Dorset's chalk ridge refers to  dramatic chalk escarpments like the  Purbeck Hills  and the  Wessex Ridgeway , formed from ancient seabed limestone, offering panoramic views,  chalk grassland , woodlands, and historic sites like  hillforts . Key sections include the Purbeck Ridge (Flowers Barrow to Ballard Point), notable for its windswept paths and views of Poole Harbour and the coast, and the Wessex Ridgeway, an ancient route with landmarks like  Hambledon Hill  and  Cerne Abbas . These ridges are popular for walking, cycling, and horse riding, showcasing distinctive landscapes and rich geology. Today, the patron saint of Dorset is recognised as Saint Wite  (pronounced Wee-ta)  aka St Candida, her name referring to the white chalk. My theory is that she is an echo of a much older goddess.  Legend has it that she was a 9th-century  Saxon  holy woman from  Dorset  who was killed by marauding Danes.  Loc...

This is my confession. I cannot resist cheap clothes. Primark (which is a very affordable fashion retailer by the way) seems to have a magnetic force which pulls me in. The force is especially strong when there's a big red SALE sign in the window. I just get sucked into this huge shop full of poorly made clothes. I look at all that synthetic fabric, in all the pretty colours, and I just can't help myself. It's a disease. I just can't seem to kick the habit. I know that what I'm doing is wrong, but I keep on doing it. I keep going in there and buying their cheap clothes. Help me! The prices are just too low for me to resist! Why is this a moral dilemma for me? I'll tell you why. Firstly, synthetic fabrics are terrible for the environment. They're really terrible. Synthetic fabrics are made using a number of complex chemical processes and treatments. Polyester, nylon and similar fabrics are made from petroleum, causing a lot of energy consumption and...

My trees, real and fake! What is Christmas/Yule without a twinkling fir tree, laden with baubles? It has been a custom to decorate spaces with greenery for festivals since pre-Christian times. Medieval churches purchased holly and ivy for Christmas decorations. In the town of Rye, holly twigs were wound up with broom and candles placed among them. Private homes were decorated likewise, with holly inside and ivy on the porch, and anything else that could be found green at that time of year, like rosemary, bay laurel, yew, box, broom, and mistletoe. The Protestant reformers weren't keen on all this "paganism" and sought to ban Yuletide festivities altogether. Christmas decorations disappeared between 1645 and 1660 when Christmas was actually illegal in England. When Christmas made a comeback, the 'kissing bush' was invented. The custom of kissing under a bush of foliage, five or six feet round, spread across the whole of England by the nineteenth century. Elab...

 La Justice: Tarot de Marseille The eighth card of the Tarot is traditionally the Justice card, althoug modern decks swap Justice with the eleventh card, Strength. Personally I see the number eight clearly in the Justice card. Turned on its side, it resembles the scales with which the evidence is weighed. A figure of eight turned on its side is also known as an infinity symbol. The justice served is the after-effect of karma, called vipaka in Pāli. Vipaka means "the appropriate result" or in other words "justice". This card speaks of the natural consequences of your actions. The number eight is associated with the cube, which has eight corners. Eight is associated with infinity because it was believed that beyond the seven planetary spheres, an infinite eighth realm existed. According to Babylonian mythology, the eighth realm is the starry home of the gods. Eight is therefore associated with heaven or paradise. Eight is also the number of superspace , the...

Tarot of Marseilles Four represents the dimension of time. One of the first major expositors of the fourth dimension was Charles Howard Hinton, starting in 1880 with his essay What is the Fourth Dimension? He introduced a method for visualising the fourth dimension using cubes in the book Fourth Dimension . In the fourth dimension, time is like an object which appears bigger or smaller depending on its duration. Past, present and future all exist simultaneously. Every moment of time is equally real. This philosophical approach to the nature of time is called eternalism . On the other hand, presentism asserts that only the present exists. Additionally there is the "growing block theory" which views the present and past as real but the future as non-existent. In buddhism there are four noble truths. Dukkha is the struggle of trying to hold on to things which are ever changing and transient. Samudaya is the conditioned arising of the present, the principle of cause and...

