Dancing at Lughnasa - A Story

It’s 1936 in the Mindy family’s small village croft in Donegal, a priest returns home after spending thirty years in a leper colony in Africa. 

His five sisters greet him but he is saddened because his mother has died. He is the only son - the only male in the family. His sisters have sent their pennies to him in Africa over all those years, knitting gloves and taking other poorly paid work. As a man, he should have been at home to support the family, emotionally and financially, but he doesn’t fit in with the repressed Irish Catholic society. He talks of goddesses and he plays with his young nephew! There is a thin veil of respectability in the family house that overlies a very embarrassing situation where an illegitimate child was born to the youngest sister - and another sister is having a love affair with a married man! 

The priest says, “I have come home to die!” The sisters have no money to bury him and are resentful! However, the priest slowly changes the lives of those around him - they begin to enjoy a more relaxed happiness in their lives, but the Bishop expresses displeasure with the priest and does not come to visit and tells one of the sisters that she will lose her job as a school teacher…. 

Writing Autobiography

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde

Don’t just remember what happened! Relive and reflect on episodes of the past as though it is happening today. Write in the present tense! Write like you are writing to a dear friend whose relationship you treasure!  Don’t forget to say how you feel, and include your thoughts, not just circumstances. Live your truth and describe it with good language skills and with as few repetitions as possible. You are unique, your story is unique, don’t copy anyone else. Make it deep. Make it exciting. Make it live! Send shivers down spines, make your reader gasp, make them tell their friends about the excitement! Write from your heart, mean every word. Write and write, but your spontaneity is required. At the end, edit, and edit bigtime, especially avoid being presumptuous, up staging or praising yourself too highly. Take out the ‘shitty committee’ and if you do criticise, end with compassion. We don’t walk in the shoes of others, and if we are in their shadow, look for our own mistakes within that uncomfortable relationship. 

Claim your story! Write for yourself - readers will relate to you better than you can relate to your readers. There needs to be light and darkness, different moods, joys, tragedies, difficulties, burdens overcome, outcomes not expected, people described in all their variety, places experienced, coldness followed by warmth, followed by enlightenments and revelations shared. What is the motive for your memoir? Please don’t say ‘to make money’ because unless you are an international star, your time will never be paid for. Revenge, therapy, for your grandchildren, to raise yourself out of obscurity, setting a record straight, to make others laugh or to share your life wisdom? You will discover your reason usually after you have written it! All these and more will be part of your life story!

Reuse, Renovate, Recycle!

Our unique and finite planet is labouring under the weight of pollution, in the air, the soil and the seas.  If we are to survive as a species, we need to care for the environment and practice ecological ways of living. All species are interdependent - ie all dependent on each other. Our logging, mining, farming, arable growing, are all eating into the land that was once available to other species. Our forests are on fire year after year due to long term droughts, high winds and little rain. What can you do I hear you ask! Reuse, Renovate and Recycle whatever you can, and stop purchasing vehicles, white goods, furnishings, and most of all stop using chemicals and stop eating meat and meat products. 

The City of Revelation! London by Chris Street

There have been several attempts to re-build London as ‘The New Jerusalem’. The first was by the Knights Templar. In 1185, they modelled their Temple Church in Holborn on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and sited the building exactly the same distance from the old St. Pauls Cathedral as the Holy Sepulchre is sited from the Dome of the Rock. Clearly they saw a connection, or wanted to create one! 

Influencing the Mind

Speakers use words to influence the minds of their listerners. Writers use language to affect and influence their readers. 

Connotation: A connotation is an implied meaning. Words can have associations other than their literal meaning.

Emotive Language: Writers often seek to arouse certain feelings or emotions in the reader, for example, pity or anger. This can be done by using emotive language e.g. words and phrases that have certain connotations. A reporter writing about a crime could write for example, “a burglar stole some jewellery from Mr Bolton’s house.” This just tells us the facts. If a writer wanted to influence our emotions, they  might write, for example, “a heartless burglar stole jewellery of great sentimental value from the frail pensioner, Albert Bolton.” The word ‘heartless’ makes someone sound deliberately cruel. The word “frail” implies vulnerability and helpless. The term ‘of great sentimental value’ tells us how important the jewellery was to Mr Bolton, and increases our sympathy for him. 

Left and right brain hemispheres

Though it is generally accepted by the New Age that the right and left hemispheres perform different tasks, and are different in males and females, this is untrue. Sadly, the New Age has no education in many of the disciplines it speaks so knowledgeably about such as this complex area of brain anatomy and action. 

