Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

Technicalities…

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Stuart France

***

It has long been accepted… That christian clerics… Were largely responsible… For committing the oral Celtic stories to paper… And thus preserving them… Such a preservation… Seems to have been dependent upon… What today we might call… A christian spin being… Put on and… Written into the ancient Irish tales… The monastic ‘scriptoria’ where this process was carried out were, indeed, the state propaganda factories of their day and in many cases this spin… Was quite clumsily achieved… To this day it remains fairly obvious to even an untrained eye… The Voyage of Bran is a case in point.

***

The ‘banshee’ or ‘fairy-woman’… Who appears at the beginning of the tale… Is stated in the text to have sung fifty quatrains to Bran and his host… Yet she only sings twenty-eight… When Manannan mac Lir appears… He is said to have sung thirty quatrains to Bran and his company… Yet he only sings twenty-eight… Bran sings one lay at the end of the tale… Which makes a grand total of fifty-seven quatrains… Quatrains twenty-four to twenty-six… Of the banshee’s lay… Relate to a ‘prophecy’ of Christ… Quatrains thirteen to seventeen… of Manannan’s lay… Also relate to such a ‘prophecy’.

***

If we subtract the seven quatrains relating to… ‘The Prophecy of Christ’s Coming’… We are left with fifty quatrains… Which we can be assured represent… Musically speaking… The original content of the tale… The banshee sings twenty-five quatrains… Mannanan mac Lir sings twenty-four quatrains.. And Bran mac Febal sings one quatrain… Quite apart from this little tell… There do seem to be other number puzzles… Within the text…

Continue reading at France&Vincent

Posted in adventure, albion, Art, Books, fantasy, fiction | Tagged consciousness, Humour, story, writing | 3 Comments

The Calling – Review…

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Sue Vincent

Top reviews from other countries

Hey Presto

Magical from start to finish

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 21 January 2023

Verified Purchase

Read in one gulp and magical from start to finish. An account or a trip to Scotland and the Hebrides led by the gods or the fates or both visiting circles, monoliths and churches along the way. The magic of the land fills every page told in magical fashion by the authors. A lovely read.

***

Because we had risen so early and wasted no time getting back on the road, we had several hours left before the ferry was to sail from Tarbert. We decided to use them seeing a little more of the island and set off back towards the tiny port. The morning was still clad in grey mists, but that took nothing away from the beauty of the hills, moorlands and lochs through which we passed. There were few places where we could stop to get pictures on Lewis, but it was enough to just drive through the wild majesty and to be there.

Seeing a sign for a café, we turned off the man road towards Ravenspoint… a name at which we smiled, given our associations with these birds… hoping to find coffee. The road took us along the shores of Loch Èireasort, an eight mile long sea inlet whose name echoes a time when the land was home to invading Vikings. We saw no sign of coffee for miles, so sat beside the shore for second breakfast from our supplies, watching the clouds, before turning back to rejoin the main road south.

We eventually found a small shop where we replenished our foodstuff before continuing southwards. The bleak peat moors had already given way to more mountainous country and was now changing yet again as we moved from that part of the island known as Lewis to the Isle of Harris. The rocky terrain and narrow road that snakes between the hills effectively hid the landscape ahead from view. We had no expectations, no idea of what we would find… until we turned a corner and saw paradise laid out before us.

The clouds broke, leaving a sky full of both drama and sunshine. The sea was a rainbow set in turquoise crystal, ringed by dark hills, emerald lawns and silver-gilt sands. I have never seen a lovelier place… and it took my breath away.

***

I stopped the car and we got out, awestruck. Who knew? I might have believed my eyes had I seen the scene as a picture in a travel brochure for some tropical island… but here, so far north… and in the British Isles… No photograph does it justice. The clarity of the sea, the shimmering opalescence of the air, the contrasts and colours, brilliant… jewel-like… I was lost for words.

