the raven

This concert has been cancelled.

Trui says:

Event being held in the beautiful , ancient church of St Pancras – wonderful accoustics, said to be on the oldest church site in North London, from c350 AD , in an area described by William Blake, our Druid chief & prophet, that inspired the poem-hymn Jerusalem.

7:30pm Saturday 27th October 2007 At St Pancras Old Church , Pancras Rd, London
A Sacred Harmonic Healing Concert of Celestial Harmonic Singing, Transformational Gong Journeys,
Divine Tibetan Singing Bowls & Sacred Mantra Chanting. With Michael Ormiston and Candida Valentino

8pm on Sunday 11th November 2007 At St Pancras Old Church , Pancras Rd, London NW1.
Altai Himalaya Concert celebrating Michael and Candida’s New Album Altai-Himalaya

Hello Folks,

I just wanted to say Hello and thank you very much for all the nice greetings, which were given to me by Steffi.

I had a great Samhain here in Scotland, I celebrated it with the Edinburgh Seedgroup in a place called Whittingham, near East Linton. They have a HUGE Yew tree there – I have never seen anything like it. It must be about 20 m high, with a trunk circumference of at least 2m. However, the best thing is that the branches, being very heavy, have come down to Earth and created new trees, so that the central tree is now surrounded by a grove of smaller trees. In the East, there is an artifical opening, and you can walk under the branches inzside the tree grove. There, it feels as if you are in a tipi, and we had space for all 20 of us to create a circle. Just fantastic.

I would strongly recommend you visit the tree if you are up here, but it is on private land and though the owners are very understanding, it is bloody hard to find. Still worth it, though…

Apart from that, I was on the central Dundee Bonfire last night, and that was even better, as they had a huge fire and brilliant fireworks accompanied by Music. Just great, and altogether one of the best Samhain celebration I ever had. Still, I miss the London Seedgroup, and thought about the great rituals I had in Youth’s garden….

So hopefully I will make it back to London occasionally, even though at the moment this seems doubtful. I feel as if I am crossing the border into chaos and stress as soon as I reach the Forth bridge, and am always happy to get back to the quiet life up here.

Bright Blessings

Petra

Trui sent the following information:

December 20th – PF London open Yule celebration by Jacqui and the Tribe of Avalon. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn, 7.30 for 8.00 start. All welcome.
Bring food and drink to share at the party afterwards. Entrance £5 (£4 PF members & concessions). FFI:pflondon or Mani on 07768 941 373.

January 6th – Twelfth Night Traditional Celebration
held annually in Southwark at Bankside by the Globe Theatre and run by The Lions Part theatre group.
It includes the arrival of the Holly Man by boat, “bringing in the green” and wassailing the people and the Thames. There is a Mummers play, King Bean and Queen Pea handing out cakes, and the event ends with story telling, the “Kissing Wishing Tree” and dancing at the historic George Inn in Borough High Street. This is a free event that will happen whatever the weather and all are welcome. FFI: thelionspart.co.uk.

In case you weren’t exited about the coming year for the Tamesis seedgroup, go and have a look at Andrew’s new web site, Wild Yew. He will be offering the group a craft day at his workshop, were we can all learn to make our own magic with wood. Watch the calendar!

As has become the custom at Samhuinn we met at Youth’s beautiful spacious house in Wandsworth. There were two new faces: Samantha, a longtime member of OBOD who’d been practising alone for a while, and Ginnie, who’d just signed up for the Bardic Course after living in the Galapagos Islands for several years and, latterly, finding herself longing for the woodlands of England. With Steffi, Cilla and myself, that made five which I hardly heed mention is an eminently suitable number of people for a pagan ceremony, perhaps especially one where the Goddess was clearly going to be a dominant influence.

We spent some time sharing our progress to date with druidry, and our stories of this year. Then we moved on to our hopes and fears for the next one. These were deeply personal of course so I will only share one of mine which was that I’ve had a great year exploring various themes sparked off by the Ovate Course and druidry in general, healing with herbs, identifying trees and flowers, reiki, storytelling and my first experience of camp, so my fear is that next year can’t possibly be as good as this one has been but we shall see.

Then Cilla took us outside where we carried out a simple rite, calling in the directions as usual, before each peering into Cilla’s scrying bowl and then each taking one of her beautiful Tarot or Deva cards for the year. All I could see in the water was leaves and light and my reflection (scrying not being one of my major talents) but on reflection, if you’ll forgive the pun, that’s not so bad. I was less pleased with the card I drew but decided to look at it as positively as possible in the hope that the positive will then manifest.

Then inside for tea and a selection of cakes – a fine and magical English tradition. Thanks, Cilla for your thought and planning, and thanks to Youth and family for the loan of their house and garden.