Homesick

It is Lammas, the festival of the Great Mother, the life-bringer who holds us in Her wisdom and unconditional – but my no means always soft and gentle – love, and who showers us with Her horn of cornucopia, the horn of plenty.

It is also the time of the Goddess Conference in Glastonbury. My first conference was in 2006, the last Mother conference, and what a life-changing experience! I wish with all my heart that I could be there now, sharing, dancing, listening, talking, and loving. Meeting friends, sisters and brothers, speaking of the things I sorely miss: Avalon, the Mother, Goddess, spirit.

This September, it will be five years since my dedication as a Sister of Avalon. I haven't been back in Glastonbury since. Not in body, at least. And it seems I won't have the chance to go back for yet more time.

I'm homesick. I long to walk the land again, to lie under the apple tree at Chalice Hill and feel the earth breathing underneath, to wander the labyrinthine windings up the Tor and feel the wind whipping my hair and clothes, to taste the waters of the red and white springs…

I long to let my heartroot connect to the earthroot, in that special connection that exists nowhere else. Avalon is a place of the heart, a place co-existing in parallel to this dimension, but there are places where the veil is thinner, and Glastonbury is one of them. The connection to something greater, to something beyond me, and the wholeness that I feel in nature is so much stronger there.

It is the place my soul calls home, insofar as I have a home.

It is, as Sally Pullinger so beautifully put it, "the source and the return". (Words I heard in my heart while travelling across Britain that August six years ago, only to later hear and sing during that year's Lammas ceremony and read in Kathy Jones' book, Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. The kind of synchronicities that abound in my experiences of Goddess and Avalon, and which thus ring deeply true to me.)

And I miss my Avalon family. How I miss them! I miss talking to my soul sisters, I miss the deep, instinctive understanding and the unintrusive listening, I miss being held in the presence of my sister and brother priestesses.

I feel quite a bit like Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring:

I’m old, Gandalf. I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel…thin. Sort of stretched, like…butter scraped over too much bread.

I've been away for too long. I feel like I'm losing touch with my Self, like my life force is running low. Lower than ever before, and yet at times stronger than ever. I don't know where and how to recharge my life's battery. Loving is no longer enough to replenish it.

I miss Avalon, even though it is right here in my heart. But I miss it so much that it makes my heart ache.

Who will heal the healer?

From fulfilment to emptiness, from bliss to loneliness, from a feeling of being in the flow to a feeling of being set apart, removed. Every time.

This has been a strange week, or little-more-than-a-week. Spiritually speaking, a gateopener, or maybe rather a floodgateopener. I felt called to do work with Goddess, to channel Her light and energy, Her healing, and without having to think about it, did. And it's easy, effortless. Because I am just a vessel, a conduit, it doesn't drain me at all, as long as I keep my intention clear and unmarred by ego. And I do. And it's the most amazing thing, realising how easy it is to rise above ego and to, well, Priestess, embody, channel, whatever you want to call it. It is not for my sake or my gain, which makes the channel crystal clear. Beautiful, amazing work, and I am deeply humbled and honoured to be called to do it.

And it is opening up an interesting channel of communication, crystal clear: eye to eye, mind to mind, spirit to spirit, heart to heart. So clear that it is almos painful in its beauty, even though it isn't all open yet. But it will be. An immense gift!

What has been draining is the protection and shielding I was also, and pretty acutely, called to do for myself and others. Unexpected and quite shocking. But that, too, was a learning experience; the challenge of doing it with grace and love instead of holding up a shielding mirror to send back. (That part is not up to me.) The challenge of speaking my truth as softly as I can, knowing that it would hurt. The clarity of working with Goddess spreads across many facets of my life, and reveals the truth. Which isn't always pleasant, for anyone. The trick is to always do it from a place of love.

And meanwhile, there is my own journey. A most clearsighted Sister gave me the final clue this week in shining a light on what I knew but had failed to really feel. Pieces falling into place, leading to a major breakthrough when I suddenly knew exactly what to do. There is still a process of healing, further breaking through, and empowerment to go through, but it is well under way.

This week-or-so has reminded me of the work I am called here to do, and the immense joy of doing it. The sense of everything being right – in the flow, in my body, aligned with Spirit and Goddess, serving Her by shining Her light, like I once asked and promised to do – and a feeling of a door opening. I need more of this. Not for me as much as for the fact this is who I am and what I am called to do. Denying it would only stunt me.

But… Coming down is still as hard as when I travelled back and forth to Glastonbury and my training circle, gradually learning to hold Goddess's energy for longer times at a stretch and then landing in the mundanity of my normal life in Sweden. It always left me feeling very small, empty, and lonely. And it still does. I'm still struggling with how to sustain this spark, this light within in the everyday. Is that even possible? Or desired? I know that it shines a light on the dark, wounded spots that need to be brought into the light for healing, and even though that aspect of this path is painful, I embrace it. But the feeling of being set apart is hard; having essentially no one with whom to share this leaves me very lonely.

In a sense, this is how it is supposed to be: I come into my power alone, I am mostly a solitary practitioner, and the way in which The Lady of Avalon claimed me for Her and initiated me was in a very lonely setting. In complete solitude, entirely surrendering to Her.

But it's still hard, as no one here knows Avalon, knows the language I speak. These are the times when I miss being in a Circle of Sisters (and Brothers) and sharing. I miss people who know, who won't look to me for guidance or answers, but who listen and already know the nature of the path. A place where I can just receive, where I can be healed and held. It will come, and in the meantime I am held by the Great Mother, and my darling Sisters, wonderful weavers of the web of Sisterhood. But it is the constant question, isn't it: Who will heal the healer?

Julie Felix video from the 2007 Goddess Conference

A few nights ago I was browsing YouTube and found this video:

Julie Felix 2007

www.youtube.com

A rare and touching outdoor performance by Julie Felix - filmed by Phil Day

It's the amazing Julie Felix singing "She reminds me of who I am" on Chalice Hill during the Crone conference in Glastonbury 2007. After Chalice Hill, we all moved over Bushy Coombe for the bonfire. I see several of my darling sisters in this video, and I think I was sitting somewhere around where the photographer was or behind that. Singing in harmonies with some sisters.

This video came at a time when I felt very homesick and indeed yearning for Avalon. It's been years since I was back, and I can only pray that I have a chance to return this year. I'm longing to feel Her land under my feet again, to lie down in the circle of Morgens in the Temple, to see the Goddess Hall, to sit under the apple tree in Chalice Well gardens and drink from the red and white springs, to visit Gog and Magog, stand on top of the Tor, tie a ribbon to the holy thorn on Wearyall Hill and spend time with my Goddess sisters and brothers. To step out of the trivialities and mundanities of normal life, that grow so big and take so much time and energy, but that just aren't important. When I step into the strange cauldron that is Glastonbury Avalon, it's like the important things in life come to the fore and the rest falls behind. I still wish I could do the same here.

I'm hoping for a miracle so I can go to the Lover conference in August. In the meantime, I stay in touch with my sisters and brothers, and gratefully accept any little picture or sign from my most beloved spiritual home. I need to go back, and to recharge my batteries, who are running so low, but will do what I can here. Nothing prevents me from doing ceremony here, from meditating and journeying with Her.

Last night, I dreamt I was walking down one of the country lanes just above Bove Town, and it was just so vivid! I know the place in my entire body; my energy calls to the energy there, to my roots. It's like tapping into the earth root, that goes deep beyond words. I need Goddess now, I need my connection to Her, to the Land. I guess I know what I'm doing tonight...