***

It was odd too… yet again the rainbows. We had worked with rainbows at the April workshop and they had been waiting for us around every corner, or so it seemed. Sometimes in places you might expect, like the spray from the ferry’s wake. Other times, they were most unexpected… like the rainbow seas we had been encountering. We shouldn’t have been surprised… It had been just a few weeks since the April workshop and, every year, the symbolism we work with at that event seems to play out visibly on our travels. At this point, though, we were just lost in wonder, little knowing how weird it was going to get the following day…

***

We drove on, stopping occasionally to just drink in the landscape. The water was pristine, glassy and deep… you could see the clear seabed and all I wanted to do was dive in and lose myself in the turquoise depths. There is magic in the air and the shores are bordered by machair, the fertile, grassy dunes, strewn with wildflowers. You can easily understand why so many legends have emerged from these waters.

***

Above one beach, overlooking the Sound of Taransay, we spotted the ten-foot tall standing stone called Clach Mhic Leoid, or MacLeod’s Stone. Little excavation has been done at the site, so there is no official interpretation of the stone. There are boulders clustered close around its base… it may be part of a burial place or sacred site. It may have been a clan marker or part of a stone row or alignment. All that is known is that it was erected five thousand years ago, around the same time as the stone circles of the island, and that a skull was found close by in the dunes of the shore.

***

It is certainly not an isolated site, as one of the houses by the roadside at nearby Horgabost has the remains of a chambered cairn in its garden. I don’t often get garden-envy, but…

***

©Mike Shea at Geograph

***

It was almost noon by the time that we finally found our first coffee of the day… and the first comfort stop too. The Seallam visitor centre also has a bookshop… always fatal… and we came away with a book of Scottish folk tales sporting a unicorn on the cover… another of those symbols we had been working with over the weekend and which had kept putting in an appearance.

***

Considerably more comfortable, we hit the road once more. We were hoping to reach the southernmost point of the road, at Rodel, which had a medieval church that we wanted to see. By the time we arrived, we had driven the island from east coast to west and almost from top to bottom, meandering down small roads in a state of dazed wonder. The church would provide a grounding return to normality… or so we thought…

***

The Calling –
Callanish! The name alone is capable of conjuring a mystical reverie.

Ah, Callanish…
Soskin completed his personal odyssey into pre-history there.
It was there also, that Cope stood in the moon.
…Ah, Callanish.

This mysterious ancient monument stands atop a ridge, overlooking the waters of Loch Roag,
on a Scottish Isle in the Outer Hebrides.

It is about as far away from the everyday world as it is possible to get in the British Isles, and
within its tall, thin, white stones, so the legends say, the moon dances the whole night through.

All adventures are good but some adventures are better than others…

Includes the first act of, ‘Where Beauty Sleeps’, the 2020 April workshop!

Posted in adventure, albion, Ancestors, Ancient sites, Don and Wen, france and vincent | Tagged Isle of Harris, landscape, Outer hebrides, peat, road trip, Scotland, standing stone, stone circle, travel, Western Isles | 3 Comments

Knights, saints and leys…

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Sue Vincent

***

Walking through the town towards the church in Bakewell, I couldn’t help thinking that it was all a bit weird. There were inexplicable gaps between what we had seen and what we had been brought to realise, gaps that were only filled in by some fairly heavy research. We don’t normally go in for genealogies or land records, but this time, the situation seemed to warrant it.

The St Michael and the Dragon window at Skipton had started us off on a journey we had no idea we were taking until we finally arrived. And we are still not sure whether we have arrived or are merely taking a break. Probably the latter.

Shortly after Skipton, and in preparation for the weekend, we had wandered into Bakewell to revisit the church. We have been to All Saints too many times to count and find something new every time. They are usually things we have already seen, but which become significant only when we have put together new pieces of the puzzle. This time was no different. The St Michael window had set us off talking about the dragons that adorn the church tower in Bakewell. Both St Michael and the Dragon are associated with leys and one ley, or ‘dragon line’, runs through Bakewell from Arbor Low stone circle.

***

St Michael is particularly associated with the ‘Michael and Mary’ leys that run right across the country. Churches dedicated to both Michael and Mary are found on or around the line and it is something we have been looking at exploring further. In Christian terminology, St Michael is slaying evil, or, quite often, paganism. In basic esoteric terms, the saint may be seen to represent the ‘higher’ self, bringing the ‘lower’ self under control.