The right and left hemispheres are not distinct areas, there is a great deal of interaction required. There are areas of the brain that lie dormant, some are overactive, some only active at certain times. If one area is damaged, another area is brought into action to compensate. People who are right handed have a dominant left hemisphere and those who are left handed have a left hemisphere dominance. 

There are some male/female differences. Males are often more visual and therefore are architects, artists, surgeons, engineers, car drivers, and those who work with a 3D ability, though some women also have this area of the brain highly developed. Women often have greater speech abilities and writing skills, though the same applies, that men also can develop this area and use it skillfully. 

Trauma Bonding

What is trauma bonding? 

Dysfunctional behaviour as a result of mental instability or addictions such as alcohol, drugs or gambling can result in distress for both parties, and all parties within the relationship, whether family, friends or work colleagues, neighbours, health services and strangers. Those who have these traits, eg., unreliability, selfishness, negative thinking, blaming and not taking responsibility, manipulation, attention seeking, lying, demanding and/or aggressive behaviour have often had a childhood of confusing and destabiling messages from carers and take the confusion and chaos into their adult relationships. Addictions exacerbate these traits.

Anti-Social Personality Disorder

 What is “an Anti-Social Personality Disorder? 

Traits: Those with ASPD have little regard for norms, standards, boundaries and issues of right and wrong and therefore have little regard for the wellbeing of other people. They will frequently antagonise, manipulate, exploit and demand, and suffer no guilt or remorse due to a lack of ability to reflect on their destructive behaviour. They often violate the law by behaving impulsively and recklessly, lying and cheating, and can act with great irritability and hostility due to lack of impulse control, and major addictions to drugs or alcohol. They can display charming behaviour when they want something and are consummate actors. But the charm belies a cynical and highly opinionated interior. 

Alessandra Belloni

I would like to introduce my readers to Alessandra Belloni, a female performer born in Italy but living in New York. Over 35 years she has made pilgrimages to the sites of the mysterious Black Madonnas in Southern Italy. Her work is extremely impressive and known across the world. She has traced the mysteries back to the Earth Goddess and the long lost deities of Greece, Rome Egypt and Africa. The sacred places pre-date Christianity and many places have retained their magic. Saints days involve meditation, sacred chanting and ecstatic dancing in the sea or walking barefoot in the mountains, some of the rites continue for many hours throughout the night, and the trances produced can be licentious when men and women dance together! The dance of the Tarantella, a dance that mimics the bite of the tarantula spider, are from this region of Europe and relate to the 'bite' of passionate and unfulfilled love. Its complex rhythms have been used for healing abuse, addiction, trauma and depression.  

22nd July Feast Day

Today, 22nd July, is the feast day of Saint Mary Magdalene. It was in very recent years (2016) that she has she been made into a 'saint' by the Vatican, as previously, she was only commemorated because since the early days of Roman Catholicism, she was regarded as a prostitute, a person extremely reviled in her time. 

Now the Vatican have realised - after 1,700 years - that the woman described in the gospels as having seven devils cast out of her by Jesus, two important things, firstly that prostitution might have had nothing to do with '7 devils', and also that this woman gave her money to support Jesus and his disciples in his 3 year ministry. So did the Church think that Jesus was living off immoral earnings! 

Maturity

 I was looking at maturity between men and women, and though one finds exceptions, women are generally maturer than men and this is probably why many partnerships occur between men who are a few  years older than their female partner. The problem with a lack of maturity is that it hurts the person themselves, often through a lack of self discipline, and hurts those around them, and sometimes society itself. Immaturity is so wasteful. Mature people are reliable, conscientious contributors to health and life, for those around them and for society too. 

Why should this be? Females are introduced to care giving roles while they are still children often encouraged to look after dolls and then other younger children. When they reach their menarche, around the very early teenage years, they realise their body is preparing each month to bear a child. This monthly process continues for around thirty years, and can have uncomfortable effects, headaches, stomach aches, iron anaemia, etc. Pregnancy too has its difficulties, especially around working life. Child bearing and child rearing and baby health care are usually also the expected role of women. Toilet training, eating with cutlery, walking, talking, reading, and the teaching of the proper behaviour of a polite and peaceful child is often also seen as women’s work. Women are also expected to be the home makers and home managers and often are the care givers within the family, to care for the older generation. These duties require great altruism, empathy, responsibility, thoughtfulness and consideration. The delayed gratification of placing another’s wishes before one’s own is a self sacrifice that many around the world have no choice but to make. 

Dogs!

There are an estimated 8 million dogs in the U.K. which has a long standing reputation as an animal loving nation.

