Story of a Necklace

I will shortly be leaving for this year's Avalon Spring witchcamp. And when choosing what to pack, I was drawn to bring along a necklace which normally sits on my main altar, in a corner of the bedroom.

The story of this necklace goes back to Avalon Spring 2008, where I first became acquainted with it. Dawn Isidora, who was one of the teachers that year, made three beautiful necklaces which she brought with her to be auctioned to raise funds for camp. Three members of the teaching team wore the necklaces throughout camp so that they would soak up the energy of the rituals. I felt an instant kinship for the necklace I was given to wear, and decided I would definitely bid for it in the auction on the final night of camp. Dawn had strung the other two necklaces with a definite intent for their energy, but she said she was unsure what 'my' necklace was about. She had strung it instinctively, and was still unsure what its purpose was.

For me it spoke of love, romantic love. The pale pink pearls (pink being the colour of love) were interspersed with tiny glass hearts and teeny copper beads (copper being the metal of Venus). At that time I had been married for nearly 17 years and whilst I was happy in my marriage it is fair to say that romance wasn't particularly high on the agenda - familiarity having bred a certain amount of taking each other for granted. Nor was I interested in drawing a new love into my life, being decidedly monogamist in my preferences. Nevertheless, I felt I had 'bonded' with the necklace and determined that I would be the winning bidder.

At the auction, I allowed myself a budget of £45. The first necklace sold for an amount comfortably within that limit, and I relaxed a little. The second went for a little higher than my budget, but I told myself hopefully that by now people would have exhausted their spending muscles and I would be lucky. But by now, the end of the auction, people were really getting into the swing of it, and the price for the necklace went up and up, as my heart sunk and sunk. All however, was not lost. My dear friends Georgia and Annie had noticed how much I wanted the necklace, and when my price limit was exceeded and I stopped bidding, they chipped in additional money on my behalf, until at last all competition fell away, and the necklace was mine.

I still remained puzzled as to why I felt so drawn to the necklace, but took it home to sit proudly on my altar and occasionally come out, displayed around my neck.

Later that year, my marriage - much to my surprise - ended, and I was left alone, dazed and confused by this unexpected turn of events.

The necklace lay mostly forgotten on the altar, until a friend from the local Pagan community started to become more than just a friend. At Beltane 2009, I wore my love necklace for the first time with intent; the intent that if the time was right I would open my heart to new possibilities. By the end of the month, IB and I had made the transition from friends to lovers, and my happiness grew and grew.

Today, packing my bags I wanted to bring the necklace, but it has always had a loose fastening and I was worried about losing it. I mentioned it to IB, who promptly delicately, yet securely soldered it so that I can wear it with confidence.

And at Avalon Spring this year, for the first time I will be joined by my partner (T never having been interested in such things), and I can't wait to share this event I love so much with the person I love so much. My happiness continues to grow.

Now my necklace and my love are secure. Don't you just love a happy ending?

A Blog With Substance Award

I am absolutely thrilled to find I have been awarded this blogging award. The most recent rules for the award are:

1. Thank the blogger that gave you the award. Thankyou to Jill over at Path of the Moon Daughter, I am truly delighted that you've chosen my blog for this award.
   
2. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, experience, using 5 words. Mine are *enjoy *express *experiment *dare and *share.


3. Pass the award on to 5 fabulous bloggers with substance. I'm happy to bestow this award (in no particular order) on the following fabulous blogs which always have something worth saying, and say it well:

• Secret Garden
• The Awakened Heart
• Big Blue Barn West
• Blog O'Gnosis
• Earthenwitch

Thank you and goodnight!

Back In The Saddle Again...

When I was nine years old I desperately wanted a pony. A white pony, with flowing mane and tail, that I would name Silver. Silver would be my best friend, I would plait wildflowers and ribbons into her mane and we would have great adventures together, roaming the countryside. I christened my bicycle 'Silver' and attached ribbons to the handlebars to use as reins, and the bike became an imaginary pony.

