Mystics, Scholars and Poets! Ireland - A Visit

I bet you didn’t know that King Dagobert spent time in Ireland! Ireland was once known as “the land of mystics, scholars and poets” and County Mayo, on Ireland’s West coast, is highly charged with spiritual energies. It’s a wild, rugged and desolate landscape has attractions for the holiday visitor with coastal and countryside walking, mountain climbing, golfing and bird watching. The Atlantic coast is atmospheric, there is also sea, lake and river fishing for those who enjoy the great outdoors. It is an area rich in wonderful, historical sites, such as stone circles and cairns, round towers and monastic ruins. Throughout the summer there are many festivals of food, music, art and song. 

This area is steeped in Ireland’s famous connections to the spiritual world. For instance, this is a well documented event. On the evening of August 21, 1879, Margaret Beirne was

February Card Reading

From The Star Tarot - The Hierophant. The Inner Teacher/Spiritual Advisor. There are times in your life when you may feel lost, and disconnected, uncertain how to get back to your true self. This is the time to seek the wisdom of the Hierophant. He is the revealer of sacred information and he helps you to reconnect to your soul self. The Hierophant instructs you to listen. He symbolises the mediator between the spiritual world and the material world. He shows you the path how to live a spiritual life on Earth. The number is five – the number of spiritual self which struggles to learn how to express itself. The Hierophant is the Enlightened One who gives spiritual guidance. This is the bridge between the spirit and human form. He shines spiritual knowledge and divine love into your heart, awakening your soul purpose. The Hierophant  is your inner voice that inspires you to practice spiritual values in your everyday life. If you listen, you can learn the lessons. This card indicates a need or desire to discover the Divine being within. The Hierophant inspires you to walk your talk and practice your brand of spirituality with integrity and authenticity. You are encouraged to trust your intuition and to see the Divine in all things. You will channel cosmic knowledge, and blend and balance your inner self with your outer world, understanding how all things are connected. He gives you the courage and desire to look at your beliefs and values to see if they align with the Divine Plan. This will rebalance your life. Does drawing this card show you that you are ready to take on this role or that you still need further training?  Is your spirituality a true commitment? Use this time to re-evaluate where you have come and where you are going! You true destine path awaits - choices are required. By Cathy McClelland.

Get Your Oracle Cards Published

These are the key points of the Get Your Oracle Cards Published workshop :-

Sending your proposal to a publisher:  

If you have a name, a pen name, a website name, a Facebook name, an unregistered business name, etc. etc., I suggest you use one professional name only, and the best name is your real name as this is the only one you want on your royalty cheques. Put all your eggs in one basket under your real name where publishers and others can quickly find you! Publishers invest in their clients, and will research you! I heard of one case where a very good deck was turned down because the person had been working as a telephone line card reader at the same time as working the sex lines! 

Creating an Oracle Deck

A question often asked is about whether to publish in a pen name, but publishers prefer real names because there is less confusion with royalty payments, and tax offices also prefer it.

      A proposal to a publisher requires information on what qualifies you to write the deck (your journey), and why you have chosen your illustrator and what media the illustrator works in.

     Who is a typical purchaser or seeker for this deck? Why did you chose your particular theme? In what way will the cards help with life’s problems, what type of guidance is described, what type of direction or life path does your deck offer? 

7 Spiritual Laws

1. The Law of Stillness:

Each day, make time for quiet reflection. This will provide a ‘time-out’ from the routine general demands of your day. In this vacuum, listen to hear the ‘still small voice inside’. This will provide inspiration, allow you to take stock, and be rested and uplifted. If you do not create a time for contemplation, you can become pre-occupied and over-stressed and miss what is truly important in your life. It is sufficient to reserve twenty minutes to sit in comfort, alone and without interruption, with nothing to do except daydream. Listen to your thoughts and you will receive revelations.

 

Where Troy Once Stood

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: Where Troy Once Stood - The Mystery of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Revealed by Iman Wilkens  

 "Now there are fields where Troy Once Stood..."

