Bega of the Gifts (June 2009)

St Bega's church, oil on canvas by Doreen Wilson

Bega of the Gifts

by Carole Young

I have recently become a member of Bega of the Gifts; I am delighted about this as I have had a lot of faith in the healing power of the Goddess as manifested through Bega since I first encountered her in the summer of 1989 whilst in Cumbria with Alex Langstone. Since that time I have requested her assistance and healing many times for myself, my family, pets and friends and other’s with positive results. Friend’s have also asked me to ask Bega for help and healing for their pet’s, she does have a very special link with animals, I have found in particular with Cat’s and of course Bees but all animals really and also children! All good Goddess attributes!

I also included Bega healing in my involvement with Reiki therapy and teaching. Some of my student’s particularly resonated to Bega’s energy and the whole story of mine and Alex’s quest in the Lake District that led us to discover Bega in our lives. Some told me that they went on to develop their own meditations and visualisations to contact this positive healing force. I called Bega to attend, along with the Reiki Masters when attuning students to Reiki if they wished. Most felt they accepted her as an expression of ‘The Goddess’.

Quite a few year’s ago now (time flies) I gave a talk accompanied by slides about the Bega Quest and a lady in the audience called Doreen who was an artist felt inspired to visit Bassenthwaite Church and lake and paint the scene in oils for me as a gift, which she did. The painting was beautiful and as you can imagine is highly treasured! (Doreen's painting is illustrated above). Creative inspiration is indeed another of Bega’s Gifts. The site of this church is idyllic and the energies there are very balanced with lake, mountains, trees and meadows and a beautiful stream running down from Skiddaw Mountain making its way to the lake.

I have a photograph of Paul’s beautiful maze painting to link me in with the healing grove in Cornwall and I am sure many ‘linked in’ healing meditations will ensue!

I recently had cause to request healing from Bega of the Gifts and the results were excellent as I knew they would be, it was at the same time I became a member. It may seem strange to some that I work closely with Bega myself and yet requested healing from the Iseum. Well, all I can say is I felt I needed the help and healing and intuitively it felt right to do so. I was at a low ebb and as I reached my lowest ebb I felt the healing flow towards me and within me, there was an immediate shift for the better and continued improvement. I surrendered and then the healing came through! One could say I felt Bega’s Sacred Breath upon me at my time of need!

Sometimes it is good to ask for help.

Actually, I feel a positive shift in energy in my connection with Bega, a strengthening of the link and a fresh new cycle of communing with her Goddess Energy. I think it’s empowering when people work together in harmony, love and trust and much can be achieved. As the saying goes “when a few are joined together”. Sometimes we are asked to work quietly on our own on our spiritual journey, meditating and seeking guidance from within and with the spiritual energy we are working with. Then at other times it is right to join with others of like mind and this is valuable and uplifting!

I would like to take this opportunity to write about yet another of Bega’s Gifts. Many times over the year’s I have become aware of Bega’s subtle presence by the sudden and inexplicable aroma of the most exquisite and delicate perfume. This happened once again the day before I contacted Alex to ask for healing from the Iseum and I wonder if other people may have experienced this also?

Bega told me year’s ago during a meditation with her that she is Bega of the Gifts and this indeed is true!

So, I am delighted to be a member of ‘Bega of the Gift’s Iseum’ and I would like to say a hearty ‘hello’ to all other members!

HAIL TO ISIS - HAIL TO BEGA

In the Cosmos she is One

On Earth She is known by many names.

Her Heart is LOVE!

Beltane 2009 at Tredethy

The Druid Grove of Bega observed Beltane at their new home high up in the hills of North Cornwall. A new outdoor hearth was inaugurated, as they lit the Beltane fire amid mature Ash, Beech, Alder, Oak and Sycamore.

Tredethy Beltane Fire

Life in its abundance manifests all around now; blackbirds are nesting nearby, hedgehogs and toads feast nocturnally on mollusc's and newts have colonised our sacred woodland pond. Nature surges, energy quickens, life pulses. The sun has set through the Sycamore thicket, and a half moon rides the starry sky!

