January 2024 - Gillian Monks

“If I Ruled the World…”

On January 22, 2024

Who remembers this popular song from the musical ‘Oliver’ back in the 1960’s? Harry Secombe belting out “Every day would be the first day of spring…”

What would you do if you ruled the world? Or even just your own little part of it? What is the first thing that you would do? How would you go about easing some of the worst injustices and difficulties of our society? How would you bring comfort and healing to our broken world and the suffering of the natural world all around the planet?

People are very quick to criticise those in government – to say that the mythical ‘they’ should magically do something about ‘it’, but I rarely hear any answers or practical suggestions being offered.

I think that the first thing I would do is declare each Monday to be weekly ‘Hug Each Other Day’ when everyone is encouraged to give lovely warm hugs. Now don’t laugh! It has been scientifically proved that the physical, mental and emotional benefits of a regular, prolonged, twenty second hug are quite staggering. Let’s boost the health of the entire nation by hugging!

Next, fair wages for all – a lot less for a few and a great deal more for many – and decent working hours and conditions for all – something which our forebears fought so hard to achieve and which, in our ‘enlightened’ Twenty-First Century society seems to have completed disintegrated.

I would organise communal facilities for people of all ages who wanted/needed them – especially meals, but possibly go on to include living accommodation and practical training as well. These would be run and maintained by volunteers from all sectors of society who would be awarded points for each job (the more unpleasant or arduous, the more points) which could then be exchanged for money or other benefits. The doors of these centres would be open to all and if more facilities were required, the community would come together to organise and/or build it, using public money and resources. There would be no need for anyone to be on the streets or sitting alone at home in isolated loneliness or desperation.

I am not suggesting a communist state, just accepted and widespread facilities where everyone could go and be accepted, receive what they need, give what they can.

There would be few laws, just encouragement, rewards, and bonuses.

Wrong-doers would be helped, healed and remain as useful members of society.

How about a national day of ‘Unconditional Love’? I think we’d have at least two a month of those. Any suggestions as to how it could be put into active practice?

Of course, I am being a bit silly! Or am I?

We certainly can’t continue as we are at present.

And if we heal ourselves, both individually and collectively, we will also be in a much better position to treat everything else around us with kindness and consideration. We can integrate a policy of walking more lightly on the land, of working with nature not against it, of practices which harmonise with the rest of the world rather than conflict.

Pie in the sky? Really? Why can’t we change things for the better and do it differently? Are we really all so set in our ways, so uncaring, selfish or just plain scared that we daren’t even consider a new order? And we have to do something. Life on this planet cannot go on as it is – we all know that.

Rather, this is a golden opportunity to take life and do something amazing with it. We can all begin now, today. Light a candle in the metaphorical darkness and bring some love and goodwill into the life around you.

So, if I ruled the world, Monday – today – would definitely be the weekly ‘Hug Day’… so please hug as many people as you can today and see what a difference it makes already.!

What would you do?

The Joy of January

By Gillian Monks

On January 16, 2024

In Musings of the Hearth

I love January! Yes, Midwinter/Christmas is past, but this month has SO much to offer.

It is the very fact that the winter holidays are over that makes this month so special. Clear rooms, empty of all the seasonal colour and clutter. A clear garden/natural world as vegetation has died away and animals are sheltering, sleeping. A clear diary with no long lists of social commitments. In fact, a gloriously blank canvas on which to indulge in spontaneous activity! What could be better? many of us spent most of November and December bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t enough time… well, now we have!

I like to spend this blessedly still time after Christmas resting, contemplating the year to come and planning my goals and wishes with which I want to fill it.

I love the weather: drab, washed out, dark and wet enough to justify curling up indoors, providing breathing space, or brilliantly clear, sunny and cold with the beauty which frost and snow can mantle the land.

We have removed most of our Midwinter decorations but candles are still favoured and white lights now illuminate jugs of greenery and dark windows.

These days are spent in early spring cleaning, sorting, clearing, bringing into order before the longer, lighter days call us away. Evenings are time for shared discussion, listening to or watching programmes or podcasts, music and games, or quiet reading and the little projects our hands were too busy for in the past few months.

This is also a time for looking forward; for dreaming and decoding how to bring those dreams into being

Think about it. Don’t waste these precious ’empty’ days merely wishing them gone; use them, fill them, enjoy them.

A very happy January to you all!

News-Blog Instead of Newsletter

By Gillian Monks

On January 10, 2024

In News, Uncategorized

Greetings! I wish you all a joyful adventure for the new year!

Thank you to all you readers who have sent me the seasons greetings and all the kind souls who have enquired if all is well with me.

You probably know me quite well by now. I believe in telling it like it is and speaking the plain truth.

Many people, both at home and across the globe – including myself – are experiencing ill health. The symptoms are chest infection, a hacking cough, disrupted sleep patterns and utter weariness (among others) which drags on unremittingly for months. (This is NOT Covid-19.) Recently, I have heard that it is actually an adult form of Whooping Cough, also known as the Hundred Days Cough… and I can well understand that particular description!

I have been ill since the beginning of November. My publisher has been ill for even longer. Courses of antibiotics have helped temporarily, but it stays with us with the temerity of super glue! I am not sure if I am gradually recovering or simply beginning to learn to live with it.

I had hoped to send out a newsletter for Midwinter, but due to on-going ill health, severe storms which succeeded in severing our telephone cable, (depriving us of the internet for nearly a fortnight), and various other mishaps, it simply never happened.

In desperation, I have decided to send out a simplified newsletter in a blog post to bring you up to date. This will be the third time that I have deleted much of what I had previously written… but you know what they say, third time lucky!

WALKING WITH THE GODDESS

I am amazed to realise that it is nearly four years since I last had a book published! (Except for my two ‘Eat Cheap’ booklets which I feel don’t really count.) ‘Spring In Your Step’, the sequel to ‘Merry Midwinter’ came out while all the world was devolving into chaos at the beginning of the pandemic. Apart from that, 2020 was an amazing year for me because I could stay at home and simply write, write, write, with absolutely nothing to distract me – it was crazily wonderful! I wrote three books!!!

Since then, the aftermath of Covid has been much harder to deal with and life has taken many odd twists and turns. In fact, as far as getting anything into print is concerned, it has stalled quite dramatically.

Now, I happily feel that I am back on track again.

I am NOT going to commit myself to a date when ‘Walking With the Goddess’ might be officially published, but you can depend on me letting you know when it is finalised. It will definitely be out some time in the next month or so, more than that I cannot say. It has already been to the printers once and now needs any corrections making before it goes off to print.

This is a wonderful book to start the spring season with. ‘Walking With the Goddess’ contains simple authentic suggestions and practices appropriate for people of all religions and spiritual beliefs. The ‘Goddess’ is the Earth itself, and readers will learn to literally walk not on her, or against her, or in spite of her, but WITH her.

‘Walking With the Goddess’ is a practical and experiential book covering a twelve-month cycle which the reader can pick up at any point throughout the year. In conjunction with some of the old Welsh deities and archetypes, (ten female and six male) readers will learn to work with elemental and healing energies using a variety of mediums including the specific energies of stones and trees, the development of intuition and the power of intention and thought forms. Readers will also learn how to access their own genetic coding and memory, step into – and out of – the Cauldron of Rejuvenation and Rebirth, and much, much more.

For each month, there is a guided meditation to follow – a journey to make – which will trigger new understanding, introduce new possibilities, and guide you to re-evaluate your path so far. (Links embedded in the book take the reader to recordings of myself talking you through each journey – easy to click on for a really in-depth experience.) All the content has been freshly inspired and channelled and contains activities appropriate and necessary for our unique times.

Just as importantly it encourages the reader to become proactive in working on and with the land, growing things, wild seeding and planting, getting involved in charitable projects, and eliminating harmful domestic substances from our homes, agricultural land and public spaces. It will help readers to becoming more intimately and actively aware of the seasons and encourage them to celebrate them in their thoughts as well as openly acknowledging them in their daily places and life.

With freezing weather and winter storms, this time of year is dominated by water. As disrupted and intensified weather systems lash our planet, I offer this brief exert from ‘Walking With the Goddess’ for you to follow – one that will help to calm and heal the extreme effects of water when unleashed upon our world:

JOURNEY TO HEAL WATER

Science has now proved that we can change the structure of water molecules by our thoughts. Begin positive practice with the element of water today.

Bring a large glass or jug of water and an empty bowl into your healing space.

Settle yourself comfortably… close your eyes, take three deep breaths and allow all the hurly-burly of your day to melt away… and relax…

Open your eyes again.

Place your hands around the container of water for a couple of minutes and feel your love flowing out of your hands and through the glass into the water.

Take a few sips of the water in the glass. What does it really taste of? How does it feel in your mouth and as it slips down your throat?

Slowly pour the water from the glass into the bowl. As you do so, watch how the light catches the stream of liquid. Listen carefully to the sound of the water as it runs… falls… splashes…

Bend over the bowl and breath in the moist scent of the water.

Plunge your hands into the water and swirl them about in it… then simply rest them, submerged and still… What does water feel like?

Lift the bowl up onto your knee and wrap both your arms around it. Draw it to you as you would a small animal or child.

Look deeply into its depths and imagine a beam of softly glowing light above your head. This is the light of conscious energetic healing. Imagine it flowing down through the top of your head… down your spine… and back up through the front of your body to the crown of your head… and then back down your spine and up the front… and back down your spine… only this time, as the light surges up the front of your body, sense and see that you are also drawing healing earth energies up through the soles of your feet… up through your legs and into your body to join the upper healing energy as it travels back towards your crown…

When both energies have reached your head, feel or see them flowing back down through your neck… and into your arms and chest (where they also collect your own loving wishes of gratitude and healing) and sense them spilling out of your heart and the palms of your hands which you now hold over the surface of the water…

Stay in this position and activity for as long as you wish – for as long as feels right to you…

When you are ready to stop, feel the energies withdraw from the water and return back up your arms, through your chest and into your head – the higher energies disappear up out of the top of your head and the lower energies flow back down your body… into your legs and out through your feet into the earth.

Give loving thanks to All That Is for allowing and supporting you to do this loving, healing act.

Breathe deeply… open your eyes… move your feet… fully return to your present time and place.

Set the bowl of water down. When you are ready to leave your healing space, take the bowl of water with you. You need to carefully, gently and mindfully pour it away onto the earth, or into some other water source, preferably onto a garden – but even down the drain will do – knowing that the love and gratitude with which you have instilled that water will then connect with any other water it comes into contact with and communicate your loving intentions – and so your message will spread.

If you wish, now is the time to draw or write down anything from the experiences you have just had.

LOOKING AHEAD TO SPRING AND CAE NON

Another casualty of the pandemic and being confined to home or five-mile limits for travelling was our land and the spiritual retreat which we are slowly growing at Cae Non. The site is seventeen miles from our home, and we were unable to legally go there for quite a long time. I also had problems with arthritis in my knee and couldn’t have walked about on the land even if I had been able to travel there. And then there was also the little matter of cows from the neighbouring farm crossing the stream and breaking through the fence onto our land, leaving new growth stripped bare and the ground a miry mess of hoof-sized potholes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the land has been busy doing its own thing throughout the past three years of relative neglect and all is absolutely blooming! This has also been greatly facilitated by two very dear friends who were able to spend time on the land in our place and have kept everything well maintained. They have even built a little log store round the back of the Hafod and erected a tool store which was kindly donated to us by a neighbour back in the village.

Now, a temporary electric fence has been erected to keep the cows at bay and work is moving ahead once more.

It has been an absolute joy to spend time at Cae Non again; it is such a deeply peaceful spot.

The path up the field to the Hafod, a corner of which can just be glimpsed in the distance.

I have always wanted to plant a proper hedge around the perimeter of our land. Apart from being a good investment as a barrier, it is also an excellent ecosystem for flora and fauna. However, it is a very long stretch, even just to complete the side the cows have been coming through, so the task might require spreading out over two or three winters. At this stage we are also still debating what trees to order for the best, most effective stock proof hedge which will also thrive in wet, clay land.

Most of the existing herb beds will have to be completely replanted, but my son, (who is a medical herbalist) is planning on extensive extension of our cultivated area, and a functional but decorative ground plan of rectangular and circular raised beds has emerged. Coupled to clearing more land to plant a medicinal arboretum and pruning hundreds of metres of willow fedging, we have more than enough to be getting on with.

The days may be short at present, but there is always a cosy welcome inside our little Hafod, where the wood burning stove glows with warmth, the candle-light falls softly, and the kettle is always singing, ready to make the next round of hot drinks.