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"She seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if she had surprised a butterfly in the Winter woods"
(edith wharton)


Sunday 4 November 2007

a few awards...chatter, a bit of a laugh at myself and missing celtic tree lore

Not much happening here in Woodford right now... we have had a lot of rain the past few days and my garden is sodden.. the damn snails have eaten my new beans, my tomatoes are thriving, the lavender needs a good pruning and I have just about finished my mulching. At the moment, I am trying to work out what I am going to make for my 'Yule' craft because even though I am on the opposite side of the wheel of the year to the Northern Hemishpere, where it is really Yule in December, the powers that be, dictate to me that it is Christmas here, in December.. of course, it doesn't make sense but who am I to argue? If it were just me, then I would ignore all the silly christmas hype and celebrate it in June when it should be celebrated on Winter Solstice, but with my grandchildren, i must make memories.. so I continue my mixed up celebrations, thinking to myself that for some odd reason, I chose this life... all will be revealed oneday, I hope. However, this year is going to be different... and I will share as I go along during December.
The 'true moment' of Beltaine is coming up for me, traditionally Beltaine is October 31/November1 .. but I have decided to celebrate this year on Wednesday as it suits me.... so will be posting about my Beltaine rituals, soon... I truly am feeling such a peace in my soul at the moment... I still have a soul lonliness but I am going with it.. I am sure there is something to learn from it all....

A while ago, there was an advertisement in our local paper.. wanting people who were interested in celebrating Ostara - spring equinox with a picnic in a local park... I was going to go but then Daisy died and mum had her operation and well, i kind of retreated... last week, I received a phone call from the organizer who wants to start her own wiccan group... so I went along the other day to meet her.... she was quite young and very intense and has definite ideas... and quite gothic... that is ok by me.. she was sitting there asking me all sorts of questions and I was asking her a few, but feeling quite uneasy with the intense-ness of it all and deciding in my head that it wasn't really for me... when she asked how I felt about doing ritual 'skyclad' (naked) - I just about choked.... I am not a prude but there is no way that i am prancing around naked in front of people i don't know, or anyone else for that matter.. lord, I didn't know what to say... she kept going on about how liberating it was - yeah right. So I told her i was not at all interested and she said to think about it and let her know... so I said my good byes and just about ran back to the car as if I were chased by demons.... got in the car, slammed the door and laughed and laughed myself silly.... another lesson learned.... it seems to me that whoever is in charge 'up there' has a sense of humour.

Over the past few weeks, I have been awarded quite a few awards... I never liked these things to be truthful..they always seemed to be handed out willy nilly... but over the past days, I have been thinking about them and I now accept awards with honour... that women on the other side of the world think of me in these ways, really does touch me in a different way lately. I am to pass them on but I am only going to pass on each award, once.
so with honour I accept these awards:


from Grace at the Wild Pomegranate, I accept the Beautiful Blog design award: 'has a unique visual flavor which really just makes my senses go “ahh”, every time I visit - and a brilliant human as well' - thankyou Grace... honestly, your words made me cry..so I pass this award on to: Suzie, at Suzie's Sacred space, a place that is peaceful, a place to take refuge from the busy-ness of life.


the Halloween sweet treat award from Moonroot and even though it is Beltaine for me she gave me the award.. for my 'Samhain' post about my ancestors... and I just have to pass this on to Peggy... if you haven't seen what she does with her goats at this time year.. go over quick! Peggy is one of my first blogging friends and has stuck by me through all my ups n downs xo Hidden Haven
I know there are more but for the life of me.. I can't remember where I put them.. so I will continue my search and when I find them, I will pass them on.

Oh and I know I missed this months Celtic Tree Lore which was Reed... just couldn't get my head around it.. I had the post half finished but well, stuff happens.... so I will be posting about Elder at the end of November for the 13th Moon of the Celtic Year - I know Daisy is wanting me to continue with this.. so that I can learn and pass it on.

19 comments:

Kim Campbell said...

Hi! I wanted to let you know there is a Faery Fest in Cornwall next year. www3wishesfaeryfest.co.uk

In June!

Bimbimbie said...

... trying very hard to not mutter about the rain my tomato plants are now feeding the caterpillars but everything is looking nice and green *!*

lol skyclad if I should hear the word anytime I'll know it means to walk away ... quickly lol *!*

Rowan said...

