AG Derwen

Lost Rites: Lament of 13 Moons

Webinar Series 2025 Throughout 2025, starting on 26/01/15 and running until Imbolc 2026 these monthly webinars will explore more deeply 13 Lost Rites of Passage as identified in the Ancestral Landscape book. Participants will get fresh and exclusive material including poetry, prose and artworks plus seeds for shared

Earth Hospice... a wee reminder

EARTH HOSPICE: Community Benefit Society, Share Offer OPEN   This is just a gentle reminder in case you are checking your emails in the midst of all the festive comings and goings that the Community Share Offer for EARTH HOSPICE is OPEN!    Here is the link: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/

Dance of Darkness and Light

I am writing these words sitting in a lovely artists cottage overlooking the 3 river estuary in South Wales and I was moved by my morning walks with the dogs by the liminal and ethereal energy of the estuary place.  As the rivers meet the sea I feel, not just

Earth Hospice Community Share Offer is OPEN!

Happy Solstice to all x The Community Share Offer for Earth Hospice is OPEN! Here is the link: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/earth-hospice-hafan-ddaear If you are able then please do purchase a share in the Earth Hospice and become a member of the Cooperative.  Please

Earth Hospice: Launching with the Dawn after the Longest Night

Here's the story of Earth Hospice to date as we are on the eve of the launch of the Community Share offer...  Going back to 2017 I had walked the Portuguese Camino de Santiago where I was meditating on the origins of Hospice. On the pilgrim ways they

Lost Rites: News from the Midwinter

If you are getting this email now it is because you attended the Lost Rites: Rituals of Lament Tour in February 2024 and I had you on that mailing list. By far the easiest way, I think, to see if you would still like to follow my work and get

Lamentation: A Breakthrough

The wilderness of the past week, which led to the recent writings, precipitated my Return. Of course it did, although for me when I am in that bleak and barren place I always fear I will die there, either it will kill me or I shall give up and let

The Flawed Whistleblower

As you might have deduced from my recent run of writings I am deep in process. One in which I have come to realise I have amends to make to those leaders of organisations that I have been critical of over the years. This includes my own mother, and my

The Power of Process

It was many years ago now when I was newly sober and I was going through an immensely challenging time and everything that I tried was failing that a friend tried to offer me advice, he offered me solutions, he tried to fix, he made constructive comments about what he

Moving through the Valley of Shame

I began to feel better as soon as I reentered the world. It is really only in the tangles of my isolation that I touch that pure raw edge of shamefilled lonliness, as soon as I can be useful in the world the nakedness finds at least some of its

The Barren Valley of Shame

I did something really small but significant today, I moved my mothers memorial card from the centre of my altar to one side, the smiling photo of her holding my brothers French bulldog puppy that I graphic designed onto our Order of Service on an eggshell blue background with a

Assisted Dying, in which Paradigm?

It’s been a week of questions coming in at Sacred Circle HQ about our stance on the Assisted Dying debate in the House of Commons, people asking what our views are on it and also whether our role as Death Doulas will change.   I, for one, have been somewhat

The Forest Lament

There's a storm outside, its name is Bert apparently. There was also a storm inside of me this morning, I just woke up in anxiety. The closeness of the strong gale winds and what sounded like hail on the roof left me lying in my warm bed with

Ancestral Prayer to the Waters

Day 8 of the Rituals to the Waters Things have become more normal again after the great dog-illness of 2024, it has become predictably safe to put the rugs and carpets back where they belong, all the newspaper is taken up and a sense of normality has returned to

Back from the Brink

Day 4 of making Ritual to the Waters Today I feel that familiar post-threshold feeling of profound weariness that comes after a full surrender. Yesterday Gillie, the black dog, took a turn for the worse and just seemed to withdraw entirely into herself, she was cold to the touch

Wandering at the Witching Hour

Day 2 of 30 days of making offerings to the Waters. If it is not too much information my wee dog Gillie has the trots. She was restless and pacing, loitering near the door and it was 3 in the morning so I accepted my fate. I took her for

Day 1 of Water Offerings

Today was the first day of 30 where I make offerings to the Waters. I have access to so many spectacular water courses and bodies of water locally to me; where to begin? Should I go up to Aber Falls, or swim in the River Ogwen or hike to still

Start Again: Reimagining Reconciliation

So, Mum died. She had suffered so terribly for so long that her last weeks of peaceful deep sleep and a quiet slipping away without fanfare was the most perfect end to a very complex and, at times, tragic life. Initially I was elated, for her, for me, for her

Faith in a Post Religious World

Ultimately unless we can conceive of the forces that are greater than any individual, and seek out and uplift those that are benevolent and positive, then the net result of a lack of faith is individualism and separation. The challenge of course barely needs to be spelled out as thousands

Pathway of Wholeness

The lens of wholeness gives us a way of understanding conflict. A problem well articulated is already half solved as they say. So let's understand conflict in the context of wholeness... wholeness is another word for Unity consciousness, we are all of one source and we are all

Pathway of Deep Listening

This is a skill that all of us practice until our dying day. In fact, sitting with the dying is a very good way of practicing deep listening. I recommend sitting in silence with people and experiencing this body sensations of what happens when their is no sound to listen

The Role of Children in Peace Building

I talked previously about the role of Ancestors and directly linked to them are the children and our descendants, of course. There are many ways I see that children are essential in the process of peace building both in terms of them being there and participating themselves; but also as

Pathway of Clarity

At the very outset of a peace building gathering there needs to be clarity on the contract. The contract applies, of course, to the people who are present but if folks of are of the mind to do so the contract might take into consideration the more-than-human, the

The Role of Ancestors in Peace Building

This is not going to be a one off post about Ancestors and Peace Building. It's just a start. The connections are myriad and complex. We might talk about the need to build peace between ourselves and our ancestors, or for peace to be found in the Unseen

Why is Peace Building a Rite of Passage?

We think of Rites of Passage as singular thresholds like conception, birth... and death and in reality these are community events as much as personal events. Initiating the youth, the ritual of marriage and the thresholds towards end of life of illness and decline are also community events experienced by