FOI Lammas Letter 2024
From: Cressida Pryor
Dear FOI Friends,
This letter wishes you a happy and peaceful festival of Lughnasadh and Lammas...
I have just returned from a short walk with the dog, presuming and hoping the main heat of the day would be lessened at four o’clock in the afternoon. How wrong I was! It was like stepping into an oven and the hot pavements heavy with humid air made it hard to breathe.
On returning to a cooler home, for which I’m very grateful, and reflecting on my experience I was reminded that we are now in Leo. This is the only star sign, said by ancient astrologers to be ‘ruled’ by the sun...the sign of divine splendour. It is associated with royalty, glory and creativity...I am normally not astrologically aware but have just bought a book entitled: the ‘Celestial Journey of the Soul’ which tracks the passage of the human soul on its way to enlightenment, through the annual zodiac cycle. The book’s author, Bill Darlison was brought up a Catholic and then shifted to Unitarian ministry in Dublin after teaching religious education and points out that the Catholic feast of the Transfiguration on August 6th when Christ is absorbed back into spirit describes that his face ‘shone like the Sun and his clothes became white as light’...
The sun, is the heart of our universe...and judging by my recent walk outside, it is now at it’s accumulated zenith...the very energy, power and might of the Divine.
The experience of climate extremes I find both terrifying and awesome. Much like the roar of a lion.
Terrifying, as we’re on the verge of climate catastrophe. The prospect of more of these super heat events should be a reminder that we delay essential measures to manage carbon levels at our peril...awesome because it’s a reminder of our place in the world. Nature and the weather are so powerful that there are times we need to be humbly ‘put in our place’.
One of the reasons I am a person of faith and believe in some form of greater power of which I, you and everyone is a part, is through what has been called the ‘overview effect’...I haven’t experienced space travel, but my glimpse into this world is through experiencing synchronicities which allow me to see an unfolding web of a larger interrelatedness behind reality...a ‘quantum layer’ shown through these inter connections...this unitive awareness is found in many of the world’s older wisdom traditions that emphasise the unity and oneness of all life on Earth and of consciousness.
The FOI founders were aware of this too and had a strong sense of oneness with our universe...through honouring the Divine Feminine and balancing the gender energies we can utilize the best that each person and each reality has to give for the benefit of all.
Divine Mother, Eternal Spirit, Pain-bearer and Life-giver
Source of all that is and that shall be;
Guide us in the ways of Peace and Truth,
So we may join in community with the glory of the power that is Love
Now and forever...so may it be. Amen.
With blessings of the season,
Cressida, FOI Steward.
