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Halo Quin

~ Author, storyteller, witch

Tag Archives: Religion

Happy Solstice!

20 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by Haloquin in Enchanted, Following Delight, Magic, Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ceridwen, Community, Druidry, Fire Magic, Magic, Meditation, OBOD, Pagan, Patreon, Pride, Religion, Self Empowerment, Summer Solstice, Welsh Magic, witchcraft

I’ve just finished giving a talk based on my book, Gods and Goddesses of Wales, at an online moot for a group in South Wales, the sun is shimmering on the waters of the bay outside my window, and I’m filled with joy. I shared the tale of the Birth of Taliesin, about my philosophy for connecting with deities through stories, and about how we are our own authority in our relationships with the gods (just, y’know, don’t claim it is an independent truth if it’s a personal one!)

I’ve been so busy doing that I’ve not been updating here as much as I used to, but I’ve got some major projects in the works which I will share with you all very soon, so watch this space.

For today, however, I wanted to share a little meditation for the Solstice. Light a candle if you can, read the following, and then reflect. You can listen to the audio and sign up to support my work on Patreon here.

Today is the Solstice, where the sun stands still in the sky. In the Northern hemisphere we are bathed in light, and we can feel the sun strengthening our spirits. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the longest night, where the stars are held in the deep dark sky. There is a saying that every flame is part of the same fire, from the flame in your candle to the fire of the sun and the stars, so we are all connected in community together through the flame and the light.

The light casts a shadow, it illuminates and it obscures. In the darkness is the potential of all that could be, it is the belly of Ceridwen’s cauldron and the darkness of the fertile soil. We stand, bathed in light, whilst the world turns to head back into the darkness of potential and dreams. Even at the greatest point of light, darkness is, just as at the points of most darkness, light resides.

Place your hand on your heart and feel the sunlight fill it with golden light. Let that light grow with each breath. Spend some time reflecting on who you are when you are your biggest, brightest self. When do you feel most fully who you are in all your glory? When do you feel strongest, most powerful, most alive? Breathe in that feeling. Hold that feeling for a moment as you let yourself relax into this space. Feel the light of the sun filling your heart holding the light of your brightest self. Know that at any point you feel like you are struggling and the world is darkening, you can place your hand over your heart and remember this light, remember your strongest self. This is always a part of you, no matter what, so you can let it guide you through any darkness you encounter ahead.

Happy Solstice, lovely folk.

To listen on Patreon, click here.

And Happy Pride Month. For those that are still in the closet-shadows, and those that stand in the light, may we all be safely seen and accepted for who we are.

In Delight,

~Halo

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You can order my book on Amazon, or through your local bookshop! 

NEW BOOK RELEASED!!! – Gods and Goddesses of Wales

28 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by Haloquin in Creative Process, Following Delight, Magic, Stories, Storytelling

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arianrhod, Art, Bard, Bardic, Barn, Blodeuwedd, book, Branwen, Ceridwen, creativity, druid, Druidry, Goddess, gods, gratitude, Gwydion, life, Manawydan, Neopagan, New book, OBOD, Publication, Published, Religion, Rhiannon, Stories, Taliesin, Wales, Welsh pagan, witchcraft, writing

It’s here!!! Midsummer 2019 has completed a piece of devotion for me…

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Pagan Portals: Gods and Goddesses of Wales is out!!!

I’m really excited to announce the manifestation of my newest book, a practical introduction of Welsh deities and their stories, through their stories. It’s designed as a primer to get started on your journey with beings such as Rhiannon, Blodeuwedd, Taliesin, Gwydion, and more. There’s even a pronounciation guide at the back (thanks Sarah!)

Here’s the official blurb:

An introduction to Welsh deities through traditional myths and practical exercises. Written by a practising witch, living in the heart of Wales and working with the deities woven into the land, this book contains the major stories and backgrounds for the Gods and Goddesses of the heartland of the Druids. Within its pages you will find information on the major deities and where their stories can be found, alongside suggestions on how to connect with them and weave relationships with them into a modern pagan practice.

You can order this through your favourite bookstore, they’ll find it under author “Halo Quin” (publisher: Moon Books) or through amazon.

