Poppy Palin's News

Welcome all wild spirited, green-hearted beings who care deeply and shine brightly

Above: Two views of 'Stones FromThe River: Midnight' made from recycled materials and buttons

All artworks on this website are generally for sale. Some, like the ones directly below, are very large canvases.

Your purchase would help an animal charity. Please do ask if you are interested. Thank you.

Poppy endeavors to answer to any email you may send to her as quickly as she can but please do bear with her

b) As part of a limited edition book and deck set. There are only eighty decks and book sets to be had there will never be any more sets after these sell out. The books will be signed and numbered nd come with an exclusive greetings card specially designed by Poppy and ONLY AVAILABLE WITH THE SET.

Slippery Jacks is a green-spirited, and spiritual, company set up to support creative potential. With printing, publishing and web services, our role is that of catalyst. We offer our intention to work ethically, and honestly, for the benefit of our wonderful Earth.

All Poppy's proceeds from this venture will go to animal charities/organisations including :

Read about the tragedy of our human-centric behaviour and get fresh insight into truly living well with all our relations at the Uncaged site. Be brave enough to witness our collective folly through their heartbreaking Diaries of Despair report and be inspired by Dr. Dan Lyon's blog JUSTICE, NOT JUST US

BELOW IS A LINK TO A NEW TAROT SITE. This link will take you directly to POPPY'S TAROT

" I send the ENERGY of LOVE and GRATITUDE to the WATER and ALL living CREATURES in the GULF of MEXICO and it's SURROUNDINGS. The whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae and ALL LIVING CREATURES. I AM SORRY. PLEASE forgive me. THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!"

This could also be directed at the waters contaminated by the Fukishima Daichi nuclear meltdowns.

Above: Variations on the detail from a heart-shaped bag, see Greenheart Crafts for more information on the original

All items sold through Greenheart will go to animal welfare charities or organisations so please have a look from time to time to see if anything added there appeals to you! All items are made from reclaimed/recycled materials.

Below: Dartmoor ponies by Gary Howe. See more of Gary's work here To be updated soon.

Although Poppy cannot be speedy in her response she will design any nature-based or meaningful tattoo she is able to free of charge but only if the recipient is willing to donate to an anaimla welfare cvharity/roganisation such as:

Love for each other and for all our relations, human and non-human, seen and unseen

Show somebody you don't know, or a creature you can't relate to, that you care for them because they are a valued expression of All That Is. Send your heartfelt thoughts to those suffering that you will never meet 'in person' but you know yourself connected to. Remember those who have passed into spirit with thanks for their being. Stroke a plant that doesn't 'belong' to you. Give praise spontaneously. Say hello and smile at a supposed 'stranger'.

Above: This image is exclusive to the limited edition Wild Spirit Tarot deck and book set

This image gives a taste of the style of Poppy's next Tarot, called 'The Everyday Tarot'.

It was inspired, if inspired is the correct word, by the terrible devastation wreaked on the English hedgerows every autumn and winter by brutal cuttting machines. These machines slash and hack at the bushes, leaving only broken brittle branches behind, branches that are then far more susceptible to disease.

Above: And this is one of the less brutalised hedges, often used as a repository for litter by passers by. When so little respect is blatantly shown to a living creation then the precedent of abuse is more readily established.

These denuded bitter boughs have no fruits and seeds to see the wild birds though the cold months. Nor do they provide adequate cover for them to take shelter in. 'Thy Garland Green' borrows a phrase from an Emily Bronte poem and suggests that we feed the birds and other wild creatures. It is not only the birds that suffer, such brutality affects many other species who, in their own ways, have dependecy on the hedgerows for shelter and sustenance. And the earth, denied the seeds for renewal and husks and leaves for compost.

We live in a world where those who have the privilege of being the custodians of the land seem the least caring. But we can, at least, keep our own garland green.

Sat 28 January 2pm-4pm Picket at US Embassy: No western intervention in Iran or Syria

Where: US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1, UK

Why: The growing threats against Iran in recent weeks have been backed up with increased sanctions. As we know from Iraq, these are a prelude to war, not an alternative to it. There are signs of covert intervention already in Iran, as there are in Syria. Stop the War opposes all military intervention from the west in the region, for which there is absolutely no justification.

When: we will be gathering outside the US embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1 on Saturday 28 January from 2-4pm. Please support it if you can.

When we hurt another we hurt ourselves. All outward acts of aggression are self-harm.

DECEMBER 2011

Because we're all animals. Because we are one another.

International Animal Rights Day

The annual International Animal Rights Day (IARD) - 10th December - aims to remember the animal victims of human tyranny and call for the recognition of our Universal Declaration of Animal Rights (UDAR).

THE DECLARATION

The goal of this historic campaign is to build on the recognition of human rights, and persuade humanity that kindness and respect is due to all sentient creatures. Go to the UNCAGED website to find out how what you can do to support International Animal Rights Day.

Thousands of animal rights supporters across the world hold candlelit vigils and other inspiring events to mark the 13th annual IARD. Ethical pioneers united to remember the billions of animals subjected to deliberate cruelty and killing across the world every year. This coordinated global day of action has intensified calls for the recognition of the rights of all sentient beings to life, liberty and natural enjoyment.

Please get out there and show you care. Hold a candlelit vigil at your local town centre, research facility

And please, if you really can't take part then donate to Uncaged and sign the International Declaration.

Above: Deer in Wiltshire, UK, Autumn 2011. Image courtesy of David Yeshe Green

Above: The re-written and much improved accompanying book for the Wild SpiritTarot deck.

Days ago, Palden Choetso walked out of her nunnery, covered herself in petrol and set herself on fire while pleading for a 'free Tibet'. Minutes later she died. In the past month, nine monks and nuns have self-immolated to protest a growing Chinese crackdown on the peaceful Tibetan people.

These tragic acts are a desperate cry for help. Machine gun-toting Chinese security forces are beating and disappearing monks, laying siege to monasteries, and even killing elderly people defending them -- all in an effort to suppress Tibetan rights. China severely restricts access to the region. But if we can get key governments to send diplomats in and expose this growing brutality, we could save lives.

We have to act fast -- this horrific situation is spiraling out of control behind a censorship curtain. Over and over we have seen that when diplomats themselves bear witness to atrocities, they are motivated to act, and increase political pressure. Let’s answer Palden's tragic cry and build a massive petition to the six world leaders with the most influence in Beijing to send a mission to Tibet and speak out against the repression. Sign the urgent petition:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_tibetan_lives/?tta

The little flower that shows we acknowledge the animal casualties of human conflicts

Animal Aid launched its Purple Poppy appeal in 2006 to commemorate the millions of animals who have lost their lives in human wars. Animals are rarely mentioned in rememberance ceremonies and only then the ones who 'served'. Those who were incidentally blown up, gassed, shot, poisoned, evaporated or otherwise murdered/maimed by human stupidity are not counted.

Weapons tests, suich as those carried out in the loathesome Porton Down military facility in Wiltshire, UK, kill many thousands of our innocent creature-kin annually. Biological and chemical weapons, abominations in themselves, are tested on monkeys, goats, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, mice, rats and guinea pigs by 'our' military in experiments. And they have the nerve to think themselves better than the Nazis and more civilised than supposedly 'despotic' regimes around the world. Such hypocricy is staggering. Such cruelty is monstrous.

Wearing a purple poppy says that we remember such atrocities and that we care, deeply. And that we will never become part of a war - any war - that destroys lives of every species.

Above: A worthwhile cause to stand behind if you live in the UK, or, indeed, anywhere on this small blue-green planet. The human-centric angle is unfortunate but it seems to be the one that organsiations fall back on to attract our concern, even when this matter involves all our relations. However, it is still worthy of our attention, whatever the angle used. If the proposed legsitaltion is allowed to slip through then many other abuses of the land and its inhabitants will surely follow.

Above: There are so many beautiful reasons to recycle and recreate. Here are just two.

Below: Creatively displaying 'pre-loved' items; living well with reclaimed finds

Above: Boring grubby old cupboards and tiles get a new lease of life to compliment Cornishware collected at car boot sales. Cheap, cheerful and care-full!

Above: Well known, and well loved, animal rights activist Joan Court walks her talk.

Above: A necklace made entirely of vintage/recycled findings, beads and charms. This was made for Poppy's dear friend, the artist, performer and writer Jill Smith. See Jill's work here

The scandal of poisoning the land: what 'custodians of the countryside' are really up to in England today

Above: They call their poison 'Fandango' in a blatant show of disrepsect: to them its all a game. Unless they genuinely do think this is a 'joyful product'. Which in itself must be insanity...

