Day: September 19, 2018

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…First she was a speck, black against the sky, then she was an arrow balancing the breeze, finally, after measuring the hole in the wall of my room with her wing-span, she became an awesome, majestic weight, sprung upon my wrist…

“I know why The Devil is called a light-bearer, and why he’s said to inhabit infernal regions,” her bright eyes connected with mine as she stared, “hell on earth is really only a house hewn from stone, a hill-top mansion with an open roof-top, out onto the stars. Below ground in the mound of the hill are three expansive cellars, each of which is a winter month… “

… My Soul was back, her claws silently scratching my skin as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, preening…

“The blackness brandished by Lucifer like whiplash in a mean attempt to debase us is merely a…

We had already been sidetracked by St Edwold’s tiny church, but we were definitely on our way home now. Except, we thought that as we were passing, it would be a pity not to visit the little village of Sutton Montis, the place where the ghostly knights that sleep beneath Cadbury Castle are said to bring their horses to drink. We had tried to visit on the first day of the workshop and taken a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps we would have better luck this time.

So, sticking to the backroads as usual, we drove through the English countryside at its best. Small villages bedecked with flowers, vast swathes of vivid green against old, golden stone, tumbles of roses…and every so often, places we really wished we could have stopped.

The one place we had to pull over was the crossroads at Leigh, where an ancient carved cross stands on…

Full Circle?  – Finding the way home…
Penrith, Cumbria
Friday 7th – Sunday 9th December, 2018

Home. It is an evocative word. The images it conjures are different for each of us, yet few other words touch heart and mind in quite the same way. Birth and death, laughter and love, longing, fear and aspiration… the cycle of human life plays out within its walls.

For many, there is another ‘home’ beyond the physical confines of this world. That too may seem different for each of us and the path to its threshold is shaped by dreams. Few places illustrate this as clearly as Castlerigg, an ancient stone circle ringed by mountains and one of the most spectacular sites in the country.

The people who have walked this world before us have left traces of their lives and belief, written in stone upon the landscape. From church to stone circle…