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STROUD GODDESS TEMPLE WELCOMES YOU TO BECOME PRIESTXESS OF STONE, STREAM AND SKY
Video
Video and Poetry by Fleur Camille Pennington, Cotswold Spiral1 teaching faculty
A comprehensive ceremonial and ritual training for those called to step up as wisdom keepers of this sacred landscape and the Cotswold Wheel of Goddess
Have you dreamed of stepping into your Priestess self?
Would you like to learn more about the local Goddesses of this region? Do you want to learn the skills of ceremony, ritual and rites of passage for self, family and community?
A rich and involving two-year exploration of the faces of Goddess here in the Cotswolds. Together we will explore different Goddesses who have been worshipped by our ancestors here in this locale.
At the centre of the wheel is Cuda and the Cuculatti – the great Goddess of the Cotswolds. And around the wheel we will learn about Nematona, Elen, Rosmerta, Sulis, Sabrina, Venus, the Three Matres, Hekate, and Cuda and the Cuculatti.
The teachers are a group of women trained in a variety of disciplines: priestess, shamanic practitioner, witch, druid, archaeologist, equine therapist, therapist, artist who work with nature, spirit and Goddess.
The first year will involve visits to local museums, sacred sites, rivers and springs as well as working in the Temple in Stroud as we form relationships with each Goddess. As well as forming a connection with each Goddess we will learn about them from a historical perspective.
Some came from other lands and this helps us to build a picture about migration of people and culture, about cross-fertilisation of ideas and spirituality. As well as learning about each Goddess there will be the opportunity to embody and experience how She lives within us.
Together we will build a dynamic picture as we imagine our ancestors’ veneration of Goddess and relationship with the land and bring that experience into the present.
As a group we will create between us a conscious Goddess community exploring these faces of Goddess in relation to ourselves, each other and the Cotswold landscape.
The second year will be about deepening this relationship and learning Priestess tools for making ceremony and ritual as we move towards making a dedication to Goddess.
THE WHEEL OF CUDA
THE WHEEL
We will work with the newly imagined Wheel of Cuda, and places Cuda at the centre representing Great Goddess . The name 'Cuda and the Cuculatti' appears on a relief found at Daglingworth which depicts the seated mother Goddess attended by three Cuculatti. Author Stephen Yeates speculates that 'Cotswolds' could come from the name Cuda : Cuda's Wald. There are many place names in the Cotswolds which have 'cod' or 'cud' in them and these are interesting to consider in relation to Cuda. The seated mother Goddess figurines found around the Cotswolds seem to depict an earth and/or harvest Goddess often pictured with apples and/or wheat, so appropriate for this agricultural centre, on the chalky honey coloured stones which make up the bones of the Cotswold Escarpment. The three Cuculatti who accompany Cuda on the relief found at Daglingworth which bears the name, are hooded figures who are in attendance to Cuda. They are androgynous, mysterious and could invoke guardian spirits of place.
Thanks and credit for influence to Kathy Jones for the directions of the original Wheel of Bridannia, and Yuri Leitch for historical research on local goddesses.
COURSE DELIVERY
The course will be mixed delivery both online and in person, taking place over an initial year for Sisterhood of Stone, Stream and Sky, and expanding into a second spiral for those wishing to dedicate fully to this path of Liminal Edge Priestess. The full first year is spread over 10 in person days, or for those unable to attend there is an online delivery via Google Classroom, which can be completed at your own pace, and an open invitation to join the in person group at sacred site visits through the year.
We will begin at Spring Equinox and continue with one in person day each month and online self-study and zoom video calls between the in person delivery days.
The In Person Dates of this Training are each 10am - 6pm, including:
SUNDAY 13th March 2022 - A day devoted to Cuda and the Cuculatti, led by Kate Dineen and an introduction to the training which can be attended as a standalone taster workshop, £75 which will be deducted from the full fees should you then decide to commit to the rest of the Year 1 Spiral. Book here by contacting us
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Sunday 13th March 2022 - Cuda and the Cuculatti - this is a standalone day as well as the first of the spiral.
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Saturday 26 th March 2022 - Elen of the Ways with Bliss Magdalena
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Saturday 7th May - Venus at Beltane
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Saturday 25th June 2022 - Sabrina of the Severn
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Saturday 6th August 2022 - Three Matrones at Lammastide
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Saturday 17th September 2022 - Rosmerta at the Heartshore Stables
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Saturday 29th October 2022 - Sulis in Bath and Birdlip Woman
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Saturday 10th December 2022 - Hekate approaching Solstice
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Saturday 21st January 2023 - Nematona at Imbolc
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Saturday 25th March 2023 - Closing and Renewal
ONLINE SESSIONS
There is an online self-paced study option with supportive Zoom Calls and a Facebook group for all students and faculty. These will take place between the in- person delivery, to support integration for in-person study as well as the online option, and are scheduled to take place from 7pm on:
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Sunday 24th April 2022
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Sunday 8th May 2022
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Sunday 12th June 2022
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Sunday 31st July 2022
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Sunday 18th September 2022
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Sunday 30th October 2022
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Sunday November 27th 2022
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Sunday 22 January 2023
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Sunday 19 March 2023
Attendance is optional - calls are recorded. 2-3 hours duration, subject to change of dates as required)
FEES
You can take part in the program for as little as £17 a month.