HERE WE CAN WITNESS THE SHEER UNBRIDLED MADNESS OF CONTAMINATING THE LAND AND ITS INHABITANTS WITH A CHEMICAL 'DANGEROUS TO THE ENVIRONMENT' THAT IS SPRAYED OVER CROPS.

Then left in the field, discarded in anything but a 'safe way'. But how on earth could you discard this safely? And why worry about that when you've already sprayed it over the barley, corn and rape...and all the creatures and the soil...

Bayer AG is a massive German based chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturer. It has operations in most countries worldwide and had global sales for 2000 of nearly $30 billion. Its operations are divided into four sectors: Health, Agriculture, Polymers (plastics, synthetic rubber) and Chemicals. It has recently acquired Aventis' controversial cropscience business, making it a key player in the development, commercialisation and sale of GM crops. As a major player in 4 controversial sectors for over 125 years Bayer has a distinguished history of corporate crimes ranging from the manufacture and sale of controversial drugs (Heroin, Ciproxin and Baycol), the development of chemical warfare agents and poisons (Chlorine Gas, Zyklon B and VX), the use of forced labour during WW2, and numerous cases of poisoning, side-effects and environmental pollution connected to its chemical and pharmaceutical products. In December 2001, Multinational Monitor rated Bayer AG as one of their Top Ten Worst Companies of the year.

The first incarnation of what is currently Bayer AG was born out of the rush by European industrialists to develop and manufacture synthetic dyes in the second half of the 19th century. Friedrich Bayer and Johann Friedrich Weskott opened a dye factory in 1863 in Wuppertal, Germany. The company Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. was launched in 1883. Bayer quickly diversified their activities into other areas of chemical manufacture, including photography and pharmaceuticals. Bayer also established operations throughout Europe and the US. Early Bayer discoveries included Antinonin (synthetic pesticide, 1892), Aspirin (1897), Heroin (1898) and Buna (synthetic rubber 1915). During WWI Bayer, along with other chemical manufacturers (both Allied and German), turned their attention to the manufacture of chemical weapons including chlorine gas used to horrendous effect in the trenches. During WWI Bayer had formed a close association with other German chemical companies including BASF and Hoechst. This relationship was formalised in 1925 with merger of these companies as well as AGFA, and others, to form the IG Farben Trust.
IG Farben continued to grow during the inter-war period as one of the most powerful chemical and pharmaceutical companies in the world. Products included polyurethanes and the first 'sulpha' drugs.
It is during Nazi-era Germany and WW2 that IG Farben (Bayer) entered its most sinister phase. IG Farben as the leading chemical company in Nazi Germany took over chemical plants across Nazi occupied Europe, used slave-labour in their factories (including operating their own concentration camp), conducted medical experiments on those held in the concentration camps and manufactured the poison gas used to kill thousands. At the end of the war the 1945 Potsdam Agreement called for the break up of IG Farben into its constituent companies. Twelve IG Farben employees and directors were jailed for war crimes at the Nuremburg Trials.
Bayer was re-established as Farbenfabriken Bayer AG in 1951, changing its name to the current Bayer AG in 1972. Although the post-WW2 Bayer is a different legal entity to the Bayer that pre-existed IG Farben, and that which formed part of IG Farben, a direct line of continuity can be traced between the personnel, infrastructure and technology of these 3 incarnations. Bayer has a very murky past that should be remembered.

German Bayer company named in Nazi lawsuit

A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps of the Second World War has accused the German pharmaceutical conglomorate, Bayer AG of conspiring with the Nazis to conduct human medical experiments for profit.

The survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, is seeking damages for alleged experiments done on sets of twins supervised by Joseph Mengele at the prison camp at Auschwitz.

She alleged that the experiments were overseen by Mengele and a representative of the Bayer company.

Bayer is among twelve German corporations which agreed this week to set up a fund to compensate Nazi prison camp victims.

Here are a few choice snippets...please research the sordid facts for yourselves.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) is a multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. As of 2007, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue (after BASF) and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization (after BASF and DuPont).

From 1951 to 1975, Dow managed the Rocky Flats Plant. Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons production facility that produced plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs Contamination from fires and radioactive waste leakage plagued the facility under Dow's management. In 1957 and 1969, fires burned plutonium dust in the facility and sent radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The fire in 1969 was the costliest industrial accident to ever occur in the United States up to that time. 3,500 barrels of lubricants and solvents, laden with plutonium leaked into the ground in 1967. Management of the facility was handed over to Rockwell International in 1975. A class action lawsuit was filed against Dow and Rockwell in 1990. In 2008 a federal judge ordered Dow and Rockwell to pay a combined $925 million in damages to citizens.

The United States military used napalm in their efforts during the Vietnam War. Dow was one of several manufacturers who began producing the compound under government contract in 1965. After experiencing protests and negative publicity, the other suppliers decided to discontinue the product, leaving Dow as the sole provider. The company carefully considered their position, and decided that this was a matter of principle, and "its first obligation was the government". Despite a boycott of all its products by anti-war groups and harassment of recruiters on some college campuses, Dow continued to manufacture Napalm B until 1969.

Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant containing dioxin, was also manufactured by Dow in New Plymouth, New Zealand and in America for use by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. In 2005, a lawsuit was filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against Dow and Monsanto Company, which also supplied Agent Orange to the military. The lawsuit was dismissed.

A major manufacturer of silicone breast implants, Dow Corning (Dow Chemical's Joint Venture with Corning Inc.) was sued for personal damages caused by ruptured implants. Per the 2005 10-K for The Dow Chemical Company filing, "On October 6, 2005, all such cases then pending in the District Court against the Company were dismissed. Should cases involving Dow Corning's breast implant and other silicone medical products be filed against the Company in the future, they will be accorded similar treatment." The Dow Chemical Company - 10-K Filing - 2005

The Bhopal disaster is world's worst industrial catastrophe due to a leak of methyl isocyanate on December 3, 1984 at a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide India Limited, a subsidiary of UCC. Government agencies confirmed 3,787 deaths. Others estimate 3,000 people died within the first weeks and another 8,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.

Until the late 1970s, Dow produced DBCP (1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane), a soil fumigant, and nematicide, sold under the names the Nemagon and Fumazone. Workers at Dow's DBCP production were made sterile by exposure to the compound. These male reproductive effects were consistent with animal experiments showing that DBCP sterilized rabbits. The workers successfully sued the company, and most domestic uses of DBCP were banned in 1977. Amid growing concerns over the chemical's effects on male workers, Dow ceased production and reclaimed DBCP that had been shipped to its users. Despite warning from the company about its health effects, Dole Food Company, who was using the chemical on its banana plantations in Latin America, threatened to sue Dow if it stopped DBCP shipments, so Dow shipped half a million gallons of DBCP to Dole, much it reclaimed from other users. Plantation workers who became sterile or were stricken with other maladies subsequently sued both Dow and Dole in Latin American courts, alleging that their ailments were caused by DBCP exposure. While the courts agreed with the workers and awarded them over $600 million in damages, they have been unable to collect payments from the companies. A group of workers then sued in the United States, and, on November 5, 2007, a Los Angeles jury awarded them $3.2 million. Dole and Dow vowed to appeal the decision. On April 23, 2009 a Los Angeles judge threw out two cases against Dole and Dow due to fraud and extortion by lawyers in Nicaragua recruiting fraudulent plaintiffs to make claims against the company. The ruling casts doubt on $2 billion in judgments in similar lawsuits.

Wikipedia, the internet informational encyclopedia provider, recently discovered that Dow edited information in the encyclopedia that was seen as negative towards Dow. The information Dow edited was about the Bhopal Plant catastrophe and about birth defects caused by dioxin in Agent Orange, a herbicide used in Vietnam and produced by Dow. This is some of the same dioxin now polluting Dow's "backyard" in Michigan. The level of manipulation Dow uses to shape information makes the information not just biased but complete propaganda. And the Dow employees creating it aren't prosecuted by regulatory agencies when it is discovered. They are allowed to be promoted by Dow to new positions to continue their work. Dow's information can not be relied upon for any level of decision making.

