Day 17 → A Book You’ve Read That Changed Your Vews on Something.

Through the legends of Avalon we are called to be self-sufficient and empowered women, gifted with the blessings of sight.--Jhenah Telyndu

Several years ago, members of a Yahoo group I belonged to had been discussing The Mists of Avalon.  Until that time, I knew nothing about Avalon or the enchantment it had to offer, so I didn't immediately go out to buy it.  It just seemed to hold no interest do me, and besides, at the time, I was focusing on my Bardic lessons at NOD  (New Order of Druids) and really had to focus on.  The talk about The Mists eventually died down, and I completed my course.  I had basically pushed the book out of my mind,  but it just so happened  one day when I was in Barnes @ Noble looking for something to read, there was The Mists, and it seemed to be reaching out to me. The day I took that book home, I had no idea of how strongly it was going to effect me.  

First of all, I couldn't put it down. Everything else took second place. Each night, when I fell asleep, I was finding myself in Avalon.  I had visions of mystical cities shrouded in mist and inhabited by priestesses who possessed spells and magic....and I was one of them.   The dreams were so uncannily vivid that I felt as if I had been transported back to another time, another life. This had never happened to me before. I just couldn't get enough of Avalon  and purchased the entire series, reading  each book twice...first backward from The Mists, then forwards from Ancestors of Avalon.  I happened to mention this on the group, and one of the members reached out to me.  We began having private conversations about the book and the Sisterhood of Avalon.  It seemed like such a wonderful place but....

....I didn't join. I had too much on my plate right then.   I had started on   my Ovate courses, and they were pretty intense.  The lessons included using the Voyage of Bran as an Immrama, a journey across the waters of the personal unconscious  As we landed on the different islands, we were encouraged to look within in order to begin our journey back to wholeness. But, although the Sisterhood just wasn't in the cards for me,  the book not only opened me up to new avenues, new beliefs.... it brought  a wonderful new friend into my life.  Together we began our own Yahoo group, Avalon Revisited.  The group itself never took off, so we began another group...and, it was through Echoes that I learned that a place called Blogland existed. 

Elizabeth is gone now.   She passed way on December 16, 2009, but she will always have a special place in my heart.  And, inadvertently, the book has brought all of you into my life and for that I am grateful.  I recently purchased the book Avalon Within by Jhenah Telyndu.  She is the founder and Morgen of the Sisterhood of Avalon.   As I write this post, I am planning to embark on a new journey to Avalon....for within this book  is an Immrama, a journey down the spiritual path of healing through the legends of Avalon.  She is once again calls out to me.

Beauty lies in surrender. It's a feminine humility that calls to wounded souls from beyond the mists of the eternal Tao and Avalon. Late at night I'd called to the ladies of the mist saying, "Help me, my heart, she cry."  And sometimes the Spirit of Surrender would whisper to me in visions and dreams and she would tell me to quit and sit and wait. So to while away the time I'd breathe love into the hearts of liars and crooks and pedophiles and the embezzlers of human souls, and I felt better and I waited as instructed.--Stuart Wilde