We regularly share the stories of our workshop weekends on these pages. What is impossible to share on these pages is the sense of warmth, the laughter and the camaraderie that attends these weekends. Those who come along are not all members of the Silent Eye… in fact, the majority are not. It is not a requirement. They come for the sake of friendship, companionship and a shared curiosity about the mysteries of this land and the even deeper mysteries our human lives.

Three times a year we gather for informal workshops in the landscape, exploring historic sites and the spiritual history of those who built them. Sometimes we take a more modern landscape and seek a symbolic meaning, finding ways to apply what we learn to or own daily lives. Spirituality is not a noun, but a verb…

In April, we host a different kind of workshop, using a…

“At what point should we expect the contact with the universe to become deep and personal?”

The red-haired man in the corner had asked the question. He always sat in the corner of the talks and always asked a stupid question.  I could feel my lips curl… As a field officer in this particular mystical organisation, I had the notional responsibility for making sure such events went smoothly; and that such dumb questions were kept to a minimum.

I half turned from my reserved seat at the front and shot him a look – the kind of look that  said, listen, fella, you should know better…

He always sat in the rear left corner, always asked the kind of question to which you could not supply a clear-cut answer. Deep and personal! Who did he think he was, a guru or something?

Of such occasions is wisdom made; but…

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!

Robert Burns: To a Louse

“That’s my grandma!” proclaimed my three-year old granddaughter, pointing at the Wicked Witch on the stage.

“Oh no, it isn’t…”

“Oh yes, it is!”

“Shhh…” said her parents.

“Well, it looks like my grandma…” insisted Hollie, loudly enough to be heard by half the theatre.

I had not been at the pantomime… on stage or off… but every other member of her extended family took great delight in telling me about the event on New Year’s Day. The consensus seemed to be that it was the hooded cloak that had done it… because of the one I had worn when I had dressed up for Hollie‘s…

An old friend, now sadly departed, but formative in my younger days, used to say that there were two ways to deal with ‘seeds’: one was to bury them so that they could be forgotten; the other was to plant them so that they would catch the ‘tide of happenings’.

He often spoke of the ‘seeds of intent’ and how powerful a small beginning could be, if sown in the right way. Two questions spring to mind: the first is to decide on the precise nature of the seed, itself; the other is to decide where to plant it, and in what season.

Seasons are important. Nature’s outer cycle of seed, (seeming) dormancy, emergence, and fruition has much to teach us about how this circle of four provides an envelope within which all types of seeds become: planted, become born into a world they hope to inhabit, become children who…

Lost in sleep, all warm and cosy,
Wishing morning to perdition,
Dreaming deeply, all unconscious,
Snuggled down in prime position…
Wake abruptly, bedclothes flying,
Primal instinct, fear obeying,
Stand a moment, get my bearings,
Seek the source of awful baying…

There, beside the garden window
Stands a vision, evil-seeming
Black as night with heckles raising
Growling deep, with teeth a-gleaming.
Barking warning at the twilight,
Is it just her own reflection?
No, for I see something moving,
Kudos, small dog, for detection!

Eyes are glowing in the torchlight,
In the garden, something’s roaming,
Squint to get a better vision
In the half-light of the gloaming.
“What the..?” for a fox is watching,
Half amused at canine antics,
Just a pane of glass between them,
Fox is calm, but dog is frantic.

Five a.m. the clock is showing,
Neighbours should be deep in slumber…
Shush the small dog’s frenzied baying
Or…

After dinner in a cosy inn, warmed by good food and roaring fires, we set off for the final adventure of the day. Officially, the visit was not part of the planned weekend, but something we wanted to share with our companions. We had been granted permission by the landowners to visit the great stone circle of Arbor Low after dark.

In daylight, the site is spectacular. A huge henge… a banked and ditched earthwork… encloses a central space containing a circle of stones ranging from small boulders to great monoliths. None of them are standing and the official jury is still out on whether or not they ever were. Today, the immediate impression is of a clock face or a zodiac laid out on the ground… a star temple, perhaps, within the body of the Mother…bringing outer space and inner space together. There are rumoured accounts of the memories…

I have always thought that, from a mystical perspective, we are lucky to have winters. This may seem a strange sentiment, but I have my reasons. If we believe that we are a part of what is all around us, then the seasons assume great importance.

In reality each season merges slowly into the next, but our ancient forebears gave us four divisions of the year, each corresponding to a major ‘event’ in the way light – our primary enabler of outer consciousness – changes.

In the middle of the ancient Summer, the day would be longest. The time of fullness an warmth would have returned, albeit briefly, to the earth. The Christian church borrowed the ancient rites and named the Summer Solstice the Feast of St John; it marked a time when the joyful ascent of light (an upwards gradient, if you like), gave way, in a moment of…