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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in sacred sites

My spiritual and magical life has always been very much tied to the land. I’m very fortunate to have been able to explore some wonderful truly wild places, and to have made pilgrimages a great many times to a large proportion of Britain and Irelands sacred megalithic sites. These sacred monuments and enclosures were constructed thousands of years ago by our Neolithic, bronze age and later Iron age ancestors. Visiting and taking extended vigils at some of our most revered as well as some of our lesser known sacred ancestral sites has been central to my magical and spiritual training since I was a teenager.  To me, working and communing with the powers of place, the spiritual guardians of these places, has provided the most potent aspects of my instruction and I feel I have built up a close relationship with many ancient sites that are as personal and dear to my heart as my relationships with my fellow humans. Many of these places are small, lesser known sites well off the beaten track, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to foster a deep relationship with some of our better known and even famous megalithic sites, having spent time there and held ceremony within their enclosures for many years now. One of the most often misunderstood of these is also the most famous- Stonehenge.  I’ve been fortunate to have been able to have private access to Stonehenge a few times a year for quite a long time, more often than I have ever visited as a tourist. I feel blessed that it is so. During the heady days around the summer solstice I might well visit the stones more than once, and this year when the site is closed, I’m feeling a real sadness that my regular pilgrimage cannot take place. Visiting when you have private access is very different than the huge open public solstice gatherings, that are so famous, when thousands of party goers get to climb all over the stones and unfortunately leave a lot of rubbish behind. Equally, when visiting as a tourist, one is lead around a circular path and are able to only see the stones from afar, as it if were a circus attraction, or a paining in a gallery. Sadly, these two extremes are how many people see Stonehenge; as a place of wild revelry, from a distance on a paid tour, or saddest of all, from the window of a car on the A303 road, stuck in traffic, choking the air of this sacred place with petrol fumes.   

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Crone on the Road

Happy Bealtaine! The sacred fires of Uisneach were relit on Sunday evening, on the cross quarter day. Summer is officially in, even though the temperatures were chilly.  But the hawthorn is in blossom, the cow parsley is frilling the lane, everywhere I look from my window is lush and green or in blossom.

For the third year running I have been away form home for Bealtaine or in transit. In 2017. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/bealtaine-in-bloom.html), I was with Wise Woman Ireland at our weekend in Newgrange. Last year I was merry meeting on May Day in Glastonbury. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/a-glastonbury-beltane.html.)

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

Sometimes you don't realize the power that energy carries.  I have been teaching my girls about energy, you know, how everything around us has a type of energy attached to it.  It's almost funny watching them as they discover this and the thought process clicks and they realize that there are reasons why they feel the way they do about things around them.

We talk about residual energy and how every person and thing that comes into our house leaves an energetic imprint of some sort.  As well, our emotions leave imprints of energy.  I explained that this is why we need to cleanse the house of energy as well when we vacuum, dust, and clean the house in the normal way that most people think about cleaning houses.  Intention plays a large part in this cleaning.  Most people who do not do energy work can still clear the energy out of their house through simple cleaning, as it is their intention to clean and make their space feel clean, feel fresher, feel better.  They seem to watch, pay attention as things change around them and us.  They are mindful of the people we meet and who come to visit.

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I have been going through many challenging days lately.  Many make me question my path, my career, and where we live.  Life is suppose to test you, sometimes daily.  But, man oh man, I've been feeling as though it's tests are getting harder, and I am getting older and don't feel as strong.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

The equinoxes have been marked across the British Isles since the earliest times as agricultural markers, revealing the times of seed sowing and crop reaping as well as honouring the patterns of growth and decrease in our lives. In Ireland the Neolithic burial complex at Loughcrew known as Sliabh na Callighe of  'the hills of the veiled one' contains many astronomical alignments, and the interior of one of its structures, known as Cairn T is illuminated by the equinox sunrise, revealing spectacular designs carved into the rock over five thousand of years ago.  Archaeology reveals that Loughcrew has been a place of ritual and ceremony at the equinoxes for much of that time, a tradition that has been revived enthusiastically in the modern era, the footsteps of the pilgrims today walking the same paths as the ancestors thousands of years ago.

Another lesser known ancient place aligned to the equinoxes is West Kennet Longbarrow, part of the Avebury sacred complex, now a UNESCO world heritage site. I've spent many a night here, in communion with the ancestors, and to me this is a place where the barrow forms a recumbent goddess, receiving the spirits of the dead to return their spirits to life in the spring. 

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Today, 31 July, marks to first Polytheistic Day of Protest and Remembrance. This Day was established to honor the numerous ancient and sacred sites threatened, or even destroyed, by Daesh. As the official website notes:

This is not a Syrian issue. This is not a Muslim issue. This is a world issue. It is a human issue. Daesh is purposely targeting memory. They’re targeting their history, and their own physical connection with their polytheistic ancestors. It is done to demoralize, terrorize, and desecrate.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Apologies for the long time between posts--but I have some news to share: Llewellyn Worldwide is publishing my project--MAPPING THE MAGIC!

 


The book is about sacred sites in America (along with other related goodies) and will explore the magic of Washington, D.C. and the states of the Northeast: Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine--as you can see it will hopefully be the first of four books, each covering a different area of the country. HUGE thanks goes to Anne Niven at BBI Media who's been publishing my Wandering Witch feature at Witches & Pagans magazine since around 2007 ♥ 
 
To celebrate and spread the news about Mapping the Magic I'm hosting a GIVEAWAY! You can win a TWO year subscription to Witches & Pagans magazine or one of four copies of the current issue of the magazine. Click the link below to enter the rafflecopter giveaway (also on my blog at http://nataliezaman.blogspot.com):
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Please enter, share and spread the word :)
♥ Thank you so much for your support! ♥
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