To write briefly about one ritual: we set up Arthur’s court in the centre of the circle, in tableau and then had a grail procession enter from the East, parade three-quarters of the way around the circle and exit via the North. The last person in the procession stopped, turned back and told the story of the Fisher-King and his unhealed wound… which Arthur recognised as being his own story… I led the procession, carrying the grail, wearing someone else’s red dress… All day I had been asking different people, “Who bears the grail?” and collecting responses: “the Goddess”, “spirit”, “the grail maiden”… and carrying it, I wondered even further.

But the essence of our rituals seemed to be; I do. I carry the grail. And you do. We all do. We are carrying the grail; hope, spirit, love, the mending of our relationship with the sacred; we are bearing the grail.

Our story is Avalon - and we are creating five evening rituals to unfold aspects of that story. This process of unpicking myth and story, of inviting in gods and goddesses, of uncovering the paths into and then stepping within the mythos is something really special to me; especially when done in community. There is an evolution which seems to occur… from initial ideas and brainstorming, through to intention, structure, details and then a whole, fleshed-out ritual. It’s a process I follow by myself, or sometimes with one or two other people, but to do it with eight people, and for not one but five rituals… which will be attended by a continuous group of 80+ people - it’s an awesome experience.

The team is wonderful and two of them - Ravyn and John - will be with us for the very first Australian WitchCamp next Easter. I’ll report back after Camp on how our rituals went! The link for the Australian Camp is: http://witchcamp.australiareclaiming.org.au/

We also saw two bald eagles, hanging out near their nest on a small island, a grey whale and a humpback (with a nice tail). Later, in the evening, I was searching the skies for the moon (doing my complicated reversal of the sky from Southern to Northern Hemispheres) and finally found it, much lower on the horizon than I expected. It was a huge crescent, nearly orange, a harvest moon. Looked very witchy. When we went down the hill, towards the water, we saw it through trees, sending an orange beam across the water.

From my point of view, the most exciting part about it was the Dark Goddess aspect - there’s an Underworld character of immense age and resonating power (although often peculiarly wielded) who eventually emerges… The whole book is plagued by ideas of shadow realms, parallel cities and other times that may co-exist with current time; all elegantly folded up into the final twist of the plot. A good read for those who wonder about such things, as well as its coming-of-age aspect; questioning loyalties, choices and pereceived ‘world truths’.

The women reached out and guided them through, each one also whispering something to the man as he passed slowly by; I heard words of praise, encouragement, appreciation and gratitude. I was standing about two thirds of the way along the line; by the time they got that far, the men were visably moved; some shaking, some crying, some whose faces were in wonderment. One young man, passing lightly along, listening to our words, breathed on an out-breath ‘I love you’ and seemed to send it out to the whole room. Another man came up to me afterwards and said it was the strongest thing that had ever happened to him, in his whole life, and he would carry the memory of it til his dying day.

After all the men had passed through, we stood and sang and the room filled with our voices. It was a powerful ritual, with a very strong sense of the strength of women and the rarity of this deep recognition of men.

This was a kind of constructed red tent, within the Hall, and my blindfold was removed to enter it. In there were eight (I think eight) goddesses sitting, some with someone in front of them, interacting and a few sitting with no-one there. My assistant whispered, “Go to the Goddess with her arms open for you” and I glanced into the North-East - the direction I had been in all Conference - and She was there, naked and with a red eye-mask, arms open. I went to her and it was wordless for a long time and then she leaned forward and spoke to me. I had tears running down my face and dripping between my breasts all the time she spoke.  It was very powerful, far beyond the rational. It was very personal, the woman in this role really reached deeply into my psyche and spoke as if within myself… it was extrordinary.

When I left the tent I was facing a mirror with the words “”You are beautiful, I love you” written on it… I laughed, because all week I had been talking and conducting workshops on how we are Aphrodite’s mirrors…

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/

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.

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.

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.