Last week I began running a Moon Magic workshop for the College of Psychic Studies which spans over the next four weeks. It is the second time I have run the course, and I am honoured that it was popular last time, so the college asked me to run it again. This time it was nearly sold out! I am always incredibly nervous when I start running a course, I am never sure how it will work out and whether anyone will even be remotely interested in it. I am incredibly lucky to have some amazing students who seem to be enjoying it, and for that I am very thankful.
On Saturday the team and I boarded a train and headed to Witchfest in Croydon. It was a silly early start to the day but at least it wasn’t raining and the train was not too busy. It is a 20 minute drive to the station and then 1 ½ hours on the train, but only a five minute walk from the station to Fairfields Hall.
Outside Fairfields Hall the queue waiting to get in was greeted by a group of protestors. They have been there every year I have attended so far, but this year there seemed to be a lot more of them. The protestors were coming up to people in the queue and preaching about Jesus saving our souls and how we should turn away from Satan. That is the polite version, in fact they were quite rude, loud and very much in our faces. It was not a peaceful demonstration, they were not trying to talk with us rationally, they were definitely not trying to convert us. What they wanted was to harass and scare people. The fabulous Pentacle Drummers were also outside and doing their very best to drown out the protestors. Eventually the Police were called to help deal with the situation. Fair play to my fellow Witchfest attendees, everyone was polite and remained calm in the face of what was verbal abuse and harassment. However, we didn’t let them spoil our day.
I was extremely honoured to be back on the Concert Hall stage again to give my talk (A Witch for Every Season). It is a big stage facing tiers of seats and standing in the spotlight with a microphone, scary stuff! A huge thank you to everyone that joined me to listen to my ramblings, it is very much appreciated and to those lovely folk that came up to me afterwards to thank me. I did have a slight fan girl moment when I discovered that it was the same stage Morcombe and Wise had recorded some of their TV shows on. Apparently The Who and The Beatles have also performed from the same stage, is it sad I was more excited about Morcombe and Wise?
Big thanks also to the Kitchen Witch team; Ness, Heather and Sue who sat in the front row to support me, despite having listened to me waffle on many, many occasions, you are stars.
It was wonderful to meet some of our Kitchen Witch students in person and to catch up with lots of familiar faces as well. To all those behind the scenes, to the volunteers on the day and everyone involved, thank you – it is an enormous event to put on and takes a lot of work, time and effort.
In other news, I am feeling the energy of the festive season approaching. Yes, I know it is still only November but the energy is creeping in! I absolutely love this time of the year, there is a buzz of excitement in the air that builds to the point were it is so strong you can taste it (it tastes of cinnamon). I put aside the commercialism and soak up the energy of the festive fun. It probably helps that I love Christmas pudding, mince pies and Christmas cake.
I am the only Pagan in my family so I adjust my celebrations to merge with the usual Christmas ones. Not that I need to adjust them much, because a lot of them have Pagan roots anyway! Once upon a time I would shudder at the word Christmas, even spending hours searching for Christmas cards to send that didn’t mention the ‘C’ word. These days I am more relaxed about it and make the celebrations work for me. The energy at this time of the year is so wonderful, it doesn’t matter to me what the religion attached to it is, the most important part is the positive energy it brings.
I have been watching Christmas cooking programmes for several weeks already (the Food Channel had a Novembermas month) and I am ready with the Christmas Hallmark films lined up. The radio in Jim (our car) is already switched over to the Christmas channel, although when our youngest gets in the car the first thing he does is turn it off (we have managed to raise a Bah Humbug!).
I am ready and poised to begin the Witchmas celebrations!
Stuff
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ONLINE BOOK LAUNCH
Join me for my online book launch - The Element of Water - Saturday 25th November - 7pm GMT
Fairfields Hall, Concert Hall stage
