Dear Friends,
As the dark Solstice beckons through this
strange season of ‘non-winter’ with folk outside in tee shirts and shorts and
daffodils flowering I am reminded of the topsy-turvy world of Twelfth Night
gatherings when the normal order, the expected status relationships are stood
on their head.
So now we are being shaken away from the
expected norm and the comfort of being able to predict the future. Olivia’s lyrical
oracle that was part of our early autumn gathering at Hawkwood seems especially
relevant now: ‘When you seek me without my calling you, I am not to be found.
Yet I may manifest unexpectedly, in the heedless moment, as you put a foot into
a fast flowing stream, or climb to pick red apples....’
As we move now from Samhain’s thinning of
divisions to the culmination of the mysterious manifestation hinted at in
Olivia’s writings...what is it that we await? The sombre Advent of the
Christian cycle of the year, the defiant yet welcoming lights of Hanukah and the
return of the Sun?...What is hidden in the bright red apple, the black bird’s
song, the fast flowing stream where we can never step into the same place
again...?
My growing awareness as I read, study and
contemplate is the call of non-duality, of divine union and I feel this is what
we endeavour to move towards...the FOI, now in human terms is developing beyond
the tasks of the ‘first half of life’ so is able to move from the ‘setting up’
phase where the new identity needs to be strongly demarcated. In the ‘youth’ stage there is a need to make clear
comparisons; an awareness of the ‘other’ and how we differ from them.
Derry and Olivia in devising the manifesto
had the wisdom to see beyond this inevitable start up phase’s duality; through
their emphasis on the interfaith aspects of membership. They stressed that
members did not need to reject their ‘home’ faith, if you had
one...acknowledgement of and inspiration through the divine feminine could be
subsumed into your faith practice as a Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or whatever
you were. What a huge strength and generosity of spirit...a weaving of peace
and understanding through love of the Goddess, the Divine Mother, between the
world faiths.
Thinking about the 1970’s when I was studying
Speech Therapy and setting up my career in the NHS I remember it was a time, in
the UK at least, of huge demarcation between different classes, the unions and
management...the three day week emerged with rampant inflation and we were
about to tumble into the dismantling of nationalised industry with Margaret
Thatcher’s years as Prime Minister in the 1980s. This is the context for the
start of the FOI. The three founders saw how division and the patriarchy,
especially within the established churches were not connecting with what many
needed and wanted spiritually. The feminine aspects of the Divine had been
denied and neglected for so long that many felt their experience of spirit was
not acknowledged or honoured in the modern world. The very place of the FOI’s inception
offered a flow of energy that spoke to this need, as Pamela, now living in
Clonegal, one of Derry’s granddaughters has described so beautifully:
‘Here at
Huntington the well of knowledge burst forth from the land itself. Finding
willing recipients, the waters flowed freely spreading to all quarters of the
globe.'
Water too becomes subsumed into
the very being of whatever or whoever absorbs its life giving molecules to
foster continued vibrancy and growth. It merges with and becomes intimately
part of that organism, be it animal or plant. A real wholeness of existence.
I think and feel that this is
what we truly acknowledge and prepare for at this time; a joyful connection
with the wholeness of existence not just on the physical levels but also
through mind and spirit...so many people of the world’s faiths at this dark
time, feel this need to come together and affirm this ‘one-ness’ of light, of
spirit, of connection that is in the Divine Mother’s eternal embrace. A flow of
energy that connects and is part of us all.Cressida
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Fellowship of Isis Letters and Announcements
