Sunday, June 30, 2013
Taking my own advice!
You may have noticed the blog has been a bit quite this last
week. As
many healers we are quite often the worst patients. This week I have had to
take my own advice. Not always an easy
thing for any of us to do.
I won’t go into any of the details other than to say I had a bout of
Gastro, we have all experienced the symptoms to know what it does to your
body. Once the symptoms subsided enough
I moved into the recovery phase. To begin with I only wanted to sleep but
being dehydrated I needed to be rehydrating as well, so for the first couple of
days consisted of sleeping and taking sips of water whenever I opened my eyes.
After four days of nothing but water and electrolytes I
needed to start refuelling my body if I was going to heal. So into the kitchen I went and cooked up a
huge batch of veggie soup, 24 different veggies to be exact. So this has been my diet for the last couple
of days, soup, soup and more soup. Add
some sunshine whenever I could, not that easy being Winter, but thankfully we
have had some beautiful afternoons this week.
I have forced myself to rest, not an easy thing for me, but I know if
I don’t I won’t be able to continue my journey.
Rest, rest and more rest. I have gone back to basics with my
diet and supplements to assist my body in its recovery. Dug into my
supplement cupboard and started on Mega
B, Zinc and Vit C. This is my
preferred combo to not only boost my immune system but to assist my body for
normal daily functions.
By Friday I was beginning to feel human again, in time for the
weekend. Sunday I spent a wonderful day
with some amazing women who are journeying their Inner Goddess Makeover. This month we met Athena who governs our
Solar Plexus. It
is a great honour as a graduate of this amazing journey to support the new
women through their journey. Each month
I am blessed and inspired to see these women transforming and stepping into
their own Inner Goddesses.
So with my inspiration fuelled and my body feeling healthy again I am
excited about the beginning of the new financial year and continuing on my
journey. I
have a lot of dreams and goals to manifest.
Now is time to get this New Year started with Manifesting Monday. Get out your
Manifestation Lists and start working to make them a reality. Nobody else can do this for us, we need to
take control and make the commitment to ourselves to improve our lives and do
what makes our hearts sing.
Happy
Manifesting!
P.S. The new Website is now live, it still needs some work but its on the way. Please drop by and visit.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Winter Solstice - Yule
Southern Hemisphere – June 21st
Northern Hemisphere – December 22nd
The Winter
Solstice is the longest night of the year and at Sunrise is the birth of the
Waxing Year, the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter until Summer
Solstice/Litha, the shortest night of the year.
The
Winter Solstice can be a bit harder to celebrate in the Southern Hemisphere as
Yule is associated with Christmas and here we are in the middle of June.
Although this does not mean that we can’t celebrate it. It is Mid-Winter and it is the Shortest Day
of year still. The Winter Solstice still represents the birth of the Sun God
and days begin to lengthen from this point onwards.
We can also
take the blessings from Yule, honouring the return of the Sun and all the
promises that this time brings. The birth of Sun God is the birth of our potential. As the days grow so does our potential. What we birth/create for ourselves at this
time can benefit from the Energies that come with this significant day.
The
Anglo-Saxon word for Solstice is Yule, that is derived from the Nordic word “iul”,
meaning “Wheel” or “Sacred Circle” or “Wheel of Nature.
This is
the witch's Christmas; so to speak. It is a time of feasting and
celebration. In the Myth of the Wheel,
it is the time the Goddess as the Great Mother who gives birth and the Sun God is re-born.
As with
Samhain, this is a time that the Church were unable to convert the masses so
came up with their own myth of the Birth of Christ from the Virgin Mother
Mary. The
church originally celebrated Christmas in August but as the people the resisted
their celebrations, they were forced to move their celebrations to December to
coincide with the pagan festival.
Virgin is yet another word that’s meaning has been altered in modern
times. Originally
the term Virgin meant that a woman was not promised to a man or married. Therefore, a Virgin Mother was an unwed
mother, yet again another contradiction in the teachings of the church. A Virgin was therefore free to give herself
to any man she chose. In the Ancient
Temples, Virgins of the Goddess or ‘Vestal Virgins’ were very active
sexually. Men who visited these temples
gave themselves to these Virgins as an act of worship. Any children born from these acts of worship
were considered as a gift from the Goddess and given the utmost respect by the
temple members. The Virgin, who is more commonly
referred to as the Maiden were not the shy young girls as the church wished to
turn them into but wild and free vibrant full of energy seeking the wisdom of
life and her place in the world.
The Sun
God who is born at Yule will become the Goddess’s Lover at the Spring Sabbath
of Beltaine and the father and son again at Yule. As our ancestors
relied on the sun’s powers to grow the crops and provide light it was important
that when the nights grew longer and the days shorter that the Sun God was
called back to he’s fullest. In
ancient times many cultures only had two seasons Summer and Winter, unlike our
four seasons, which now include Spring and Autumn.
In Norse
traditions, Yule went for twelve nights, which perhaps is where the modern
twelve days of Christmas originated. This was also a time for them to contact their departed
ancestors, just as the Celts do for Samhain.