My parents couldn't afford a real pony, but they did agree to send my sister and I for riding lessons at a nearby stables. I was overjoyed - until reality set in. The pony I was given to ride, Star, seemed impossibly huge (my younger sister was given a fat little Shetland pony to ride called Teddy, whose much lower centre of gravity seemed a desirable asset). Star's lack of anchor points to hold onto also seemed a serious defect - once teetering in the saddle, the stirrups and reins seemed wholly inadequate to keep me from toppling off. I had no great aptitude for riding and could not for the life of me cope with Star attempting anything faster than a slow amble. Most of the time I was quite frankly terrified. After a few weeks the inevitable happened and I fell crashing to the ground - breaking my arm in the process. As the riding instructor picked me up and dusted me down, she gave me a kindly, yet brisk talking to, about stiff upper lips and how it was essential to get straight back on the horse to ensure I wasn't put off riding in the future. Too late. I was already put off, and in fact nothing on the planet could have induced me to clamber back on Star's patient back at that moment in time.

And that was the end of my equestrian dreams. At the age of nine and a half I hung up my riding hat and decided to concentrate on becoming a secret agent instead.

******

How often do we give up in the face of discouragement? It's not always a bad thing - sometimes it is good to know one's limitations and be realistic. How many 'Pop Idol/X Factor' hopefuls who can't sing a note insist in their post-audition interview that pop stardom is their one dream and they won't be discouraged in the face of rejection? When so many people with truly wonderful voices never attain stardom, how realistic is it for tone-deaf talentless wannabes to imagine stardom is just around the corner? Would it not be better for them to realise their limitations and concentrate on finding out what they're really good at - cake decorating or brain surgery or teaching or breeding new strains of auriculas?

On the other hand, how easy it is to let a set-back hold us back. How often do we let fear of failure stop us from even trying?

******

When T and I split up, I was full of fear about my future. My marriage had given me a sense of security, emotional and financial. I thought I knew what life had in store for me, yet suddenly the rug was pulled from under me, and I felt like a complete failure. I was afraid. My future looked bleak, as everything I thought I could rely on was suddenly thrown into chaos. I expected that I would have to move from Halfway Up A Hill, and I panicked about how I could afford a new property with room for the animals. I knew I would have to get a paid job again, and the length of time since I had last been in paid employment convinced me that would be impossible. I could not imagine that I would ever find love again. I envisioned a cold, lonely, impoverished and uncertain future ahead of me.

Unlike falling off a horse and deciding not to get back on, I had no choice this time. Life was going to carry on, and not re-engaging with it wasn't an option.

Luckily, my financial situation turned out not be as scary as I had imagined. The divorce settlement allowed me to stay at Halfway Up A Hill - for the time being anyway. That gave me some breathing space in which to lick my wounds and take time easing back into the workforce. Amazingly, and quite unlooked for, a new romantic relationship developed out of an existing friendship. I was resistant at first, not wanting to ruin a good friendship 'on the rebound'. Yet IB and I have been together for over a year now and quite honestly I believe it is the best, healthiest relationship I have ever been in. Even so, it has been challenging at times for both of us. Starting a relationship in one's forties is quite a different kettle of fish than in one's twenties - the last time I was dating before this (do people even say dating any more? It sounds so teenager-y - but I digress...). At this time in our lives we are both quite set in our ways, which needs careful negotiation, yet at the same time we are more comfortable in our own skins and sure of what we want from life.

******

My bike 'Silver' is long gone (though fondly remembered) and it has been a good few years since I have cycled at all. I bought a bike about fifteen years ago but found it too much like hard work and it languished mostly unused in the garage. It has finally gone, cleared away with a lot of other stuff in my life that was no longer needed or wanted.

IB however, is a keen cyclist and has convinced me that my problem with cycling was the wrong bike. We have found me a good secondhand bike on Ebay which we picked up earlier this week. It needs a few improvements before I can ride it (the brakes need some work), but I am feeling a mixture of excitement at the thought of riding a bike again along with fear at the prospect. Am I too old? Too unfit? What if I make a fool of myself and fall off? How will I manage those Welsh hills? And yet I remember the sense of freedom and joy that cycling used to bring all those years ago. Is cycling still for me? I don't know. But I am willing to give it a try, a good try, knowing that initially muscles will ache and joints will creak, yet with practice I will improve.

Sometimes, it pays to know when not to get back in the saddle. Horse riding was not for me, and I saved myself a lot of grief (and my parents a lot of money) by quitting when I did.

But sometimes you just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again. Despite having my self-confidence and trust in others severely dented, I was brave enough to start a new relationship and I am so glad I did. It has helped the sun come out again.

Sometimes you just need to take a gamble and try again. Begin a new relationship, buy a new bike, try something new and different. You never know, getting back in the saddle just may be the best decision you ever made.

