Please note that photobucket is being a pain (even ad blocker can't stop it grinding to a halt while it loads hundreds of adverts) so I can't edit the images to make them a normal shape. It also means I've had to just share one from each place, when I'd liked to have shared a few.
The Temples of Rotokia
You could be forgiven for assuming that due to my influence from druidism recently I'm about to discuss the realms of Earth, Sea and Sky, but these are not the three realms I've come to know. I've read a lot of ideas about these three realms and how they can be incorporated into a druidic path, but nothing resonates with me so far. I simply see them as an emphatic way to talk about 'the whole wold'. Having said that, I did borrow the names for the temples in Rotokia, so I guess I'll mention those too. They vaguely tie in I guess.
The temples were something I worked with when I did the post-initiation part of the FOI course (second degree, if you like). There were 4 temples altogether, those of Earth, Sun, Moon and Stars. Unfortunately I never finished this training so never completed the lessons of the Moon and Stars temples. I continued without the guidance of my teacher, but it's bugged me for years that I don't know what the original intention of the course had been. I've particularly struggled with the Temple of the Stars. I just get nothing from that place. The others though are well established and effective places for me. So I've decided to rename the Temple of the Moon to the Temple of the Sea (it is on a cliff next to the sea anyway), and the Temple of the Sun to the Temple of the Sky. The temples aren't in different realms though. They're just concerned with different areas of my earthly existence, and special places where I can meet with one of my main guides.
The Three Realms
If you've been reading my other blogs, you'll already know that I have a 3-fold concept of deity. This is not the same as the Wiccan Triple Goddess, although she has a place within the system too!
The realms I deal with correspond to this 3-fold concept of deity and are the energetic realm, the plant/floral realm and the animal/faunal realm. They're not really distinct, they overlap and at times exist in the same space in the same moment, but I'm finding it easier to think of them as 3 distinct realms and just be prepared for the fact that they won't always act as expected, or that I can enter one realm only to find the themes I find there better correspond to another realm (in fact, this has been my experience more often than not when I think about it).
Places of Power
In common with most land-based pagans, I have special places in my local area that have significant meaning for me. These also correspond to the realms and in some way or another also connect with Brigantia. While I do make visits to these places in person, especially when I have specific rituals to perform or am working through certain issues, I will also visit these places during trance/meditation.
-The Well at the Priory
I've mentioned Tynemouth Castle and Priory before in a blog and I've been drawn to the place for some time. A little while ago I did a bloodline ritual from Francesca De Grandis' Goddess Initiation. I was taken to the cliff before the castle was built. There was a woman standing on the cliff holding a baby in arms. There's no surviving information on the land before the Anglo-Saxons built the castle, but we do know that the castle was one of the most powerful seats of power in the North East of England at one time. I've suspected for a long time that the castle was built on existing holy land. There's no way of knowing if this is true, but all the same, I like to visit the place. For me though, it's neither the castle itself, nor the priory, that lures me to the site. It is instead a small well just past the entrance. Wells of course, being sacred to Brigantia. That alone is enough to convince me that the well is special, but there is a part of me that wants to imagine that the well was there long before the castle and that it was simply rebuilt when the castle was erected. Maybe, it was, maybe not.. but it's nice to imagine.
This well is a place to contact Briganita on the energetic realm, where she is Goddess of the sacred flame. In terms of human settlement, it is by far the oldest of my 3 sites, and as it looms over the roaring North Sea, it feels more primal. If I were forced to link this realm to one of the Temples in Rotokia, I guess perhaps for purely superficial reasons, I'd align it with the Temple of the Sea.
-The Pow Burn
I mention this a lot and it is probably the most important of my places of power. Once an important tributory of the River Tyne creating a vital trade link with Preston village, where I currently reside, the Pow Burn is now almost completely concreted over. She surfaces at one place only; Northumberland Park. This wonderful historical park is about 15 minutes from my home by foot which makes it an ideal place to visit on those days when I have a little more time. Again, rivers and streams have a connection to Brigantia so this is another great place to commune with her. Here though, as the place is so rich with vegetation, I connect to Brigantia as the Goddess of the Land itself within the floral realm. It's fitting really that I help care for the medieval herb garden there too. It makes it a perfect place to connect to the plant kingdom. At the time of writing, I feel the call of this realm more strongly than the others. This place most naturally corresponds to the Temple of the Earth, again, if I had to align them.
-The Cemetery
Again, I've already gone into some detail about the significance of the cemetery to my path. Here in the animal/faunal realm, where my own species is found, I find the most human form of the gods. Brigantia here takes on her triple form as Brigantia the High One, goddess of healing and of victory, of poetry and of knowledge, of both water and of fire. I've mentioned before that the cemetery is important to me because of my work with Magpie in reconciling the cycle of life and death. The gods I meet at this level too, tend to appear hardened at first, because they deal with the everyday struggles of humans, often appearing as deities of hunting or of war. Yet I have learnt that they each have a love of our species' more creative side. They love to see us craft, paint, to dance and make music. Those things that make us so curious amongst our fellow animals. If I were to align this with a temple, it would be the Temple of the Sky. For it is the animals alone that have been able to occupy the sky, and it is our human ancestors that first looked up to the heavens and asked themselves those deep philosophical questions that so few species could.
Something I've noticed about these places is that almost echoing the realms themselves, the cemetery is the closest to my home being just minutes away, and the well is the furthest, being a further 15 minutes by foot from the park.
This is a very shallow overview of these 3 realms. I'm tempted to expand further, reaching into the specific activities I do concerning each realm (and of course, how the 3 come together during ritual), but there comes a point at which one's UPG becomes lost in translation. If however, anyone does want to explore these concepts for themselves, you are welcome to discuss your own findings with me. Also, if this sounds familiar to anyone, please do share if you're comfortable doing so. I daresay I'm not the only one to have stumbled into these realms.