Life is full of interesting experiences isn't it? :)
Pity about your beans, slugs were a big problem here this year because of all the rain we had. I'm busy putting my garden to bed now, planted some gladiolus byzantinus yesterday so can hopefully look forward to a brilliant splash of colour next summer.
Hope you enjoy your Beltaine ritual, I'll be looking forward to reading about it.

Fire Byrd said...

Here's too you finding your own way, fully clothed.

BTW love the header at the top of your site. It's proberly got a dreadful proper blog name, which I don't know nor care about. I just know it's beautiful.
pxx

Tracy said...

I'd have run too after hearing about the skyclad ritual. Eeek! :)

Suzie Ridler said...

Thank you so much for this honour Robyn, I am thrilled you have nominated me for this award and appreciate your kind words about my blog. :)

I would have run to the car too, I may do a ritual by myself skyclad but with others? No way! I think that's a perfectly nromal response.

Julie said...

Skyclad is a pretty word and a lovely concept - but only in concept. I, too, would have run in the other direction. Especially at this age, 'cause I would have trouble with floppy and wobbly bits!

Julie

Anonymous said...

LOL on the skyclad! I'd be running away too, or at least walking as fast as my legs could go.

Enjoyed this post. You are a sweet treat!

peppylady (Dora) said...

Boy I wish they had more activity here as to do with "earthy faiths" here but I haven't found one yet or I should say maybe I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for.

Sounds like there ups and down in your garden.
I plant some bulb in my patriotic and I bought a few to put in my yellow and purple flower bed.

gma said...

Laughing at the thought of you running through the bush buck naked..LOL
ohmigod!
I don't blame you for not wanting to join that group.
hee hee

A bird in the hand said...

There are non-naked ways of feeling liberated!!! I do enjoy your posts, Robyn. xoxo

Pear tree cottage! said...

I always know when I come over to visit you (and sadly that is NEVER! often enough)........to watch from behind the garden wall the world lways feels so much more cheerful when I have read all you have blogged about and all your dreams and hopes are there for us all to see.

It was just like that again today so thank you Robyn, now I will vanish again as quickly as I arrived. I leave just this little note to let you know I was ever here for without this note you would never know I watch from behind the garden wall.

((smiles)) Lee-ann

Anonymous said...

Wanted to stop by and see how you were doing...Glad you decided to accept the awards given to you. I think it is all done with a feeling to possibly make someone's day a little better.
I know I can feel so unappreciated and there is nothing like getting one of these awards to make me smile.
Hope you are smiling today.

Hugs,
Connie

Annie Z said...

Suzie passed on your award to me! How funny! I didn't realise that until I came here to respond to your comment! :)

Your group sounds wonderful. I wish we did live close together - we could go bushwalking together as well! I live in SA though, so thats just a bit too far away! :)

Annie
xxx

Brandi Reynolds said...

what's funny is I am reading your blog (from america) and thinking how odd it would be celebrate yule/christmas in June when of course it's supposed to be in December!! lol. But then, June is your winter and december your summer, I can see how odd that would be. It would feel very strange to me to celebrate yule/christmas in the middle of a hot texas summer!

Sheila said...

I really thought I had left a comment here. I guess I said it in an email..!
Skyclad is not the way for me either..!
I'm looking forward to Friday..!

Gill said...

Yay, the ninth is coming up!
Dance naked? They'd all give up being witches if they invited me. Yikes, how scary!
xo
Gillian

Anonymous said...

That Wiccan group, I would have felt very uncomfortable too. Here in The Netherlands there are also such groups and a lot of witches and wiccans are very intense. There's a constant argument about who can call her/himself a witch or not. After a year and a days training in a coven or after self dedication, it's no fun at all, they lose the focus,don't know what it's all about anymore.
I don't want to belong to those kind of people. The Druids are more at ease, but most of them are loners, so I am pottering around in my own way too, believing what I believe and I feel good with it. It's hard to have a different belief in an area that is very Christian, but I feel accepted for what I am, although sometimes I have great doubts, must be my age ; ) I recognize myself in the thing you write at the top of your blog. There's a lot of different Monique's too, so I understand you completely.
Because there are "so much of us" it's difficult to belong. Maybe you have that same problem too ???
Have a great day.

hugs

A bird in the hand said...

Robyn, I left a long comment on your most recent post but Blogger wouldn't publish it... I don't know what happened. I'll try again later.