Please Yourself

I recently heard a new cover of an old song, John Fogerty's version of Rick Nelson's 'Garden Party'. I first heard the original song played on the radio years ago, and although I understood most of the lyrics at the time, the passage of years helped me hear it this time around with deepened understanding.

The song gives Nelson's thoughts on the negative reaction of some of his fans when he wanted to branch out from playing the 50's style pop music he was known for into 70's country rock. The full lyrics can be found here (and an explanation of some of the more obscure references is given on the Wikipedia link above), but the lines which really struck a chord with me this time around were those of the chorus:

"But it's all right now,

I learned my lesson well.

You see, you can't please everyone,

So you got to please yourself"

It was the notion of pleasing yourself that really got me thinking. Normally you hear the words 'Please yourself!' as the dismissive end to an argument, or being told you seem 'pleased with yourself' is an accusation of smugness.

However, what if pleasing oneself meant having the bravery and integrity to live up to one's own standards rather than those of others?

Nelson sings:

"When I got to the garden party,

They all knew my name

No one recognized me,

I didn't look the same"

and

"If you gotta play at garden parties,

I wish you a lotta luck

But if memories were all I sang,

I'd rather drive a truck"

In other words, people were happy with him while he continued to play the part they wanted him to. But when he found his own direction in life and ditched the preppy image and 50's pop for a more hippy style that reflected where he was at that time in his life, he found himself booed offstage. Even so, he decided he'd rather be true to what he believed in than pander to popularity.

In the song, I think Nelson is talking about coming to terms with the fact that although you can't please everyone, at the end of the day the important thing is to be true to yourself and your own ideals and ethics. In witchcraft, many people, myself included, subscribe to what is known as 'The Wiccan Rede' which appears in many forms, the most simple and concise of which is, 'An it harm none, do what thou wilt' - in other words, as long as you're not hurting anyone (or anything?), it's OK to do whatever you like. In some ways this may seem way more permissive than other codes of behaviour such as the Ten Commandments, but actually it is very robust. It is clear: Harm NONE, not harm as few as possible, or 'harm not thy neighbour'. Harm None.

Although it is impossible to pre-think every single action through to all potential outcomes to ensure it will harm none, I believe that it is important to try to live our lives in non-harmful ways, taking our co-existence with the needs, feelings and rights of others into consideration. Christianity says the same thing in another way, 'Do unto others as you would be done by them'. My notion of pleasing myself may mean living up to my own ideals, but I do not exist in a vacuum, and I know well that I am part of a complex interconnection of other beings. Being pleased with myself means not doing things just to please others, but choosing to do them because I can see how they contribute to the creation and well-being of the kind of world I want to live in. A world of beauty, balance and delight (in the words of Donald Engstrom-Reese).

I am trying to please myself in this lifetime. Being true to my own beliefs and ethics and living up to them. I don't always succeed - sometimes I displease others by not doing what they want, other times I am a human doormat - but I keep trying so that on balance, I can say I am pleased with myself. You truly can't please everyone, but you can try to please yourself.

P.S. Link to a Youtube video of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdiraVxwkI

Avalon Spring 2010

Now that summer is in full bloom I am getting excited about this year's Avalon Spring (Witchcamp). Witchcamp is always one of my summer highlights, and I just know that this year's is going to be wonderful.

I am lucky enough to be teaching again this year, along with three dear friends who also happen to be wonderful teachers and priestesses - Brighde Eire, Georgia Midnight Crow and Deborah Oak. We're cooking up some great offerings (workshops) which I'm really excited about. Once again we will return to the beautiful Earthspirit retreat centre near Glastonbury where we will gather under the stern gaze of the resident dragon, Clifford (really!), bathe in the dappled sunlight of the sacred tree circle and dance beneath the stars in the evening rituals. And this year we are working with a beautiful story, the Feri Creation myth of the Star Goddess.

I can't wait - come and join us if you can, it's going to be amazing!

Gossip, Rumour & Hearsay

One of the cliches about small rural communities is that everyone knows everyone else's business. And like most cliches, this one is based in truth, as I have been finding out in the last few months.

One reason is that many people are related to each other - families that have been in the area for hundreds of years in many cases have intermarried into a tangled tapestry of threads that is often hard to un-knot. I was recently cautioned by a fellow in-comer, 'Be careful what you say to one person about another - you never know whose aunt or cousin they may be!'. This seems to be wise advice.