We had noted that the tower of All Saints is octagonal and has a dragon on each of the angles. Eight sided towers are very unusual. The church, founded in 920AD, is superb and contains examples, not only of the arts and crafts of a thousand years of faith, but also of many of the anomalies we had found in our explorations.

***

In the porch is a collection of Saxon and Medieval stonework. We had been primarily occupied with the Saxon period, but now, the eight-sided geometries of the carved crosses on many of the stones caught our attention. Especially as many of these cross designs are associated with the Templars…

***

Just inside the door is a magnificent carved font dating to the 1300s. Oddly, that too is octagonal. Beyond the font are the information boards, and for once, we read them, looking for any facts about the tower. We learned that it had been funded by ‘wealthy land owners’ coming into the area… So had the Newark, the newly designed side chapel of the south transept.

***

St Hubert, with his stag is the first stained glass window you come to. Between the stag’s antlers is the vision of the crucified Christ. Christianity overcoming paganism again? Or the more abstract Christ-force crowning earthly consciousness? St George and his Dragon stand beside him, and looked down on us indulgently as we wandered, taking in the lily sceptre of the little ‘Walsingham Virgin’ who looks like Isis holding Osiris.

***

A little further down the north aisle is a Henry Holliday window of all saints and all angels, surmounted by the Agnus Dei. While that symbol may be used to represent Jesus as the lamb of God, it is also a Templar symbol much associated with John the Baptist who was beheaded by Herod. And the Templars had been accused of ‘worshipping a severed head’ many believe may have been that of the Baptist. The knights had been rounded up in France, their lands confiscated, and many put to death. In England, some were held at Clifford’s Tower. Others escaped and, following the Underground Stream theme of the weekend, themselves went underground.

***

The mystery deepened as we looked again at the Comper reredos of St George apparently fixing his dragon to the earth, while above him, two golden dragons support the crucified Christ. In esoteric terms, you cannot help but see the symbolism of ascension through transmutation. All of which seems rather alchemical. But then again, both Comper and Holliday had thrown us curve-balls before.

***

And there is the almost unique Foljambe memorial, showing the knight and his lady looking out of a window, surmounted by shields bearing their arms… the scallop shells of the pilgrims and the fleur de lys. Godfrey de Foljambe was a prominent landowner and a Knight of the Shrine, a term we had not come across before. A bit of research showed that a Knight of the Shrine is part of a confraternity authorised by the Church and with special dispensations. The Shrine Knights at Bakewell met in the Newark, the south transept that had been funded by wealthy landowners… The same chapel now holds the tombs of the Manners and Vernon families of Haddon Hall.

With all due respect and discretion, we dowsed the entire church and found anomalies indicating an eight-pointed star of currents, directly beneath the tower. We also found a pattern that reflected an odd symbol on a bishop’s tomb in Scotland that had been puzzling us. But it was not until we realised that the geometry of the octagonal tower is based on that of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, that it all began to make sense.

The Templars had identified the Dome of the Rock as the Temple of Solomon. They set up their headquarters in the building next door and used the Dome on their official seals. Legend has it that they found a great treasure beneath the Dome. Perhaps it was not a treasure of gold and silver… perhaps all they found beneath the temple built by Solomon, famed for his wisdom, was the Underground Stream…

***

An ancient landscape, shrouded in mystery, strewn with stones and the last of the summer heather, scattered with sites of ancient sanctity. Stone circles, an enigmatic fortress rising from the bracken like a ship to carry mind and imagination back beyond the veiling mists. Time becomes fluid, stories carved in millstone grit by ancient hands come to life beneath the racing clouds, and all around is beauty. Spirituality is not about looking the part, it is about living it. There is a kindness, an openness and a generosity of spirit that characterises those who have set their feet on their chosen path and turned towards the light that guides them. Here too is something curious, because the bonds of friendship are freely given and although there may be regret that there is not more time and few of us know when we will next meet, there is an ease about such moments; as if our accustomed normality has paused for a while and we return to it enriched by our sojourn in a different world… a world that will take up its conversations as if we had never left should we return to it.

***

The landscape of Derbyshire is littered with stone circles and mysterious sites, where our ancient forebears honoured Nature and communed with the Ancestors.

