2024 - Exploring our Options - Connect
Sunset 20 to Sunset 21 September - Exploring our Options - Connect
No one has stepped forward to host an Autumn Equinox get-together, thus there is no plan to hold a face to face celebration.
However, a theme has emerged..... exploring our options.
Humans look for answers to the mysteries of life. It is our natural way to explore, it is who we are. We are curious.
Autumn Equinox is a time of transition when we can take a breath. Recognising what motivates us, reviewing resources and setting up stores. Just as nature has the ability to let go gracefully - the green leaves turn to gold - so we release what we do not need as we go into the quieter times of winter.
Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Bible - Matthew 7:7
Focus
To help bring creativity when considering your options you may like to draw a spiral on a stone.
- Does the spiral represent something specific? Earth, Sun, Moon or a god or goddess you want to tune into or circles of family, friends and community.
- Is the line continuous or dotted?
- Do you draw the line left to right - clockwise - or the reverse?
- How many turns of the circle do you make?
Martin Explores a Line across Ireland
Autumn Equinox 2024 I didn't feel like doing anything ceremonial but
instead I had 2 trips planned either side of the equinox. The theme was
quite literally exploring !
About twenty years ago I became aware of an alignment than ran for over
200km east to west across Ireland. The alignment is an equinox line and
connects landscape features and sacred sites. I felt drawn inrecent
months to re-examine the alignment and see how it looked on
the ground as opposed to a map.
The line runs from the islands of Rockabill to Boffin. An amazing equinox alignment joining many ancient sites and natural landscape features such as Fourknocks, Skryne , Lismullin Henge, Tara - near the confluence of Skane and Gabhra (east/west drainage from the hill), Belinter House, Corlea trackway and a host more sites across the midlands and west.
Rockabill, the first point on the line shares a very similar story to
Bofin in the distant west. The creation myth of Rockabill is about
Balor of the baleful eye (solar god) turning to look at a calf and cow
he was leading down the east coast of Ireland. When the calf separated
from its mother it bellowed out causing Balor to look around to see what
was going on. But his eye turned the calf and the cow to stone,
becoming the Rockabill islands.
Similarly, on the west coast at the same latitude, two fishermen
encountering fog lit a small turf fire on a stone slab on their boat to
keep warm. But when some of the burning embers fell out of the boat and
hit the water they were amazed to see the fog form into an Island. Then
as
they went ashore they spotted the Cailleach chasing a white cow with a
stick, striking it and turning it to stone. The island became the island
of the white/fair cow, Inish Bó finn.
Two islands with creation mythology involving cattle being turned to stone through enchantment, linked in myth and alignment.
As I mentioned, over the previous few months I felt I was being
magnetically drawn back into completing my exploration of this line.
So during a conversation with Mary, a friend advanced in energy work and sacred site tours, I asked when her next trip to Inish Boffin was planned. As luck would have it, it was shortly before the equinox and coincidentally I had a few days off work so I jumped at the chance to go out to the Island.
A week later I was on the ferry out to the island when a large cave caught my attention on the southern most tip of the island. I photographed it following internal prompts and later found out it was called Uaimh na gCailleach, the cave of the witch.
The following day I went on a walk to the west part of the island where I spotted many archaeological remains and low mound walls, most likely prehistoric.
Mary introduced me to a large boulder that had a huge mind expanding energy field all around it. On closer inspection the rock seemed to be non native to the area being an Old red sandstone in an otherwise Schist landscape.
| It stood in a prominent position and looked incredibly similar to the cat stone on Uisneach. |  |
Mary told me this is where her groups liked to come and bask in the energy. They had called it the Cailleach stone and its western face even looked like the face of an old Cailleach. On the maps it was labelled as "large boulder" and on other maps as Carraig an
Riaghailligh.( I'm currently trying to translate this term, but it may be something to do with kingship rituals and the goddess is the one who confers kingship through marriage of the land).
The strong earth energy at this point was like the strong type of force found at Dowth neolithic passage tomb. So I left feeling confident I had made contact with the energy associated with the Equinox line or perhaps what could be called the Cailleach line.
Coincidentally I was flying into Dublin airport a week after equinox and
again was prompted to take pictures out the window. As it was a lovely
sunny day I could see over the estuary in Malahide and past Lambay
island to a light house 20km distant, Rockabill!- the opposite end of
the line.
I had a reverie when I came back home and what came to mind was an image
of a thin straight blue line balanced by a triangle in the centre so
that it was like a see saw. At the balance point was the Cailleach,
chuckling to herself, watching to see if the line balanced.
I realised that at the sunrise position near Rockabill was the young
goddess Brigit and at the sunset end of the line in Bofin was the
Cailleach. In the reverie the line represented the continuum of the
goddess young to old, naive to wise. It represented an archetypal life
journey.
Reflecting, I felt where I was along this continuum within myself and
noticed that my balance point had shifted from where it had been years
ago, not good or bad just changed.
So I’m relaying my equinox story as it has unfolded. And just the other day a member of our Tara Celebrations group asked me would I be interested in doing something for Samhain......... and who is the Goddess at Samhain only the Cailleach.!!!!!
Pat in Eastern Ireland
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Nora in Derbyshire
Options
Pondering how to consider the options of what to plant in the garden for flowering next year I remembered the cubes we used to make as children... a paper fortune teller. After a few false starts the sequence of folds came to mind. I wrote the options on the flaps, colours, types of plant, etc. and the magic worked. Inspiration had finally come to something that had been bothering me.
Oseberg Ship
But... the spiral had not shown itself. But what unfolded next made perfect sense, as I have had an affinity with Scandanavia all my life, and particularly the north of Norway, inside the Arctic Circle.
In the afternoon, there was a programme on tv about the excavation of the Oseberg ship in Norway, and there, on the prow, was the spiral in the form of a dragon.
The unexpected part of the excavation was that the ship burial contained two skeletons. Not of Viking warriors or a king but two women. And so here it was, a spiral connected to women.
"One, probably aged around 80, suffered badly from arthritis. The older woman also had Morgagni's syndrome, which would have given her a masculine appearance and beard. The second was initially believed to be aged 25–30, but analysis of tooth root translucency suggests she was older (aged 50–55)." wikipedia.org
As there had been talk in the previous week of goddesses, cailleach, older women, it seemed that it would be good to acknowledge them, whoever they were, so I lit a candle to their memory.
What also came to mind was the so-called shelagh na gig on Hill of Tara. It has always seemed strange that this appears to have horns, or large pointed ears, and has often been likened to a cat. Figures like this appear on the ship's accompanying grave goods. Could it be....?
www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk - a replica ship in Denmark
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In the evening, as the sun set, the sky filled with mammatus clouds, beautifully photographed by Louise. We started a thunder and lightning storm that lasted for about 3 hours. Great flashes filled the sky and rumbling thunder came about 4 seconds later. Never nearer, but very present.
The interesting thing was that the ladies, the boat and the storm are all related through Saami stories.
Biekagalles - Bieka Olmai - Some have paralleled the Sami Storm God called Biekagalles or Bieggaalmmái to Niord (Njord or Njörðr) (Agrell, 1934). Ganander, Leem and Jessen describe Bieka Galles as a god of the underworld (Friis, 1871; 74).
He controls weather and wind, and can stop a storm (S. Kildal, 1730).
According to J. Qvigstad the Sami offered boats to Bieka Galles. Such offerings are known with the Tumulus boat graves (e.g. the Oseberg mound grave in Norway) in ancient Nordic and western Russia. https://saamiblog.blogspot.com
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