1.9 million dogs are left alone for long hours, often without water or toilet facilities. 

2.4 million never see a vet and are not fed or treated well. 

4 million dogs are thought to be suffering from mental or physical distress because owners are irresponsible and uneducated. 

7% are fed chocolate, played with roughly, are kept in a cage or outdoors.

Dogs are emotionally intelligent! They are excellent companions, especially for elderly people. Walking a dog is an ideal way to keep fit and people in the street often stop to talk to someone with a dog. Dogs have been bred for 10,000 years to be helpers, guardians and “mans' best friend”. They come in a variety of sizes and there is a dog to suit everyone’s requirements. 

However, dogs have many needs. They can live for 14 years during which time they have daily requirements for attention and are a considerable financial expense. If you buy a dog, you need to buy it from a reputable source. No puppy should be taken from its mother before 8 weeks or it will have behavioural problems. Puppies need to be handled caringly whilst still very young if they are to be comfortable with humans. If you buy from a breeder, always see the conditions the mother has lived in, as the mother will teach her offspring many things during those early weeks of life, including preliminary toilet training and for females, how to be a loving mother. Avoid getting a dog from a pet shop or a puppy farm. Selective breeding causes hidden genetic defects and mongrels are thought to be the healthiest and happiest of dogs. 

Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic Psychology has the basic premise that we are born as pure and loving organisms (unlike many religious views that we are born evil). As pure and loving beings, appreciating closeness, nurturing and contact (no mammal species survive without it), we are on our way at birth to receive and give love and appreciation. This natural loving ability is also a means to heal and relate to others and to develop ourselves as powerful, creative and spontaneous. In the past, we were told we were born evil, and needed to have that evil removed from us through schooling, home life and through parental and teacher relationships. This oppression causes us to bottle up our true emotions, and we do not utter our real thoughts which are obstructed and suppressed rather than release them appropriately, whilst respecting and caring for others and understanding that they have suffered abuse under this misguided belief. 

Black Madonnas

I have long been fascinated with the wooden and stone statues and Byzantine-like paintings of the black and crowned Mary with the Christ child on her lap. They have a reputation for having mystical healing and miraculous powers. There are approx 500 of these images in Europe, mostly in France. They date back in to the mists of time, as far as we can discover to 12th century Pauline Fathers, beyond the time of Saint Augustine, and St Bernard, both of whom had a special devotion to her. Bernard had an awakening while meditating on the Black Madonna of Chattilon. She was the patroness of the Knights Templars and the Teutonic Order. She was symbolised as a dove and was associated with the Holy Spirit. Isis was known as the Gatekeeper of life's mysteries and many think of the black madonna as a continuation of the Goddess Isis, with the child Horus on her lap after Osiris had been murdered by his brother Set. 

Home Ecology

Sharing top tips for Home Ecology Students:

Eat vegetables and fruit, pasta, potatoes, rice and other not meat staples - organically grown if possible.

Switch to an ecologically sustainable renewable energy supplier, avoiding fossil fuels.

4 of Swords

Keywords: withdrawal, introspection, regeneration. 

This card guides us to pause, to spend time in solitude, to still our mind, take stock, and review the past in order to be able to gain wisdom by understanding our situations in a new and realistic light. 

Quote from Einstein: I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me. 

The Lydney Excavation

Temple site excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1920s. 

At the end of the fourth century, a temple complex on a hill overlooking the Severn estuary at Lydney, Gloucestershire, was built to the god Nodens. Finds at Lydney show the Nodens was a healing deity, and that pilgrims offered votive figures of dogs. These animals were mascots of healing throughout the ancient world. Nodens was likely to be connected to the sea and this temple was found to have a mosaic (now lost), of fish and sea monsters. Nodens corresponds with two figures of Celtic mythology, Irish Nuadha and Welsh Nudd, later Lludd. Lludd is the legendary king of Britain who fortified London and was buried at Ludgate. Both Nuadha and Lludd were involved in defending their kingdoms against invaders. At Lydney and London, Nodens may have been a god of the headland guarding a great estuary and this a national tutelary god. The patrons of Lydney were perhaps wealthy Romanised Celts of the great Cotswold villas, such as Chedworth. Built at the closing years of the Roman Empire, when Britain was under threat of barbaric invasion, and when paganism was giving ground to Christianity, Lydney could have been defiant against the new order. 

