So the migration appears to have gone well, the final test is this first post; so here goes. Ive been wondering what my next entry will be, Ive been mulling it over in my head for some time, Ive read quite a few books recently, some new, some old, some I enjoyed, others I most certainly did not, so had been contemplating sticking up some book reviews, tomorrow was going to be the day I sat down and started writing them all.

But I woke this morning thinking of St. Teresa of Avila, for the life of me I have no clue why, I have admired her as a woman and a mystic for a number of years. I encountered her work in what could be considered a peculiar manner, it wasn’t in a local catholic shop, cathedral gift shop or even christian bookshop and it wasn’t online. I found a couple of hardback copies of a 1989 translation of The Interior Castle sitting in a case snuggled in with such things as the Gnostic Gospels, Pistis Sophia, the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran in my local occult bookshop, I suppose it could have been considered the alternative spirituality shelf much like you would find in any mainstream bookshop, just with a twist.

I picked it up and looked at the owner questioningly, “What’s this?”, I asked. “Oh its very good you should really read it”. Now I knew the owner relatively well at this point, enough to have occasional coffee and social drinks with at least, but wasn’t always sure at that point when he was yanking my chain, so I looked at him again, over the top of my glasses; “No seriously, read it, its got some really good stuff in it, I’m not taking the mick, have I ever sold you a crap book?” And no he hadn’t, not once had he tried to push on me any of the glossy covered mass produced paperbacks that graced the shelves at the front of the shop; by authors with such names as Platinum Magpie Canis Lupus or other equally ridiculous epithets.

So I bought it and took it home, and I loved it; Ive picked it up many times since and no matter how many times I do so, I always seem to find something that I can use to better myself and in turn my practise. I believe all mystics regardless of their personal doctrine have something to teach and it is a shallow fool who would throw the baby out with the bath water and reject what might be life altering knowledge because of the context in which it is set. But hey I am a bit weird like that, Ive had a deep suspicion for a while, that Hekate may actually be the mother Barbelo in the Secret Gospels of John, but that is a whole other can of worms that probably shouldn’t be opened right now, suffice to say waking up this morning and going to the shelf to peruse what is really just a very little book got me going down a whole train of thought regarding female mystics, so who next I wonder, Julian of Norwich or Hildegard of Bingen, thoughts anybody?