Author: Joanna van der Hoeven

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Elen – The Wild Spirit

This is a reblog from my channel at SageWoman. Photo credit: Keeper of the Forest, by Rania Maria

elen1

She is with me – I can feel Her as soon as I step out the door.  She calls to me, she pulls me further away from the houses of humanity, deeper into the wilds; the windswept heath, the dark forest, the bright birch glades.  I smile and answer her call with a song in my heart, my footsteps getting lighter and lighter as I head out to meet Her. I walk taller, with more grace, my body flowing and moving without the restrictions that are usually placed upon it.  I feel an almost eldritch tingling in my blood – the awen is awakened.

My sense of self fades away, sloughing off in evanescent shades flowing behind me to melt into nothingness.  I blend in with my surroundings – wearing faded greens and browns but also my personal space, my nemeton, dissolving into the land around me. This dissolution, this immersion in the landscape brings me closer to Her.

Each step is a sacred prayer.  Gentle, aware, heel rolling to toe, I feel the earth beneath my feet.  This land is holy ground.  The air is sweet, tinged with scents of Spring and I see it reflected in the budding narcissus, the already blooming crocus.  The birds have changed their songs to those that speak of warmth and sunshine, soft rains and the greening.

My joy in Her flows out of me and back inwards in an endless cycle.  That joy is a quiet joy – there is no need to shout, no need for a fuss.  It is pure, it is simple. It is utter awareness of the present moment, and the present moment is all that there is.

I look into the shadows beneath a stand of low pines, and there they are – her children.  A small herd, of about a dozen, lie beneath the darkened canopy where no footpaths lie.  Here they can rest undisturbed.  I greet them ever so softly with my mind – I do not enter into myself to do this – it is merely an honouring and acknowledgement of their beauty without breaking the immersion in the present moment.

I continue on, blessed by the gift of seeing her children.  I know that I will see more.  I know too that I am of Her, related to Her, to her children.  She is within me and I am within her. The deer are within me and I am within them.  I only have to open my awareness to this to see the brilliance of this blessed gift. So simple, so easy.

The sunlight is warm upon my skin, the breeze is cool, playing with my hair and scarves, making them dance in the wind.  I come to a very special place, and there they are – a herd seventy strong.  They see me and wait – I wait also, allowing them the first move.  The leaders are then startled by something, and they run across the open grassland from forest cover to the cover of brush, all in a line, along a sacred trackway that they have made over hundreds of years.  This is Her trackway, and I watch with soaring spirit as they follow the flow of spirit across the heath.

I go to the birch trees to offer my greetings and leave a gift – a brilliant white egg-shaped stone I found amongst the heather.  I then make my way back across the heath, coming across the trackway that cuts the green sward in half.  I can still feel their energy – their silent, swift energy running towards the pine trees and dried bracken.  As I cross that line, I feel it moving through me, and I swirl it through my soul before letting it run free again along the deer path.  I am filled with golden light.

I can feel Her eyes upon me, watching from the forest edge.  Her antlered head is thrown back with laughter, Her green eyes dancing even as my soul dances.  Silently she shares in my joy and I in Hers, and then she disappears.

I make my way back towards home – there are a couple of deer hidden among the brush near to one of the paths I wish to take. I do not want to startle them – I choose another path.  Moving along the forest edge I look up, and see the large herd again, this time ghosting through the trees, running silently and swiftly between the beech trunks, flashes of light and darkness.  I bend down where I stand and bring my hands to the rich mossy ground.  Looking down, my pale skin shines silver-white in the light against the vibrant green of the soft carpet, as if moonlight, not sunlight shone upon them.  I close my eyes and breathe deep into the earth, giving of myself to Her.

Making my way homewards, I am always loathe to leave Her sacred ground.  She is always within my heart, and always within my spirit – a sense of wildness, of laughter and play, of wariness and strength.  She is muted when indoors, but She is there, deep within my soul even as I greet my Lady of Sanctuary upon entering the home. She smiles and reaches out to her Sister, Nemetona, the Lady of the Sacred Grove.