Earlier in the day the ancient yearly fertility ritual was performed at Padstow, and the streets of the Cornish port thronged with colour, music and ceremony. Now at dusk, it is a quiet time for reflection. A timeless sense of the Eternal Spirit of Nature; communion can be achieved at this special time betwixt day and night - at this crepuscular hour the song of summer reverberates through all things. All is one - the heartbeat of the universe hums on the still night air.

Beech, Sycamore and Bluebells at Tredethy

2009 Vernal Equinox Sunrise at Castlerigg

The following photos were taken at dawn on the Spring Equinox 2009.








The Equinox sun climbing the side of Clough Head Fell from Castlerigg Stone Circle.

Pictures by Paul Atlas-Saunders

2008 Montol Festival Photo Gallery

"The Lords of the Night"

Druid Grove of Bega Tatters Guise Dancers

Crowned with Yew, symbolic of death and rebirth the Winter Solstice
Penglaz dances into the night (Photo credit: Sarah Jenner)

Torchlit procession through old Penzance town (Photo credit: Sarah Jenner)

Druid Grove of Bega Tatters Guise Dancers and the Turkey Rhubarb Band
join together for Guise Dancing in Chapel Street. (Photo: Sarah Jenner)

Golowan Band leads the torchlit procession

Lescudjack Montol Beacon

Guising at the Chalking of the Mock

All photos by The Druid Grove of Bega unless otherwise credited

Click here for the Spirit of Albion article about this festival and it's links to esoteric practices across Europe

See here for the official Montol website (external link)

Winter Solstice in Penzance

The Druid Grove of Bega joined with the musicians and guise dancers of the Turkey Rhubarb Band to celebrate the Winter Solstice in style. We danced our way through the historic Chapel Street of district of Penzance. For a full report on this year's Montol festival click here

Picture credit: Sarah Jenner

Save the Holy Headland at Penzance

Please join with the Druid Grove of Bega and support this very worthy cause.The natural world is shrinking every day, and every wild place we can save will help the natural world. This site is of immense cultural significance to the townsfolk of Penzance. More importantly however is the loss of the natural history of the area. The beautiful rock pools full of colourful life, the basking Seals, the sea birds and Dolphins. Please sign the petition now to help us to save this special place. For online petition click here.

Also please see my article relating to this saga on Heritage Action's Heritage Journal here

Sandy Cove, Penzance

Sunrise viewed from Sandy Cove, Penzance

Don't Let Cornwall County Council Rip the
Sacred Heart out of Penzance
A preliminary report by Alex Langstone

Information is starting to trickle through about a hidden plan to build a car park and ferry terminal over the sandy cove by the harbour at Penzance, Cornwall. This is the beach where Celtic saints landed at the holy headland (Cornish Pen Sans). This is the ancient sacred heart of the modern town of Penzance. The site of St Anthony's chapel lies close by and the remains of a dark age cross found by this beach, now resides in St Mary's churchyard just up the hill. We must stop this happening. Seals and Dolphins are regularly seen swimming here, the rock pools are full of beautiful anemones and fish and the view across the bay to St Michael's Mount is unsurpassable!

Contact Save the Holy Headland website now, where you can download and read The Limpet, the broadsheet dedicated to telling the truth about this project. A project that has been deliberately hidden from the people of Penzance!

Above: The Front and back cover of
The Limpet No. 3. November 2008 -
Click images to enlarge.

http://savetheholyheadland.blogspot.com
Email here: savetheholyheadland@yahoo.com

What to do now?
Protest now by writing to the following:

Andrew George MP, Trewella, 18 Mennaye Rd, Penzance TR18 4NG. Tel: 01736 360020
Fax: 01736 332866 www.andrewgeorge.org.uk
Secretary of State for the Environment. The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR

Sign the online petition now by clicking this link here

If you are local, visit the beach, take photos of the wildlife and protest, tell people and keep in touch!

You can also help by downloading, printing and distributing The Limpet newspaper from the savetheholyheadland.blogspot.com website. The more people we tell the better.