Looks like I’m living the dream… a published author 😀 Thanks to everyone who supports me, who encourages, proofreads, inspires, shares, buys, reviews and generally cheers me on. Couldn’t do it without you (In fact, without you all, there’d be no point.) This last year has been a wild ride and in amongst it all the gods of this land have been woven…I’m glad to do my part in sharing their stories. What is remembered, lives.

Happy Thoughts,

Halo Quin x

Overlooking a sunny Ceredigion Bay in wild, West, Wales.

Book Cover YFM

My first “Moon Book” can be found here!

 

The Forest, The Dark Mother and Elephant snot (part 3)

17 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by Haloquin in Following Delight, Magic, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Devotional, Faery, Goddess, Imperfection, Living Life, Magic, musings, Religion, Skande Vale, Strangeness of Life, Unexpected

Valli the Temple Elephant

An elephant's trunk is rough like stone... and its blessing is sticky!

A three-part story of a pilgrimage to The Community of the Many Names of God – Skanda Vale, part 3. Find part 1 here and part 2 here.

It was dark, night had fallen and I thought that Valli the elephant would be asleep for the night.

J, N, P and I walked past the door to Valli’s home, and P told us the story of how she gives blessings for treats as one of the Monks darted past us with a bag of carrots… and opened the door to her home.

“Would you like a Blessing?” He asked us.

I was in awe. She was huge and beautiful and had such presence. How could we say no?

She brushed my hair with her trunk and held it out for the carrot.

“Now that wasn’t a very good blessing Valli,” said the man, “try again”.

She placed the end of her trunk on my head… and SNORTED!

Ew! Covered in Elephant snot!

Queue peals of giggles and wiping with tissues. Valli got her carrot and I had a definite blessing! No-one else got snotted, so I feel honoured, if dubiously.

As we entered the forest to return downhill the sense of the land Spirit/s returned and, again, I was filled with Bliss. I wished the lights were off so we could walk through the forest in the darkness and feel Them more strongly. N turned to ask me how I was doing and, before I could tell them my wish, the lights blinked out leaving the path lit by the Full Moon’s light! Divine!

The curry, made from the food donated to the Temple and blessed in the Puja’s by the Gods, was heavenly too. Very, very spicy. As P says; ‘Religion is delicious.’

Its a fascinating place, Skanda Vale. Multifaith but primarily Hindu in form. Is it right to go and attend the Puja’s if the god-forms are not the ones you connect with most strongly? Is it cultural tourism to go to somewhere like this and participate when we don’t worship Kali at home? Is it ok that I see Her as a form of the Dark mother, who I do worship, and that I enter the Pujas with respect while seeing Kali as part of a larger form? I’m both a hard Polytheist and a believer that all is one. The faces of the Dark mother are an interface for her AND each Dark Mother Goddess is a being in her own right. She may not claim me, but I respect Kali and participating in her Puja’s move me, touch me, effect me in ways I appreciate.

As long as we enter into these relationships with respect and honour, following the rules of the Temple and the Gods and we hold a space in our hearts for these beings, then is it wrong?

Skanda Vale is a special place, deliberately open as a multi-faith space. Believing that all gods are, ultimately, the faces of The Divine. Protecting life where they can, offering connection to those that come with right-mind. In such a place as this to enter with respect and love – Perfect Love and Perfect Trust – is right, even when the Hindu Gods may not be your primary pantheon.

 

The Forest, The Dark Mother and Elephant snot (part 2)

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by Haloquin in Following Delight, Magic, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Devotional, Goddess, Imperfection, Living Life, Magic, musings, process, Religion, Skande Vale, Unexpected

Mother Kali

The Dark Mother is present and adored.

A three-part story of a pilgrimage to The Community of the Many Names of God – Skanda Vale, part 2. Part 1 lives here.

We were refused entry. Two of us, J and N, had not observed the obligatory vegetarianism and so knew they’d be watching from the terrace of the temple. But P and I had. As a full moon Puja it was more full than usual and so, there was no room for us!

Things will be as they will be.