She is Elen, the wild goddess.  I honour Her with all that I am.

To find out more about my writing, please visit my author page at Amazon, where you will details on my books such as The Book of Hedge Druidry as well as The Path of the Hedge Witch. 

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The Present Moment

mudraThe present moment – it is a gift, and that is why they called it the ‘present’.

This quote is true on so many levels.  When we are awake, when we are aware to the present moment, we can see it for the very real blessing that it is. For the majority of people who aren’t living in fear through war or famine, who aren’t suffering from chronic pain or disease – simply being in the present moment is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves. Being aware of the present moment, even when faced with such conditions, may help to alleviate suffering.

When we wake up in the morning, we can become fully aware of that moment upon waking. We can lie in bed, feeling our selves in our bodies, listening to any sounds around us. We can do a mental body scan, to see how we feel, if there is any pain or stiffness, any tightness held through residual stress. We can consciously work to try and let that go, in order to start the day right.

We get up, we go to the bathroom.  We can do this with full awareness. When brushing our teeth, we hear the water flowing through the tap, we give thanks that we have clean water at our disposal when so many others do not.  We brush our teeth while concentrating on the simple task of brushing our teeth. So often our minds are already in a meeting at work, that when we brush our teeth, the whole meeting is there brushing our teeth with us!

Concentrating on one task at a time not only does a better job at the task itself, but can also help us to overcome areas in our lives when we are not at the best we can be – say, due to stress perhaps, or depression. If we focus on one task at a time, taking it and really being in each moment, we do not have the opportunity to be stressed, for to be stressed we need to be thinking ahead.  We alleviate our own suffering by being fully aware – in the case of depression, we may not see an end to the suffering, which brings it about in a continuous cycle. By being in the moment, we are not looking forwards or backwards, inwards our outwards – we are simply being.

By being, we are not mindless zombies – we are, in fact, more fully aware than most people by using concentration and focus in order to move about our daily existence.  We will make less mistakes, we will be less clumsy. We will brush our teeth so much better. We will be mindful of each step we take, and so we will trip less, stumble less, walking in total awareness to wherever it is that we need to go.

We eat our breakfast mindfully, thankful for having food to eat. We close the door to our houses, thankful  that we have a home, a sanctuary from the elements in which to live.  We drive our cars mindfully, thankful that we have such luxurious modes of transportation. We work, thankful that we have a job to provide us with the means for food and shelter, as well as the opportunity to work with others, be creative, make the world a better place – whatever it is that your job entails. We do our work with full attention, whether it is sweeping a floor or updating a database. We are mindful of our posture during the work, of our breathing – we take moments to simply be, to assess our bodies and our minds.

Try doing this for an hour or so a day, then a full morning.  Try to maintain awareness for as long as the sun is shining, or the rain is raining.  Become more aware not only of yourself but of your environment. By doing so, you will find that life may flow more easily and that you see where you can fit in more harmoniously.  Your actions will become more graceful, your movements filled with awareness and intention. Let your thoughts follow your body, flowing gracefully and with intention instead of running rampant through the mind.

Notice how this makes you feel – and if it feels good, keep doing it! May you all be gifted with the present.

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Sanctuary, Compassion and Freedom

We all need a little sanctuary in our lives. A place where we can let down our walls, let the barriers fall and simply be ourselves, wrapped in the security and safety of knowing that we are held.  My patron goddess, Nemetona, provides me with many opportunities to savour this precious moment, and to help create it for others.  She is the Lady of Holding, of Sacred Space, of Sanctuary.