Many still visit these ancient and sacred sites today, some seeing them as no more than relics of a far distant past, others seeking to reconnect with the spirit of the living land.

They are strange places, serving purposes unknown or alien to the modern mind.

Do they still function in an era where the sacred landscape has been forgotten?

Is it possible to read their story from the land itself, accessing earth memory or touching the spirit of place?

Hob Hurst’s House now available in paperback from Amazon

Posted in adventure, albion, Art, Books, esoteric, Sacred sites, travel, Trickster | Tagged consciousness, imagination, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography, psychology, story, writing | 3 Comments

Big Book of Giants…

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Sue Vincent

Beyond the forest’s leafy shade,

The hooded one, with giant’s pace

From pinnacle to pinnacle

Leap’t silently, in moonlit grace…

In eremitic solitude

In caverns deep to meditate…

Within, the riddle of the night,

A key that will elucidate…

Beyond the stones, to four once nine

To where the goddess meets her mate

And heavens dance at winters turn

Bends earthwards to illuminate.

***

The Haystack seems a misnomer for the huge rock that sits beside the path that leads towards Backstone Beck and looks down to the Cow and Calf. It is a very special rock. Between archaeology, myth and the stories woven by my grandfather, it has a very unique life for me. It is an altar, a place of ancient sanctity as sacred as any other.

It stands at the edge of the Green Crag cairn-fields… a place of the dead from a time when the dead were honoured; their presence sought, their wisdom valued, and their place in the Otherworld perhaps not so far removed from the hearths of the living. This huge, altar shaped boulder, covered in carvings stands at the entrance to the necropolis which extends across Green Crag and beyond.

My grandfather showed me how to pace out the two circles of small, almost buried boulders that surround the stone and told me that this was a place of sacrifice where the groove in the rock carried the blood out to the edge of the moor. In spring you can faintly see a strip of lighter green… Of course, the lurid tale delighted the child I was, sending those delicious shivers down my spine, yet I never saw a problem with sacrifice in essence, only in the bloody practice. It always seemed to me as if they had the right idea, but had misinterpreted the deeper meaning and the death need not be physical. Then, you see, I was an odd child, I suppose, with an even odder upbringing.

These days, I still delight in sharing that tale, although the circles may now be officially classed as prehistoric walling dividing, perhaps, the realms of life and death. I feel that this may have been an altar upon which the dead rested on their journey to the cairns to be brought to birth in the Otherworld. Perhaps the carvings map the heavens or the journey through the veil to that Land of the Dead… perhaps they map the moor itself… We do not know. My grandfather told me the figure carved there was the sun god… perhaps he was right. Or perhaps it is simply a man… or a woman, a goddess, about to give birth… Or maybe it is something we cannot know. It doesn’t matter. It matters only that it shapes our thoughts and fires the imagination as it points across to the Pancake Rock.

This stone too is covered with faded carvings. It juts out from the edge of the moor with the necropolis behind it. From one angle it looks like a hawk poised for flight, but most of the time it is the profile of a face, the flat rocking stone on the top his hair, or his hat. It is said that only an honest man can move the rocking stone. It is also said, with a certain amount of local pride, that no Yorkshireman ever has… Some say it is the face of a druid, some that of a god; I was told it is Giant Rombald who sleeps there… he for whom the moor is named… guarding the sleep of the dead. These are the legends and stories of my childhood, and these are the tales I wove into the adventure in Swords of Destiny. So much more could have been written… maybe one day I will, before the old tales are lost.

We walked down to the beck, drinking first, then washing the peat stains from feet and my shoes… which, made of soft fabric, we already soaked and could dry on my feet. The menfolk were hungry and ready for breakfast by this time. We had been out for around five hours and it was only about nine in the morning. I, however, wanted to show them a hidden place, Rocky Valley, where the great stones cling to the crags like monumental totems. “We’ll never get her down…” I heard the mutter of despair, but set off up the track. They waited a while as I climbed the ridge that separates the valley from the little wood where another godlike creature is carved in a stone, and where memory lay in ashes for me. They joined me in silent companionship and we looked across the beauty of the moor.