A common pesticide re-approved by the EPA in 2001 sickens farm workers, say unions and activists who will file a lawsuit against the agency today, reports the Associated Press.The pesticide is chlorpyrifos, a potent neurotoxin used in chemical bombs during World War II. It's now sold by Dow AgroSciences under the commercial name Lorsban. No longer approved for residential use, chlorpyrifos is still used in agriculture, and the lawsuit alleges that 28 farm workers in California's Tulare County were sickened last month when a spray drifted into their vineyard from a nearby orchard.

Dow has recently registered Profume* (Sulfuryl fluoride) for use in fumigating food commodities. There is not a pesticide used today that directly impacts our food supply in the entire world more than a fumigant. Now Profume will be used to fumigate our food supply. Do you feel confident that this new Dow product has fully been investigated and has properly passed all the toxicology testing after understanding the dishonesty at Dow? Entire shiploads of food products will be fumigated with Profume. Most of the foods that are fumigated are ready for your table without further processing. The registration of Profume also has incredible similarities to Dow's move in having chlorpyrifos replace chlordane in the structural pest control market back in 1989. Now Dow's Profume product is replacing methyl bromide which is considered an ozone depleter and methyl bromide is being phased out of most fumigant uses. Dow at one time also produced methyl bromide but got out of direct sales when competition got too fierce. They have been positioning their Profume product to replace methyl bromide for over fifteen years. At least one state which certainly realizes what its dealing with at Dow has so far not registered Profume.

Dow is the world's largest producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethanes, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubbers. It is also a major producer of the chemicals ethylene oxide, and various acrylates, surfactants, and cellulose resins. It produces many agricultural chemicals, perhaps being most famous for its pesticide Lorsban.Well-known consumer products include Styrofoam brand insulation. Former Dow product lines, Saran wrap, Ziploc bags and Scrubbing Bubbles were sold to S. C. Johnson & Son in 1997.

In 2008, Dow was reported as being the major supplier of pesticides based on aminopyralid which had contaminated manure and caused widespread loss of vegetable crops in allotments and gardens across the UK.

Below are some of the legitimate residents of the land whose well-being - and continued right to exist as a species - is being destroyed by humanity. These photographs were taken in and around the Dow and Bayer poisoned fields of Wiltshire.

Above: A beautiful hare caught unawares
Below: A tortoiseshell butterfly suns itself

Above: After being vegetarian since 1981 and being 'as vegan as possible' for the last ten years Poppy is going to do her best to take that extra step permanently for the animals. It would be wonderful if others could join her and do the same now.

To know that we are part of a collective movement - in this case towards living with full empathy - can make all the difference to our success. So let's go vegan together!

Above: Not every cause is 'for the good of the all' so please don't be tempted to fund abuse for the sake of a cure. When one suffers all suffer and there can be no true well-being.

Below: A mouse in cancer research (left) and a mouse in Alzheimer's reasearch (right). No creature should be 'used' like this for the sake of another. Two wrongs can never make a right...can they?

We all know in our hearts that the only way to a lasting health and wholeness is through compassionate means and a shared understanding that we are one another. So let's live that truth together now. With mutual support it's easy.

Above: Image courtesy of David Icke's site. Even though Poppy doesn't agree with a lot of what David has to say she acknowledges that he is doing excellent work in empowering people and revealing their true interconnectedness beyond any man-made ideas or structures. please see his forums and a new area of his website that aims to link people in every night for the sake of directing positive healing energy at those area and eoples who need it most.

Go to www.davidicke.com and visit his forums as certain strands relate to the meeting of people at 'sacred sites' across the world for the sake of strengthening our sense of unity and creating a collective, as well as an individual, empowerment. This is a strictly PEACEFUL endeavor! Also visit the Awakening the World – Every Heart Makes A Difference area of his incredibly diverse and busy site...its easy to avoid the more 'contentious bits' of his work and get straight to the heart of the matter.

As with most speakers and writers in this field, David has yet to publically make the vital link with all other created beings. He, as we, need to make the move away from the human-centric attitude/stance that limits us all. Poppy's next book WILD SPIRITUALITY addresses this in full as it is a pressing issue and vital for us to grasp at this time.

The first days of August are known traditionally as Lammas or Lughnassadh. This is the time of 'first fruits' as this is when the literal - as well as symbolic - signs of the harvest of the year become apparent; the full havest being September 21st or Autumn Equinox. Yet below is evidence of the first fruits appearing ripe and ready in the hedgerows on June 21st this year...

Above: Ripe dark red hawthorn berries, or haws, seen in many different hedgerows in Wiltshire UK on the summer Solstice. Strange days indeed...

This includes: The full sets (not just the examples shown here) of original illustrations for Rae Beth's second two Hedge Witch Books

'Lord of the Wild -Stong Spirit' 'Two of Water - Dream' and 'Wisewoman - Dreamweaver' origial art from the Waking the Wild Spirit' Tarot

If you're interested in bidding on any of these items then please contact Nick or Sandy at Dorset Wildlife rescue. Thank you

Above: 'The Healer - Wise Counsellor' original artwork from the Wild Spirit Tarot has already been sold in aid of Dorset Wildlife Rescue.

Above and below: Textured squares created by knitting with recycled and manmade yarns, often up to six strands twisted together to make a new skein. This creates a bumpy natural effect remincicent of pebbles or moss. These squares can then be mixed and matched, joined togther to make a throw or cushion.

The independent rescue centres are at their busiest at this time of year and they all rely on donations

The above photos in this May update are taken from the following three organisations:

If you can't donate directly to any of these worthy organisations then why not fundraise or volunteer your time to a centre near you?

If you are selling on eBay you can tithe a percentage, or evven the whole selling price, to a wildlife cause of your choice

Please see appeals page for ongoing/updated information about these very important causes. THANK YOU.

To do your bit don't donate, buy or give aid to charity shops that represent the above named organisations because there is a better way than the one they use...

If we continue to support the old and cruel methods this is what we are condoning...

Good news for those of us in the UK. Sainsbury's own brands have joined M and S, Superdrug and Argos as a high street shop that can proudly wear the leaping rabbit logo that shows that their products and ingredients are not tested on animals.

This was been brought to Poppy's attention via an email which she felt prompted to respond to. Here's what the email said:

Richard C. Cook – richardccook.com April 20, 2011

Jesus Christ and the 2012 Prophecies

The book is short—about 16,000 words. But those who acquire it will likely read it over and over again.

Prophecies of a major dimensional shift in connection with 2012 may be found everywhere, but not always with recognizable authority or adequate explanation. But now this may have changed.

From the heart of Europe – Hungary – comes a comprehensive and detailed message said to be channeled from Jesus Christ. First transcribed in 2009 in Hungarian, and in circulation there in the region of the Carpathian Mountains, it is now available in an English translation for the first time.

The title is: Dimensional Shift: The Guidance of Jesus Christ on the Threshold of Global Transformation. This document is now being released into the public domain in English translation exclusively through the RichardCCook.com website as a free PDF download.

The import of the book is crystal clear: this troubled Earth will soon be tranformed. In its pages Jesus assures us that in His mercy God has determined that a New Earth has been prepared and will soon arise. It is up to each of us to decide now where we want to be when the shift takes place. And it may take place very, very soon. Helping us will be hosts of angels already in position in Earth’s vicinity.

Hi lovely people.

RE: Channeling Jesus.

I think it may be really hard to channel a being who didn't exist in the first place...

Although I spent the first twenty five years of my life believing fervently in the mythical Jesus (who I then didn't think was at all mythical, obviously) I understand how easy it is to take his existence as concrete fact. He was a lovely teddy bear to have for a while but when you realise that all mystery traditions share the same male solar figure things become much clearer. Dionysus, Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis (known by his manner of death as 'he on the tree') and Mithras are a some of these symbolic beings who all have the same characteristics...

Below: So who's this?

Above:The passion of the pagan godman Osiris-Dionysus on the cross from a third century seal now conveniently lost

Mithras was close to JC in terms of such small matters of his birthday (Winter solstice-tide, Dec 25th) and the lovely sun halo he habitually wore. Mithras was the symbolic solar god-man that Constantine's Rome favoured (especially the military) before Constantine decided to pull control and go for a monotheistic social order, amalgamating the new and pesky Christian mystery tradition and Mithraism to form a concrete state religion. By this he did something new and terrible, taking what was always understood to be the symbology of 'the dying and resurrecting sun god-man' into literal unassailable fact: myth becoming history). There is much on how the female side of the sacred - previoulsy held as equal - also became squashed and vilified at this point but more on that another time.