The full price for the in-person spiral year training is £750.
The distance learning program is £375.
Melissa volunteers are offered a bursary rate of £500 in-person and £200 for the distance learning course. Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a Temple Melissa.
There are payment plans available for the distance and in-person programs.
The costs of this training will be directly funding the Stroud Goddess Temple project in addition to supporting priestess teachers, scholars and facilitators delivering the sessions.
JOIN THE SPIRAL
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
We are happy to accept payment of £750 in full for each Spiral year in full, or part payment of 3 installments of £250 over the course of the delivery.
If you have any questions please email us: goddesstemplestroud@gmail.com
FACULTY
Kate Dineen
Energy Weaver
Goddess:
Cuda and the Cuculatti/Three Matrones
I was born in Stroud and carry the land in my bones! For over 25 years I’ve been working as an Energy Weaver drawing upon many disciplines including Shamanic Healing, Spiritual Healing and mediumship to name but a few. Goddess came to me through connecting with the sacred feminine,
with mother earth, with the landscape around the Cotswolds. I have presented two workshops at the Glastonbury Goddess Conference connecting participants with Earth Mother Goddess. As an Energy Weaver (healing practitioner) I work with individuals helping them to shed heavy energies and reconnect with nature and spirit and find their healing path; with groups I offer transmissions and training to fuel self-development in relation to our ecology; I hold ceremony and ritual for individuals and groups to mark threshold transitions, major life-changes and Rites of Passage; I have been running a mother/daughter group for the last 4 years. I was part of a Red Hearth holding group meeting monthly for 4 years. I offer regular multi-generational community fire ceremonies honouring moon and earth and the Celtic Wheel. An apprenticeship with Q’echuan teachers has given me a profound set of skills and tools for connecting with our foremost teachers – the Nature Beings. With their blessing it is a great honour to transmit this information and act as a bridge weaving energies between humans and nature,
between lands, between the worlds.
It is a great pleasure to be offering two days as a part of the Spiral of Cuda. The first day on March 13th 2022 will be about Cuda and the Cuculatti and the second day on August 6th 2022 will be about the Three Matrones. These offerings are a culmination of many hours of research and creativity and lived
experience of Goddess, especially Cuda, as she and the Matrones and other local faces of Goddess here in the Cotswolds return to our consciousness and connect us with our ancestors of these lands.
Bliss Magdalena
Priestess & Founder of Stroud Goddess Temple
Goddess:
Elen of the Ways/Three Matrones
Bliss is a deeply devoted, learned and dynamic priestess who is living in fully activated divine presence. Her life is a full immersion in sacred practices and connection with source, which she expresses in her work to help others find their juicy inner divine self and step up into their life's mission from a place of clarity, empowered knowledge and trauma informed awesomeness!
A blood lineage priestess raised by a Priestess of Ishtar/Isis, she is aligned with of the return of the divine feminine and shift to transcendent unity consciousness happening across the Earth as we move from the age of Pisces into the Aquarian epoch. Bliss trained in the Avalonian Priestess lineage with Katinka Soetens as a Priestess of Rhiannon and the Labyrinth, She is also a Sister of Elen, a longtime holistic practitioner and teacher, and Priestess and Initiatrix of the Lunar Womb Temple and Healing Womb Temple Arts Training.
Sarah Dixon
Artist & Co-Director of the Goddess Temple
Goddess:
Hekate
Sarah Dixon, born in London and raised in Cyprus and the UAE, is a socially-engaged conceptual artist. Her work explores participatory art making, ritual and symbol. She explores new ways of relating, and democratising creativity. A polymath, she draws on a wide experience: with a degree in Biology from UCL, she has worked in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Hindu Kush, and has studied art forms from Orthodox icon painting to Corporate Design.
She’s a co-founder of The Women’s Art Activation System (WAAS), a collective for activating women’s art. With the WAAS she has created The Bureau for the Validation of Art, Baby Makers, and The Milky Way - a breastfeeding tour of the National Gallery, with the highlight being a painting of Goddess Juno creating the Milky Way with her breast milk.
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My work is participatory, feminist and collaborative. I work with symbols and ritual and I have a particular interest in the female experience. Women have a very ancient history of nurturing their community and ‘holding space’ for mysteries of life and death. I tap into this and invent processes that allow me to reshape my own experiences and those of others. I am deeply concerned with equity and social justice, an ongoing evolution.
Currently I am creating 100 Goddess Paintings - using earth pigments and egg yolk, connecting with land and spirit to create intuitive art of the Divine Feminine.
I have been spending the winter of 2021-22 in communication with Hekate and her lessons and walking with chronic illness and neurodiversity to generate new ways of being.