SoulCollage Workshop

This is a report of a workshop conducted by Abigail who is trained facilitator with SoulCollage.
She brings the images to use, which are of a variety of people, places, etc.,
These are glued to a small white card. From these images, spontaneous words are created.
The two sentences are: I Am One Who: followed by This is my Message to you Today:
These three following are my own choice of cutting and pasting on card and words following
when the imagery is consulted.
The process is designed to access inner wisdom.
SoulCollage is a Registered Trade Mark and SoulCollage facilitators are specially trained.
To find a trained facilitator, visit: https://www.soulcollage.com/
To contact Abigail for London SoulCollage (R) workshops, click on this link:
abigail@collagediscovery.com

Lakota Code of Ethics

1. Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often. The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

2. Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path. Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy - and greed stem from a lost soul. Pray that they will find guidance.

3. Search for yourself, by yourself. Do not allow others to make your path for you. It is your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.

4. Treat the guests in your home with much consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

5. Do not take what is not yours whether from a person, a community, the wilderness or from a culture. It was not earned nor given. It is not yours.

6. Respect all things that are placed upon this earth - whether it be people or plant.

7. Honor other people's thoughts, wishes and words. Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them. Allow each person the right to personal expression.

Reclaiming the Earth

 The values of the reclaiming tradition stem from our understanding that the Earth is alive and all of life is sacred and interconnected. We see the goddess as eminent in our planet’s cycles of birth, growth, death, decay and regeneration. Our practice arises from a deep, spiritual commitment with the Earth, to healing and to the linking of magic with political action. 

Each of us embodies the divine. Our ultimate spiritual authority is within, and we need no other person to interpret the sacred to us. We foster the questioning attitude, and honour intellectual, spiritual and creative freedoms. 

We are an evolving, dynamic tradition and work for female and male energies of divinity, always remembering that the essence is a mystery which goes beyond form. Our community rituals are participatory and ecstatic, celebrating the cycles of the seasons and our lives, and raising energy for personal, collective and Earth healing. 

Sun Cycle Cards

I chose number 4, Hemera, Rebirth. She is the primordial embodiment of the day who disperses the mists of the night, and bathes the world in heavenly light. When we experience a life changing transformation, we return to a world where old meanings no longer hold value for us, and we feel a displacement. When the regular world no longer makes sense, we begin to find new meaning, we see with fresh eyes, and need to make appropriate changes. This transformation is taking place, emerging from darkness to a life changing period that brings wisdom. This takes time, bravery and exploration. A new year has been born, with a new self for loving and nurturing, to grow to full potential. The journey has been challenging but the result is an awakening and a surfacing from night into the day, changed, reinvigorated and renewed. Mythic Oracle. 

Wayne Dyer

Dr Wayne Dyer on immobilisation: 

You can’t talk lovingly to your loved ones when you want to. You can’t work on a project that interests you. You don’t make love and would like to. You sit in the house all day and brood. You don’t take part in  enjoyable activities, because of a leftover, annoying feeling. You can’t introduce yourself to someone who appeals to you. You avoid talking to someone when a simple gesture would improve your relationship. You can’t sleep because something is bothering you. When your anger keeps you from thinking clearly. You say something abusive to someone that you love. Your face twitches and you are so nervous that you don’t function the way you want to. 

All negative emotions result in some degree of self immobility. Is there a payoff/ secondary gain? 

It is a tough assignment to be happy. Your ultimate freedom is to have choices. 

Spiritism and Spiritualism

In Poughkeepsie, New York State, in 1847 an uneducated faith healer and medical seer, Andrew Jackson Davis, wrote an autobiography entitled ‘The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations’. In this book, he described his very remarkable channelling mediumship abilities which he had discovered whilst experimenting with the techniques of Franz Mesmer whose early work, entitled ‘animal magnetism’ was being modified, resulting in the discovery of ‘intentional somnambulism’ an early word used for ‘trance’. He was in touch with intellectuals in the spirit world, such as Swedenborg and Galen and he went on to write fifty books on education, health, politics, psychology and philosophy. Within a short time, in Hydesville, a local town in New York State, two young sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox reported strange knockings and rappings. These developed into a code that revealed that a peddler had been murdered and buried in the cellar of their home. An excavation revealed some bones and the previous owner of the property, Mr Bell, was accused of murder.

Introducing Anna Ziman

Anna Ziman

In the Sunday Times 'Style' Magazine, columnist Stephanie Theobald described my next guest, Anna Ziman as 'a big name in the Goddess world'. Anna provided an opportunity for women to discover ancient feminine energies and embrace the magical and mystical realm. Here she speaks to Wendy about her life path and her work with the Goddess. Anna left the physical world in 2019 but her words and work live on. 

Wendy: Anna, how did you get involved with the Goddess?