Rock pool at Sandy Cove, Penzance

Druid Grove's Winter Meditation

The well used Winter Wild Wood Mystery meditation has been published in the Samhain 2008 issue of The Mirror of Isis.

The Mirror of Isis is the online journal of the Circle of Isis, a Fellowship of Isis global advisory board. You can view the Druid Grove of Bega meditation here. Thanks to Linda Iles, Editor of the Mirror of Isis for her continued encouragement and support.

Chûn Quoit in October

Photo: Alex Langstone

Samhain: Remembering the Dead

To counterbalance the ever present negative media-hype of Halloween, and the often hideously corrupted traditions that this modern secular and trashy festival now entails, I have written this piece to allow a glimpse into the true meaning of this ancient and very sacred time of year.

Samhain: Remembering the Dead
Prose and Meditation to Honour our Ancestors
by Alex Langstone

The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Time of remembrance and of honouring the dead. The season when the veil is thin and contact between the great divide can be made. The ancient feast is still celebrated throughout the western world as the secular festival of Halloween, on October 31st. However it is only a distant and very corrupted memory of what this sacred festival is all about. It is interesting to note that in Britain, Remembrance Day on 11 November seems to tie in symbolically with similar themes and the bonfires lit on 5th November to commemorate Guy Fawkes' failed act of terror have without even realising it, become a modern secular continuation of the sacred Samhain fires. The Christianised festivals of All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day are celebrated on the 1st and 2nd November respectively. In the Goidelic Celtic languages of Scottish Gaelic and Irish, Samhain means November, and the entire month resonates with the meaning and symbolism of the ancient festival. In Cornwall the feast was known as Allantide, or Nos Calan Gwafand in Brythonic Celtic Cornish. Penzance particularly had the custom of giving Allan Apples, large red apples to each other on October 31st for good luck and this custom persisted until the late 19th century. Turnip lanterns were made and lit after dark and stories were told about the ancestors and the otherworld of faery folk and enchantment!

Samhain is about remembrance, communication across time and space and especially honouring our ancestors and remembering our deceased loved ones. It is also a transition point in the yearly cycle. Winter is just around the corner, the harvest is complete and longer nights and shorter days are upon us. The sun's power is waning and leaves are falling from the trees. In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Gaelic language is still Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna, and it is still the custom in some areas to set a place for the dead at the Samhain feast, and to tell tales of the ancestors on that night. The symbolic act of opening a door or window in the west for the beloved dead, who are specifically invited to attend, is central to this ancient custom. Many leave a candle or other light burning in a western window to guide the dead ancestors home. Divination for the coming year is performed, and this is a time for deep communion with God, Spirit or the localised deities of the district, especially those whom folklore mentions as being particularly connected with this festival.

Samhain Prose.
Crows crowing, flapping somewhere overhead. The wind cries the ghostly song of the departed. We stand alone in this desolate, yet welcoming place. It is cold, and dusk is laying her blanket over the rolling landscape of sweeping, undulating hills. The naked twisted trees dance in the half-light of a cold autumnal evening, and vicious clouds scud across the menacing sky.

Old ossifying bones lie hidden here. The bone-yard of the ancient ones lie sleeping in this valley, and the ancient mortuary house holds the key to this place. Half buried under four thousand years of mud and stone - but only half-buried, still!
Whispers, half forgotten whispers from the dimming memory of yesteryear. Whispers fade in and out, blending, melding 'twixt the winds playful movement 'neath the trees. We can almost taste the past here! Fleeting and unknowable, but tangible and contradictory. All of this and more. Scattered shards of invisible bone. Ghostly hair, tooth and nail hide here amongst the invisible remains of last years decay. New life sprouts, mushrooming fungus and multi-coloured lichen have successfully colonised this enclosure.

This space, this sacred area of the deceased; the departed ones who haunt another realm, an inaccessible realm of half-fulfilled dreams and visions of poets and painters from across the ages.
Ancient prehistoric lines of power converge here. The shining pathways of the ancestors, corpse roads and coffin paths where we walk with the dead.

It is dark now, and the Yew tree observes all from the darkest corner of this enchanted world. This is the ancient, wise and cunning you!

