Been a busy few days round here even though Demon has been home sick for the last two days, finally feeling a little better and back at work today. Of course they were the two best days of the summer so far, so Spawn and I went to the zoo Tuesday and the Water Park Wednesday. Blew the kids mind since that was the first trip to the water park this year - he was liiiiittle tired by the time we got home lol Tired, stiff (me not him), sun kissed, and feeling good!
Monday we hit the library and after digging around in the interesting way they file their witch books, finally scored half a dozen to bring home. Cakes and Ale for the Pagan Soul has made my bookshelf list - not my top ten want but my bookshelf list - alongside Pagan Paths, Wisdom of the Elders. (And a new copy of the Goddess is in the Details since mine is probably never coming home.) Note to self to only lend to neighbours, them, I can go get my books back from!
Cakes and Ale also provided one, maybe more, of several signs in answer to a question I asked my Goddess the night before. Apparently the Ladies, and once again after my on off relationship with Her, we are back to Ladies multiple, are adamant that I really do need to try setting up a women's Circle round here. A clue as to How/Where to start would be nice lol Guess I better figure it out since it's non negotiable...
It seems to be the week for Clue by 4's - or maybe just for realizing that which should have been blatantly obvious. Talking to @Mariadkins about Stonehenge reminded me - like I needed reminding since it's seared in my brain oh so many years later?! - that I've been there, walked and touched the stones. I've also been to number of other old and powerful places, and grew up surrounded by ancient monuments, stones and grave sites in addition to growing up in one of the wilder places in the UK. Not to mention being surrounded by myth, legend, folklore, ancient tradition aka superstition and ritual. Is it any wonder I'm the way I am?? Makes me wonder if that's why it always feels as though I have (much as I'm hesitant to use the word) an affinity for places, especially old ones.
I've said before that while you can take the girl out of the island you can never take island out of the girl, it's true and accurate. Places talk, places have feeling and personality, and history, if you listen to them, Even after all these years, not least the ones living in the middle of the Canadian Prairies, I can still hear/feel the whispering call of the island. It's not something that has ever gone away, nor something I would want to lose - it's not even as simple as a call to come home, there's no beckoning in it per se, more a simple "I'm still here, I'll always be here.' closer to a strength, energy, memory to draw on than anything else. Do I get it from the other island I lived on for just as many years? Nope. No ifs ands or buts, I just don't. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!
More than that, perhaps because we walk pretty much everywhere, I hear whispers from other places, always have done. Everywhere has it's own voice, its own spirit, and some are certainly happier, healthier and younger/older than others. No surprise that Christopher Penczak's City Magick is one of my favourite additions to my bookshelf in the last couple of years. Come to that I've read several of his works and have a definitely liking for @Penczak. His thoughts, words, work, resonate with me in a way similar to those of @starhawk17 and @zbudapest. Just three of the people who have been an influence on my path and life in recent years.
Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Alderney
It's a wild place - wild, woolly and never curried below the knee. Yes they say it's been tamed, and it has, to a degree. People live there and thrive and survive. People bring the trappings of civilization and bring a semblance of order to the organic chaos, and yet, they remain subject to her whims.
I grew up there. She was, and still is, a wild place once you take time to know Her as She really is. An island steeped in lore and legend, overflowing with history, a place of wildness and freedom, the kind of untamed beauty that can never be faked or reproduced. She has a history of freedom and independence that She breathes into every person who stays on Her for any length of time, especially those of us who grew up there. A sense of freedom and independence that can never be taught or learned, it grows with you, it's in the air you breathe, in the ground beneath your feet and in the dark blue waters surrounding Her.
It was, and is, a place that will never truly yield to man. It is a collection of huge rocks rising from the depths of a wild blue sea whose own heart man has never managed to conquer. A place where the fae walk with us and ghosts of ancestors past are always there beside us, just out of sight, only a breath away.
A place where time, tide, season and weather still affect every day life and nature makes Her presence felt every day. A place where the old times and old ways are more than just forgotten words in a faded book, or a distant memory. A place where the road known as Allees es Fees is more than just the link between a collection of houses, it is part of the smugglers road and part of the hidden pathways of the fair folk.
