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The Cycle of the Celtic Year: Celebration
Workshops, 2010 |
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Each of these Festivals celebrates a
particular Gateway in the cycle of the Celtic Year, which gives each
Celebration a very different flavour. Click on the titles or the
images to go to a fuller description and booking details for that
workshop. |
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Beltane: The
Goddess and the Green Man
(includes
Bank Holiday Monday)
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30
Apr - 3
May 2010 |
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£185 per person + food to share |
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Hazel Hill wood is carpeted in bluebells.
Sexual, generative energy is in full flow. In this workshop the invitation is to
combine opening to the natural energy represented in the Celtic
tradition by the Goddess and the Green Man with connecting with our own
inner fires--the God and the Goddess within. |
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The
Summer Solstice is the year’s Zenith. This is the
time of year when the energy generated by the dance
between Earth and Sun is at its height, the point when
the Sun is highest in the sky and closest to the Earth,
and the Earth itself teems with multiplicity. |
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The
Solstice celebrates multiplicity, connectedness and
community –- between earth and sky, between man and
nature, between race and gender, between child and
adult, between human and faery. By day it is a
time of innocence and play, by night a time of wildness
and magic. |
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Lammas stands at the midpoint between the summer Solstice
and the Autumn Equinox, in what is sometimes called
the "hush of summer" -- just on the edge of the beginning of
the main harvest. Lammas is about experiencing what is
-- nothing less, nothing more. |
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The
invitation is to allow the boundaries between inner and
outer and self and other to dissolve, to experience the now
of summer. |
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Autumn
Equinox: Completion |
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17-19 September 2010 |
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£145 per person + food to share |
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The hero stands once more at the
mouth of the cave, now facing towards the dark, but
celebrating the moment of perfect balance between light
and dark at the end of the harvest. |
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A "Second Circle"
workshop for those who have completed at least one
cycle with us. |
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Samhain (Halloween) stands at the threshold of the dark
part of the year. In traditional Celtic society, this
was the time of in-gathering and recollection. It
marks the end of absorption in the outer, momentary present,
the beginning of the time of inner journeying, of
re-connection with the ancestors, our guides and guardians
underground, and the awakening of the voices of prophecy.
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In the wood, it is the time when the energy of the trees
withdraws below ground, the time when next year's seeds lie
dormant. In Tantra, it is time to move inward, to go
deeper, finding in our core energy the fuel for personal and
planetary transformation. |
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Yuletide, the celebration of the nadir.
Energetically, Winter is the season of contraction.
Yet it is also the time of exploring inner space,
discovering inner light. The Winter Solstice celebrates the
birth of the magical child of light on the darkest night of
the year. Gifts, twinkling lights, song and
storytelling – all the things that appeal to the child in us
– belong to the Solstice.
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Outside, there is cold and dark.
Inside, there is community and connectedness, the energy of
the heart, the light that burns within all of us. |
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Spring Equinox: Renewal |
£145 per person + food to share |
18-20 March, 2011 |
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The hero stands once more at the
mouth of the cave, now facing towards the dark, but
celebrating the moment of perfect balance between light
and dark at the end of the harvest. |
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A "Second Circle"
workshop for those who have completed at least one
cycle with us. |
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VALENTINES
DAY is not a itself one of the eight great Gateway in
the Celtic Year, but it appears to have developed partly at
least from Imbolc, The calendar around Imbolc is
peppered with days devoted to the celebration of true love.
In Scotland, St Agnes' Eve (Jan 20) is celebrated as
the night of the chaste maiden's erotic dream of her true
love to be; in Wales, January 25 is dedicated to St Dwynwen,
patron saint of lovers; and of course throughout mediaeval
Europe February14, the day when, according to Chaucer,
"every bird chooses its mate" , is St Valentine's Day.
Older Roman and Greek festivals lie behind these mediaeval
traditions. But the Celtic surely lies in Imbolc
itself, and the evocation of Briget's creative fire. |
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At Hazel Hill Wood
we have therefore added to our Celtic celebrations a Celtic Valentine
weekend exclusively for Couples, which we have named after
the immemorial Celtic tradition of lovers writing their
names on a stone, and casting it into the sea for
safekeeping. |
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Cost: £255 per couple |
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Hazel Hill workshops
have a tendency to fill up early. Please contact us to
check availability before sending your deposit. We cannot
hold a place for more than 3 days without a deposit.
Deposits are non-refundable. |
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Facilities at Hazel Hill:
Sleeping is heated sleeping lofts with mattresses, or you
may bring a tent. There are a limited number of
individual sleeping spaces for couples, including space in
the new building, "The Ark." There are excellent hot
showers, composting loos, and an indoor kitchen.
There is an indoor heated group room, a sauna, and a hot
tub. |
Food:
We ask our participants
to bring bring
food to share for all our Hazel Hill workshops.
For the larger groups, we have a food co-ordinator who will
talk over with you what you might bring. NB If you are
on a special diet, you will need to supply any special
foods.
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