Tree of departed souls, tree of renewal, guardian tree of graves. The old twisted branches rustling and creaking in the ghostly vale of dreams. Associated with immortality, renewal, regeneration, everlasting life, rebirth, transformation and death.The Yew is considered to be the most potent tree for protection against evil, a means of connecting to your ancestors, a bringer of dreams and otherworld journeys and a symbol of secret ancient magic. In hot weather it gives off a resinous vapour which our ancient far distant ancestors inhaled to gain visions. Yew wood was regarded as especially magical to the Celts, due to its connection with the dead and the ancestors which were deeply respected. Let the lesson of the Yew be observed - welcome travellers!

Samhain Meditation.
You find yourself standing in the corner of a churchyard by a huge ancient Yew tree. Its hollow trunk, gnarled and split with age, appears like a gateway leading us into the night! A crescent moon illuminates the darkened sky and the stars glisten. This is a thin place! Allow yourself to be guided along the shimmering old straight track, from the thousand year old Yew tree and it's surrounding grave-stones we walk along a well defined path. This ancient corpse road follows an even older line of earth energy and it has a purposeful and meaningful destination. An owl screeches and a rustling is heard in the nearby undergrowth. Nocturnal creatures are busy. Old fashioned lanterns light our way towards the hill of the dreaming dead. Ancient standing stones pierce the landscape, and wayside wheel-headed crosses lead us to our enchanted destination.

A fire is burning on a nearby hilltop, a bonefire! The assembly cast the bones of the Samhain feast into the blaze, remembering and honouring around a beacon fire, burning into the nights darkness, lighting a pathway into the dreamtime of the departed. But this is not our destination, we have a date with a more ancient edifice. We continue along the faintly illuminated trackway leading us deeper into the immortal starry velvet night. We walk through ancient woodland, its trees stark against the night. We are heading into Bone Valley. A deeply connected and primitive valley. A place of antiquated trees and antediluvian secrets. Bone Valley will soon divulge our holy destination. The moon's crescent appears once more between the protruding branches, which seem to reach out to the night sky. The clouds have dispersed and bright stars shine like timeworn torches in an antique indigo sky. Soon we arrive at a clearing and we see a stony structure, megaliths protruding from the earth. They are curbing a large oval mound and beyond the stones, through a well worn entrance, we find a gaping black opening leading into a stone chamber. Some of the stones have been carved and round indents cause the surface of one stone to stand out, its quartz veins shining, illuminated by the pale moonlight.We sit within the confines of the barrow's heart. We listen to the silence. We light a solitary candle. We pray for the loving departed.

We emerge from the otherworldly chamber of the neolithic shrine to the dead. It is dawn, and the eastern sky is glowing an iridescent red. The sun is rising, lighting our way home. We follow the pathway back to the source of our deamtime adventure. past the bonefire hill, along the old straight track which leads through the heart of the November woods and the ancient sacred Yew. We take leave of this place, with its needles of stone and its earthy shrines to the dead. We find ourselves in a churchyard, amongst the gravestones, the sun is shining and the crows forever crowing. We are home. We remember!

References and Credits.
November Woods.Tone Poem by Arnold Bax.
Belerion: Ancient Sites of Land's End by Craig Weatherill
Tregiffian Neolithic Entrance Grave photo by Alex Langstone.
Samhain Yew Portal by Paul Atlas-Saunders
Lelant churchyard wheel headed cross photo by Paul Atlas-Saunders

Poet Alex Langstone is head of the Druid Grove of Bega, a pantheistic Anglo-Celtic grove. The Grove has an active online presence, offering meditations, poetry, ritual and other related articles, through Spirit of Albion - www.alexlangstone.co.uk

Meditation in this Busy Chaotic World

Every so often I find the need to read this famous poem. It serves as a reminder and a cosmic set of principles by which I try to live life. I fail all the time, but just by reminding myself, I find that I strive to achieve more of what this poem speaks about. So go placidly and meditate upon the themes. Try one line a week, as a focus for contemplation and meditation.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann