AVALON*ARTICULATES 10
A periodic gift of insights from Glastonbury
written by Avalonians for folks like you
with love from
from the Isle of Avalon island of websites at
http://www.isleofavalon.co.uk
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AA is sent free to all intrepid visitors to
the Isle of Avalon island of websites
and the Glastonbury Archive
(if, that is, they leave their name!)
It's also for friends of Glastonbury
and anyone with an interest in
the kind of things that go on around here!
Each week we send out an interesting article
from one of Glastonbury's many writers.
Sometimes illuminating or informative
sometimes entertaining or educational
sometimes just a really good read.
To subscribe, unsubscribe or communicate
see the notes at the end.
You might want to print out this e-zine.
Pin it up by the toilet, for example! No kidding!
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CONTENTS
Part one:
Editorial
This month's contributions:
- Putting our own needs first is the kindest thing we can do,
by Emma Gathergood
A request from Romania
Part two:
- Friends,
by Shelley Bovey
News from Glastonbury
Glastonbury net Radio
The small print
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Welcome
to the tenth sending of Avalon Articulates!
This issue of AvalonArticulates has taken a long time to emerge because so
many other things have been happening. At present, the front-end of the
IsleofAvalon website is being completely redesigned (results in June), and
I have been deeply involved with online humanitarian work connected with
Serbia-Kosovo too.
AA comes in two parts this time, to avoid over-long e-mails. We bring you
two articles, written by Emma Gathergood and Shelley Bovey, both
Glastonbury residents. They pose what seem to be contradictory issues:
putting ourselves first, and being there for others. However, as both
authors show, these are two sides of the same coin.
Emma has been around Glastonbury for years, though she graced the cities of
Worcester and Birmingham with her presence for some years until recently.
Now she's back. Once it becomes home, Glastonbury seems never to stop
being so. In her time she has been a nurse, mother, healer and counsellor.
Shelley has been around for years too, but she's a hideaway type who has
made herself known to us only recently. She cropped up on GWell, our local
e-mail system, and has made some very interesting contributions, not least
the following one:
<clip>
I've lived in or near Glastonbury for 20 years but I have never been quite
sure who the Goddess is. Is she the deification of nature, the earth's
spirit? Is she a female version of the Man Upstairs whom I call God? Is
she related to him, is she an aspect of the Virgin Mary, or a synthesis of
all the ancient Goddesses of different cultures? Do people who believe in
the Goddess ever believe in God or are they mutually exclusive? Is she
something else entirely? I have read books but they all refer to the
Goddess as though the reader should know who she is. Please fill this gap
in my knowledge. Thanks! Love, Shelley
<end clip>
Now *this* is a very pertinent question! In Glastonbury, it's an important
one, because there are many Goddess enthusiasts around here, and some think
the Goddess owns the place. I'm looking forward to seing whether this
question is well-answered, and interesting articles on the matter are
invited (from folks outside Glastonbury too), for publication in AA!
With love
Palden
editor, AvalonArticulates
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ARTICLES
Putting our own needs first is the kindest thing we can do
Emma Gathergood
When our own needs are met, we automatically sink back into our authentic
self. This is our true self, our God/Goddess Self, which is naturally
loving and giving. It is WHO WE TRULY ARE!
Most of us were brought up to be "a nice kind person, and put others
first". These two concepts seemed irretrievably bound together as if they
were an inevitable chain reaction. As we grew we couldn't help but see all
the pain around us, and spontaneously from the natural joy arising in our
hearts wanted to do something about it. So we set off on our careers and
life path, full of enthusiasm and good will, determined OUR generation
would make a difference - we really would make the world a better place.
To those like myself, growing up in the fifties and sixties, with flowers
in our hair and in our hearts, with "all we need is love" echoing round our
heads, we were sure this time we would get it right. We launched ourselves
into positive, creative careers. We believed in "free love", having sex in
the open air and dancing naked at dawn at Woodstock. We had "love children"
to prove we were so free we didn't need the contraints of marriage to bring
our children up lovingly and joyfully.
Then imperceptably, slowly but steadily, everything started to change. We
got involved in mortgages, child minders, politics. We had to take the job
most conveniently situated to our child's school. We had to put up with
the undercurrent of bad feeling in a dying relationship for the sake of the
children. Or we made the break and then had to struggle through financial
and emotional hardship to raise our children single handed.
Our beliefs, dreams, hopes, ambitions became sunken behind deadlines,
committments, convention, lethargy and a general feeling of somnambulism.
We became tense, irritable, highly strung, always on the edge, always
struggling, fighting for survival against a rising tide of "reality" which
was drowning our loving, creative spirit. Whatever happened to the "nice,
kind person that put others first"? Yes, we still put others first, but we
were no longer "nice kind people". Suddenly our life seemed to be as much a
path of duty as had our parents' lives. Of course we had to live in this
town, it was where our partner worked. Of course we hadn't been able to
further our expansive, creative career, but had become a school teacher
because it fitted in with the children's school holidays. We didn't exactly
resent it (I mean, that would be selfish, wouldn't it?) but we didn't
entirely relish it either.