The terrace is seperated from the main Temple room only by double doors and a wall with windows. A screen shows Kali throughout the Puja. The doors are open and the terrace is still part of the Temple.

I got as far as the door, the last female at the gates, and was told no.

Interesting.

As we sat and sang and rocked and prayed I let my ego roll the wound around my mind – Rejection! Rejection! it shouted. I waited until it calmed down and breathed through the disappointment. So close…

And then we came to a place where we could share in the place we were, my Ego and I.

Things will be as they will be.

Perhaps it was just as well – I had space to breathe, to move and avoid the pain of siting still for nearly 3 hours. I had space to breathe, to take in what I was able to and not be overwhelmed by the echoes of the burn-out from the pilgrimage I’d made there last. I had space to breathe, and to remember the place I find myself in many rituals – always on the edge.

At the last of Her Pujas I sat in the doorway.

Many many rituals I have ended up on the edge of the circle, holding the space, walking the boundary.

In my chosen career I walk the edges of acceptability – Philosophy does not look kindly upon Faeries.

In my religious traditions I tend to have to find my own way – neither dark nor light but both and neither.

On the edge.

I laughed and cried and sang and rocked and prayed. I smiled at the children who ran round the terrace. I searched for the words in the prayer book to try to understand. I made an offering of my pain and my singing to Her and I asked for her to destroy those blocks that no longer serve me. Those blocks that hold me back. Gladly, like the whirling scythe at harvest time, I felt her dance through me. I gave them to her. We’ll see if I try to claw them back again!

Shivering from the cold kiss of winter I entered the warm temple-room in the space allowed for the pilgrims to present themselves to Kali. I washed myself in her flame, knelt to her and accepted the blessings of sacred ash and colour and food that washed the body of the Goddess.

Time passed faster in the terrace than it had passed for me in the Temple room last time I was there.

Dealing with the disappointment and the cold and the strange experience of finding myself on the edge again was a good thing.

What will be, will be.

I really did not expect what happened when we left the Temple to join the other pilgrims in eating blessed curry…

The Forest, The Dark Mother and Elephant snot (part 1)

11 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by Haloquin in Following Delight, Magic, Reflections

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Devotional, Faery, Forest, Goddess, gratitude, Honesty, Living Life, Magic, Religion, Skande Vale

Skanda Vale Forest

The land is alive around us...

A three-part story of a pilgrimage to The Community of the Many Names of God – Skanda Vale.

Four of us walked through the darkening forest, a reddening full moon rising over the horizon as raindrops dripped upon our brows.

The trees were full of magic, the Spirit and spirits of the land – I could feel them around us, moving swiftly, watching.

I last stood on this land after an early morning Puja to Her, several years past. I’d stayed at Skanda Vale for two days with a friend and we’d been to every Puja each day. I was burnt out. The lack of sleep, the intensity of devotion-devotion-devotion in a language I did not really understand, the immense amounts of vegetarian curry (very tasty but not my normal diet!). We’d planned to stay a further day. I left that morning and said, even then, that I’d love to go back to visit the land if only I didn’t have to go to the Pujas too.

Last night, as I walked through that forest, I remembered why I fell in love with the land there.

Somewhere so alive my skin tingled and my heart overflowed with joy.

The twilight filtered through the trees and lit the way. I felt blessed to be able to feel the life that flowed through that place, recognising that the work I’ve been doing to open my awareness is not without success. I once thought myself as psychically sensitive as a brick, unable to sense the magic in the world around me. Now I step onto devoted land and almost fall over. Take heart, the things you long for can be developed over time.

I grinned the whole walk up through that beautiful, haunting forest and wondered what the Dark Mother, in the Dark time of the year, under a Dark Full Moon would share with us at the Temple that evening.

Skanda Vale’s site is here… and parts 2 and 3 of the story will be posted soon…

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Gods and Goddesses of Wales

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Pagan Portals: Gods and Goddesses of Wales – a practical introduction to the deities of Wales through their stories. Out Now!

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And for the over 18s… My alter-ego, Ms Quin, writes erotica, kinky poetry, on sacred sexuality and the like. You can explore some of Her writings and poetry readings, and find her sexy book of poetry via links at Twisted Ms Quin.

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