These symbolic sun god-men were NEVER MEANT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY as they did not live and they did not die but were representatives of a mystery principle that expressed life's continuum and empowered those who understood it as such. This solidifying of mystery into history was just another misuse of power by the state when before in people related to many pagan deities which, for the most part, they understood to be symbolic, not actual. It was just a way of anthropomorphizing spiritual truths so that the masses could understand them. Relating to a person or god-man was far easier than relating to a concept!

If you are still doubting the veracity of this and hanging on to your previous convictions then challenge yourself with this: if all the previous solar man-god beings had the same basic story as Jesus's story (son/sun of god, virgin birth at winter solstice time, followed by miracles/healing, sacrifice and ressurection) yet were known to be human-created symbolic figures only, then why should Jesus be any different and the only one who actually physcially existed? He wasn't different; his too was just an eloquent way of understanding the mysteries. Nothing more, nothing less.

Once you realise this you can never go back to your JC teddy bear...sad as he is pretty cuddly, nice and reassuring...

But surely at this stage in the game we don't need to continue to give away our power like this!

We are Infinite Consciousness having a singular human experience and as such are All (One) and one simultaneously. We just need to re-member ourselves, and our connection to all creation...and fast! Why channel anyone when you already know everything and have just forgotten? Lets channel ourselves, we may as well! ;-)

Happy to talk to anyone about this subject if they are interested, its a real interest of mine. Its challenging but absolutely VITAL for us to understand through both head and heart if we are to move on and do what we need to do in this 'interesting' time.

With infinite love to all

XXX

Then part two when Poppy was asked more and suspected of supporting 'satanic agendas'...

A cursory examination of the new testament available to us today reveals a mish mash of confused reports with no fixed chronology (the four books can't even remotely agree on when or where something may have happened!) and the only clear worthwhile message coming out being the ones attributed to the 'solar man' himself...i.e. there is only the message, no actual man! There are no facts and no historical, verifiable timeline because he wasn't there. He was a beautiful but purely symbolic way of understanding life/death, love and the nature of existence and the mysteries of spirit, and that is all....and its enough! The mystery traditions of the time knew this and must have been devastated with gung-ho Emperor Constantine took their flowing, meaningful soul-poetry and turned it into a block of immovable 'truth' so-called and from that block made a mallet to subdue.

Mainstream biblical chronology is contradictory in the extreme and offers no clear evidence of any sort that there was ever such a holy man on earth at that time. In fact the Gospels or Matt, Mark etc. make even real hard-core believers doubt what went on back in Galilee (I was part of the church long enough to hear the debates and confusions) .Yet the Gnostic gospels, based on the documents found in Nag Hammadi (and little known even today) have a clearer insight in to the heart of this particular mystery tradition before it became a solid chunk of literalism used to control. That is where you will find the beautiful lines about lifting a stone and finding god there. That's because in the deep mystery traditions they knew god was imminent in all things and beings and not separate. They just taught their truths in symbol and story. They knew none of it was 'real'.

Are my words part of some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy as regards the proposed one world religion of the N.W.O? This is but a diversion. It is hard to be anti-Christain when tyou have no belief in Christ beyond his useful symbology. Christianity needs to go because all divisive religions need to go. As I am sure you know, religion comes from the Latin for 'to tie' (the world ligotage, the art of tying used in bondage, also stems form this root). Religion is a tie or bond made of fear, nothing more.

The stupid Illuminati make use of emasculated and perverted Catholic/Christian doctrine as a way of expressing their nefarious needs. When you truly take on board that there isn't, nor has ever been, a Satan except as means of population mind-control (they took the Greek God Pan as a proto-type and turned him into 'the chap downstairs who'll get you for all eternity if you don't obey') then that frees you up HUGELY! These are human constructs only and therefore NOT SCARY!

What we need now, soon, is no religion and for us all to wake up to the power inherent in our own being. We are all the creator! We are all infinite consciousness! There is nothing but strength and joy in that...nowt to do with the sodding illuminati and nowt to do with fear. We are connected in love, truth and FREEDOM at Source. If we can throw of these useless shackles of belief attached to us at primary school (perhaps even at our mother's knee or worse,in the womb) then we have a chance of liberating ourselves from the most insidious tyranny...the tyranny of belief which is the most divisive one of all.

And this applies to all religions needing to go. I am against all divisive, disempowering beliefs.

Call this problem what you will...Chem or Con Trails...but it's time to stop bickering and to start agreeing that WHATEVER IT IS, THIS IS NOT RIGHT!

Above: Of course both cirrus clouds and contrails exist but that doesn't account for this...oh that it were that simple and 'harmless'. The image on the right is a view from above, in space. Doesn't it make you feel proud of what a species can achieve?

It's surely time that it was common knowledge that there are rarely clear blue skies over England and Scotland anymore, let alone over the US and vast swathes of Europe?

The spraying (or, if you will, overlaying of endless 'vapour trails') is already heavily in evidence now the days are longer (and supposedly brighter) in the South West of the UK...and its only just turned spring

Still think the whole idea of chemtrails is scaremongering nonsense from ill-informed, badly eductated people with nothing better to do than stare at the sky?

AND LISTEN TO THE 'GEO-ENGINEERS', the SCIENTISTS and RESEARCHERS. Hear it from their own lips. Learn about geoengineering and weather modification among other supposedly 'benign manipulations'. Witness the ignorance of the long term effects of what these 'intelligent professionals' are involved in...and also their (apparent) lack of care. Research it for yourself afterwards.

You can watch the full film on YouTube. Simply type the following into your browser:

Think about Agent Orange and ask yourself if those we give the power to 'aren't capable'.

The ionosphere and the stratosphere are being superheated, distorted and manipulated for nefarious means (masquesrading as 'for the common good') based on Nickolai Tesla's original technological discoveries. Tesla's visionary insights could be used for free energy for all yet instead they have been perverted to create another monster: a geo-physical weapon. Where next, Columbus? How about

Matthew is the only man to be prosecuted for making circles and is open about the truth behind the making of crop circle art. His YouTube channel is full of excellent documentaries and an absolute wealth of information but is not for the easily offended so please do be warned!

Above: Poppy's handmade jewellery using only recycled or vintage findings and embellishments shown here next to local wildflowers

*** May this summer solstice see both your creativity and compassion in full bloom ***

DON'T storm in and ransack your neighbour's party (tempting as it may be to see them wearing their 'hamburger' as a hat) JUST JOIN THE CLUB and peacefully support a cruelty-free world.

Recipes, Folktales and Fun With Food

By Germaine Knight

Vegetarian food is fun! Whether a veggie dish is your main course, an accompaniment to meat or a tasty dessert, fun can be found in the flavours, colours and origins of the food, in unusual facts and by learning what other families around the world tuck into. Grab some family members, a copy of this book and some enthusiasm to explore your own taste buds as well as the fun to be had around food. You may find the whole process, from preparation to eating, more enjoyable than you imagined!

• Over 125 delicious global recipes, tasty enough for veggies and meat eaters – from soups, salads & starters to main courses & desserts

• Adaptable recipes that are often suitable for vegans or those with food intolerances

PLEASE support Dr. Jackie-Hunt-Jones's work as she is opening a sanctuary for dogs in France as well as doing other sterling work for abandoned, maltreated dogs at home and abroad. Thank you Jackie, your determination and empathy-in-action are deeply inspiring.

The lady runs it on a type of farm and they have been awarded 2^nd best in Europe re: their pens. However, it is a peasant lady who does the work for the lady owner and she does not have an endless supply of her own money for food and medical treatment.

Although Poppy was concerned about doing this she has used the above photo of Dr. Hunt-Jones to illustrate that we can't be 'perfect' and even though Jackie is a truly shining example of human compassion she is still sitting on an armchair presumably made of a cow...or several. Is Jackie even aware of the implications of sitting on what may be a favourite old chair that has been with her so long she has ceased to see it for what it is? We all have our 'blind spots', or have had, and each have our own personal Achilles heel. This could be non-fair trade milk chocolate, medication from a vivisecting pharmaceutical company , wine that has had crushed bones used in its production process, a particular shade of make-up only available from a non-ethical company...etc. The inconvenience - and discomfort - of giving these items up for good can seem overwhelming and the old Alcoholics Anonymous adage of 'one day at a time' is certainly relevant here. Or, as Rev. Sydney Smith put it, 'take short views of human life, no further than dinner or tea'.

