Mrs Darley's Pagan Healing Wisdom - New Book Release

When we become ill, we search for a cure, but a cure only supresses the disorder; it fails to address the underlying cause. When we search for healing we are encouraged to look beyond the symptom, in oredr to explore the emotional, psychological and spiritual imbalances, which underpin the illness.

Following several periods of less than robust health, whilst living on the wild and remote Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, my enigmatic next door neighbour, the wise Mrs Darley, invited me to embark on a journey of healing through the five senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight. It was a journey that not only made me view life and death in a different way, but also altered the way in which I intereacted with my body. It ultimately became a magical journey that changed my life and touched my soul.

'Mrs Darley's Pagan Healing Wisdom' is due for release on 21st June 2011 and can be pre ordered from Amazon using the following link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/mrs-darleys-pagan-healing-wisdom/dp/1902578767/ref=sr_1_4?ie=utf8&qid=1306345143&sr=8-4

Or go to http://www.arcanus.co.uk/ and click on the Amazon link

Morris Dancing

Morris dancers can be seen everywhere during the Celtic summer at various festivals throughout the British Isles. The Puritan writer, Philip Stubbs had something to say about the Morris dance, often referred to as 'the dance of the devil'.

'They bedeck themselves with scarves, strings and laces hanged all over with golde rings, precious stones and other jewels: This they tie abouteeither legge 20 or 40 belles with riche handkerchiefs in their handes and sometyme laide across their shoulders and necks, borrowed for the moste parte of their prettie Mopsies and lovying Bessies for busying them in the darke. These thyngs sette in order, they have their hobbie horses, dragons and other antiques, together with their bawdy pipers and thunderying drummers to sricke up the Devil's dance...'

The earlist records of Morris dancing date back to the 15th century with one school of thought saying that it originated from a court jester's dance whilst another states that it was a dance performed by Spanish Arabs, i.e the Moors, of which Morris is a derivative.

May Marriages

The month of May is traditionally thought to belong to the Goddess and as such any man who was brave enough to marry during the month was said to fall prey to the lust and power of a woman!

The Romans too considered May an unlucky month for a wedding, due to the celebration of their festival of 'Lemuralia', at which sacrifices were made to purge each house of hostile spirits and therefore marriages were not considered wholly appropriate.

With the coming of Christianity, May became the month of the Virgin Mary and was a time associated with chastity and purity, therefore not a time to celebate the nuptuals!

If, however you are celebrating a wedding this month, may the Goddess smile upon you and bring you love, healthand happiness.

Healing the Hurt

Someone I care about has been hurt this week by the words of another, as indeed we all allow ourselves to be at certain points in our lives. The key words here however are 'allow ourselves to be'.

I met my lovely husband on a course in London and, whilst on that course, one of the trainers decided to role play one afternoon with me as the advisor and she as the customer. To say she was like a dog with a bone was an understatement and after a while I just held my hands up and said, 'I just can't do this anymore.'

I felt upset although I tried not to let it show and at the end of the session my (unknown) future husband came up to me and said 'No one has the right to make you feel bad, unless you allow it.'

Those words have stayed with me through the years and so, to the person I care about, I say; 'let the abusive words be carried away by the breath of the wind.

The Joy of Beltane

The season of Beltane is upon us, joyful, beautiful and life giving. Beltane was the festival that marked the beginning of the Celtic summer, it was a time when the animals were put out to pasture and was celebrated with acts of love, lust and fertility.

Many love chases were madethrough thewoods on Beltane Eve, an act which was referred to as 'going a maying'. Here lovers would spend the night in the woods, doing what came naturally to them and these liasons were often known as 'greenwood marriages'. The Puritan writer, Phillip Stubbs was quoted as saying:

'I have heard it credibly reported by men of great gravity, credit and reutation, that of fortie three score maids going to the woods over night, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home again undefiled.'

Even when more formal marriage rites were introduced, the rules were still relaxed at Beltane. Any children resulting from these unions were often called after spirits or legendary characters of the woods such as Jackson, after Jack in the Green, a derivation of the green man. Hodson, after Hod, a woodland sprite or Robinson after Robin Goodfellow from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream or perhaps the legendary Robin Hood. Rudyard Kipling captured the essence of Beltane with these words:

Oh do not tell the priest of our art, or he would call it a sin: But we shall be out in the woods all night, a-conjuring summer in!'

May the season of Beltane bring you joy, love and hope.

From 'Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers'