Cae Non Archives - Gillian Monks

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.

Even in these darkest days which I adore, there is a little part of me which is looking eagerly forward to being able to get out in the winter air.

And then, there is always the joy of looking ahead towards the coming spring. it really isn’t that far ahead now…

IN THE MEANTIME….

I wish you all a wonderful New Year for 2024. Create as much joy and feel as much love as is humanly possible and treasure each moment.

More from me soon,
With my love,

Gillian.

Coppiced elder as sustainable fuel source, ready for cutting into logs.

Harvest can happen at any time of year and we are just in the process of bringing in our first crop for 2020.

In these uncertain and worrying times, it is wonderful to be able to still participate – and write about – something normal and positive. This last two weekends, my family and I have begun harvesting our first ‘crop’ of sustainable fuel from our land at Cae Non. Due to the almost continuous rain this past few months it is much later in the spring than we had originally intended but, despite the hindrance, all is now going very well. Even so, we have been working under quite difficult conditions, wading about in a good six to nine inches of water, mud and slutch and regularly getting our feet firmly stuck fast. Mud and cold water have splashed everywhere and tool handles have had to be regularly wiped clean, too slick and slippy to handle without the danger of the them flying out of our hands.

Our much-loved five acre plot officially came into our possession in June, 2011. The following January I spent some interesting days out in the bitingly cold wind and rain/hail planting my first small stand of willow. I had no idea what I was doing and set the willow whips far too close together – lesson learned for next time! We also put in a small patch of alder at the same time and these have also just been cut for the first time.

I cannot say that it has not grieved me to see our first trees – which I have talked to, loved and encouraged to grow – felled to the floor, but I always knew that that was our plan. I know that they will rise again. Indeed they are already doing so! We have not clear-felled but left some of the trees so that the land and the wild life aren’t impacted too drastically. It will be another seven years before they are coppiced again and the landscape will flow backwards and forwards between sparsely dotted with trees and more heavily wooded; a constantly changing palette of colour, shape and texture.

Car loaded up, plus fuel can, saw and the ubiquitous picnic basket with milk can sticking up – my menfolk need their teas and coffees!

In the meantime, my son has been wielding a nifty little petrol-driven chainsaw; otherwise it would have taken us all week to fell, trim and log our first crop. We shall transport the logs back to where we live a car-load at a time. The first lot arrived yesterday. The car was not as full as it could have been but once my menfolk noticed the bulging tyres, (green alder is a very dense and heavy wood) they decided that they had packed in enough!

Meanwhile, I was left back at home to clear out a part of our very ancient greenhouse where the firewood is to be stored. Over the summer it will dry out naturally to a certain degree, to be finished off to a kiln-dried consistency later in the year in our Aga ovens. (Agas are simply wonderful! They fulfill SO many domestic functions – apart from cooking – mine is like having an extra member of the family in residence.

It was a glorious spring day… washing was flapping animatedly on the line, the blackbird and robin were conducting a duet from the top of next-door’s fir tree, I spotted my first bumble bee of the year and the blossom on the cherry tree is just beginning to emerge.

Beginning to stack the first load – there will be many more to come.

Of course, there is always a downside to everything. In this particular case, I was so enamoured by the energy and beauty of the natural world reawakening that I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing. Suddenly, I found myself doing a brief pas de deux with a knobbly stick which had become entangled in my skirts and the next thing I knew, I had fallen flat on my face on the unforgiving concrete floor. I will not dwell upon the loud groaning noises which I made for a while before the pain and nausea subsided and I was able to pick myself up. Suffice it to say that today I have knees which are an impressive grey, yellow and red, an arm wonderfully grazed and I feel as if I have been hit by a bus.

But the first of our logs are in! A little insurance and assurance against the possible freezing temperatures of next winter. Meanwhile, I shall thoroughly enjoy concentrating on and enjoying the spring. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you can stay well and do the same.