Take it in stages: just strive to survive to cause the least suffering possible. Move towards it. Poppy seeks to do this every day, with varying degrees of success, and will never give up trying to LIVE WELL, for the good of the ALL. She would welcome fellow travellers on road to cruelty-free living to share their personal struggles, and victories, here.

Perhaps if our weaknesses are gently highlighted, with love, then we can begin to find other foibles we have covered up more deeply within ourselves; justifying them over our lifetimes until they seem permissible. We are here to remind, and strongly support, eachother in this process of true enlightenment.

ENLIGHTENMENT IS SHEDDING THE EXCESS WE HAVE ACCUMULATED THAT OBSCURES OUR INNATE SHINING SELVES.

Hold fast to the fact that we are retuning to what we were intended to be at Source...re-membering ourselves and our true nature...and not moving towards an unattainable way of being. Therefore we can do this! And we each know what needs to be done, inherently.

It really is so easy to overlook leather as being a horrible part of the very 'industry' we despise and its often the last thing to go when we become vegetarian and conscious of animals as our en-spirited, and very equal, relations. The question remains: do we discard our old leather items, give them away, sell them in aid of a charity, bury them with honour or some other alternative? Should Jackie continue to sit on her 'skin chair' if it is old and a family heirloom or should she ditch it in disgust? Is 'second hand skin' bought used any less distressing or undesirable than that which was brought directly to support the 'meat industry'? These are questions Poppy considers every day and encourages others to do the same. Thoughts or comments on these sensitive issues are always welcome here.

Only we can answer these points for ourselves as there is no authority but ourselves. We are ininite Conciousness and all there is so how can there be judge and jury outside of our own being? But we can offer information and make ideas available to others to help them in their choices.

We acn only do what is right for us within the framework of harming none by our actions.

Did you realise that the word VEGAN is used because it is literally the beginning and end of VEGETARIAN? To become a vegan is surely the only conclusion when awakening to the incredible brutality and barbarism of slaughtering then USING animals in the way this society does. Although it may seem difficult it is the best way of BEING THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD as regards to our creature-kin. It is putting aside our own inconvenience in favour of standing for beauty, freedom, honour and true equality.

ASPIRE TO LIVING IN A GENTLE, COMPASSIONATE WORLD...AT LEAST TAKE STEPS TOWARDS LIVING A VEGAN LIFE. DO WHAT YOU CAN!

The return of the blue skies due to Icelandic Volcano dust grounding planes in the UK

Above: The first truly (and consistently) clear skies seen in Somerset, UK for a long, long time...

Below: Little fluffy clouds...remember them? Here's what the sky looks like when the clouds are natural plane-free phenomena

The solution? Well, it seems fairly obvious! But are you personally ready to make that commitment and (some may say) personal sacrifice for the sake of the All?

Above: What to look out for...fat trails which spread and then eventually seem as if they are just naturally occuring clouds.

This problem seems to be global but Poppy is only able to record her findings in south west England (see the Glastonbury, Somerset pictures below) If you have any jpeg images of the 'phenomena' where you live then do send them to Poppy for inclusion on her con/chemtrails page as a resource for others who are, as yet, still unconvinced by this huge problem. Please send to:

It may take a while for Poppy to process them but she will hopefully include them on this site ASAP

SHE WOULD MUCH RATHER BE DOING SOMETHING CREATIVE THAN CATALOGUING THIS AWFUL DEGREDATION OF THE SKY BUT SEES THIS AS MUCH TO IMPORTANT TO LET SLIP BY!

Above: A typical 'dropping bobble' type trail across the sky above Glastonbury Tor...

And below: How this trail spreads so that you would think it was a cloud if you hadn't seen it leave a plane

Below: Close ups of two different 'bobble' trails before they begin to drop their 'bobbles'...

Here at last is another recording from Poppy's archive of material recorded with Gary Howe

This song is builds up as it goes along and was recorded to be played through headphones. It can be played through your media player if downloaded. Hopefully an MP3 version can be created soon. Click on the link below to hear

DEEP WINTER BROKEN HEART was inspired by personal pain and loss, especally for the land which is being destroyed daily. In the time it took to create this image the quirky heart-shaped crack-willow - a tree which thrives on the wet Somerset levels and which appears on the right hand lower edge of this painting - was destroyed, as was the willow that inspired the tree in the background...

To resist meaningful change is futile yet to witness destruction for 'change's sake' is heartbreaking.

The land is becoming as homogenised as we are...a brutal reflection of a soulless existence, regimented and controlled to within an inch of its life.

In memory of the two bold individual trees and to all who dwelled within and around them.

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can

Above: Images from an undercover investigation undertaken by an unsung hero, the beautiful and outstandingly compassionate Kate Fowler at Animal Aid.

We can't all be Kate but as Sidney Smith suggested can't we all do SOMETHING?

Above: Poppy's lovely handmade Lorica (faux leather) boot leaves its mark next to a fox's track on a pristine field.

Above: X marks the spot where two travellers met. Who was it that left their trails on the unsullied blanket of snow?

Considering our beautiful creature-kin, when better than the start of this (calendar) year to consider becoming vegan? Or to re-commit to your vegan intentions?

Join Poppy in re-commiting to striving to survive by causing the least suffering possible in 2010.

Here's a few images - and accompanying comparisons - you may find thought provoking. Hopefully they will be unsettling enough to enable a shift in perception.

Above: It's certainly not a new idea to make this comparison but does this building remind you of anything?

How about these intelligent, gentle beings standing crammed togther, penned in the mud, bewildered and afraid?

And how about the idea of sentient beings standing behind barbed wire with their 'identifying tattoos' and 'yellow stars', defined as 'livestock' and classified only as numbers, waiting for the 'final solution' at the mercy of other 'sentient' beings?

While the mothers huddle together in the mud? Their cries of distress can be heard almost half a mile away

Are you (unconsciously) still buying into what you may have been taught about other beings having no feelings...about 'man's dominion over the beasts' etc? Do you think they matter less than you do because they do not speak your language?

Every time I pass these effective deathcamps or see the cattle truck on the road or hear those cries - the impotent bellows of rage and pain and confusion - I feel just like the good German citizen who did nothing. I, like them, am complicit. I do not cry out against the atrocity in my midst, nor do I storm the gates. All I do is try my very best not to engage with 'the machine'; the industry of suffering - this slavery, this genocide - that our fellow beings are forced into. I implore you not to be complicit either. Do as much as you can. Just because you can't do EVERYTHING don't be deterred from doing SOMETHING to extract yourself from the horror in our very midst. Even if you still walk by without seeking to release the prisoners then do not deny them also. Acknowledge them in your own quiet, determined, compassionate ways.

This subjegation and systematic slaughter of our creature-kin in this way is not normal, natural or inevitable.

We no longer need to eat meat to survive. We no longer need to wear other creatures skin to be warm.
There are alternatives. Buy OUT of this industry. Do not fund this holocaust.

Do not consider sitting on the skins of slaughtered innocents as desirable and luxurious

Do not consider a shop window display of body parts and internal organs as normal

Do not consider a high street chemist that does not stock one product (or its ingredients) that hasn't been tested on animals as 'how it is'

There are countless ways we are de-sensitised to the true atrocity of what is done to other creatures:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT. Little shifts in conciousness and behaviour mean a lot.

Want a good reason to keep recycling and cutting down on packaging etc. in 2010?

Above: This albatross chick was fed plastic junk by its parents as they clearly thought it was food.

Hearing the rooks in the rookery filling the skies of Wellow with wonderful corvid cawings and croakings I wondered what the scavenging, carrion-seeking rooks eat come hard-frozen days like these?

In fact what do the birds eat that rely on the hedgerows when the hedgerows are so brutally ravaged by the farmers?

Above: A wild poppy on the first day of December in Somerset, UK...a miraculous thing or a sign of dramatic changes in the seasons? This Poppy has certainly never seen such a thing before!

Below are links to two songs and two snippets of song ideas that Poppy created with

Song Number One is MADMAN inspired by many things but mostly about releasing the wild spirit in joyous celebration...

Song number two is FENNY written about Fenny Castle in Somerset (a faery place, sadly now with no public access...although this may be just as well!)

'You're like a rock in a stormy sea, you bring me back to another part of me...'

Snippet number one is called 'I Can't See Me' (sadly it was saved by the wrong name as were her other tracks!) It's a good sample of what Poppy used to do musically. Thanks to Gary for his instrumentation.