Yvette Staelens
Archaeologist, Choralist
Birdlip Woman, Dubonni Tribe
Yvette Staelens, Senior Teaching Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Bournemouth. I was born in the fair city of Gloucester and one of my earliest musical memories is sitting on the stairs at 11 Central Road, listening to my brother Ralph playing electric guitar with his mates in their 'beat group', The Tresspassers. I wasn't allowed in because (a I was too young and b) ..a girl!
I went to Calton Road primary school and was chosen to play the chime bars in a joint Gloucester schools concert at the age of 7 - my first gig!
At school I received free recorder and cello lessons and my parents also paid for me to learn the piano. We had a school orchestra then and I played in the county youth orchestra - the orchestra even won a prize at the Cheltenham Festival (inspite of me playing my cello with a G string 'completely out').
I've always loved singing and inspired by my mum, who had a great voice (she won a wartime singing competition in Gloucester park) drove people at school bonkers by singing in my 'operatic' voice at peak volume in school corridors and around playgrounds.
My professional music career began when I met Abbie Lathe and we formed Roots Quartet in 1984. The band has undergone various incarnations involving Mitch Norman and Nigel Pope and now comprises Michelle Hicks and myself.
I adore teaching singing and my other current passions are my two daughters, Katherine and Juliette, both beautiful singers; the social history of Somerset Folk Song and ... my perennial love for things archaeological, which started on a Cotswold summit (Crickley Hill excavations 1976 to be precise) ... and continues today.
Billie Rose
Priestess Medusa, Healer, Magical Mala Maker
Venus
I absolutely adore to create safe spaces and by this I mean nurturing places that allow the body to drop into relaxation where everyone is welcome exactly as they are. I use ceremony as a container and a portal for this as it opens a gateway for us to tap into the divine - our own divinity.
When we step into sacred space together we are invited to fully show up and connect with our emotions and each other.
It is one of my core values to empower myself and others.
There is an inbetween space of nothingness that I can really feel, as 2021 drops away and the seeds of 2022 set their roots. It has such a unqiue quality to it, to me it feels like a void, a dark fertile soil to dream in intentions for the year ahead.
This year there is a spark of excitement within me that is leading me to make solid plans and goals that can act as sacred vessels to my dreams. My heart is inviting me to explore all aspects of my life, what do I want more of? What do I need less of? What are my core values and how can I weave them into all areas of my life?
In the heart of so many woman are the whispers of longing to sit with her sisters, to connect deeply, cracking open the parts of us that we can no longer bear to hide and share our vulnerability, our joys, fears so that we can co-create dreams.
For me this not so much of a whisper, it a much louder voice!
I specialise in created sacred safe spaces for women to re-connect with the divinity within, and you dear sister are so welcome to join us!
Fleur Camille Pennington
Druid, Celebrant, Doula, Therapist, Mother, Facilitator, Herbologist, Creative Artist and Lover of Poetry
Rosmerta & Sulis
My heart dwell’s in the wild places of these lands, in ancient nature-based spirituality and neuroscience,
kindness, Gratitude and Love in the shadow lands.
I feel gratitude on my journey.
Kindness, Gratitude and Heart.
Embodiment – Using movement and touch therapies to reconnect and bring the body back into relationship with nature and the whole self.
Celebrant, Somatic Therapist, Poet
Use this space to introduce yourself and share your professional history.
Phyllis Baker
Priestess of Andraste
Nematona
I am a Priestess of Andraste of the Iceni Tribe of East Anglia. Trained with Chistine Watts, Priestess of Avalon. I serve as a Melissa at Glastonbury Goddess Temple as well as on the Management Committee of East Anglia Goddess Community. Before moving to Wiltshire just before lockdown I held regular Goddess Chanting & Meditation groups in my home, honouring World Goddesses as well as those of Ancient Britain. I am a retired nurse, counsellor and teacher which I think helps me connect with peopleas as a Priestess. I live with my partner, Marilyn, of 24 years in N Wiltshire. Marilyn is a heaier & clairvoyant. We moved to Wiltshire to be near our children and granddaughter.
facebook.com/Goddess-Chanting-Meditation-Group
Anna-Saqqara Price
Priestess Teacher
Rosmerta, Horse Healing
Hi I’m a Priestess of the Goddess, I work at the Glastonbury Goddess Temple as the Melissa ( volunteers ) Mother, and as a Priestess Healer at the Goddess House. I’m also guardian for a herd of therapy horses, and offer eqiune assisted personal & Soul development Experiences.
Priestess, Soul Healer, Sacred Artist
Nicola Haasz
Priestess, Witch, Author
Sabrina
Sabrina, Goddess of the River Severn by Nicola Haasz - Priestess of the Veiled Hinterlands, Witch and ancestral native of these lands, is leading the day near summer Solstice dedicated to Sabrina of the Severn. Nicola is one of the founders of Bristol Goddess Temple and has researched a book and popular lecture about the history and mythology of Sabrina/Hafren.
Insta @earthcauldronkeepers
Healing with Nature - Energy Weaver - Ancient Animism - Keepers of the Earth Cauldron. Healer. Teacher. Celebrant.