Gillian Monks

'Making Fairytales Come True'

Tag: Cauldron

Hallowe’en Greetings!

This is a big celebratory weekend for my family. The house is warm with all the candles, lanterns and illuminated pumpkins; decorated with photos and mementos of past family members and fragrant with spices from baking the baking of ‘soul cakes’. The Ancestor Tree stands on the table in the hall. Two cauldrons adorn the hearth, reminiscent of Ceridwen’s mighty Cauldron’s of Regeneration. A glow of connection and coming together permeates the whole house and a frisson of excitement tingles through the air.

This is Calan Gaeaf… Samhain… Hallowe’en… the ending of the Celtic year with the last of the harvest when we enter into the dark time, to pause and reflect, which is only brought to an end with the rebirth of the light at Midwinter. A time between times… a threshold… a liminal space where worlds – different levels of life and energy – may draw closer to one another, when we are able to look back into the past, and forward into the future. A mysterious, unsettling time time of magic.

Yesterday evening we began our celebrations with a Dinner for the Ancestors. We gathered around the dining table where an extra place was set for each person attending the meal, so that they could invite any of their past antecedents to sit and join us. After serving the main course, we all ate in silence to allow everyone the space and opportunity to fondly recall their loved ones who have already entered the Summerlands. I have to say that I sensed our cosy dining room to be absolutely crowded out with folk – a wonderfully heart-warming feeling of loving presence and reconnection.

Later today, we will be gathering with friends to let go of this past year – to literally cast what is no longer relevant or necessary in our lives into the fire where these energies will be transmuted into something more positive and useful. We shall be writing out our hopes, wishes, plans and dreams for the coming new year and carefully placing them into the cauldron where Ceridwen shall keep them safe, allow them to germinate and return them to us as viable new strands to our life. We shall, again, give time and space to remember those who have gone before – not just those genetically connected to us by blood, but those we love and honour in our spiritual and professional lives, or any other aspect of our existence – brothers and sisters who have walked facets of our own path before us, and who we now acknowledge and remember with loving gratitude.

Tomorrow, the day of All Souls, we shall finally come together to remember ALL our ancestors… the hundreds of thousands of people from whom we are directly descended, right back to the beginning of time.

Then, as the last remnants of autumn fade into the dark of true winter, we shall sink back into the shadows, with time to think, to reassess, to visualise and dream, before we set our faces towards the Midwinter and the return of the light.

May this hurly burly time of year, of chaos and temporary lapse in ‘normality’ treat you gently. May you courageously touch infinity with a loving heart and allow it to inspire and illuminate what comes next in your life.

My love to you all, always.

Cerridwen’s Cauldron

Ancestor TableOctober is upon us and deepest autumn has arrived. This is the month of the goddess, Cerridwen, Welsh deity of endings and death, but also of rejuvenation, rebirth and hope. The Celtic year ends at Nosen  Calan Geaef on the 31st October with the completion of the harvest as winter closes in. In this month’s Walking With The Goddess, experience for yourself the magical, transformative journey to Cerridwen and her mighty cauldron and what it might bring you for your ‘new year’.

This time of year is also when we remember, acknowledge and celebrate the Ancestors; those who have lived, worked and worshipped/believed as we do now, as well as those connected to us genetically by blood. As part of our endeavours to heal our society and our world, I invite you to also heal your ancestors with kindness, remembrance and love. Many of us unwittingly carry the results of the efforts – and mistakes – of our forebears, buried deep within our genetic code. On the other hand, we are also now struggling to live in and come to terms with a flawed world which our ancestors helped to create. There is much to understand, to forgive and to now change.

This month, Walking With The Goddess also asks you to turn your hand to doing something practical to change this faulty world of ours – from adopting unwanted, derelict or abused land, forming action or community groups, or inspiring a lot more outdoor communal activity as a way of us being together safely, read some of my suggestions on how we might all become more pro-active or think up your own ideas of how we might support others to get things moving in the right direction.

We all have the capacity to work some ‘magic’ in our lives. We are all responsible for our world. Come Walking With The Goddess – our own sacred planet Earth – on an adventure of discovery and creative inspiration and begin to make things happen.

Each monthly module only costs £5 with a sliding scale for those who are experiencing financial hardship.

To find out more or to purchase, click on the link: https://www.earthwalking.co.uk/walking-with-the-goddess/

We can formulate our plans for a bright new future around the rim of the cauldron, and we can bring them into being through our own endeavour.

With gentle blessings of the dying year,
And my love.

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