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my tides will turn no more...

Here's a virtual movie of a second version of this entrancing 10th century Irish Poem..This version is a translation by the German Celtic language scholar Kuno Meyer (20 December 1858 -- 11 October 1919).

In this version from Ancient Irish Poetry Kuno Meyer has left out twelve quatrains. "The reason why she was called the Old Woman of Beare was that she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She, had seven periods of youth one after the other, so that every man who had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. For a hundred years she wore the veil which Cumine had blessed upon her head. Thereupon old age and infirmity came to her."

EBB TIDE to me as of the sea!
Old age causes me reproach.
Though I may grieve thereat --
Happiness comes out of fat.
I am the Old Woman of Beare,
An ever-new smock I used to wear:
Today -- such is my mean estate --
I wear not even a cast-off shift.
It is riches
Ye love, it is not men:
In the time when we lived
It was men.
Swift chariots,
And steeds that carried off the prize,--
Their day of plenty has been,
A blessing on the King who lent them!

My body with bitterness has dropt
Towards the abode we know:
When the Son of God deems it time
Let Him come to deliver His behest.
My arms when they are seen
Now are bony and thin:
Once they would fondle and caress
The bodies of glorious kings.
When my arms are seen,
And they bony and thin,
They are not fit, I declare,
To be raised over comely men.

The maidens rejoice
When May-day comes to them:
For me, sorrow the share;
I am wretched, I am an old hag.
I hold no sweet converse.
No wethers are killed for my wedding-feast,
My hair is all but grey,
The mean veil over it is no pity.
I do not deem it ill
That a white veil be on my head;
Time was when cloths of every hue
Bedecked my head as we drank good ale.

The Stone of the Kings on Femen,
The Chair of Ronan in Bregon,
Long since storms have reached them:
The slabs of their tombs are old and decayed.

The wave of the great sea talks aloud,
Winter has arisen:
Fermuid the son of Mugh today
I do not expect on a visit.

I know what they are doing:
They row and row across
The reeds of the Ford of Alma --
Cold is the place where they sleep.

'Tis "O my God!''
To me today, whatever will come of it.
I must cover myself even in the sun:
The time is at hand that shall renew me.

Youth's summer in which we were
I have spent with its autumn:
Winter-age which overwhelms all men,
To me has come its beginning.
Amen! Woe is me!
Every acorn has to drop
After feasting by shining candles
To be in the gloom of a prayer-house!

I had my day with kings
Drinking mead and wine:
To-day I drink whey-water
Among shrivelled old hags.
I see upon my cloak the hair of old age,
My reason has beguiled me:
Grey is the hair that grows through my skin --
'Tis thus! I am an old woman.
The flood-wave And the second ebb tide --
They have reached me,
I know them well.

The flood wave
Will not reach the silence of my kitchen:
Though many are my company in darkness,
A hand has been laid upon them all.
O happy the isle of the great sea
Which the flood reaches after the ebb!
As for me, I do not expect
Flood after ebb to come to me.
There is scarce a little place today
That I can recognise:
What was on flood
Is all on ebb.

Kind Regards

Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2012

Spring Rites - Femmina Unbound at the Convent

Dear Sisters and Medicine Women,
I am so very happy to let you know about an event that is very dear to my heart. On the first day of Spring we will be creating a Dreaming Pool of Swan Blessing at the Abbotsford Convent dedicated to releasing Past Life Vows, Oaths and Sacred Contracts binding our Feminine Wisdom.

I have been called to hold this joyful event of illumination at the Abbotsford Convent which was also the site of the Magdalen Laundries. This was a place where young girls and women who were deemed 'fallen' were given over to the church to work as prisoners in the laundries. To be a classed as a 'Magdalene' you could have done as little as been rebellious, loud or adventurous and if you had a child out of wedlock, you were deemed lowest of the low. These so-called 'fallen women' who were in actual fact, just very young girls, often lost their identities, families, children and even their own names upon entering the laundries which were surrounded with razor wire like a prison to keep them from escaping and from influencing the young students at the convent.

I have been hearing the voices of these young women for several years now and feel that their spirits are in 'limbo' because they were told that was their future. They were told that there was no return home and they believed it. Are we not also still finding ourselves in 'limbo' by trying to hold on to the ridiculous ideal of being a 'good girl'? I believe there is no such thing as a fallen woman. And I would like all of us to lose this binding belief that is so unnatural and harmful to the wild feminine. In releasing our own bindings we can create such an energetic dreaming pool of love and wisdom that we will also mend the dream pathways to the spirits of the Magdalenes to let them know that they too are loved and free.

I often wonder how different we are from the women of the Magdalene Laundries - I would say most of us would have been classified as rebellious and dangerous for simply expressing free will and standing in our power. In the Rise of the Divine Feminine we are moving beyond the illusion of control and patriarchy.  I believe this freeing can be joyful and we can share this joy with our Ancestor Sisters. Strong love may not change the past but it can have a real, energetic effect on the land and the places where these events happened and most importantly can be felt by any spirits who feel bound and caught in the past.

Beyond Control:
In this one day workshop we will move through and clear oaths such as the Vow of Silence, Obedience, Chastity, Poverty and the Promise to Remain Hidden. We will sing up our spirits beyond the control of outside forces and any authority other than our own spirit. We will sing love into the Earth and acknowledge the ancestor spirits have resided in the landscape for millions of years.

We will go back Sisters to an ancient time, beyond the oppressive rules and constraints that were placed upon women in modern times. Here we will meet our ancestors, the beautiful grandmothers and star-mothers that have been waiting for us to remember our magnificence, our mystery and our medicine.

I welcome your return Medicine Women, I hope to see you in the Spring.

Love, Julia

what is going on inside you now...

Heroine by Billy and Hells


“Just when it seems that everything has come to a standstill, the forces of transformation are most active. Refrain from criticizing the process that is taking place within. You are inwardly busy with the merging of your male and female energies. This brings about the balance you seek…”
“Once the weaving of their forms is complete, they rise up high into the sky and soar freely! This is what is known as the spiritualization of matter.”
“…What is going on inside you now, is yet too fragile to be dragged out into the open and killed by explaining it away. Give yourself the freedom of not having to justify the delicate process of your spiritual development that must take place in secrecy. Respect what is happening in the darkness, far from the maddening crowd. Have faith in its appropriateness.”
“Simply relax and, most of all be kind to yourself. At the right time, the fruits of your internal labor will become clearly visible in your behavior and especially in your work.”
~Gayan Silvie WInter and Jo Dose from Vision Quest Tarot via MysticMamma

Solstice Artisans

Thank you to all of the beautiful artisans who came to the Full Moon Winter Solstice Swan Blessing. The focus of this Swan Blessing was to release past life binding from the Artisan and Intuit and call forth the Dreamer by creating her likeness in a Medicine Doll. We were joined by my dear sister Nicole Ahava who shared her gifts of doll enchantment and plant wisdom. Nicole and I will be holding our next workshop on the eve of the Feast of Mary Magdalene and delving deeper into Herb Lore, please go to our Events page to see full details.
Here are some of the Dreamers created by their Medicine Women.

New Moon - My Soul is Not Asleep

Walter Bird (British, 1903 - 1969) - “Reach for the Heavens”. Original vintage photoetching. 1938. Thank you, valse-funebre.
'Reach for the Heavens' by Walter Bird (1938)
Is My Soul Asleep
Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?
No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, listens
at the shores of the great silence.
— By Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, also known as Antonio Machado (1875-1935), Spanish poet. © 1983 Robert Bly (trans) courtesy of the blog “Waking Up” via Crashingly Beautiful