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The Hon. Olivia Robertson Olivia Melian Robertson was born in London on April 13, 1917: “Friday the 13th!” she is quick to point out, as this holds an association as a day of the Goddess. Her parents were Nora and Manning Durdin-Robertson and she was the second of their four children. (Please see the misc. photos page to view her parent's coat-of-arms.) Her family moved back to their ancestral home at Clonegal Castle, Ireland, in 1925, when she was eight. Beginning in 1938, Olivia was educated at Ascot, the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London for a year and a half. In 1940, she served as a V.A.D. nurse in Bedfordshire during the war. Olivia completed her education at Dublin’s National University in 1942, and then went on to work at the Dublin Corporation for four years. She published her first book on her experiences on the Dublin Playground, “St. Malachy’s Court”, in 1946. Olivia loves to paint and draw and had an early career as a writer where she often illustrated her own books. She also had two public art exhibitions in 1939 and 1956. (See the Online Art Gallery for her recent works.) In 1948 her second book, “Field of the Stranger” was released and received the London Book Society’s Choice award. Her other books include: “The Golden Eye” (1949), “Miranda Speaks” (1950), and “It’s an Old Irish Custom” (1954). Her last book, “The Dublin Phoenix”, published in 1956, sold out on its first day. It was 1946 when Olivia received her first spiritual awakening from Isis. However, she continued to pursue her life as a writer and only later moved back to the ancestral home of Clonegal Castle with her brother Lawrence, and his wife Pamela, in 1960. In 1963 they formed the Huntington Castle Centre for Meditation and Study. It was then that Olivia discovered a talent for leading others in guided meditation, or “magical journeys” as she calls them. This laid the foundation for the work she was led to do later with the Fellowship of Isis. When asked about forming the Fellowship of Isis, Olivia explains: “It was direct spiritual experience, as with my brother, that I had a direct spiritual vocation to do this from God – the feminine aspect of God, God who is also feminine - to emphasize this because the world is threatened by destruction through pollution, through misuse of nature, often through stupidity and greed. We’re destroying the planet and the Divine Plan appears to be to emphasize the feminine – charity, kindness, care for nature, nurturing, motherhood – all that side. Not to get rid of the male aspect, but to balance male aggression and materialism. And this linear, logical, mental though – always analysis, analysis. We’re more for healing and synthesis.” (BBC Radio 5 Interview 6/92) Over the years, Olivia has written an expansive Liturgy for the Fellowship of Isis. Taking the most ancient of myths and rituals, Olivia recreates them in her own style, calling upon inspiration directly from the Deities themselves. She has created tapes of each one of these rites, so that all members, whether a solitary member or in a group, can benefit. She also wrote her spiritual autobiography in 1975, entitled The Call of Isis, which may be read online here. In August 1993, Olivia was invited to attend the Parliament of the World's Religions Centennial Session, in order to represent the Fellowship of Isis, along with other appointed FOI delegates. This was the first time that the religion of the Goddess was publicly acknowledged as a world faith at this parliament. Olivia was one of two women and sixteen men who addressed the opening plenary from the platform and she gave the blessings of Isis to the world. (For more about this, please see the Parliament Page.) On April 13, 2007, Olivia celebrated her 90th birthday with a celebration of family and friends at the Foundation Center, Clonegal Castle. You can read her account of this, as well as see photos here: Olivia's 90th Birthday When asked in a radio interview, what her message to the world was, Olivia replied: “My message is to be happy now. Don’t worry about if you were happy yesterday, or whether you will be happy tomorrow. . . eternity is between seconds. You find Deity, the Goddess, the God, now. And your home becomes your sanctuary. You have a sanctuary as your hearth – a candle, one candle, a stick of incense, wherever you are is Heaven. That’s what my message is – yes – wherever you are, should be Heaven.” (BBC Radio 5) 
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