Retracing our steps we crossed the beck a final time. I showed them the little waterfalls and the pools where I had played as a child, where my sons had dammed the stream and where my memories were all of laughter. Then we passed once more through the heather and headed down for breakfast…

***

People often ponder the uncanny hold that the ‘Matter of Britain’ exerts upon both the inhabitants of these Blessed Isles and those much further afield beyond its shores, though few of them are ever graced with a satisfactory, let alone adequate, answer…

The legends of Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere and the Ladies and Knights of the Table Round are sourced from a mystery tradition that hails from far across the Atlantic Ocean, and one which was also responsible for the construction and maintenance of the old stone monuments and ancient causeways of West Europe…

This sacred tradition, preserved in the Irish, Welsh, and Brythonic myths was re-cast by the Troubadours and Trouvres of twelfth century Aquitaine and from there it spread like a forest fire into the castle keeps and festive halls of Mediaeval Christendom…

These tales continue to speak to the hearts and souls of modern men and women today because they can still inspire their creative imagination, that inner faculty without which all cultures sink, inevitably, into abject barbarity, like sand-pies devoured by the sea…

The Arthurian mythos, then, is singular in that it provides a still living tradition which links our primeval spiritual yearnings, as a race, with the mystical heights to which any individual can, or ever will, aspire.

The Matter of Britain

***

Giant Rombald – Now available in paperback from Amazon

Posted in albion, Ancestors, Ancient sites, Art, Books, Sacred sites, TOLL, Trickster | Tagged consciousness, imagination, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography, psychology | Leave a comment

Magical mornings…

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Sue Vincent

***

It was a luminous dawn, the world blanketed in a thick cocoon of frost against the darkness and silence of a newborn morning. The sun rose, pale and gold, strewing a million diamonds on the tarmac path; setting a fire in the heart of ice. There is a magic in the morning light that seems to bathe even the hard edges of winter in a soft glow. Where the light streams, its gentle warmth sends showers of tiny droplets glinting to earth, yet where the shadows hang heavy, the frost lingers, clinging to the day with hoary fingers.

***

Looking down, splashes of unexpected colour stand out against the whitened world… the scarlet stalks of ivy and bramble, the earth tones of autumnal remains and the vibrant shades of the evergreens. Details, hitherto unnoticed, leap to the attention, thrown into relief by the blank canvas of the frost. Shapes unseen are highlighted; fractal patterns that seem to hold the story of creation in their humble familiarity.

***

Looking up, the birds are waking, stretching chilled wings against the morning. I wonder at them… their delicate frames and fragile bones kept safe through the frozen night by no more than a feather. So tiny, so light, yet they can fly against the storm winds and through the battering of the rains. This morning I watched the sparrows as they woke, fluffing their plumage as we might shake an eiderdown. Such busy little birds, clinging to the smallest perch to watch the day begin.

***

Light strikes the trees, turning them golden as the sun rises higher, painting the doves pink and waking the jackdaws in a flurry of wings. On the low roof the frost crystals turn the little clumps of moss into the hollow hills and forests of a faery landscape where imagination walks, painting tales of otherworlds to be explored. Even the cars are clad in jewelled fur that makes them look like the surface of some fantastic planet.

***

I love mornings like this. They truly are magical, both to see and to ponder, when the delicate overlay of a winter frost changes everything and yet the beauties revealed by the frost are always there, just waiting for us to see them. We are blind to the familiar world, habituated to its presence. It takes change to open our eyes and hearts to what is already there waiting for us. In this way such a morning reflects the journey of the seeker; turning to face the light of being and seeing that no matter how far the journey may lead, no matter how many changes may come, the destination has always been a place never left.

***

Sue Vincent was a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, from its inception in 2012 until her untimely death in 2021.

This book is a collection of her writings in that role.

In these monographs, originally published as blog-posts, her unique and unmistakable voice relates the trials, tribulations, challenges and joys attendant upon the setting up and successful stewardship of a Modern Mystery school – it’s birth on the inner planes, and its pioneering work which ultimately led it from the safety of the traditional indoor temple and out into the wild and rugged landscapes of the Blessed Isles of Albion.

