28 Degrees Pisces

Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength

 

excerpt from Pilgrimage to Melangell’s Healing Centre by Noragh Jones

 

Third day –  arriving at Melangell’s shrine and Cancer Help Centre, nestling at the head of a green valley. The church stands in a pre-christian circular enclosure. There was a healing well nearby, but now it’s been fenced off and privatised by a new owner.

 

This is the end of my solitary pilgrimage. I meet friends and talk too much the way you do when you’ve been alone. Then we catch ourselves out and sit quietly in the church for an hour – praying or not praying according to our lights.

 

On the oak rood screen Melangell is saving a hare from the Prince of Powys’s hunting party. All around the church are carvings of happy hares finding sanctuary under the saint’s cloak. (The locals call hares wyn bach Melangell – Melangell’s lambs).

 

I read in the visitor’s book a moving record of hundreds of pilgrims who have come here and found the help they needed – to go on living or to face dying. I am lost for words. I go and sit in silence at Melangell’s shrine.

 

ar ei allor                                   (on her shrine

hen gath yn eisted                       an ancient cat sits

ac yn canu grwndi                       purring)

 

Later we go out into the churchyard. The yew trees they say are two thousand years old. Their broken trunks bleed red sap. But they go on offering shelter to whoever comes – faith or no faith.

 

rym ni’n cymry ein tro                 (we take it in turns

profi tragwyddoldeb                     trying on eternity

yn yrywen gau                               in the hollow yew)

 

[Re-blogged from Musings from Gelli Fach]

Asbolus……off course

In Greek mythology, Asbolus (English translation: “sooty”) was a centaur. He was a diviner who read omens in the flight of birds. When Heracles came to visit the centaur Pholus, Pholus opened a jug of wine for him which belonged to all the Centaurs; Asbolus saw Pholus do this and brought the other Centaurs running. The party got rowdy and a battle ensued in which Pholus and Chiron, as well as Asbolus, met their deaths at Heracles’ hands.

Asteroid 8405 Asbolus ~ Astrologer, Philip Sedgwick, says that each Centaur bears a particular gift of healing, and defines Asbolus like this:

This Centaur insists that one always, always must follow their intuition. Typically real life circumstances demand their payment for failure to adhere to instinct. Leading charges against causes not worth engaging bring short circuits of life efforts and a significant loss of energy. Studying intuition and psychic development feed the protocol of Asbolus. Learning augury or reading the omens and totems of life restore Asbolus-like guidance. [read more about Asbolus]

Sooty is a British glove puppet bear and TV character popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. The children’s television show which bears his name has continued in various forms since the 1950s and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the longest-running children’s programme in the UK. He was 60 years old on 19 July 2008 and, as this was close to Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, Sooty sent him a birthday message [read more]