It was in May 1997 that I decided to myself that I was "pagan". As far as I understood, this meant having an Earth-based spirituality, a connection with Nature, reverence for the Earth. I figured these sounded like lovely things, and it was at that time of year when Nature really comes to life and everything is wonderfully green. I knew that I felt a strong connection with all this Earthly stuff, and that this was what fed my spirit. The word "pagan" derives from Latin "paganus" which means “rural”, “of the countryside” or “outside the city”. It inherently has connotations of the uncivilised, the peasantry, the wild. In reference to religion, we are talking about the diverse temples and holy sites of country folk. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion, it was out in the wilderness that the ancient folk religions continued. Paganism referred to those practices outside the control of government officials. Before the...

I have had this statue for yonks, and had been meaning to give it a lick of paint for some time now. You might think it strange that I have a statue of the Virgin Mary, but in my opinion, this portrayal is based on Roman goddess statues, and the Virgin Mary was given many attributes of Isis, who was worshipped across the Roman Empire, including Britain. The title "Queen of Heaven" was given to many celestial goddesses, and to me this represents the great Cosmic Mother who births all of creation. Lucius Apuleius adressed the Queen of Heaven by many names, recognising her presence among all cultures. He describes how she appeared to him in a vision: "Then by little and little I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, mounting out of the sea and standing before mee, wherefore I purpose to describe her divine semblance, if the poverty of my humane speech will suffer me, or her divine power give me eloquence thereto. First shee had a great abundance of haire...

May is named after the a ncient Italic goddess of spring, Maia. She was identified with Terra and Bona Dea by the late antiquarian writer Macrobius. He also associated her with Fauna, Cybele, Ops, Juno, and Carna. This treatment of the goddess was probably influenced by the 1st century BCE scholar Varro, who tended to resolve a great number of deities into one archetypal Mother Earth. On the first day of May, observed in the lunar calendar with the first appearance of the crescent moon, ancestor spirits were honoured and a pregnant sow was sacrificed to Maia. On the full moon, Maia's son , Mercury, was honoured as patron god of merchants.  According to Greek mythology, Maia was the eldest of seven sisters , the Pleiades. Hers is the fourth brightest star in the Pleiades cluster , also known as the Maia Nebula, which is part of the constellation Taurus. " Maia of the lively eyes: Atlas fathered her, outstanding in beauty, among his seven dear violet-haired daughters w...

My last two blog posts spoke of the Horned God and the Great Goddess, but there is a third concept of deity in Wicca, known as Dryghten, the One, or the All.  This monistic impersonal ultimate pantheistic divinity is acknowledged but not worshiped, and is not to be confused with the monotheistic idea of a single supreme personal deity.  Unlike religions that place a divine creator outside of Nature, Wicca is pantheistic, seeing Nature as divine in itself. I first came across the term pantheism when I was in my early teens. The word was constructed from the Greek pan "all" and theos "god" by the English mathematician Joseph Raphson, in his work De spatio reali , published in 1697. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers a contemporary definition: Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) “God is everything and everything is God … the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expressi...

  (Nature Unveiling Herself to Science by L ouis Barrias in 1899, Musee d'Orsay.) "Hear ye the words of the Star Goddess, She in the dust of whose feet are the hosts of Heaven, whose body encircleth the universe. 'I who am the beauty of the green earth; and the White Moon amongst the Stars; and the mystery of the Waters; and the desire of the heart of man. I call unto thy soul: arise and come unto me. For I am the Soul of nature who giveth life to the Universe; From me all things proceed; and unto me, all things must return.'" The Prose Charge The Great Goddess of Wicca is described as Mother Nature Herself. She is the creative force of the Universe. Nature is envisioned as a Mother because the Latin word natura means "to birth".  The personification of Mother Nature, was widely popular in the Middle Ages. Mother Earth or Eorthe in Old English was also popular. The Norse personified Mother Earth as Jord . The Greeks called Her Ma-ka (translit...

Shortly after the summer solstice, I took a walk to the cliff tops, just ten minutes from where I live. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time, debating with myself whether or not it was a good idea. I decided to put a face to the name and say hello to you all. I have just uploaded this video and my palms are sweating with anxiety. I am quite a shy person. I speak in a hushed voice around people I don't know and struggle to meet them in the eye when I'm not feeling confident. It took me a long time to build up the ability to stand in front of a group of people and speak to them. When I was in university and had to give a presentation to the class, I would feel sick and quake in my boots! But when I started to make videos, I felt a lot more at ease. I gradually became less shy about public speaking, and would fearlessly offer my opinion infront of the class in university. I'm still very awkward around people and it takes me a long time to get to know someo...