Solstice Berries at Prinknash (photo: Pamela Dunsdon)

I called on God, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me,
I preferred her to sceptres and thrones,
and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her...
for it is God's Wisdom who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists,
to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements,
the beginning and end and middle of times,
the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons,
the cycles of the year and the constellation of the stars,
the natures of animals and the tempers of wild animals,
the powers of spirits and the thoughts of human beings,
the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots,
I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
for Wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.

(Wisdom of Solomon 7:17-21)

Happy Winter Solstice everyone! The Sun has turned once again, promising us light and warmth as the days grow longer. I love the still, dreamy Yuletide time, where we have the opportunity to go deep inside us, dream our future and prepare to birth our visions. I could really feel the Winter Solstice approaching in the last few days, when it was so beautifully foggy and quiet, especially at night - it was as though the Snow Goddess had drawn her mysterious veils all around us.

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We went on a fabulous Winter Solstice outing and celebration to Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire last Thursday. Pauline, one of our members from Nuneaton, organised the trip and 23 of us went down in a minibus and car. We spent a lovely day there filled with Solstice storytelling - a particularly evocative story of the Egyptian cat Goddess Bast, interwoven with the Nativity story - , ritual and prayer. And food of course! It was a real interfaith event in that we called in a circle and invoked the elements/directions in the grounds of the Abbey, and many Christians joined us as we did so. Likewise, we joined in with some of their prayers. This is my vision of how interfaith events should work - open, non-judgmental and creative.

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We also saw some deer, much to Pam's, Becky's and my delight!, peacocks and other birds in the adjacent animal park, and of course visited the famed Orpheus Roman Pavement, a reconstruction of a mosaic found in Woodchester. I was delighted to see it, because the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my favourite descent myths. For those of you who don't know it, Orpheus was the son of Apollo, God of the Sun, and Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. Orpheus could sing and play the lyre so beautifully that not only mortals but also animals and trees, rivers and rocks listened to him. Orpheus fell in love with Eurydice, who was bitten on the heel by a venomous snake on their wedding day and died. Orpheus was inconsolable and went to the Underworld to retrieve her. With the power of his music he persuaded the guardians of the Underworld to let him pass. This they did, but there was one condition: Orpheus could lead Eurydice back from the Underworld, but was not to look at her before she arrived in the land of the living. Owing to the snake bite on her foot, her progress was slow and just before she emerged, Orpheus could bear it no longer and threw a quick glance at her over his shoulder. Eurydice immediately fell back into the 'thin mist' of the kingdom of the Dead. She was now lost to Orpheus forever.

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It is said that Orpheus was born on the Winter Solstice, and that apart from a musician, he was a seer, practiced magical arts, in particular astrology, and that he instituted mystic rites as well as initiatory and purification rituals.

Still from Jean Cocteau's Orphee - The Princess and Orphee

There is also a wonderful exhibition about Orpheus in the hallway leading up to the mosaic, which describes the myth and its symbolic meaning - the balance between light and darkness, the integration of the dark - really well. There was even an exhibit and stills of Jean Cocteau's 'Orphee' , a most wonderful, enchanting black&white film adaptation of the myth - one of the best films of all times.

Prinknash was a very apt place to visit on this special day, so a big thank you again to Pauline for organising it!

We are planning to have more outings over the next year, because they're so much fun - if you have any suggestions, or would like to organise something, in particular for the seasonal festivals, please let me know. So far, we're planning a daytrip to the Holy Well at Burton Dassett for the festival of Imbolc on 1st February.

Our next official meeting is on Thursday 18th January at 8 pm. We have a very special evening planned, led by the fabulous Sarida Brown, founding editor of Caduceus Magazine. She will be presenting an evening called 'Leamington's Spiritual History- A retrospective', and Sarida describes it as follows:

'In the 1970s and 1980s, there was not the richness of spiritual life as we know it now in Leamington Spa: meditation, yoga, natural therapies and healing were introduced and taught from scratch. This evening brings together some of those pioneeers who seeded the foundations of our current local spiritual environment: Sarida Brown (Sufis, Leamington Health Festival), Bill Heilbronn (yoga, Kabbalah), Nuala Pinson (healing, yoga), Barbara Sidebottom (aromatherapy, yoga, intuitive work), Patrick Tanner (Tibetan Buddhism) - and others. We will be meeting again for the first time in years, to share our experience in initiating the elements of this composite project. '

Apart from the discussion, which should prove very interesting and entertaining, the evening will also include a meditation, let by one of the above presenters.

Please be aware that there is a NEW VENUE for this meeting:

38 Russell Terrace, Leamington Spa CV31 1HE

Hope to see you there!