As an in-comer, I have found the level of interest in other people's lives both sweet and touching - these people care about each other - and also somewhat bizarre and unsettling. My elderly neighbour, for example, loves to ring me up when there is a funeral and tell me all about the deceased, their virtues, vices, peccadilloes, likes and dislikes, even if I have no idea who she's talking about. And then she will tell me who was at the funeral, what they said, what they wore, what they thought about the deceased... again, I only know a fraction of the people she is talking about and often feel like an unintentional eavesdropper. Discomfort arises when she tells me about the things people have done that she disapproves of. I am clearly supposed to condemn these poor strangers for their sins, even though I know only my neighbour's version of their shortcomings. Mostly I umm and ahhh noncommittally and hope she'll soon find another topic.

Most discomforting of all is the recent realisation that I too am the subject of neighbourhood gossip. For example, at the end of last summer - more than a year after T and I had split - I was invited to a wedding. My invitation included a 'plus one', so I asked IB (who I had been seeing for several months by then) to accompany me. The wedding was lovely, I knew about a quarter to a third of the people there and was introduced to many more. When we returned home, a friend who hadn't been at the wedding rang to say that before the wedding had even finished, a neighbour (who also hadn't been at the wedding) rang her to ask why I was at the wedding with a man who was Not My Husband. Someone else - presumably a wedding guest - had rung him to report on my presumed infidelity and brass neck in showing off my fancy man to all and sundry. What really amazed me was that anyone who actually knew me, knew that T and I had split, and that I had started seeing someone. Surely only people who know me would be interested in my private life? Obviously that isn't the case!

Subsequently, I have met people locally for the first time, and in beginning to converse with them have found that they already know I'm divorced, where I live, that my parents have recently moved into the area... in short, they know exactly who I am and quite a lot of detail about my private life. I find this all quite bewildering. How can I be so interesting that perfect strangers are exchanging details of my life with each other. Why would they even want to know?

Perhaps I'm strange in not being that curious about other people. I take an interest in the lives of people I know, but I can't get my head around the notion of nosing into the affairs of strangers... or perhaps that's it. Perhaps I'm no longer a stranger, perhaps I have taken my first step onto the (long) ladder of being accepted as part of the local community. That is a nicer way of framing it!

Either way, I have taken perverse delight in throwing petrol on the gossip inferno by allowing the son of another neighbour to park his car on my drive for the time being. It's a simple 'helping each other out' scenario - he needs somewhere to park his SORN*-ed vehicle, and it benefits me to have a car parked on the drive even when I'm not here so it looks like there's someone in. However, I am now a Divorced Woman (and we all know what they're like...), IB is still on the scene, and now another single man's car is parked outside my house... I can just imagine what they're saying down at the local Tafarn**

"Have you heard about that Moonroot at Halfway Up A Hill - what a hussy! Well I never - do you know, she..."

* SORN = Statutory Off Road Notice. In the UK, when a car is not licensed it is issued with a SORN, one condition of which is that it is not parked on the public highway.

** Tafarn - Tavern or pub.

A Dry Spell

Walking down the hill this evening to deliver eggs to my neighbours, I noticed the ditches are completely dry. The shrunken river drifts in a calm, shallow, meandering way, in contrast to its swollen, raging character in times of heavy rain.

We had a day of steady rain over the weekend, which gave a growth spurt to the grasses and flowers (and weeds!), but after an unusually rain-free winter followed by a dry, sunny spring it didn't make much difference to the streams, ditches and rivers.

For the first time since moving to Wales (ten years ago this August) I am seriously worrying about the well drying up. Halfway Up A Hill has no mains water supply, so if the well did dry up it would definitely be a problem. I have many water butts stationed around the property, but it's amazing how quickly that water gets used when conditions demand it.

I wonder how the birds and animals are coping? A dearth of water in West Wales is not normally an issue. I remember being amazed and impressed when we first moved here by the way little springs would - well, spring up, on the hillside after heavy rain.

I have just checked the five day weather forecast and it doesn't appear we are due for rain any time soon. Don't get me wrong, I am loving the warm, sunny weather, especially after the last few miserable, wet summers we have had here. But I would like the weather Gods to know that it would be nice if we could have the odd heavy downpour too - maybe overnight so we can keep enjoying the summery days. As Joni Mitchell so rightly observed, sometimes you don't know what you got till it's gone.