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...

Invincible

Follow through
Make your dreams come true
Don't give up the fight
You will be all right
Cause there's no one like you
In the universe

Don't be afraid
What your mind conceals
You should make a stand
Stand up for what you believe
And tonight we can truly say
Together we're invincible

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
But please, please let's use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we're invincible

Do it on your own
Makes no difference to me
What you leave behind
What you choose to be
and whatever they say
Your soul's unbreakable

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
But please, please let's use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we're invincible
Together we're invincible

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
Please, please let's use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we're invincible

Words I firmly live by and believe in. Today, I needed a reminder that things will become alright again, that I am in fact invincible, and this song appeared. Although I'm a fan of Muse, I've never really listened to the entire lyrics of this song until now.

Message received.

I try to believe.

Hero of War - Rise Against

This song reached right in and grabbed my heart in an ice-cold, numbing vice.

It left me in tears; tears over the things we humans are capable of, the atrocities committed in the name of truth, justice and religion. The lack of civilisation that is the direct result of the cruelty of war, civil war, genocide, hate crime, religious struggle, rape, degradation, torture, bullying, battering, and abuse in its many forms.

I honestly don't know how they do it; the soldiers who kill civilians, maim and torture innocent people. The guards in the Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad who degraded and humiliated the prisoners, the torturers in Guantanamo... How could they do what they did and still look another person in the eye? I can't believe that they actually thought, deep down in their hearts, that it was OK to treat another person like that just because it was an order, or because everyone else did, just as I can't believe that the guards and officers of the concentration camps deep down could justify what they were doing. They may be stupid and blinded by their leaders' bullshit about us and them, about how one people has a higher value than another, but deep down in their hearts, surely, they must have a sense of right and wrong. Don't they know that they are selling out their souls, their civilisation, their humanity, when they abuse and degrade another human being?

I feel things deeply, and I have often felt that the agony over the things that people are capable of is too much to bear; the despair over animal abuse, child abuse, and the atrocities of war grows so heavy that I don't want to live in a world where such things are allowed to happen (and go unpunished). I feel like the despair and hatred for the perpetrators grow so big that it's a matter of killing or be killed. I of course don't, but I feel it.

I want to avert my eyes and forget what humankind is capable of, but what would that make me? A silent accomplice? I believe that any sentient, intelligent, caring person has a duty to see, to witness, and to be the change that is needed. There may be precious little we can do, but any major shift of consciousness has to start from within each and every one of us. And we are able to change the world. Not at once, but bit by bit. We hold the power to live our lives from a place of love, not hate or fear. If we send out love in the world, there will be more love, and we can influence the energy of others by what we choose to send out.

In the words of Mahatma Ghandi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mad about the boy

Photos from http://everglowmedia.net but rights belonging to Summit Entertainment

Mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it but must admit the sleepless nights I've had
About the boy

On the silverscreen
He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
Although I'm quite aware that here and there are traces of the cad
About the boy

Lord knows I'm not a fool girl
I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school girl
In the flurry of her first affair

Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy
I'm feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I'm mad about the boy

So if I could employ
A little magic that will finally destroy
This dream that pains me and enchains me
But I can't because I'm mad...
I'm mad about the boy

Lyrics: Noel Coward

I admit it: I am mad about the boy.


My dear circle Sister Elle posted the picture to the right on Facebook and, well, I was floored. The more I look at it, the more it draws me in. And it's not even like I think Rob Pattinson's that goodlooking. So "the boy" is of course Rob-as-Edward. And I am crazy about him in a totally inexplicable way.

As far as men go, in general, I don't prefer them, but who can resist a beautiful man? Beauty is beauty, and a thing of beauty is a joy forever. What I find beautiful in a man is usually features that belong to the younger, perhaps slightly androgynous-looking men. Not quite the manly-man, the macho guy corrupted by circumstance and expectation, but not quite a boy either. Gorgeous, divinely beautiful boy-men. Not necessarily the obvious alpha male, but with a strong energy.


As I young girl, I didn't particularly notice the beauty in the young men around me, but now - at the ripe old age of 35 - I do. And it's really quite a non-sexual thing. It's more... aesthetic.

When I think of the words "mad about the boy", I think of the movie/musical Sunset Boulevard, where old movie star Norma Desmond gives her toy-boy, the young hack Joe Gillis, a bracelet with that very inscription, but I was sure I'd heard the words somewhere else, perhaps in a song.

And yes, I had. It's an old Noel Coward song (Dinah Washington's version is great), and as for the lyrics - could they be more accurate?


I'm mad about the boy

... how deeply you're connected to my soul

This is a song I love more than words can say, and that continues to bring tears to my eyes and goosebumps to my arms. The first time I heard it, in fantastic Anique's workshop during the 2006 Goddess Conference in Glastonbury, UK, it started a very deep healing process. I have since heard it performed by Anique and Julie Felix (whose version is probably my favourite), sung it alone and with friends and Sisters in group, circle and ceremony, and witnessed the impact it has on people. I sing it whenever I need to feel the Love, whenever I feel low and unworthy, and I aim to spread it as widely as I can.

Lyrics: Libby Roderick.