Often when we meet others, especially human beings, our walls shoot up if they haven’t already been erected, and we are on the defensive.  We regard others warily, perhaps even as enemies; guilty until proven innocent.  A certain wariness around strangers makes sense – it’s an innate human instinct that we also see reflected elsewhere in the animal kingdom.  It is a form of self-preservation.  However, what I would posit is that we become so used to keeping those walls up, that we barricade ourselves inside our selves, unable to see the bigger picture, unable to truly experience compassion.

I am not saying that we should allow others to do as they will to us – wilfully harming another person in any way is completely wrong.  So often when I speak of compassion, people think it is an open invitation to be trod upon, to be used and abused by those who would seek to take advantage of us.  Instead, I try to explain the ideas of compassion, and also of engaged Buddhism – simply put, compassion is about trying to understand, to see around our own sense of self into the bigger picture. Engaged Buddhism is being active in a world to stop suffering, to speak up against violence and injustice and work to spread love and compassion.

My Lady Nemetona helps me with this.  By coming into her sacred embrace, I find that I remember what it is like to be open, to be held, to be free in utter sanctuary.  Thus inspired, I try to find ways to bring that inspiration out into the wider world, making it a better place.  When we are held, when we are free to be our true selves, we also provide the opportunity for awen, for inspiration, to fill our souls with joy and wonder at the simplicity of simply being.  We can then become a conduit for this energy, bringing about positive change in the world, even in the midst of suffering.

Working with Nemetona, we become aware of our boundaries, when we erect them and when we let them dissolve. We also see how we involuntarily create barriers, whether it is in our energetic fields, our communication, or our perception.  Through meditation and work with this particular goddess, I have found a way of both strengthening my inner sanctuary, thereby being able to let down those walls and openly experience situations with complete awareness.  In this, intention is key.

By being open, I am also being receptive to input that might otherwise pass me by through my own ego-centric mindlessness.  By working with sanctuary, I can see where I have lapsed and allowed others to abuse my trust, and where I will never allow that to happen again.  By being aware of how, why and who we engage with, and with what intention, we can change how we react to situation, acting with intention instead of a more reactionary type of living.  By becoming engaged with my boundaries, I am aware of when I need to strengthen or release them as appropriate.

It’s been a tough ride, sometimes, working with this goddess and with compassion.  It has shown me where I have failed so many times in the past.  Understanding and awareness of those failures, however, is not there to deter me; they are there to remind me, lessons learned and opportunities for further growth.  The key to working with boundaries and compassion, and indeed Nemetona Herself, lies in awareness – of the self, of others and of the world at large.  It’s not an easy path, but one well worth walking. It can lead us down the shadowy paths in the long dark night of the soul, but we can emerge into the light of the sacred forest grove, whether it be dappled sunlight, pale moonlight or starshine.  In that emergence lies our true nature, inspired by nature and surrounded by our natural sanctuary.

In that emergence lies our freedom.

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Friday Foodies – Vegan Strawberry-Caramel Mousse

From The Vegan Woman’s website

Strawberry-Caramel Layered Mousse Cake 

Serves 3-4 cups (depending on the serving dish)

Vegan Strawberry Layered Mousse Cake – pampering and simple to prepare.

Ingredients:

For the mousse layers: 
400g chilled coconut cream (1 can) – Look for the tins with the highest percentage of coconut extract
1 tbsp of Vanilla instant pudding
5 tbsp strawberry jam
4-5 tinned strawberries (though its tempting to use fresh strawberries, tinned strawberries have the benefit of having soaked up the syrup making them softer and better for the mousse)
1/2 tbsp pink food-colouring gel (optional) 
For the caramel layers:
250g caramelised biscuits (the kind you get in the complimentary hotel hot drink tray)
5 tbsp of tinned strawberry syrup
For the topping:
3-4 tbsp of strawberry jam
Fresh strawberries for decoration

Strawberry topping for a perfect Vegan Strawberry Layered Mousse Cake

How do you make it:

  • Open the chilled coconut tin and drain the excess liquid until you’re left with just the thick creamy coconut extract. Add this into a bowl and whisk with the instant pudding. 
  • Add the 5 tbsp of strawberry jam, the food-colouring gel and the 4-5 tinned strawberries. Whisk together then refrigerate for 15 min.
  • Crush the biscuits in a food processor/ blender. Add the strawberry syrup and continue to blend until the mixture is moist but not too sticky.
  • In your serving vessel start with a layer of the biscuit mixture then alternately layer with the mousse. Top with a small layer of strawberry jam and decorate with fresh strawberries. 

