Reflections by Olivia Robertson

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I'm thinking very much about transformation and veils, for this is what it's all about really. . . life.

This is on the Veil of Isis. I love the whole great words: "I am She who was and is and shall be, no mortal man has lifted my veil and lived." Overwhelmed by various disclosures about people's personal lives in our country, Ireland, including the highest Priests and Rulers, I feel in the mood for disclosure - I felt, that is. Let the truth shine forth. I work out things in our Temple. Magically, I would unveil two of my statues - one of a golden naked Goddess, which I placed strategically over our holy well of Brigid, the other our Isis crowned with sun and moon on our High Altar. I enjoyed unveiling the golden statue above the well, think this would break our Irish taboo against nudity.

   
© photos by Minette Quick

Well pleased with what I had done, I decided to write about the unveiling of Isis of Truth in Ireland and everywhere else. Down with cover-up - you forgo deception of any sort, secrecy, secret vows, secret rites - not that we did any of these things in FOI. The door was always left open at our Castle ceremonies. At first the people of Clonegal looked in to see what we were up to, then they knew what we did and then they were glad to see it on television, they loved blogs and all those things.

But as so often happens, when I prepare to show forth a good idea, the opposite gives me, a startling - a shock. I found the lighting we put in, instead of candles, made somebody said rather banal, rather ordinary. The light, especially modern light that didn't give shadows - there were no shadows in the eve of light throughout. Oh dear. Then our wonderful dungeon - our dungeon was very good for initiations and so forth, but suddenly it had sort of got boring.

And so I really wondered, what was happening? And then you know when your life, the fun seemed to go out of everything. . and then suddenly I thought "no, I'm not having this, we want light, we want darkness." Light and darkness are one. So I put in spotlighting, very dark shadows and things began to pep up. All the glamour came back to our Temple, our wonderful dungeon, when I put heavy black curtains over it so people could come through and get a surprise, you see. And but I thought when I first wrote this article I'd done it all, but I hadn't. I've done my final, courageous act of getting rid of exposure.

   
© photos by Minette Quick

We were presented with this huge masterpiece, made of thick, thick sort of hairy, whiskery stuff, showing a woman's naked body, below her waist, and showing her sacred womb. It was a sort of ochre color and then her large, large legs. And anyway I mentioned how I was embarrassed by what people would think, but our housekeeper later announced it was the chalice - so I thought "good, the Davinci code, the womb is sacred." Truth is, I always wanted to get rid of it. It was all so heavy, so there, if you know what I mean.

© photo by Minette Quick

And so, last week, I was looking at a blue veil. A very, very lot of blue cotton cloth, and to my amazement, I saw a Goddess' head drawn on it upside down. So I turned it around and I felt very embarrassed. An artist had given me a huge sort of batten of blue material with a Sea Goddess drawn in on it - but - it was black on dark blue and I hadn't noticed and I had put it upside down. So I put it the right way up and then I thought "well, this is beautiful, this is a lovely artist", and I began to highlight it so people could see it. I had it lying flat. Where was I to put it, it was huge. Now I dare say my dear brother, my nephew I should say, David were on this plane, he would certainly stop me - I mean I wouldn't dare do the things I'm doing now. But I determined to put it over our masterpiece, the Holy Grael. And so I worked away after supper, right on and into the night. I climbed dangerously, as usual, over the Well, stood on my tiptoes, and I found it tucked in very nicely, over the great tapestry, in fact, it was more of it.

© photo by Minette Quick

And then I stood back and I thought "she's marvelous" because there's the whole of her, not just her womb - she's got a head and a beautiful body, and she's a Goddess, and she's wearing a Moon. And I sort of added blue and green and white and I began painting her, filled with inspiration. But I felt very nervous, on what I'd gone and done, you know how people are about works of art, and I'd gone and covered up this and I was delighted when somebody said "it's magnificent", and somebody said "the Goddess has come into Her Temple."

And so I realized that She was the Veil. Someone said this will help with the oil slick, we can work now with all this oil, we have the Sea Goddess. And so I thought: they are real these beings and somehow or other, what was Her name - Atargatis of Syria - Goda. Did you know that the feminine word for God is Goda, and She holds a trident. There's Britannia, but above all, Her name is Brigid na Mara, Brigid of the Sea. So, I thought you'd like to know that.