A place of dolmens and cromlechs, German gun posts and old forts linked only by tidal causeways. It's a different world, one where the old, wild places only tolerate the intrusion of humanity and modern life. Where you can find a neolithic grave alongside Occupation concrete, black rabbits and blonde hedgehogs alongside cats and cars.
A place where people still watch storm tossed seas as the maroons boom a call to summon the lifeboat crew and the watchers silently pray for a safe return. This is an island where we grow up knowing that 'When the sea wants you, She will take you' isn't imagination or fancy, it's a reality of life. We learn as children not to whistle up the wind or paint a boat green, that priests do not belong on board ship, except for burial at sea, and to always keep an eye on the rising tide or the gathering storm. We knew why the undertaker wore red socks, and as children we learned the secret pathways and hidden places that adults pretended they didn't know about.
A place steeped in history for it holds the bones of our mothers, their mothers and our ancestors back through the years, and the air we breathe carries the breath of countless generations who have lived and worked the land before us. It's an island of smugglers, soldiers, farmers and fishermen, of quarrymen, golfers, sailors and visitors. A place of torchlit processions, arguably a modern remnant of a much older tradition, still played out by successive new generations of bright eyed children. Here the museum used to be a school, the breakwater used to be longer, the train runs in summer and doing the Dougie is a rite of passage. Soft sandy beaches and storm battered cliffs, windswept commons and whitewashed houses with lovingly tended flower gardens, narrow twisting cobbled streets and battered old barns live side by side and support each other.
It's a place where you picked daffodils in spring and blackberries in autumn, where we once picked sloes to take to Captain Jim for sloe gin and rescued overgrown goldfish from a bunker on Essex during the drought of '76. Where we remember the one legged heron that massacred many ponds and people know what the Sugar Loaf is and why it's there, and where we read the message on the sundial as we land and before we leave. Where we know that when the fog rolls in, we might as well be on another planet, and that if there's no planes flying, there will be no mail and no papers, and where it pays to keep shelves and freezer stocked lest a storm come in and the boat doesn't. A place where the Wombles live wild, if you know how to find them, and children ran free growing up on sun, wind, rain and open space.
It is a place out of time and space, a place in a world of it's own. A place that grabs the heart and soul of all who have lived there and never lets go, no matter how far we may travel or where we roam. It is a place that many times it feels as thoughTime itself has forgotten Her but those who were raised there never do.
She is the wild, untamed spark that beats deep within our hearts. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we can always hear Her calling us Home.
I grew up there. She was, and still is, a wild place once you take time to know Her as She really is. An island steeped in lore and legend, overflowing with history, a place of wildness and freedom, the kind of untamed beauty that can never be faked or reproduced. She has a history of freedom and independence that She breathes into every person who stays on Her for any length of time, especially those of us who grew up there. A sense of freedom and independence that can never be taught or learned, it grows with you, it's in the air you breathe, in the ground beneath your feet and in the dark blue waters surrounding Her.
It was, and is, a place that will never truly yield to man. It is a collection of huge rocks rising from the depths of a wild blue sea whose own heart man has never managed to conquer. A place where the fae walk with us and ghosts of ancestors past are always there beside us, just out of sight, only a breath away.
A place where time, tide, season and weather still affect every day life and nature makes Her presence felt every day. A place where the old times and old ways are more than just forgotten words in a faded book, or a distant memory. A place where the road known as Allees es Fees is more than just the link between a collection of houses, it is part of the smugglers road and part of the hidden pathways of the fair folk.
A place of dolmens and cromlechs, German gun posts and old forts linked only by tidal causeways. It's a different world, one where the old, wild places only tolerate the intrusion of humanity and modern life. Where you can find a neolithic grave alongside Occupation concrete, black rabbits and blonde hedgehogs alongside cats and cars.
