On the anniversary of her passing to the Spirit realm six years ago on November 14, 2013, please join us in remembering Olivia Robertson, co-founder of the Fellowship of Isis. Here is an audio clip of Olivia speaking on her family and the Goddess Dana:
(mp3 / 4.6 mb / 4:40 mins)
"Dana has showed herself to me and so I follow her way. Her hair is of the sun, her skin is pale as the moon and her turquoise blue mantle surrounds islands as the sea. Yet she may appear with golden-ebony skin of Africa, or with the copper glow of the Mayans. She is both Earth Mother and Queen of Heaven. I've seen Goddesses in full consciousness. Here, I fell right down into some depths below sleep. And there this Divine image came and gave a kind of happiness that no other Deity appears to bring. Each Deity has their own gifts for us.
"My own vision was in 1952. From 1960 to 1974 the Goddess came to us regularly with messages from spiritualist seances in the Bridge House in Clonegal. It was then that I was given her name: Dana. The visitations were accompanied by strong silvery, electric power. It was really almost overwhelming the first time, we had to hold hands somehow to channel it.
"After my brother and I had founded the Fellowship of Isis in 1976, Dana showed herself to our Priestess. The rest of us, heard angelic chanting. This was from deep men's voices alternating with contralto women's voices. This actually lasted for 15 minutes. The Goddess has also shown herself to our Wicklow neighbour, a famous Healer, 7th son of a 7th son. She gave me this message through him: 'Go on. Do well. Preach My Name.'
"Our own family goes deep back into Irish Celtic tradition. We belong to the Clann Donnachaidh of Ireland which emigrated to Scotland about 1,500 years ago. Later the name Donnachaidh - Duncan - was changed to Robertson. Our branch returned to Ireland when my grandfather, Herbert Robertson, M.P., married Helen Durdin, the owner of Clonegal Castle, which was built by Lord Esmonde who married the granddaughter of Grainne Mhaol, Queen of Connacht, pirate queen - she still appears in spirit by a spy bush.
"My grandfather could be called an Honorary Druid because of his monumental work, 'Stemmata Robertson', tracing our Gaelic ancestry. Our cousin, the author Robert Graves, also undertook Druid work by listing the Druid Tree Alphabet.
"In our field bordering the Derry is our ancient Bullawn Stone. Thousands of years ago this was used for grinding corn, so forming a cup which holds healing rain water. The power is in the stone, the water carries it. It was sacred to the Sun and Grain Goddess, Grainne. It is still used for curing warts by local people. It was joined at the turn of the century by a meteorite that landed by our avenue, and glowed for two years. Rooks sat on it warming their behinds. A meteorite is a legendary marker for a Holy place. Within our Temple of Isis in the castle is a Holy Well traditionally associated with the Bullawn Stone. The castle was built around it in 1625, so our ancestors have always drunk from its healing waters. The well is dedicated to the Goddess Brighid. We use it for everyday drinking, ritual and healing, and promoting psychic vision.
"My brother Lawrence and I discovered the ancient Paganism of Ireland when we were children in the early thirties. We used to go by donkey cart upstream by the Slaney to visit a hermit, Daniel Fox. Mr. Fox was our local Merlin. As he and I sat over a fire in his cottage, he would tell me of his visions of Pagan people who lived by the river thousands of years ago. He would see and hear them, he said, as they rose at early dawn. They would drink from a well, bathe in the river and then assemble at an altar stone, high on the steep slope of the bank. There they would wait for the sun to rise across the river. Mr. Fox would show me the altar and well every time I visited him. He kept them clear. When I was sixteen I painted pictures of the ancient ceremony as he had described it."
Archival link: The Life and Work of Olivia Robertson
http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/oliviarobertson.html
(© photo of Olivia with a picture of her mother, taken by Dennis Murphy/Logic Reality; audio by the FOI Homepage Archive. All copyrights reserved.)