Amusing, inspiring, and enlightening, in turns, these stories relate above all else what it is to be truly human in an increasingly dystopian technocratic age.

Available now, in paperback, from Amazon

Posted in albion, Art, Books, Life, Love, nature | Tagged consciousness, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography | 12 Comments

Flying Kites…

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Stuart France

***

… The church of St Lawrence is surrounded by Yew trees and as we leave the grounds I see a flash of red arrow from tree to tree very low as if coming in to land. I burst through the copse yelling for Wen to bring the camera just in time to see the Kite take off again not thirty feet away. As it climbs into the sky Wen too emerges from the copse of trees snapping away. As the first bird takes off we see two others circling the hill before they glide gracefully in to land which they do… simultaneously… and then… after a few brief moments on the ground they take off again… together…

“What are they doing? There doesn’t seem to be any point to their landing.”

“They’re definitely just showing off this time,” laughs Wen beaming, she is obviously as thrilled as I am to be so close to what looks and feels like some sort of descent of the spirit. The first three birds are now nowhere to be seen and I start to wonder with a tinge of regret if the aerial show has already ended… but then I see another three birds swooping by overhead to my right and also… overhead… to my left… incredibly… are another three birds…

“Six! There are six of them… there’s at least six!” I yell running right to get closer as they each take turns to land briefly before again taking off… and as the last of the six climbs gracefully back into the sky an additional bird swoops in from who knows where to join them.

“Seven! There are seven. There are seven birds Don, I can count seven.”

The flock of Red Kites, if seven constitutes a flock, are now spiralling higher and higher in long lazy loops around the hill in what has the feel of a grand finale and although difficult because of the speed and dynamics of their collective flight I make one last attempt to number them all and reach a definitive… nine… before they each appear to drift into a point and then disappear in the mists beyond sight.

“There cannot be nine! There simply cannot be nine! It is not possible for there to be nine!”

“There were nine alright,” laughs Wen. She is sitting on the grass her face flushed with exhilaration laughing.

“Did you get them all?”

“Oh, I got them!” She says and taps her camera like it is some sort of trusty steed…

The Initiate

***

Sue Vincent was a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, from its inception in 2012 until her untimely death in 2021.

This book is a collection of her writings in that role.

Amusing, inspiring, and enlightening, in turns, these stories relate above all else what it is to be truly human in an increasingly dystopian technocratic age.

Now available in paperback from Amazon

Posted in adventure, albion, Art, Birds, TOLL, Trickster | Tagged Books, landscape, magic, mystery, psychology, The Silent Eye | 2 Comments

An Unexpected Encounter…

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Sue Vincent

We took to the backroads again, nodding to Drake’s statue as we passed through Tavistock once more, climbing up towards Dartmoor. On our way south, the mists had closed around us completely and we had seen little more of the wild beauty of the moors than the first few yards and the tarmac in front of the car. This time, the skies were clear, and the few miles over the moor looked like taking a while, as I could not resist stopping at almost every possible place.

Dartmoor is an ancient and unspoiled landscape. Once, long, long ago, it was forested, but our early ancestors began creating clearings to attract game. That worked so well they no longer needed to follow the herds, but settled down, forming the communities that left behind them a landscape rich in archaeology. A landscape we would not have time to explore on this trip, sadly.

Rocky tors crown the peaks where heather, gorse, and bracken rule over almost three hundred and seventy square miles of moorland. There are innumerable stone circles, settlements, cists, cairns, standing stones and stone rows… I think you could spend a lifetime up on the moor and never fail to marvel at the richness of its history or its bleak beauty. And if the archaeology were not enough, there are many legends and old stories to explore, from the Hairy Hands that grab a driver’s wheel, to tales of piskies for whom saucers of cream are still left at the door, black dogs, strange beasts and the occasional ghost.

And then there are the ponies. The pure-bred Dartmoor pony is now rare, with only a few hundred on the moor, where once there were thousands. The decline of the tin mines and the advent of mechanisation meant that the hardy, gentle ponies with their thick winter coats were no longer an economic necessity. The few that remain are kept in enclosed areas to prevent interbreeding with the semi-feral hill ponies that wander freely over the moor. It is these that the visitor is most likely to see and, thoroughbred or not, they are a delight. We were lucky to see many mares with tiny foals, some finding their feet and exploring, others just resting amongst the grass and wildflowers.

