Letter from Cressida Pryor
January 29, 2019
Imbolc Letter 2019
Dear Friends,
Driving home yesterday I was happy to see the first of this year’s lambs and their mothers already
out in the fields...it seemed so early but then we are just a few days before Imbolc so it is not
entirely surprising. A wonderful reminder of the transformation of birth, new life and all the
possibilities and challenges change brings.
Looking back over the past few weeks brings the other major transformative process into mind; that
of bodily death, and I am thinking of two wonderful older women who have moved to join the “choir
invisible” in the last few weeks. The poet Mary Oliver and the nun and art historian Sister Wendy
Beckett have died leaving huge legacies of spiritual wisdom, insight and humour. I can imagine both
women meeting in the afterlife having lively debates and both laughing with great gusto...Mary
Oliver’s probably most remembered lines finishing her poem the Summer Day are a wakeup call to
all of us:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
This challenge framed within her awareness of nature’s extraordinary wonders I feel is at
the heart too of our eight festivals...a coming together not just supporting growth and
transformation in terms of achievements and gains but also on the level of deepening
spiritual growth and consciousness. The festivals weave a containing cauldron of fellowship
to foster the individual’s spiritual expansion and growth as well as the community’s. Our
founders' wisdom to not tie a member of the FOI to any one faith path is a profound
underlying truth. We live in a world that doesn’t fit into a system. Life is a constant
confrontation with questions to which there is no one simple answer. For these dilemmas
we need the wise teachings of the great spiritual masters and need to open to our own
inner divine connection.
So at this time of winter cold and grey mornings let us take solace from trusting the path
ahead, cleared by our own prayers and intentions; lit by the sages of old, the wisdom
teachers and holy ones. And may we open to the silence within and allow our feet to find
this path, knowing our footsteps are treading the dance of the Goddess . May we remember
the infinite possibilities born of faith and may our hearts be as light as the lambs who jump
with the very joy of being.
In fellowship and faith, blessings,
Cressida
FOI Steward
