and I saw the nearly-full moon, looking incredibly witchy, with dark clouds clustered and streaked over and around it…. A bit later, getting off the bus, the moon was shining high and bright in the direction of the Tor and the paths leading to it… I thought ahead to BC WitchCamp and all the secret paths that lead to Avalon - and here I am!
Check out this year’s Goddess Conference at their website: http://www.goddessconference.com/
Posted in News | No Comments »
July 23rd, 2010
My sweet Isis-cat went missing nearly two weeks ago. I am terribly sad; I have had her for nearly ten years and she is a very special cat. She had a terrible kittenhood, and was lucky to survive … as a consequence, she lived the rest of her life in a very kittenish state - never really grew up, but stayed a bit batty and magical and other-worldly. She was a special healing-cat - when anyone was upset or injured, she would sit next to them (or on them) and wash bits of them. In fact, washing and purring were two of her favourite things. She had lovely fluffy fur (white and tortiseshell) and my son and I used to joke that all she had in her head was fur and purrs.
She loved being part of magic and circles, and would always come and take the spare cushion in a ritual. She was very affectionate, and peculiar, and individual. Her tail was a great stripey orange-black-white. I hope the great Cat Mother is looking after her well, washing her from nose to tail-tip. I miss her terribly.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
July 18th, 2010
Flying from KL to London I gazed out of the plane window, which I always like to do. I like being reminded of how huge the earth is, and how so much of it seems completely uninhabited. I spent a couple of hours passing across this landscape which (I had no idea where it was) appeared vast, uninhabited; mountainous and then desert. There were no roads, no buildings, no signs of habitation of any sort. And it went on, and on, and on. Eventually there was a long river delta, with little spreads of housing and farming around it, intermittently; that went on for about five minutes of flying time. Then more immensity of nothingness. My only reservation about all this nothingness was whether it had been devastated by humans or was a natural emptiness. I remember previously flying over Siberia for six hours or so, with absolutely nothing but wilderness (imagining herds of reindeer and steppe vegetation), but this seemed much more barren.
These endless views - similarly with crossing the sea - make me feel hopeful. There seems so much of it, and so little of us that I think maybe we can manage to be contained, in our reckless destruction and colonisation… Maybe the earth is able to cope, even with us, and will be ok one way or another, even if we destroy ourselves.
Posted in Musings | No Comments »
July 14th, 2010
I recently finished the absolutely wonderful The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It’s a really well-written, thoughtful fantasy that digs deeper and deeper (mercilessly) into the motivations of those of us who seek magical worlds, or to live in magical realms. Most fantasy I read explores one or two aspects of its subject matter - this kept pursuing issues to their utter end - and then taking a sinister twist. The characters are exasperatingly real and the magic a mixture of daunting, exhausting scholarship and a poetic feel for the fabric of the universe.
I thought it impressive, skillful, convincing and touching; I expect it will stay with me a long time. I wanted to read the sequel immediately (not to be published for another year)…. I’ll wait.
Posted in Books I'm Reading | No Comments »
July 12th, 2010
Last week I ran a small ritual at the Medicine Wheel in Byron Bay, with about 14 women. We did an exercise out of Aphrodite’s Magic - gazing with the eyes of the Goddess (the Beauty Eye). This is a beautiful thing to do - either with a friend or women’s group. It is something that never gets tired, no matter how many times you do it.
It begins with going deep within the self, finding the seed part of you that is the Goddess. Then send each breath into this part, allowing it to expand and grow til it stretches through your whole body (this takes a little time and you should keep stretching it further and further out, even until it goes beyond your body, like an aura). Lastly you focus on bringing that energy specifically up the spine, into the head and particularly into the backs of your eyes, so that when you open your eyes, you will be looking through the eyes of the Goddess.
When you open your eyes, you gaze at the woman sitting opposite you (also with her eyes open) and view her through the eyes of the Goddess. Looking for the Goddess within her, when you see it, you name it quietly, saying “I see the Goddess within you” and she does the same.
You can repeat this with several different women, or make it more elaborate, seeking to name the aspect of Goddess you see in her (ie a water Goddess, the maiden Goddess, Shakti…). You can also spend several minutes detailing her beauty to her, which we did. Not only do you get the amazing experience of seeing the Goddess before you, in the form of another woman, you also get to hear how she sees you, as the Goddess. These words can be very precious and affirming.
Posted in Rituals | No Comments »
July 1st, 2010
Over Easter of 2011 the first ever Australian Reclaiming WitchCamp will be held in Victoria!!
There’ll be three magical Paths to chose from, evening rituals filled with the special Reclaiming magic of combining mythic ritual, personal magic, drumming and trance… Four days of magic and wonder.
We’ve invited two international Reclaiming teachers, Ravyn Stanfield and John Brazaitis and I’ll be the third teacher. As well, there’ll be three Australian student teachers, to craft and hold the magic of the Camp.