    Enjoy!

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Slow Down…

teaSlow down.

This little phrase may not only save your life, but can continue to make your life a lot easier.  I’ve been slowing down a lot this year, saying “no” to many things, acknowledging that there is already enough on my plate.  I’m taking time to simply be, to be in the moment, to stop the running around and to well and truly live.

Slowing down, physically, (and mentally, as a result – thoughts eventually stop racing around in your mind when your body slows down) can bring new joys in an otherwise missed-out world.  Eat your breakfast mindfully, slowly. Drink your tea mindfully, slowly.  Drive your car mindfully, slowly.  Just try these three things for the first week and you will notice a distinct improvement in how you feel. It’s amazing how changing small habits can have such a grand effect.

Eating and drinking too quickly, unaware of your food, can lead to stomach upsets, food waste, and over-eating just to name a few things.  Driving too quickly can result in loss of control of your car, and ultimately your life or the life of another.  Taking the time to really be in the moment of these “little” things, these everyday things, can bring a new awareness and gratitude for the small pleasures in life.

Feel the consistency of your breakfast banana, really smell it, touch it, run your fingers over it before you even peel it and begin eating.  Be thankful that you have that banana to eat. Savour each mouthful, chewing slowly, swallowing purposefully – it may sound silly, but just try it.  Drink your tea in beautiful china cups, taking the time to brew it carefully in a teapot, aware of every movement of your body as you do so.  Pour the tea with full awareness.  Raise the cup, feel the smooth porcelain on your lips just before the warm liquid dances on your tongue.  Be thankful that you have tea.  Touch your car before getting into it.  Sit down gracefully, feeling your body in the seat.  Start the engine mindfully, and drive with total awareness of the steering wheel beneath your hands, the road beneath the tires.  Be thankful that you have a car.

By slowing down you will may find yourself less stressed when you get to work, or when you arrive back home from work.  We are not meant to live under the constant stress that our everyday lives present us when we live un-mindfully.  By taking a few moments to slow down, to become aware of where we are and what we are doing, we can help heal and restore the balance in our lives.

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Desperately seeking Druid: The over-sexualised images in D&D fantasy games

The first thing that usually happens when I comment on the sexist artwork and portrayal of women in fantasy roleplaying games is “Oh, you know that’s just how it is” – it is this complicitness in the game that I find so terribly frustrating – and also a little frightening. Whether you are being subject to catcalls or wolf whistles, sexual remarks and proposals in “real life”, in a field of live-action roleplayers, or in a game, can we not change the culture into one where all genders are treated with honour and respect?

This is a blog post from my channel over at SageWoman, where I look at the subject in the form of the artwork that portrays female characters in the game.

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Friday Foodies – Breakfast smoothie

My favourite breakfast smoothie:-

1/2 pint of orange juice, 1 banana, handful of frozen berries, all mixed together in a blender. Simples!

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Matriarchal or Patriarchal ideal? The utopian myth…

(Reblogged from my channel at SageWoman)

I’ve often read that is it due to a male-dominated, patriarchal culture that the world is in such a mess, with war, power games, aggressiveness and other such “male” attributes to blame. I would posit, with respect and a little humour, that these people have never introduced two new female cats to each other…

In a female dominated world, things might be just the same. They might be different. A matriarchal culture might be the utopian ideal – it might also be pure hell.  As an egalitarian, I would hope to one day live in a world where everyone and everything was treated with the respect according to each individual’s nature.  Perhaps it is the animist inherent in me – I see all things as having their own relevant value, whatever the physical form it is that they take. The eastern tradition of Buddhism and Zen also teaches of awakening deep compassion for all things, which to me is a developing a greater understanding of the bigger picture, and living from a less ego-centric worldview. 