A place where people still watch storm tossed seas as the maroons boom a call to summon the lifeboat crew and the watchers silently pray for a safe return. This is an island where we grow up knowing that 'When the sea wants you, She will take you' isn't imagination or fancy, it's a reality of life. We learn as children not to whistle up the wind or paint a boat green, that priests do not belong on board ship, except for burial at sea, and to always keep an eye on the rising tide or the gathering storm. We knew why the undertaker wore red socks, and as children we learned the secret pathways and hidden places that adults pretended they didn't know about.
A place steeped in history for it holds the bones of our mothers, their mothers and our ancestors back through the years, and the air we breathe carries the breath of countless generations who have lived and worked the land before us. It's an island of smugglers, soldiers, farmers and fishermen, of quarrymen, golfers, sailors and visitors. A place of torchlit processions, arguably a modern remnant of a much older tradition, still played out by successive new generations of bright eyed children. Here the museum used to be a school, the breakwater used to be longer, the train runs in summer and doing the Dougie is a rite of passage. Soft sandy beaches and storm battered cliffs, windswept commons and whitewashed houses with lovingly tended flower gardens, narrow twisting cobbled streets and battered old barns live side by side and support each other.
It's a place where you picked daffodils in spring and blackberries in autumn, where we once picked sloes to take to Captain Jim for sloe gin and rescued overgrown goldfish from a bunker on Essex during the drought of '76. Where we remember the one legged heron that massacred many ponds and people know what the Sugar Loaf is and why it's there, and where we read the message on the sundial as we land and before we leave. Where we know that when the fog rolls in, we might as well be on another planet, and that if there's no planes flying, there will be no mail and no papers, and where it pays to keep shelves and freezer stocked lest a storm come in and the boat doesn't. A place where the Wombles live wild, if you know how to find them, and children ran free growing up on sun, wind, rain and open space.
It is a place out of time and space, a place in a world of it's own. A place that grabs the heart and soul of all who have lived there and never lets go, no matter how far we may travel or where we roam. It is a place that many times it feels as thoughTime itself has forgotten Her but those who were raised there never do.
She is the wild, untamed spark that beats deep within our hearts. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we can always hear Her calling us Home.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Burning Times and the Islands
There's a lot of heated debate surrounding the "Burning Times", the Inquisition, Witch hunts and everything associated with it.
I grew up in a place where they did burn witches and heretics. They burned them, hung them and more. Burning, as in the infamous image of burning them at the stake, was largely a European practise, though not a British one. The British preferred that their witches 'hang by the neck until dead'.
Except in the Channel Islands. There hanging was only one of several methods of punishment meted out to those convicted of witchcraft. Other sentences included banishment - for life or for a fixed term, burning, disfigurement or lashes.
There's a book, Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands that not only tells the story of witchcraft in the islands but also details the names and sentences of those accused of witchcraft and brought before the courts. The list is taken from the original french court records that still lie in the island archives.
"June 4th, 1624.
Ester Henry, wife of Jean de France.
This woman was burnt alive. The sentence states that her flesh and bones are to be reduced to ashes and scattered by the winds, as being unworthy of any sepulture."
The witch hunts, and witchcraft, are just one part of the history of islands steeped in myth, legend and history.
I grew up in a place where they did burn witches and heretics. They burned them, hung them and more. Burning, as in the infamous image of burning them at the stake, was largely a European practise, though not a British one. The British preferred that their witches 'hang by the neck until dead'.
Except in the Channel Islands. There hanging was only one of several methods of punishment meted out to those convicted of witchcraft. Other sentences included banishment - for life or for a fixed term, burning, disfigurement or lashes.
There's a book, Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands that not only tells the story of witchcraft in the islands but also details the names and sentences of those accused of witchcraft and brought before the courts. The list is taken from the original french court records that still lie in the island archives.
"June 4th, 1624.
Ester Henry, wife of Jean de France.
This woman was burnt alive. The sentence states that her flesh and bones are to be reduced to ashes and scattered by the winds, as being unworthy of any sepulture."
The witch hunts, and witchcraft, are just one part of the history of islands steeped in myth, legend and history.
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