Our Vision Statement for the Camp is: “Australian Reclaiming envisions our first WitchCamp as celebrating this ancient land, our energetic threads of connection and our interaction with nature. We see a story arising from our birth out of the ocean and the earth, the web of life and our grounded rapture and innate wisdom.” From this vision, the Camp will be shaped…
Check out the Australian Reclaiming Community Website at: http://witchcamp.australiareclaiming.org.au/
Posted in News | No Comments »
June 25th, 2010
Port Melbourne Readings store has set up a beautiful dsiplay of Aphrodite’s Magic… (beautiful to its author at least) - with copies of the book, an article printed out and piles of the postcard with the book’s cover, advertising the Author Event I’m doing there next Tuesday, June 29th.
If you’re in Melbourne, please come along! They are at 253 Bay St and you can arrive from 6pm for a 6:30 start. They’ll offer you a glass of wine, I will read from and talk about the book and later sign copies.
It’s a free event, but they’re asking people to book on 9681 9255. Hope to see you there!
Posted in News | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2010
Last night we had our final meeting for the Tree of Life group. Only five of us there (turned out to be a pretty good number and we played with the idea of pentagrams) - we worked with the whole Tree and after the Lightning Flash, returned to our initial positions. This meant that I left Netzach (which I did least justice to, of all the sephira - having only intermittant glimpses of veils of green light, filtered through summer leaves of an English forest) and arrived once again in Hod. Which felt like a familiar but out-grown mode - I understand everything there (well, I think I do) but it does not fully express me. But I like it! Things seem easy, do-able and comprehensible.
One of the exercises we did was choose the Sephira we had the strongest relationship to, and that which we had the weakest relationship to (from our experience of spending a month in each Sephira). Then we studied the path/s that lay between the two, to plot a way to draw on some of our strengths in understanding/developing our weak areas. My strongest was Kether (where I spent 5 weeks soaring with the white cockatoos and the all-everything) and my weakest Yesod (where I spent 4 weeks wondering what was going on and why, though I had some intellectual grasp of it, I couldn’t actually relate to it or feel it properly). Of course the Path between the two lies right down the Middle Pillar - passing through Da’ath and Tiferet on the way. So it looked like: I have to choose (free will) to step out of Kether, into Tiferet (which is a kind of alarming place for me, all that light and movement awash in there with no guarentees) to pass into any understanding of Yesod.
We also each laid out a Tree of Life spread with Tarot cards - I had the beautiful Ace of Cups from the Haindl deck in Kether, which pleased me greatly. Death landed in Da’ath (very aptly), and the sneaky Son of Swords reversed in Yesod (not surprising - and in this deck it is depicted as Osiris, who I have a bit of a history with).
Posted in Kabbalah - Tree of Life | No Comments »
June 21st, 2010
I’ve just had two Winter Solstice rituals in quick succession - last night and this morning. This morning we (my partner, son and I) went down to the beach very early - ie before sunrise) and watched the gradual changing of sky and light, before red-gold, the sun emerged… (then we went swimming, of course!)
Last night we did a quiet-ish, inner ritual, a lot of it in the dark or semi-dark. We did a meditation of being a seed in the dark earth, letting our husk fall away, reaching down with new roots for nourishment and then finally feeling a green sprout heading upwards towards the light. In total dark we entered the chaos-sphere, with sound and movement and then, into the silent dark, we recited Charge of the Star Goddess and Charge of the Earth God. Then we each lit a tealight and sat meditating on our own light…
Posted in Rituals | No Comments »
June 17th, 2010
Every day I spend an hour in my garden - weeding (mostly), planting, mulching… that’s about it! My partner and son do the mowing, brush-cutting and heavier work but I go out there day after day and work away at whatever little corner or sweeping hill-challenge I am currently up to.
Over the years this gardening has been many things to me - a tiny way to wrest control over my life, an insurmountable challenge that I gradually win through on, a relationship wrought with this piece of land - sometimes it’s been the worst part of every day and sometimes one of the best. Out there I can shout out hello to visiting white cockatoos, stand in amazement as a huge flock of pigeons sweep low over me, their wing-beats like a whirring engine, I can talk to the many worms (trying to avoid the many leeches and, in tick season, many ticks). Sometimes the cats come and sit with me, companionably while I work.
This hour’s gardening is the only way I’ve created anything with the land at all - maybe a stronger person could do one day a week, which is what it’s supposed to represent - and plants I planted 5 years ago are now magnificent; ones I planted 6 months ago are becoming established… some I planted with my son at the beginning of this week are still looking startled… It is satisfying. It does connect me in. It’s a burden and a pleasure, both. I like the tangible results, and that they appear no matter what my emotions were whilst I was creating them.
Posted in Musings | No Comments »