Snippet number two is another fragment of a longer piece that was written in the'Cocteau Twins' style (with no discernible lyrics). Instead it was based around Poppy's friend's daughter's name...'Deia'. It definitely wasn't meant to be known as Hippy but here it is anyway.

PLEASE NOTE: There are only a few of Poppy's tarot decks left for sale. That may change by the time you read this as Poppy may no longer be able to update this site so if you are interested quick action is advised! The rest of Poppy's decks are OUT OF PRINT and only available for collector's prices on the Internet. However, an e-book is being produced to accompany the rare WAKING THE WILD SPIRIT deck and will be available in the near future through Amazon. Proceeds as ever will go to charity as well as to the producer of the book, Jennie Austin. If you would like one of these RARE tarot decks please contact Poppy ASAP

However Poppy is going to be unable to do any further updating for a while due to a decline in health. She will return and add further information and imagery as soon as possible. Please be patient if sending emails, you will be receive a reply ASAP

Images from Poppy's Waking the Wild Spirit Tarot (NOW OUT OF PRINT) are being sold as greetings cards by

POPPY RECEIVES NO PAYMENT AT ALL FOR THESE CARDS AND THEY WERE ONLY CREATED TO REGAIN INTEREST IN THE TAROT (AND HOPEFULLY ATTRACT A NEW PUBLISHER FOR IT) AS WELL AS TO SHARE THE IMAGES.

And so she is not able to donate it, as she usually does, to animal charities

Above: The Wild Spirit greetings cards being printed and sold by the two outlets

Aware that his sweetheart is dead and will never come
back to him again, he cries with adoring love.

Finally aware that she would never return to him, he
stood beside her body with sadness and sorrow .

Millions of people cried after watching this picture in
America and Europe and even in India . It is said that the photographer sold these pictures for a nominal fee to the most famous newspaper in France .
All copies of that newspaper were sold out on the day
these pictures were published.
And many people think animals don't have a soul or
feelings?

Let's celebrate truth as well as beauty and start the new calendar year off with a bit of activism!

And a worthy one because not only because SECOND-HAND or LOCALY and ETHICALLY produced better but, well here's just one good reason why...

URGENT ACTION NEEDED FOR CATS IN CHINA
THE CHINESE NEW YEAR WILL BRING UNIMAGINABLE SUFFERING TO CHINESE CATS AS THEY ARE BEING SKINNED & BOILED WHILE STILL ALIVE IN SOUTH OF CHINA. CAT OWNERS ARE TERRORIZED BY CAT NABBERS.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION!

Cats are skinned and boiled while still alive in Guandong, a south of China province. For full story, please read this latest news, and take action for the defenseless which are suffering unspeakable pain and agony. link: http://www.antifursociety.org/ActionAlert.html

Please write to the Guandong authorities (cc to the Chinese Embassy) asking them to stop this horrific practice.

Your message will be more effective if you fax it or send it by snail mail in addition to emailing it. Regardless, please send them a message of disapproval. NOTE: Since this information may bring emotions to a high level, it is very important to keep it to polite messages or efforts to help those most unfortunate beings maybe in vain. Feel free to use the letter below, edit it or write your own. The important thing is to make it sincere and polite on behalf of the defenseless.

OPEN LETTER TO THE AUTHORITIES OF THE GUANDONG PROVINCE IN CHINA
(with copy to a Chinese Embassy nearest you)

Newspapers worldwide are reporting about the extreme torture of cats that are skinned and then boiled alive by butchers in Guandong. Thousands of cats are sold to the Guangdong restaurants, and most of these cats come from other provinces where cat nabbers have become infamous all over China, terrorizing cat owners who fear that their cats may be stolen to be sent to Guandong restaurants. The shocking side of this story that's making human beings all over the world shiver with indignation is that cats are skinned and dismembered alive, and still alive when thrown into boiling water to finally finish a most hellish suffering with their last breath.

It is with profound distress that I am writing to you regarding this most Inhumane treatment of cats and ask you wholeheartedly that you put a stop to it immediately. The West is horrified by so much vileness, and this will certainly not be a postcard that China would want for the world to see. It is because of these practices of a minority that the important and rich Chinese culture and history have become so stained and repudiated by most countries which have adhered to humane laws to protect the most defenseless members of our planet: the animals. It will not be difficult for China to adjust to this new era since most Chinese people abhor these extreme cruelties. The minority in your society who delight themselves on this type of cruel bloodshed are a few and they will only destroy China's respectability around the world. Surely, not all Cantonese are proud of the smell of blood tainting their culture and history.

Quoting General Secretary Hu Jintao on December 18, 2008 commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the reform: "the spiritual poverty is not socialism," can be translated also for non-humans as these practices are certainly a great poverty of spirit and one that will bring shame to the Chinese civilization. It is now a good oportunity to follow on his Excellency Hu Jintao's footsteps to a rich and spiritual socialism.

Respected Guangdong Provincial party committee, the provincial government, Guangzhou Municipal party committee, the municipal government leads: These acts have driven people around the world beyond their limits of forbearance. There is nothing that should justify such horror, let alone something as selfish as the culture of food based on the suffering of the innocent and the defenseless.

I appeal to your conscience and the compassion that you surely have in your hearts, to put an end to so much suffering inflicted upon the most defenseless members of your society: the animals. Please make it illegal for butchers to inflict so much pain and agony on the voiceless and defenseless animals. Please investigate these atrocities, and forbid any food and beverage that is based on cruelty, and capture and destroy the suppliers and sales of live animal companions for food, immediately. Modern laws and regulations must be instituted immediately to avoid this type of traffic and the extreme suffering involved with it. No nation should have to be embarrassed of their own country because of a minority that can only bring shame and disgrace upon itself. It would be to the great advantage of China to put an end to this horrific treatment of animals to show the world that it is also compassionate and civilized, and has the ability to be an effective part of the third Millennium.

A country notorious for its animal cruelty now presents lions and tigers on horseback...

At a zoo in South East China, a horse is forced to carry a lion around an enclosure. The horse is kept in motion by a trainer with a whip; this horse has no choice but to perform. In order for the horse to perform these brutal acts it had to be subjected to torturous training, stripping it of all its natural instincts. Furthermore, the horse endures continual pain as the lion claws the horse's body to maintain its balance.

It's so hard not to get incensed with rage when cruelty is perpetrated on other beings. In fact it is virtually impossible to feel anything but a gut response of deep anger and even vengeful hate when confronted with the pain and suffering of our kin, no matter what 'suit of clothes' they physically wear in this version of reality. But the best response, as we all know, is to BE THE CHANNGE. If we were all the change we wanted to see and really behaved as if we knew that

This year, on this day, we need to find the balance of doing and being and we need to laugh

'The System' is ridiculous and we need to stop taking it and ourselves anything like so seriously. It is the major change of perception that will set us free. Yes, we need to know how we are controlled, why and by whom or what. But the way we respond to that decides if we remain controlled or refuse to be bound by fear, worry and stress.

A very kind woman called Jennie has offered to make the WAKING THE WILD SPIRIT Tarot book (now out of print/stock and selling for collector's prices) into an E-book that would be available here and on Amazon etc.

Obviously Poppy would give all proceeds to charity if there has to be a small charge.

Here is part of the most beautiful evocative seasonal poem/carol written by Christina Rossetti in 1872...it has always been a favourite piece of Poppy's

How familiar are our winter hedgerows with the narrow blackened fingers of our native species reaching to a blanched, yet soon to be burnished, sky?

Not a berry to be eaten by a hungry bird, no seed to fall to the earth, no shelter from the storms

Just ripped and shredded branches laid open to disease by the brutal machine cutting that saves the farmer time and makes our once green and pleasant land so neat and tidy.

So, all hail our custodians of the English countryside! And we wonder why we no longer see the birds in our gardens?

This cruel, brutal shredding goes on year upon year here in Somerset. You can see the Tor of Glastonbury in the background of the second image.

How much longer will we see such short-sighted, selfish behaviour as part of the 'scenery'?

What we do to the land and its inhabitants we do to ourselves. How could it be any other way? So, what does this say about us? All of us?

Yet amidst the searing pain we may feel for experiencing such a travesty we can still pause to acknowledge incredible people doing truly inspiring things...

Over the past few weeks, the ruling military regime in the Southeast Asian country of Burma has locked up over 100 human rights activists and sentenced them to long terms in prison.

They join with Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as political prisoners in Burma.

Just as many people came together to help Nelson Mandela when he was imprisoned in South Africa, I want to do something to helps Burma's political prisoners and Aung San Suu Kyi in their courageous struggle for human rights and democracy.