Then one day we realized our zest for life was gone, and with it our joy,
our spontaneity. Our life force was ebbing away under a cloak of duty and
expectation. The ones we had always "put first" seemed to demand our
unfailing and tireless devotion, while at the same time persuing their own
agendas, with our needs pretty low down on their list of priorities. So who
was supposed to fulfill OUR needs?
It was there in my life journey that I met the American concept of Life
Skills Coaching. It is a system wherby a person is encouraged and shown how
to systematically put their life in order.It teaches the opposite concept
from the one we were raised on. It's premise is - find out what you really
need at this point in your life, and make your top priority fulfilling this
need in as UNCONDITIONALLY CONSTRUCTIVE way as possible. This means being
as unconditionally loving and as constructive as possible to yourself as
well as to those around you, while you work on fulfilling these needs. Once
your deep needs are fulfilled your spontaneous, loving, joyfull self will
once again re-emerge from the ashes of self denial and over-work.
Thats it! BE A NICE KIND PERSON AND PUT YOURSELF FIRST! At first I was
totally shocked at this concept. It seemed to go against everything I had
ever lived by. It seemed almost heretical, going in the face of every
ethical and spiritual truth I had ever studied.
But the amazing thing was within a few months of discovering this idea my
whole life began to change. The more I worked with the concept, the more I
found the "nice kind me" I had lost years earlier. I found myself
spontaneously letting go of the relationships and constructs in my life
that "didn't grow corn", as the American Indians say. I began to give
myself more time for contemplation and prayer. I began to forgive my
ex-partners for their role in the demise of our reltionships. I began to
understand and forgive my parents for my less than perfect childhood! I
began to enjoy my work more, finding a spontaneous joyfull me, that I could
readily and willingly share with my clients. I began to not only tolerate
but actually enjoy my work colleagues' idiosyncrases. I began to relate in
a different, somehow deeper and more meaningful way with my grown children.
I even found the noise of my young grandchildren, or traffic noise, were
no longer so intrusive. My long term exhaustion slowly began to lift.
Now I once again do yoga at sunrise. Once again I am full of 'joie de
vivre'. I can laugh again, and dance and sing. These days I am a NICE KIND
PERSON AND I PUT MYSELF FIRST!
Emma Gathergood is a Personal Coach and Life Skills Trainer. She works with
clients over the phone from her home near Glastonbury, as well as running
seminars and workshops. For those of you who are astrologically-literate,
Emma has a lot of Aquarius and Libra in her birth-chart! She's contactable
on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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A REQUEST
We like to 'adopt' certain good causes and give them outreach assistance.
This we have done with a magazine-website in Ukraine, and with direct
front-end website links to independent Serbian radio and the Kosovan
website during the Balkans conflict. Now we wish to present to you a group
in Romania, which needs a helping hand. Please read this and help us give
these guys a leg up!
>From Stanuta Gheorghe in Iasi, Romania [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear friend
Here in my home town we have a small group since 1990, where we try to find
our way back to light and our Higher Self. We learn and practice all we
find about spiritual healing. We use qi-gong, therapies with
light-crystals-plants-music, presopuncture, ostheopathy, past life
regression, reiki , therapies with colours-aromatic oils, positive
thinking, power of forgiveness and many other techniques.
We practice inside the group and help all the other people who come to
public meetings, when we are guided to do it.
Here in Romania, since few months ago, there are a lot of peoples which
lose their jobs because many firms are closed in the attempt to restructure
the economy. The cost of classical medical care is very high, and the
cost of living, of power, gas, phone, food, and other daily needs are very
high for many people (at least 75%).
Because of this, we are guided to do more for people. We want to make a
center here, where people who are looking for the way back to the light and
their Higher Self can receive help (spiritual healing, materials, books,
tapes, any other supports on the path) for free or at a very low price.
For many people who ask us for help on the spiritual path, even getting
daily food is a problem.
We are setting up a non-profit, charitable organisation which will provide
spiritual assistance for those who ask. The cost of that dream is too
great for us, so we seek sponsors to help us:
* register the organisation officially as a charity (which is expensive),
in order to be able to receive donations, and avoid high taxes and customs
dues on equipment donated at home and from abroad;
* find equipment to help us in information-exchange, and donate funds to
print material for people seeking help, and
* find funds to support a team of 3-4 people in working full time to bring
our dream into reality.
We are open to any other proposals or forms of cooperation. If you would
like more information about our project, please write to me. With love and
light from Iasi, Romania
Your friend, Stanuta Gheorghe
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Address: Stanuta Gheorghe,
Al. Tudor Nicolae Nr. 129: Bl.
1003C, Sc. A, Etj. 1, Apt. 7,
COD 6600 Iasi, Romania
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[Now go to part two, in the accompanying e-mail....]
