Mab of Dream

I have just had the most amazing two days, which segued into one extended day, as none of us slept in between.

On Sunday, FT Kate drove Eric and I to Hay-on-Wye, where they went into the pub to play pool, while I looked around the bookshops. I managed not to buy anything, mainly because I'd got everything I found Wicca-wise, except for one book and that was expensive. I met the other two in the pub and played a couple of games with pool. In the real world, Eric and FT Kate are hustler standard of good at the game. I'm shit at it. Generally, I play first (winner stays on), just to get my game over, because it's more a case can they beat their personal best at time taken to beat me, rather than whether I'll win. I beat FT Kate! I was winning the second game as well, until about five locals came into the pool room to wait for a game. I went to pieces with folk watching and Kate rose to the audience. She won. But I BEAT FT KATE AT POOL!! I don't even think she was letting me win...

All of this was great to start with, particularly since the night before had been so good too, but then we went to the Black Mountains.

OHOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!! I love the Black Mountains. My gt-granny came from Blaenavon, nr Abergavenny, so I have roots in the area. I was initiated up there. I have been up there for various Sabbats. I've performed some of my strongest magic up there. I've astralled there and I've been there in my mind so many times. It is physically the most beautiful place I know. It feels like the strongest place I know. Kate asked me on Sunday if this place is bigger than Glastonbury Tor to me, and I unhesitantly said, 'Yes'. At midnight, on my 30th birthday, Ian, Jim and I were up on the Black Mountains, as I'd asked if we could go there at 9pm while it was raining. They agreed and we got there for midnight, then came home. It feeds my soul.

With all the shite last week, Bex e-mailed me and said that I ought to go to the Black Mountains and chill out. Kate had already said she'd take me anywhere, so I called and asked her. That's how we got to be there on Sunday. I've been there millions of times - I was there only four weeks ago, when I took Georgia, BS Kate and Phoenix - but this is only the second time I've been driven over them. It's usually me doing the driving, which involves a lot of concentration on that road. This time, I got to look at scenery (while bouncing like an over-excited child), while Kate manovenured us around the twists and turns.

Second the car had stopped, I was out there, running bare-foot across Hay Bluff, with the wind in my hair. Already free, uncoiling on the spot. However, I knew that high wind and open mountains was a bad combination in convincing Eric to stay up there, so I ran down the side of the mountain to the place I remembered from before. Once in it, we were sheltered and it was quite warm. I ran back up to the top and Kate and Eric said later that if nothing else had happened that weekend, then the look on my face at that moment in time was enough. The pair of them went into huge grins looking at me and I just ran to the car.

We all ended up in my place, lying on blankets and my cloak. I've photos, which I'll add later, watching clouds, looking at the mountain range spreading away, above, below and alongside us, then watching the sunset. Afterwards, Kate went back to the car, so she could listen to REM in this environment. That cures her soul too. Eric and I stayed and chatted. Suddenly, it was as if the years peeled away and I was his padawain again. I asked him if he'd initiate me now and he said, 'No'. I just nodded, because I doubt that I'd initiate me to the third degree right now. Eric went on that I'd have to learn about selectivity and honouring myself, before he'd initiate me. Too bloody late really, seeing as he initiated me over half a decade ago. ;-) I've taken off my HPS pendant btw, it's currently around the neck of a mannaquin in Kate's house.

We had a good long cant, me and Eric, before he went back to the car and left me to it. I sat there for ages, wrapped in my cloak on a rocky outcrop overlooking everything. The sun had set, but it was full moon (give or take a night), so the whole valley and mountain range was lit up by one very bright moon. My mind emptied and when I considered each thing individually, the issues were so clear and the answers just there. I sat in the silence and heard my own voice again.

I made my way back to the car and turned up just as Kate texted me to see as I was ok. *grin* We drove down the mountain in full view of the moon now (it was in the south west) and IT WAS SO GORGEOUS! I was babbling away, so full of the moment and myself, and kept saying, "Oh thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" to Kate and Eric. They were just giggling at me and every so often one of them would cuddle me.

A moment of revelation. If any songs are the soundtrack to 2004, they are 'Country Feedback' and 'Leave'. There's a lyric in 'Leave' which I've always sang as, 'where is my trust in what I believe?' Halfway down the mountain, soul still ringing from the help that came and cants with the Goddess, 'Leave' came on the stereo. I heard Kate sing and realized I'd got my words wrong all along, Michael Stipe sings, 'THERE is my trust in what I believe.' Beautiful synchronicity.

The journey back to Kate's was brilliant too, singing along to 60s music. Then we carried on our little party once we were back gone midnight.

By six, we were still going strong, so I drove us up to Kate's Hill, in Dudley, where we watched the dawn rising on my birthday over a panoramic view of the Black Country. We were a little confused as to the direction of things, and were looking out over the Black Country wondering if we'd missed it. Then I turned around and the dawn was happening behind our backs! LOL We watched it rise though, it was only the preliminaries that we missed by facing west.

Back at Kate's again and it was a music marathon, as she played just about every song in her considerable CD collection, while the tea, coffee and hot chocolate came in an endless stream from the kitchen. At one time, I was the entertainment, as I was so out of it making a brew. *giggle* I also got to open my cards and presents - which had come from all over the world and Britain! I thought I only had two presents, as everyone is giving me money (my finances kind of demand that), but Kate suddenly produced another - the Damien Rice CD. :-D

When we were suitably vegging, Eric performed TS Eliot's 'The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock'. By performed, I mean performed. He wove a spell that had me right there in the poem until he finished and me and Kate broke into applause. It was amazing! One of those you had to be there moments. He's a bloody good actor, is our Ez.

Sometime during the day, I went out into Kate's garden and just sat there listening to the silence, watching the clouds and the wind in the leaves of the overhanging trees, smelling the perfume of her garden. I got that Black Mountain feeling there too, affirming to me that I can chill out in a Black Country garden. I opened 'it' up and heard things walking around me, voices and the such, and smiled. Then I did Chandan Lohia's pure waters meditation, which worked beautifully.

Come late afternoon and I'm back on the settee, with Kate emerging from the kitchen with a cattapillar birthday cake (I'm 12, I counted the candles), singing her own specially adapted version of 'Happy Birthday'. I made three wishes and we cut the cake, then it was time for Eric to go.

Kate and I sat on her settee afterwards putting the world to rights. We discussed some of the major issues in my life and she gave me her take on them. She told me that she had been worried about me on Saturday, but the difference between then and now was astounding. I'd come back to myself. In the finish, I didn't make it home, but Kate and I sat watching telly until bedtime.

There are now photos from my birthday adventures here.

yours
Mab
xxxxx