In ancient Egypt, they celebrated the return of their Sun God Ra
and also the creation of the Universe. In Egypt, December was the
beginning of their short raining season and it was said that if it rained on
the eve of Yule it was a special blessing from Ra whose tears brought new life
on the night of his birth.
Native
Americans celebrate Soualanwal, which means to Bring New Life. They would aid the return of the sun with a
Birthing Ceremony.
In many cultures Yule represents the
beginning of the new year and as the year was represented by the Wheel it
became a tradition the symbol for Yule became a wreath of holly that was hung
on the front door, which is still a tradition practiced today by pagans and
non-pagans alike.
The tradition of giving a Yuletide gift originated from leaving
out gifts for the departed ancestors from the previous year.
This tradition continued to grow into the giving and receiving gifts we
now enjoy at this time. Although, like
other festivals this is a time that has become over commercialised and has lost
much of the original meaning that was intended.
Another tradition of this time was the burning of the Yule Fire. Great
fires were lit to welcome back the Sun. The
ashes of the fire would be kept for use in ointments and other healing products
and a log would be kept until next Yule to be burnt again.
©Ange Foster
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
It's the Weekend!!!!
It’s
the Weekend already! A four day work
week is a nice change. I hope you all
enjoyed the week and ready for the Weekend.
What have you got
planned for the Weekend? I hope you have planned sometime just for YOU!
Making
Self-Care part of your Weekend schedule will not only make your Weekend more
enjoyable but it will improve your overall Health and Wellbeing.
Self-Care does
not need to be long drawn out rituals, although they can be nice, there are
many small things that will have the same effect. Below is just
some small things you can do, hopefully it will help you become creative and
come up with some of your own ideas. I’d
love for you to share them with me, either here or on my Facebook Page.
Enjoy
your Weekend!
Wow! What a ride the last couple of weeks have been.
The amount of
change and manifestation I have experienced has been surreal to say the
least. I am not sure where to start as
the journey to get to where I am sitting at this moment and writing this
started many years ago. As all journey’s
do.
 |
| Before Makeover |
 |
| Before Makeover |
Over the Long Weekend we just had I spent the whole three day’s converting the beginning of my dreams into reality. My so called “office” (spare room) was not the space I needed it to be. I had done what I could working around spare bits of furniture that we had nowhere else to put when we moved in, you know how spare rooms end up. Anyway, it is time to make the changes needed to start creating the life I want.
So that’s where I am now sitting in my new Creative Goddess Temple Space. No longer is there pieces of unwanted “stuff” in here. Each object has been picked and placed exactly where I want it to be and the best thing that because it is my space if I want to change it again I can, but at the moment I love it just as it is. My space now represents where I have evolved to and as I evolve and grow I am sure my space will too.
Now you know
where I am but I need to tell you how and why I am here, how I got here and
what I plan to do next.
I recently signed
up to Leonie Dawson’s Biz Life Academy.
Now I am not going to give you sales pitch, unless you ask of cause, but
anyway I digress. I have started an
e-course and the first week’s notes where Leonie’s story and we were asked to
share what inspired us from her story. Well to be honest I was inspired to tell my own story. In the process I am hoping it will help me
define why I am here and what I am going to do next.
So,
where do I start the story? I won’t bore
you with my whole life story. I will be
40 this year and am a Mum of 2 amazing almost grown up girls aged 17 and 20. I injured my back at work in 2005 and now
suffer from Chronic Pain due to a degenerative disc disorder. This has slowed
me down physically but it hasn’t stopped me from creating the life I want.
Having my girls
young has meant that I have done things opposite to most people. Instead of going to Uni and starting my
career first, I had my family first. It is odd to see many of the people I went to school with
only just beginning their families when mine are all but grown. Now I said I wasn’t going to bore you with my
whole life story so I think you have a bit of an idea of where I am at in my
life at the moment. Now to the catalyst
that changed my path.
In
February 2009 the Bushfires hit our beautiful piece of the world. For a month we lived on high alert with
blazes surrounding us at times. We
evacuated 5 times during that month. 2
cars loaded with 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, my Mum and Hubby and I.
At the end of the
month I remember I was watching the Aid concert on TV and the rain came. Man did the rain come. We all went outside and danced in the
rain. We were
finally safe, we could finally let our guard down and relax. While I was dancing in the rain I declared to
the Universe that it was my time to start doing what I was put on this earth to
do. I wasn’t
sure what that was at that point in time I just knew that it I had been given
the opportunity do what I wanted to do.
My girls were both in High School and I knew it wouldn’t be long until
my role as Mum would evolve into the next phase and that I was 36 and still
young enough to do whatever I wanted to do with my life.
I
became a student. I studied Holistic
Health, Meditation, Stress Therapy, Inner Woman Development, Mind /Body
Connection. The list goes on. I thought I was going to go into Holistic
Counselling and see clients one on one.
Who knows I still might do that but my goals and situation has changed
slightly. I could not believe it I was
getting 100% on every assignment I sent in.
I felt like I already knew the things I was learning. I loved it. I was researching
and writing nearly every day and I don’t remember being happier and more content.