Will you join me in signing an online petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon? The petition asks him to take immediate action to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma, urges him to travel to Burma, and asks him to support a global ban on weapons sales to Burma's military regime.

As you may know, Burma is ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that uses torture, systematic rape, and political arrests to suppress a nonviolent democracy movement. Last year, a peaceful march lead by Buddhist Monks called the "Saffron Revolution" was violently crushed by the Burmese military. Nearly 2000 political prisoners remain in jail. The regime continues to use intimidate the movements leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

I hope you will join me in helping to stop these abuses. A great organization -- the U.S. Campaign for Burma -- is leading this effort.

Photos will be added here that have taken of around Somerset and the West of England as people should be aware and learn to see these things for themselves.

Above: The distinctive cross shape that marks out a set of CHEM(ical)TRAILS

The CON(densation)TRAILS from passing aircraft are mainly water vapour and disperse quickly even though they too are full of pollutants we already know about

What are Chemtrails full of? And how are they affecting all life on this planet?

It's not about doom and gloom but just being AWAKE, or conscious of what is going on, so that we can BE THE CHANGE we want to see externally within our own lives.

Its all about passing on information: empowering ourselves and therefore others too. It's not about being negative, its about recognising our true power-full nature as INFINITE CONCIOUSNESS and expressing that without fear. We live in dangerous times but not for the reasons we may think. Times when we have to say 'I am not a terrorist' before speaking our truth plainly, without anger...

I just hope that humanity can encourage and assist all beings to get off their knees (or their bellies) so that all beings are free and equal!

And please don't forget the tattoo design for charity offer mentioned in November's news

Poppy was inspired in this idea by a wonderful woman called Jane who has been so patient in waiting for months for her tattoo design to be completed. And here it is...

This last charity has been set up by two incredible women, Jean Bird in the UK and Jelena in Serbia ,and especially deserves your attention, even if you are not interested in tattoo designs or donating at this time. Please go to the green-spirited links page of this site for more information on what they do.

Poppy's new idea means if you are thinking about a tattoo for the spring or summer next year now is the time to ask! Please email:

with your requirements or ideas and again please be patient when waiting for a response.

Here is news of another beautiful project that would welcome your contribution if you feel so moved...

Simply put, most of us want to protect Utah's wilderness because we care about the future of Utah's amazing wild lands. In order to make that care and concern more visible, participants in the Utah based "Women Protecting Wilderness" project have been collecting short testimonials and pictures from people describing why wilderness matters to them. These testimonials are being turned into the "Wilderness Quilt" - a visually exciting, attention-grabbing exhibit comprised of over 100 photos and "testimonials" (transferred to fabric) - that will be displayed as a part of an outreach and wilderness education project at the Salt Lake City Main Library during the last two weeks of November.

So far we've collected more than 80 testimonials from Utah wilderness supporters all over the country. We need more to complete the display and would love your help! Please take a moment, and submit a testimonial now. (We welcome testimonials from men as well as women.) Here's what we need:

Wilderness is no words yet its lyricism is the language of my soul
As it is of wings kissing air,
As it is of air lifting leaves,
As it is of leaves sipping light,
Unfettered; glorious; essential.
Beyond and within us it lies, sustaining and reflecting,
Revealing our own beauty in its bare crags and deep crevices.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU
To the wild land we honour
To the wild lands we are.

If there is a God, then the Creator is to be found in the sacred beauty of the natural world, not in mankind's lifeless inventions

To continue with the topic of wild land and its native inhabitants here is a link to a devastating documentary that should be required viewing for all. Cut and paste this into YouTube:

It is not easy to watch but it will open your eyes and heart still further to the absolute neccessity of us all WAKING UP NOW to our interconnectedness with ALL BEINGS.

Above: Kevin Annett, an extraordinary embodiment of the ALL who exemplifies the self-less need to stand for truth, whatever the personal cost. When we completely accept that we are eternal - expressions of the energetic One temporarily experiencing ourselves from a unique (apparent) physical perspective - then any material consequences of our actions become irrelevant. How can such a transient issue as being disliked, outcast or ridiculed matter when we know ourselves to be undying, evelasting everything-ness?

All things must pass, including this fabulous, but utterly temporary, bodily suit we wear so what are we waiting for...

And if, for whatever reason, we do not feel that we can then let us at least support those (like Kevin Annett) who do stand for truth.

Ah, here we are again at my favourite season, so delicious I want to preserve it like a jar of translucent, jewel-like apple jelly so I can spoon it up whenever I feel like a dose of beauty.

October inspires me so much, which makes it so incredibly hard when I am not physically capable of keeping up with the creative demands of my soaring spirit; a spirit that would have me painting, writing and crafting twenty-four hours a day if it could. The pure creator-energy of which we are all a part surges through me as silver-white birds take wing over brown fields and the drifts of fragrant smoke hang over the lanes. Instead my creative time per day is severely limited by pain in this wonderful, but unreliable, body-vehicle I have chosen to occupy this time round! But at least I have that time, so this is not a grumble...just a squeak of frustration! Wouldn't it be wonderful to stretch that which we perceive as time and become forgetful of our physical boundaries (which are all illusory anyway) and just CREATE eternally? I guess that comes with the 'death' experience but for now...well, I don't know about you but I'll keep trying!

In celebration of creativity I am including some images of when I was a singer in a Pretenders tribute band...a fantastic outlet for me. I rejoice I was able to do that at all, bringing a fabulous dream to fruition even if for a short time.

Here we are performing one of our rare gigs before my health totally collapsed...

It was a short charity performance for animal welfare organisations and huge fun due to the warm support of the audience.

Chrissie Hynde herself would have approved of my synthetic boots and cruelty-free outfits for her tribute!

Soon I shall add some of the music I wrote when in my other original band, GYPSY MOON. I have now let this musical dream go but still feel the lyrics are worth sharing with you.

Meanhile I will leave you with some stunning images I can see from my kitchen window and within a very short distance of where I live. Even when we are housebound or limited there is always exquisite beauty to be found! I sincerely hope that you find your source of inspiration today and can

Happy Autumn to you all, may the season of mellow fruitfulness bring you many unexpected gifts

And P.S soon I will be discussing next month a new idea I have for THE GREEN SPIRITUALITY HANDBOOK which I would appreciate feedback on. Is another book neccesary?

While I ponder this question I keep coming across quotes that make me think about how to write about our vital connection to 'The All' when it seems impossible...

What a shame that I have been offline for so long, I do apologise although mostly it has been out of my hands. I was alerted one day that my website had vanished and was then asked repeatedly by people when it was coming back. The problem was I couldn't even answer about where it had gone. One minute it was there, the next it was an advert for Orange! :-( This caused me much stress as I simply couldn't sit at the PC long enough to get any advice and people on the phone at the companies I dealt with treated me like an idiot for not knowing 'jargon'. No one could tell me why I now had an Orange advert in place of my fully paid up website...or how to get rid of it! Finally I was approached by a wonderful woman called Kristen from New Mexico who recommended her PC whizz pal Jimi in the USA. I would like to put any work his way that I can as he is utterly MARVELLOUS and I thank him for his selfless dedication to the web-cause of someone he doesn't even know. Here is his email for PAID work...

I am not suggesting for a moment he will do freebies! He is UTTERLY TRUSTWORTHY and kind, two rare things to be treasured!

As recompense I decided to create my own act of kindness when I found an abandoned Barbie doll inthe road by where I live. I guessed it belonged to the little girls who live in my terrace and had an idea...

That was the label she carried and here is her transformation from naked, bitten tangle-haired doll to a fairy doll...

I had her hung outside their front door one night so they would get a lovely surprise (I hoped!) in the morning. She is carrying two discs that read

It's so heartwarming you won't have to worry about rising fuel prices for the winter: you'll glow!

Also, if you get a chance, check out a very long piece available on YOU TUBE by David Icke on the Big Brother State.

It is a talk he gave as part of standing for the so-called 'Big Brother' Bi-Election near Hull this summer. Make your self comfortable as its long...very long. David likes to talk and he is so good at it! I just lay on the floor and liistened but aparently there are some great accompanying graphics if you are able to watch. Apart from of his ideas on the condition of the Earth in relation to us pesky humans its fascinating - and scary - stuff.