The relationship of man with these beautiful creatures can be traced back at least three and a half thousand years and their bones have been found in tombs on the moor. There is no way of knowing, without evidence, just how long ago man and horse began their symbiotic relationship, but one of the earliest artworks that remains in Britain, dating back around twelve and a half thousand years, is a carving of a horse that we had seen at Cresswell Crags, far away in the north. The ponies continue to play a critical part in the ecology of the moors, trampling down gorse and bracken, and at least one species of butterfly is wholly dependent upon their presence.

During daylight hours, the ponies wander close to the road, knowing full well that tourists are always good for a snack, even though it is forbidden to feed them. Stop the car to take photographs and you will not leave without encountering one of these friendly and curious animals who know nothing of the law and a good deal about how to convince tourists that they really need that illegal snack.

Sadly, though, the need for speed kills around a hundred and fifty animals on the moor every year. The open roads are too much of a temptation for ‘boy racers’ of any age or gender. Garden waste dumped by the side of the road poisons horses and money kills many more. The market for Dartmoor ponies is poor, with foals not even selling at market for £10… so foals are shot and sold to zoos as lion meat. Many of the farmers who keep Dartmoor ponies do so at great cost to themselves and various bodies are doing all they can to preserve and encourage the survival of the breed, including a controversial attempt to create a market for pony meat in restaurants. The hope is that if farmers can sell three-year-old ponies for the table, at least the foals will not be shot at birth, and the income would ensure their survival. That after thousands of years of living and working with these gorgeous creatures their survival depends on whether or not we care to eat them seems an appalling indictment of our society. Surely their presence in our lives and lands is worth more than that?

***

A thousand miles of history…

To be exact, that should be one thousand, one hundred and twenty four miles, but that makes for a bit of a mouthful… According to my navigator, on this road trip, half the roads we took are not even marked on the paper map we use, and we are pretty certain that many of them exist only as sunbathing spots for the local ovine, bovine and equine population. We began with a couple of places we wanted to see en route to Dorchester, for the workshop. Over the course of that weekend, we visited twelve historic sites spanning several thousand years. The next day we went west for moorlands, stone circles and a rather special church. And then we headed down to Cornwall and, with sacred and ancient sites around pretty much every corner, a misty, turquoise sea beneath fabulous cliffs and wildflowers everywhere, we were in our element. Without the camera, I would have no chance of remembering all the places we visited in any semblance of order! As it is, I came back with a couple of thousand photos, fair buzzing at the incredible places we had been… and even the long drive home held surprises. It seems incredible that we could see so much, and all without rushing either. Perhaps it was the mists… or perhaps the green wormholes through which we walked and drove that exploited a loophole in the space-time continuum but whatever the cause, I came home a very happy hobbit. And with so many places to write about…

Paperback now available at Amazon

Posted in adventure, albion, Ancient sites, Art, TOLL, travel | Tagged consciousness, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography, psychology | 2 Comments

Hawk at Dusk

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Sue Vincent

***

Since the birth of the Silent Eye, we have held regular workshops, including, for the past seven years, an annual residential weekend of ritual drama in Derbyshire. We have had a huge amount of fun with these weekends over the years, in spite of the months of writing, work and preparation they entail. We have made some wonderful friends and seen our companions rise above the challenges to create pure magic within our place of working.

At the same time, we have also been pioneering a new kind of workshop, set within the living land. It is not enough to follow a spiritual path within the confines of a hallowed hall. Spirituality must be part of everyday life and must move in the world before it truly comes to life.

With this in mind, our landscape workshops visit ancient and sacred sites, right across the country, in varied and beautiful places, allowing the land and its history to illustrate and reveal the heart of the spiritual principles we explore.

Last year, we took the decision that we would follow the call to move all our workshops out into the landscape, with this year being the last residential weekend for a while. At our last monthly meeting, with confirmed bookings not meeting the necessary criteria, we decided that, rather than risk being unable to deliver a well-rounded weekend for our companions, we would move this event too out into the landscape.

