View from the Big Hills

  Song for Bealteinne Who comes maying, comes maying with me? - Lad and maiden, sweetheart and friend – Softly slip from your house-doors free: Sweet May-night in the woods we'll spend! We'll pass by where the hawthorns white Breathe their bridal odour of love: Not a twig shall we pluck till light - Sweet May-night in the woods we'll rove! Bring ye plenty of bread and ale, Meat and sweet as it pleases ye, bring: Lanterns vying with moonlight pale, In the woods we shall sup and sing! Praise the Goddess-Queen for whose feast Love's the hymnal and kisses the creed: Two and two 'mid the leaves embraced, Sweet May-night in joy let us speed! Bathed in dew when the daybreak is come, Boughs of hawthorn bear we away - Crowned and decked with its sacred bloom, In the morning we'll bring home the May! ~ Vivian Godfrey (aka Past Presider, OBOD) When I reached my early twenties, I often found myself “awaken...

Toni Sussmann, the erudite Jungian practitioner and psychotherapist, remains relatively unknown outside Jungian circles. I think that’s rather a shame.   Arriving in England with her husband in 1938, Toni was one of many refugees fleeing the rising tide of Nazism, who settled and managed to thrive in the bubbling cauldron of London. Importantly, to anyone with an interest in the esoteric history of England, Toni undoubtedly had a quiet and unassuming influence on the thinking and practice of some of the players at the time. For those interested in the wider story of Dion Fortune, Toni Sussman was on record as a colleague of Dion’s student Helah Fox. Helah had been a member of the Inner Light’s community for a number of years, having lived at both Chalice Orchard and 3 Queensborough Terrace. Helah told the late Janine Chapman in 1973 that Dion Fortune had consulted Toni Sussmann in about 1943 or 1944 as “the best Jung practitioner who there was in London”. That would h...

Song for Lughnasadh                    [He:]     O beauty's blossom, most cruel maid,                              A grievous foe have you been to me:                              My heart you took and my trust betrayed                                        And smiled as I sank in the dark sea.                    ...