Category — Personal

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This web­site is ded­i­cat­ed to Brigit.
We hon­our Her and What She Sig­ni­fies, The Heal­ing of Our World

Last night, on the 31st Jan­u­ary, the Eve of Brigit’s Day, I moved into action, re-invig­o­rat­ing a very ancient tra­di­tion of hon­or­ing the ancient ‘Celtic’ fire God­dess Brig­it: Her name may be spelt var­i­ous­ly, espe­cial­ly as regards the use of ‘d’ or ”t’ (Brigid/Brigit), which are very close­ly linked. She is also endear­ing­ly known as Bride and Bridey–thus Brides’ Well or Brideswell–the name of my husband’s and my web­site: www.brideswell.com–signifying MUCH! The God­dess of Heal­ing, Poet­ry and Birthing, is very well-con­nect­ed (smile!)–as the many wells, espe­cial­ly in Ire­land, contest.

In years gone by, my pal Kathy Jones (of Glas­ton­bury UK God­dess Con­fer­ence fame) and I, amongst oth­ers, revived the tra­di­tion of cre­at­ing Bridey Dolls, birthing a year­ly Bridey, appre­ci­at­ed through the year and beyond. So I too birthed a Bridey last night, attached my spe­cial Cal­i­for­nia wand (nor­mal­ly it should be of some tree or bush that starts with a ‘b’), and swad­dled her in an ornate Moroc­can trav­el­ling pouch left by my old Wise Crone Café pal, Mar­garet Kim­ber. I stood at the door and knocked thrice, and each time my savvy god­dess-wise hus­band (whose sur­name is that of the Great God­dess of the Track­ways, Elen) cor­rect­ly called out “Enter Bridey!” She entered our home offi­cial­ly and lives with us now, bring­ing Her Bless­ings. Tonight She will eat with us–’poundies’ (pota­toes), eggs and lots of but­ter and cream–as milk and but­ter are espe­cial­ly asso­ci­at­ed with her. Her bless­ings on our house will be many, as She is a benev­o­lent, heal­ing Pres­ence to a house­hold who hon­ours Her.

And for the first time I cre­at­ed a Brig­it ‘brat‘ (wait for it!): I placed a piece of unwashed cloth,  a white (milk-colour) hand­made shawl brought back from the recent 9th World Wilder­ness Con­gress in the Yucatan, out in our gar­den, as it is said that Brig­it will come by and turn it into a mag­ic cloth.  The full moon had risen (in Leo, my sun sign!), flood­ing the gar­den with clear and sil­very enchant­ment; I placed the shawl on a pro­lif­ic rose­mary bush (asso­ci­at­ed with The Fem­i­nine, as Sage is with The Mas­cu­line). This morn­ing, cov­ered with dew and a dust­ing of sil­very frost, I brought it it. It is now a heal­ing blan­ket to be car­ried Where Need Be.

Brigit’s Time–Imbolc–heralds the com­ing of spring, when wee lambs start to appear in the hills and dales of this Mag­i­cal Island of Britain, when ewes’ milk pours forth,  a by-prod­uct of which can be a love­ly cheese!

My hus­band and I often vis­it our favourite local ‘holy well’ in yes, Holy­well (near St Ives, Cam­bridgeshire). From being an over­grown bram­ble infest­ed site some years ago, it’s been restored and cared for (THE GREAT RETURNING has its own nat­ur­al momen­tum). Once there were many such such ‘holy wells’–too many have been sealed up or for­got­ten. They marked heal­ing springs, where in old­en times peo­ple would tie bits of cloth and oth­er items on branch­es of trees and bush­es near­by, as an indi­ca­tion of prayer for some heal­ing neces­si­ty. There are still a few of these in Scot­land and Corn­wall. Most such wells and springs would have had some linked asso­ci­a­tion with Brig­it or a form of Brig­it, often trans­posed onto some Chris­t­ian saint­ly fig­ure (males or female). Thus the ‘pagan’ Brig­it became St Brig­it, and Long May She Live in what­ev­er form She choos­es to take through these dif­fi­cult times, when we sore­ly need Her Heal­ing Touch.

Hail Brig­it!

There are many cel­e­bra­tions in hon­our of Brigit…as The GREAT  RETURNING gets under­way. As well as in Glas­ton­bury (where the God­dess Tra­di­tion is alive and well!), back in my ‘home town’ of Lon­don, Ontario (Cana­da), The Cir­cle up at Bres­cia Col­lege (at my old Alma Mater, Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Ontario) is spon­sor­ing a Brigid (Brighid) Fes­ti­val from 19–21 Feb­ru­ary: “Enter­ing the Matrix…Being Betwixt and Between”, fea­tur­ing the Irish schol­ar Mary Con­dren: “It will be a week­end of rit­u­al, learn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty, art, move­ment, work­shops and explo­ration as we reclaim the ancient female wis­dom tra­di­tions of Old Europe through the fig­ure of Brighid: http://www.brescia.uwo.ca/thecircle/brigit.htm;  Con­tact: The Cir­cle circle@uwo.ca “. My good god­dess-pal Penn Kemp, with whom I have facil­i­tat­ed a Great Return­ing work­shop last autumn in Lon­don, is also one of the work­shop facilitators.

The Pass­ing of a Grand Woman
Flo­rence Boyd-Gra­ham: Dec 22, 1913 — Nov 24, 2009

Flo­rence was born in Toron­to into the era of the First World War, lived through The Great Depres­sion, and with her hus­band, Lt Cdr William A. Gra­ham (RCN, RN, RCNR) and four (soon five) chil­dren, sur­vived the Sec­ond World War in Hal­i­fax, Nova Scotia.

The fam­i­ly moved back to Toron­to, did anoth­er NS stint fol­lowed by over 50 years based in Oakridge Acres, Lon­don. Los­ing her moth­er Nell at age 15 impact­ed her great­ly: she ded­i­cat­ed her­self to moth­er­ing, fol­lowed by first class grand and great-grand-mothering.

Hav­ing seen her chil­dren through the var­i­ous lev­els of high­er edu­ca­tion, she returned to Uni­ver­si­ty (the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Ontario) her­self in her late 70s, grad­u­at­ing with a BA/Hons BA (but did an equiv­a­lent of an MA) in Phi­los­o­phy. Dur­ing these years, she worked in Vet­er­ans Affairs, was a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Church, the Uni­tar­i­an Fel­low­ship (a ded­i­cat­ed choir mem­ber in both), and the Albert Schweitzer Soci­ety, fol­lowed by the Rag­ing Grannies (add ‘Rev­el­ing,’ she always said) who sing protest songs for good causes.

On the envi­ron­men­tal front, in 1962 she brought home Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, got involved in ‘Pol­lu­tion Probe’ and The Coop Store. An active mem­ber of CFUW and the Oakridge Ratepay­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, she nev­er ceased doing pub­lic service.

She trav­elled wide­ly to vis­it her chil­dren far and wide, and became a fond sup­port­er of The Find­horn Com­mu­ni­ty in NE Scot­land (where she vis­it­ed eight times).

Her favourite gath­er­ings were her local week­ly ‘cof­fee group’ with dear friends Pat Dins­more and the late Eve­lyn March, her month­ly book club with David Smith and friends—and of course good-spir­it­ed bridge parties!

Flo­rence was, in essence, a grass­roots philoso­pher who spoke her mind, whose search for ‘truth’ was unstint­ing. Her inter­ests were both wide-rang­ing and breath­tak­ing. Our fam­i­ly home, ‘540’, was vir­tu­al­ly an Open House for over 50 years, fea­tur­ing notable par­ties, work­shops and late night ses­sions. She brought the World into the Cana­di­an sub­urbs and turned her back­yard into a wood­land wildlife haven. She rep­re­sent­ed the best Cana­da can boast of: A Grand Woman—not a ‘lady’, she said, that smacked too much of ‘the aristocratic’.

Our world is less with­out her phys­i­cal pres­ence, but indeed, she walks tall amongst us in the best of Cana­di­an life, what made us Cana­da from 1913–2009, and through her sur­viv­ing chil­dren, Robert, Joan, Leona and Ralph—her dar­ling youngest son Ian passed away in 2005—and final­ly through her grand-chil­dren Lau­ra, John, Bruce, Nathalie, Kim-Ellen, Lila, Alex, Lara and Dan­ny; and her great-grand­chil­dren Gabriel­la, Gar­rett, Sean, Geordy and Charlton.

Fly high and free ‘Sophia’-Florence, as you trav­el the heights with Socrates and Plato—and of course, the Great Sappho.

A memo­r­i­al ser­vice was held at Mt Pleas­ant Chapel on Fri­day Decem­ber 4 from 1–2pm (see pro­gramme below).

Memo­r­i­al pro­gramme — click for PDF

Main pho­to cour­tesy of the Lon­don Free Press