I was there for my girls before
and after school every day and doing what I loved. While I was studying I began
volunteering with the Bushfire relief effort at a Complementary Health
Clinic. Before long I was employed as
Admin Officer and working up to 50 hours a week. My Mother passed away from a long battle with
Breast Cancer and I only took a week off to “deal” with everything. Needless to say I
burnt out. I have written an article
about this on my Blog.
Then 9 months ago
we moved into this beautiful new house, still renting but loving the freedom it
gives me, I am sure I must have gypsy in me
somewhere. It was just before the
Spring Equinox so I decided to hold a gathering as the house is perfect to facilitate
such events. Hubby even dug out a Fire
Pit in the back yard for me.
Since
the start of last year I had already been writing “info” sheets on each of the
Seasonal Celebrations for a friend of mine so I printed some off and handed
them out to everyone and before I knew it I was holding circle. We had
a wonderful evening.
I had been
attending Red Tent since October 2009 so it was really nice to share circle
with our men too. The next full moon
Hubby and I were sitting outside when I decided that One on One counselling
sessions were not what I felt drawn to do anymore, it didn’t seem enough. I have so much to
share that one on one just wasn’t going to cut it. I decided that I would hold more circles to
coincide with the Seasonal Celebrations and share with our community what we
have forgotten in the Modern Age. I
started blogging and set up a Facebook page. I have now held 3 circles and have started
co-facilitating workshops with a friend.
I have knowledge that don’t just
want to share I feel an obligation to share.
Over
the last 9 months I have been writing more about how being connected to the
Earths Seasons and Cycles we can improve our Health and Wellbeing. By honouring our bodies and caring for
ourselves we can improve our lives. We do create our realities. Whatever thoughts we give energy is what we
manifest in our lives. I used to
think that was just some New Age jargon and never really believed it. Until I gave it go. To my
amazement it actually works. Once you put
energy into the thoughts the thoughts turn into actions, the actions then turn
our thoughts into our reality. It
really is that easy.
By
creating my own business I can work my own hours. The hours that are mine now. My role as Mum, as I predicted, have evolved.
My eldest daughter, now 20, has moved
out and is going to Uni and my youngest daughter, 17, is doing a School Based Traineeship. On the mornings that
I wake up at 4am I can create to my heart’s content. If I need to go the Physio or Doctors I can
go. If I want to go out for lunch I can.
There
you have it. How I got to where I am now. I am about to
turn 40 and have that amazing feeling I did at 18 that the world is at my feet
ready for me to step into what I am meant to be doing. My past
was not an easy journey, I experienced a lot of pain and suffering from a young
age and due to the pain made some decisions, that like most of us, that perhaps
were not the wisest at the time but I don’t regret
my past, in fact in way I feel blessed by it. All of my experiences have made me who I am
today. If I had not had those
experiences I would not have learned the lessons that were put in my path.
In Australia, the
Aboriginals used to use fire to rejuvenate the land, many of our plants need
the heat of the fire to create new growth.
I feel that for me the Bushfires cleared away enough of the old dead
would hanging around for me to see my way clear and find my path again.
“The Phoenix
rising from the ashes.”
I
have sown the seeds and now beginning to see the new growth emerging. It is exciting and scary all at the same
time.
Now
it is time to start sharing my wisdom with the world. Through my creations I will be able to share
with the world the knowledge and wisdom I have stored inside me that is
bursting to be released.
I
may have had one hell of ride to get to here but it’s time for me to go and
find the bigger waves and start enjoying the ride.
© Ange Foster
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
11/6 Photo a Day
Something Funny
I
have very creative birds where I live. This is one of their
"masterpieces"! No editing just the mornings "artwork".
Monday, June 10, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
It's the Weekend!!!
Happy
Friday Everyone!
Are you ready for
the Weekend? Some of us are lucky enough
to have a long Weekend ahead of us.
Now
we all know what the weekend means by now, its Self-Care time. Eventually we
will all realise that it is not pampering and is essential to our overall Health
and Wellbeing. If we don’t care
for ourselves we will get to the point where we can’t care for those we
love. I know that sounds harsh but it’s
true. We
have to put ourselves at the top of the to-do-list if we are to have any chance
of getting through the list.
I know I write
about this every weekend but I believe it is even more important now for us to
learn how to care for ourselves. We have
more demands put on us in this new digital age where everything is 24/7. If we don’t schedule
in Self-Care we are likely to never get round to it, until it’s too late and we
have burnt ourselves out.
This
weekend also brings us the New Moon and with the New Moon comes New Beginnings. What is it that you want to attract into your
life? What is it you want to set in
motion for the New Month? Make sure you check out my Facebook Page for all the New Moon
updates.
I have busy but
fun weekend ahead of me. I will be creating my new work space. I can’t wait to share some photos with
you. With
the added bonus of it being a long weekend I am hoping to devote Sunday entirely
to being creative in my new space. Then
on Monday I am looking forward to snuggling up on the couch with my lovelies
and having a DVD day, something we haven’t all done together for a while.
So
whatever you have planned for the Weekend make sure you schedule in some time
just for YOU! I’d love to hear what
adventures you get up to.
Till next Week take care of YOU!
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