 This is an outstanding research work which puts the epic poetry of Homer in a new setting. The author, the late Iman Wilkens, was fascinated by Homer since his childhood, and later made an indepth study that is the subject of this book. He discovered Homer's poems were oral Celtic tales told 400 years before they were written by the Greeks. The Trojan war was not set in the Mediterranean as has been largely claimed by academics, but is set in East Anglia, between the tribes of Western Europe and the tribes of Britain. Place names and river names, wind directions, time frames, constellations (which are still in use today), coats of arms, etc., were used to identify the true origin of the story. All information is meaningful; including numbers, colours, names, deities, and all are necessary yet are hidden under the guise of an entertaining story. The Odyssey shows sea charts, and the Iliad details the history of the Trojan War. The reason for the war is not the abduction of a beautiful woman, but the highly desired deposits of an extremely rare metal. 

The Caring Marine - A Story

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside. "Your son is here," she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.

Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile. He refused.

Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious to her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients. Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.

weight loss video

We are so often reminded about the need to watch our weight but it is surprising that just one portion too much each day can pile on more than a stone in weight each year – and every year! If we can’t get weight off during the summer, most people find the winter a more difficult time. Weight gain is exponential: the more weight we have, the less active our life, so the more weight we gain. This puts a strain on joints, increases our risk of fatty liver, heart disease and strokes, and is now said to increase our dementia risk also.

Jocelyn Chaplin - Interview with Wendy Stokes

Jocelyn Chaplin is a London-based psychotherapist, writer, teacher and artist and is developing a new form of spirituality that has equality at its heart. Jocelyn describes it as 'a spiritual complement for the increasing desire for greater equality in our divided world'. For many years, Jocelyn has worked at the cutting edge of therapy, politics and conscious living.

Wendy: Hello Jocelyn. You have been involved with issues of equality since your twenties. What changes have you seen since you wrote the book 'Feminist Counselling in Action' in the 1980s?

Jocelyn: Feminism was at its peak and fortunately, there have been enormous changes for women since then, especially in the work place. But, even then, I noticed all kinds of inequalities, not only gender ones and they are still with us. There are many obvious ones, of wealth and poverty, race, sexuality, ageism etc., and also everyday judgements about what is inferior and what is superior. These prejudices are internalised in our unconscious. The deeper changes in attitudes towards women and other groups which suffer from prejudice have been slower to change, and there has been a massive backlash against feminism in the global collective unconscious. Fundamentalisms of all kinds are expressions of this reaction.

The Holy Grail - Part Three

I remember stories of the Grail from my early childhood. The earliest memory was the poem of La Belle Dame Sans Merci which tells the story of a young woman confined in a castle who longs to be rescued. In those days, a woman, like a child today, could not survive alone and even today for many women, life alone is undesirable. This mediaeval young lady admires knights on horseback as they ride past on their way to Arthur's majestic court in Camelot. She is aware of their fearless reputation for saving the fair sex because these men were chivilrous, courteous, strong and kind. She hopes they will see her, but she is invisible to them, and they pass by without acknowledging her. In her distress, she decides to take her own life, and in a small boat that floats to Camelot, she dies of desperation. 

As a child, I read many of poems of knighthood, and also the stories of the quest for the Holy Grail. The era in which the original poetry of a grail was written was a dangerous and complex time, and the poem itself is surrounded with mystery and strange occurrences, as though set in an extraordinary and tragic dream. Visions and dreams have a special wonder and magic, and what we witness within them are allegory, metaphor and symbols. But the map is not the territory! 

But what is the meaning of this strange story? A disabled fisher king awaits vital questioning! If we approach the grail story as though it was a dream, it becomes very meaningful. In dreams, we often describe events without the expression of emotion - and this story is extremely enigmatic. Could it be a wisdom story that holds importance for the time in which we live today? It could describe an urgency related to the healing of the Wasteland, and due to the lack of questioning, the opportunity to heal is lost.