Wicca is often based on the polarity between male and female.  Yet for me the focus in my spirituality is in relationship, and human nature is so much more than fitting something phallic into a hole.  I find that I hold both anima or animus within my soul – simply because I have breasts and a vagina does not mean that I can only have one within me.  I also truly believe that there is no such thing as an opposite – just look at the misinterpretation of life and death as being opposites.  Death is a singular event, life is ongoing. As such, birth is the opposite of death. Life has no opposite.

I am often perplexed by the vision that there was a previous matriarchal culture that was the ideal.  This can in no way be proven to have existed as yet, however people still cling to this belief. I ask myself why – why would they think that a matriarchal culture would be better? Could it be that anything would be better than what we have now? Does that devalue a matriarchal culture? Does it simply bring the utopian dream crashing to the hard ground of reality?

What I would hope for is that one day people will treat each other with honour and respect. Not only human to human interaction, but this planet as a whole.  That dreams and visions of a utopian culture dissolve into the wondrous reality of the here and now, and the realisation of the beauty of this very moment.  In the dropping of our ego-centric way of life, and our anthropocentric ways.  No matter what our gender. x

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Where Prayer and Meditation Meet…

meditationMeditation and prayer are sometimes seen as the same thing. It depends on what tradition you belong to, what form of meditation you take, and how you define prayer.  For some in the Christian tradition, prayer is about talking to God, meditation is about listening to God.  Others see prayer as a form of magic, with words and thoughts sent out in the hopes of altering what seems to be a predetermined course. Others still see prayer as a moment to reflect on our lives, and develop gratitude and compassion.  All of these things can be applied to meditation as well.

We meditate in order to create harmony in our lives, to work through a problem, to live a more authentic life filled with awareness. There is a goal in mind, even in Zen meditation, where we come across the conundrum of the goalless goal. Seeing our lives for the wonder that they are, we also raise compassion and empathy for all things within our souls.  The lines between prayer and meditation often blur.

Where prayer and meditation meet is in that quiet stillness, like that moment at dusk, when the world is hushed and we can truly listen, not only with our ears but with our hearts. It is a moment of utter peace, in the here and now. It is life, plain and simple.

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The Little Pagan Monastery Retreat

We’ve got our weekend retreat coming up! 11 – 13 April, Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury, UK

Experience a weekend filled with devotion to the gods, the land and the ancestors – with prayer, meditation, discussion and ritual, as well as visiting sacred sites such as Glastonbury Tor and the White Spring on this unique retreat, The Little Pagan Monastery.  Stay at Chalice Well & gardens, at Little St Michaels where you will have 24 hour access to one of Albion’s most sacred places during your stay.  Incorporate daily prayer and ritual into your life, make new friends and enjoy some time spent away in an inspirational setting with like-minded people.

To book, please visit: The Little Pagan Monastery

Little Pagan Monastery Itinerary

Friday
5pm onwards – arrivals
6pm – Welcome talk
6.30pm – Supper
8pm – Evening prayer and group meditation
9pm – Free time

Saturday
7.30am – Morning personal meditation
8am – Morning Prayers and group meditation
9am – Breakfast
10.30 am – Discussion
12 noon – Midday prayers and group meditation
1pm – Lunch
2.30pm – Glastonbury Tor walk and meditation
5pm – Free time/gardening work
6pm – Supper
7.30pm – Discussion
9pm – Evening prayers

Sunday
7.30am – Morning personal meditation
8am – Morning Prayers and group meditation, followed by ritual
9am – Breakfast
10.30 am – White Spring visit
12 noon – Midday prayers and group meditation
1pm – Lunch
2.30pm – Farewell