Category: Issue35

I want to celebrate something I often take for granted: the opportunity for an endless “summer”; a life of delight, discovery and exploration.  I rejoice that Goddess requires no strict rules of belief, imposes no dogma, burns no heretics.

For millennia our bodies have responded to the waxing and waning of Grandmother Moon orbiting our flesh and enticing our blood and birth waters outward to life. This unending dance between women, water, and moon is a fluid interaction between the cosmos and we, and it is this primordial magic that first conceived earth’s creatures from both tide pools and time.

Bees are sadly far fewer now, dear Emily Dickinson, but
these days it will take more than revery to save our planet,
our province, our town. What is right action? What follows
hope? We write protest letters to ban roundup. We march.

The 33 cards carry an individual illustration. The Alchemy cards have blue backs and blue framed images and represent the mystery and wisdom of the Divine Feminine. The deck contains  a set of 7 ‘chakra’ cards with green backs, illustrated in the chakra colours, which can be read alongside the Alchemy cards or alone. The Alchemy cards have a number and title, the Chakra cards have no numbers or titles. The almond shape of the vesica piscis  – an ancient symbol of femininity and birth – runs throughout all 33 cards’ illustrations.

Blessed be here. Blessed be finches
who vary their song in language only
other birds interpret. Blessed be squirrels
who scold all intruders into submission.

We two skalds sit together side by
each, looking out over centuries.

We watch the stirred pot settle till
murky situations sweetly clarify of

their own accord, attuned to an old
rhythm whose resonance is our song.

It’s big news when a favored medical treatment – HRT for menopausal women – is found to be harmful. But it’s no news to readers of Susun Weed. She’s been blowing the whistle on both scientific and alternative treatments of menopause for nearly two decades. As recently quoted in Newsweek Magazine, Susun maintains: “Menopause is not a ‘pathology’, but a passage to power. Like puberty, menopause is a natural – and healthy – change. Wise women the world over herald menopause as a health-promoting event. They see hot flashes as ‘power surges’ and menopause as an intense spiritual journey. Most treatments – including ERT, HRT, isoflavone, and progesterone creams – disrupt this process and can do severe damage to a woman’s health.”

Wednesday June 28th:

Thanks to two very accommodating drivers and a “well signed” road, I now have the distinct pleasure of resting quietly inside one of the most strikingly peaceful sites of antiquity that I have visited so far. Overlooking the sea, as most of these ancient rings do, the Spirit who dwells here seems to be holding me in a loving embrace. My eyes lazily scan the lush blue and green dappled hills which lay exposed in all directions. The churning silver-gray sky overhead is pregnant with the promise of a late afternoon shower. But for now, all is still, silent except for the stirring of a gentle breeze and the occasional snort of a nearby bull. I have been warned about this bull, but I have not seen him. I am not concerned and I do not feel that I am in any danger, only exquisitely looked after by the One who summoned me here today.