And, as soon as we made that decision, the details and structure of the weekend fell into place.

Sometimes, you simply have to listen to what the winds of change whisper… and when you do so, magic happens…

A New Beginning… – January 21^st 2020

***

Hawk at Dusk

Selected SE Writings 2018 – 2021

Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, from its inception in 2012 until her untimely death in 2021.

This book is a collection of her writings during her final three years in that role.

Amusing, inspiring, and enlightening, in turns, these stories relate above all else what it is to be truly human in an increasingly dystopian technocratic age.

Available now in paperback from Amazon

Posted in Art, Spirituality, The Silent Eye | Tagged consciousness, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography, psychology | 1 Comment

Hawk at Noon

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Sue Vincent

***

The cult of celebrity seems to have run mad over the past few years. Anyone can have their fifteen minutes of fame and if they can be sufficiently outrageous, outraged or enraging, may find themselves with a career in the limelight. At least for a little while. Some, however, have a real and enduring talent… and amongst those who touch the hearts and minds through music and the arts, some will find a lasting stardom.

Some notable stars died this week; the inimitable David Bowie, Alan Rickman, better known to a generation as Severus Snape and Dan Haggerty of Grizzly Adams fame. The world paid homage in recognition of the gifts they had brought to stage and screen and many have mourned their passing.

It is a strange relationship we have with those whose talents bring them fame. Sometimes, we almost think we know them, even though their personae change with every role… and none knew how to reinvent themselves better than Bowie. We do not know them, we see only those facets of the public and private faces they choose to show and the occasional and often misconstrued intrusions of the paparazzi. Like Severus Snape, they assume a public persona and live the visible part of their life to its rules, whilst beneath the mask they are as human as the rest of us, just as complex and contradictory, with the same human hopes and needs.

Yet for those of us who grew up watching their rise to stardom, the passing of such stars is often said to mark the end of an era… perhaps because it also marks the ticking clock of our own lives and realising our own mortality in theirs… the era we see ending includes our own youth…

***

Hawk at Noon

Selected SE Writings 2015 – 2018

Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, from its inception in 2012 until her untimely death in 2021.

This book is a collection of her writings during her second three years in that role.

Amusing, inspiring, and enlightening, in turns, these stories relate above all else what it is to be truly human in an increasingly dystopian technocratic age.

Available now as an Amazon paperback

Posted in Art, Books, Life, Love, Spirituality, The Silent Eye | Tagged consciousness, landscape, magic, mystery, Photography, psychology | Leave a comment

Labour pains…

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Sue Vincent

***

The clock is ticking, time inexorably moves us closer to the launch event of the Silent Eye… in a little less than three weeks… We are flat out getting everything ready… and of course, this is precisely when I am taken inconveniently, ingloriously and un-glamorously ill, dangling out of my car in a lay-by, writhing in pain and losing my marbles.

Even so, laid in the ambulance, when they asked me to rate the pain after the second dose of morphine, on a scale of one to ten, “with ten being labour pain”, I had to chuckle… inwardly at least. Because that is precisely what it feels like.

Call me odd, but as the mother of the School about to be born, the past nine months, Oh yes, I had noticed that coincidence… have been very much like a pregnancy to me. From the first fluttering of possibility, barely felt, to the growth of something that fills my life, taking on depth and character, growing into itself. Very much like a pregnancy.

As to me, well I am a little slower for a few days, perhaps, a little more careful as to how I move, in spite of regular painkillers and I have an eye to how low the blood pressure drops. I am tiring easily, and resting more, like it or not. Meantime, I have had to move with all the grace of a beached whale twice before. And it was worth it then too.

Through it all there has been this sense of expectancy, the birth date marked on the calendar while all is prepared to receive this child of heart, mind and soul into the world, knowing it will fill the remainder of our lives with its needs, joys, tears and triumphs. It will be hard work. It will be loved. We, like any parents, will have to learn as we go. Neither new Schools nor children come with instruction manuals and all we can do is give it our love and attention, nurture and care… and follow the inner voice of heart and intuition…

Continue reading at France&Vincent