Offerings to the well 

Tiziana and Anne after the ritual 

Maggie at the dressed well 

At this year's Peace Festival in Leamington Spa, we joined forces with Coventry Earth Spirit to create a Summer Solstice Ritual in Jephson Gardens on Sunday 18th June. As well as giving thanks to the life-giving powers of the Sun and the divine powers of light, it felt important to me to include the Sacred Well in the ritual, as the Summer Solstice is linked with the element of water, which signifies flowing emotions, love and compassion. It is traditionally a time when we Pagans honour holy wells, journey to the sea, rivers and lakes to acknowledge the importance of the generous gift of Mother Earth's water, without which we would not be able to survive. To honour an ancient well like the Leamington Spa waters is symbolic of our gratitude to the Goddess of the Waters.

Before the start of the ritual, we ceremonially purified ourselves with a bowl of sacred water, whilst I handed out little prayer ribbons into which we focused our wishes and intentions for this time of the year. The undercurrent of the ritual, in line with the festival, was peace, and forgivenness.

After calling in the directions & elements, spirits, Goddess and God, Anne lead a chant focused on the Druidic symbol called the Awen, or 'rays,' a glyph with three vertical lines or rays converging at the top. Awen in the Celtic language means means "inspiration," or "essence," and refers to spiritual illumination. The three parts of the Awen symbol represent the harmony of opposites- the left and right rays symbolizing female and male energy; the centre bar their harmonious balance. Holding hands, we visualised the light radiating from the symbol as we repeatedly chanted its name, which was very powerful: I could feel myself literally lifting off the ground as I felt the sounds reverberating all around me and resonate in my solar plexus.

During the chant, we held the prayer ribbons in our hands to infuse them with energy, and later we tied them to a long piece of cord, whilst speaking our wishes, blessings and prayers aloud or silently. After every person had tied their ribbons onto the cord, we created a circle with it, and then processed ceremonially - graced by three flower maidens - through the park towards the well whilst chanting 'Air I am, Fire I am, Water and Earth and Spirit I am', which attracted a good amount of attention from various bystanders! I have to say that part of this procession reminded me of the yearly Catholic procession of Corpus Christi - a very colourful festival during which people follow a statue of Jesus and a band of musicians whilst singing and throwing flower petals. I remember my cousin and I throwing flower petals into the musician's wind instruments when we were children - much to their annoyance! As you can see, my Catholic origins have not passed me by - or maybe we are reclaiming the ancient Goddess ceremonies that were originally adopted and claimed as their own by the early Christians.

When we arrived at the Spa monument, we did a spontaneous spiral dance around it, whilst singing and chanting, and invoking the Lady of the Waters in her many names and guises, among them Sulis Minerva, Domnu, Venus and Aphrodite. We then dressed the well with our flowers and prayer ribbons (see photos) and other offerings, creating a joint work of beauty, before sharing a chalice of water and thanking the elements, spirits and God/desses.

It was a lovely ceremony, and I would like to express many thanks to the people from Coventry Earth Spirit who helped with the planning and organisation. Later I noticed that this ceremony was exactly three months after our initial well dressing ceremony for the spring equinox on 18th March - so maybe we need to have one for the Autumn Equinox now! Anne and I talked about cooperating in creating an annual town procession to the seven ancient wells in Leamington Spa for next year's Peace Festival/Summer Solstice.

There are a few photos of the ceremony at http://haleworth.fotopic.net/c994967.html ,
courtesy of Pete Duckworth, who kindly allowed me to publish some of them here.

On 15th June, Valerie Odon was guest speaker at the WSN meeting. Valerie is, in her own words, a loving and experienced spiritual leader. She teaches the material first brought through by channel Alice A Bailey and Dwjahl Khul. Her lifelong interest in meditation and the esoteric arts inspired her to learn and study from a number of Buddhist masters before she started studying with various schools in the Alice Bailey tradition.

Valerie spent a few moments talking about her training, which began officially 13 years ago in a Buddhist framework, but unofficially when she was a few months old when her Grandfather took her to the beach every night to watch the sunset. He also taught her how to look at the stars, and this habit has staid with her to this day. Valerie works with solar light and the seven stars and seven rays, and the custodians of the divine will, which she interprets as liberation and the building of a bridge of light. The consequent radiance that can be achieved is a result of skill and strategies.

After Valerie's introductory talk, we engaged in two meditations. The first meditation served to relax and attune us to the work we were about to undertake, and focused on love & light and the opening of our hearts. After a short break, we worked as a group to increase spiritual light on the planet. We used our divine sense of imagination and concentration to energize the project started by Vivienne and Nick in creating the Seventh Wave Wellbeing Centre. It was a lovely and powerful visualisation, which should serve to strengthen the Centre as it continues to grow and reach more people in our community.

Next month's speaker will be Nick Cummins, crystal healer and Vivienne's business partner in the Seventh Wave venture, on Thursday 20th July at 8 pm.

Warwickshire Spiritual Network and Coventry Earth Spirit are organising an open Summer Solstice ritual at this year's Peace Festival in Leamington Spa on Sunday 18th June at 3 pm.

In line with the festival, the ritual will focus on the theme of peace and forgivenness, as well as the Leamington Spa waters, and will take place somewhere in Jephson Gardens - there will be signs confirming the exact location on both the Seventh Wave Wellbeing and Coventry Earth Spirit stalls on Saturday and Sunday.

We hope to see some of you there!