If you think Mr Icke is still a joke I suggest you educate yourself pronto as sadly you'll need this information sooner or later. He may not be the most endearing character in the world but ITS ABOUT INFORMATION, not characters. Personally I really admire his staying power and ability to stick to his research and insights in the face of horrendous ridicule over twenty years. The great thing is that he knows that he is INFINITE CONSCIOUNESS having a human experience from a unique perspective and so the (temporary) ridicule of his human 'vehicle' (not his eternal self) is truly 'nothing to be scared of'! What a great inspiration such fearless behaviour is and how edifying it is to observe someone walking his own talk so boldly in this (perceived) world.

Plus what he says is at the very least interesting and certainly worth looking into to see how deep the rabbit hole goes...

As the sun, and the greening of the land, reach their powerful zenith this month please use that tide of natural energy to make a compassionate pledge ...

Align yourself with the powerful point of full moon at Solstice and VOW TO BE STRONG IN YOUR CONVICTION THAT ALL BEINGS SHOULD BE FREE!

She was an innocent creature, who had, through no fault of her own, ended up a street dog, uncared for and unwanted.

She was taken off the streets by a man, Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, a man who calls himself an artist. Perhaps she thought she had found soemone to love her but instead she was taken to his gallery for an art exhibition. Perhaps he wanted her company there? But no.
SHE WAS HIS EXHIBIT.

She was tied up and left - starved to death as an example of his art. WHILE PEOPLE WALKED BY HER AND LET IT HAPPEN SHE SUFFERED STARVATION AND DIED. Worse even than this, he has been invited back again to do it this year.

DO IT NOW and DO WHAT YOU CAN to find out as much as you can about this hideous crime against sentient beings and then PASS THE INFORMATION ON

Hilary Benn (the Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) will be taking a decision on the ‘culling’ of badgers in England within the next few weeks.

PLEASE E MAIL HILARY BENN TODAY-EVEN IF YOU HAVE DONE SO BEFORE- AND PLEASE GET AS MANY CONTACTS, FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES TO ALSO E MAIL HILARY BENN STATING THEY ARE AGAINST ANY CULL.PLEASE DO THIS NOW!

PLEASE HELP THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO SHOW THAT PUBLIC OPINION IS TOTALLY AGAINST ANY CULL-YOUR E-MAIL WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

IT IS IMPORTANT TO SEND TO BOTH ADDRESSES.
IN ADDITION: PLEASE ALSO WRITE TO/E MAIL YOUR MP AND ASK THEM TO WRITE TO HILARY BENN EXPRESSING YOUR OPPOSITION TO ANY CULL.

This link is for the Tibetan people whose way of life and faith is threatened.
T here is no petition presented, it is just
signatures creating a wave of appreciation, love and support for them,
across the world. Please share and pass it on.

Power is not focussing on how huge the problem is and how little you can do but knowing that your gesture is part of an overall movement towards love, understanding, equanimity and freedom.

Power is knowing ourselves to be a cell in the body of Creation: a cell that is healthy and cooperating to make the entire body well

I planted a local, organically grown apple seed in Auntumn 2006 when I was too ill to leave the house. I prayed that as it grew I too would grow in strength and that we would both find a new place to live that would nurture us both. Well, here is my delightful apple pip less than two years on, he is over six foot and thriving in a new garden!

Whatever ails you, whatever hurts you as you read this today, PLEASE HAVE FAITH. All things must pass, all seasons change, and you can change your world by thought, kind deed and PRAYER. Prayer is a focussing of intent with awareness of both our individual and collective part in the All. It is not a beseeching of Deity but rather an acknowledgement of our own unique power within the glorious One-song of the Uni-verse.

So, if you ever need faith just come back and look at my lovely tree...or better still, plant your own, with love!

Below are two beautiful little oaks that I planted as acorns last Autumn.It seemed for a while I was just staring at empty soil and they wouldn't germinate and then in a space of weeks...wow!

This reminds me NEVER TO GIVE UP, to dream harder! And that with care and attention (and a pure, heartfelt intent) I can gow to my full potential towards the light. I hope it helps inspire you too. Besides anything its a miracle...all that information held in such a small seed!

Poppy recently received a campaign letter from an animal welfare organisation that reminded her that GOOD PEOPLE DO SOMETHING. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by grief or rage at the plight of our creature-kin, now is the waxing time to focus on what we can do, however small we may feel that something is. When we feel discouraged then we can recall that our drop in the ocean is the ocean and together we must be the change to see the change!

It would be a wonderful thing if this month everyone could donate a small amount to an animal welfare organisation. Poppy suggests UNCAGED to support their action against Proctor and Gamble - GLOBAL BOYCOTT P and G Day - which is officially held on Saturday 17th MAY 2008. UNCAGED are a not-for-profit organisation that is entirely dependent on public support.

Although the concept of 'environment' is somewhat superfluous to those who have a sense of their one-ness with all creation UNCAGED still have a green-spirited, holistic approach that will surely appeal to those who enjoy Poppy's work. Their work on behalf of us all, and the All, is vital. Besides donations they are also seeking people to get involved, giving their time to run street stalls to raise money and awareness.

Their website is at www.uncaged.co.uk or to get involved with the P and G campaign you can email their headquarters via max@uncaged.co.uk or phone 0114 272 2220

Animal Aid is a charity that would certainly benefit from more practical support. They are always looking for school speakers and run regular courses across the country for those who wish to engage in this invaluable service. They also do a great deal of work for WORLD DAY

World Day for Laboratory Animals
Every year on April 24th, compassionate people around the world speak out on behalf of the victims of vivisection. World Day for Laboratory Animals is a time to reflect upon the suffering of millions of mice, cats, monkeys, fish, rats, dogs, birds, rabbits, pigs, horses and many other species. Despite mounting evidence demonstrating that the information gained by using animals cannot be reliably applied to human medicine, the suffering continues, and both animals and people continue to die.

The UK conducts about 3 million ‘procedures’ on animals every year, which is more than any other EU country. They are poisoned to death in ‘safety’ tests and in disease research, they are surgically mutilated, blinded, burnt, starved, psychologically tormented and infected with lethal viruses.

Animal Aid campaigns to end all experiments on animals, and there are positive signs that things are beginning to change. A poll of British GPs found that more than 80 per cent are concerned about the reliability of animal research. In the European Parliament, a large majority of MEPs has called for an end to primate experiments. And in a move that is resonating in scientific circles around the world, leading US government agencies have declared that using animals to test the safety of drugs and chemicals is unreliable, expensive and slow. Their goal is to switch to modern, humane testing methods within ten years.

The British government must make a similar commitment and be forced by public pressure to be true to its word.

To find out more about WORLD DAY action and the work of this fantastic charity go to www.animalaid.co.uk

Here is a poem Poppy wrote when she first moved to the Somerset Levels area of the UK in 2001. It was inspired by the rhynes, or drainage ditches, which line the endless flat fields of this manmade, yet still mysterious, landscape. The rhynes are often filled with 'green stars' of algae which swirl into arcane patterns that reveal, then conceal, the strange reflections in the dark, still water beneath. What if there were someone beneath the green, in the dark mirrored beyond, staring up...

Green stars, caught in your swirling hair,
Crowning a milky brow
Unlined by worldly care.

Blanched eyes, into the ether stare,
Reflections of tearing clouds,
Passing through ribs laid bare.

Fall now, lured by a face so fair,
Adored by a thousand snails,
White as the wildest mare.

Embraced now, riddles and reeds ensnare,
I’m smothered, held fast by love,
Caressed by the river’s prayer.

Cold now, bubbles of breath declare
My worship, open mouthed,
I’m drinking the draught prepared.

Released now, a love no longer shared,
I’m falling away from you,
I’m drifting in dark despair.

Rise up, towards all worldly care,
Discarding your widow’s weeds,
Your absence is everywhere.

Blind now, sight failing like the air,
I’m ravaged by mouths of loss,
Old bones that the fishes share.

Green stars, caught in my swirling hair,
I’m gazing up at the sky,
Remembering life up there.

The image above show the dark waters and the algae stars while the image below shows a half submerged silvered mirror, like a faery moon shining through the green.

Memory is a funny old pickled onion, with layer upon tangy layer peeling away until you realise there’s nothing much left in the middle. So it is with my recollection, some seventeen years on, of the crop circles of this time. When I try to think back over their artistry and particular placement of such ‘formations’ I get nothing solid. Walking round one track of flattened wheat past another person holding a set of bent coat hangers dissolves into another image of another flattened track with a man lying down trying to conjure up the Mothership. I am definitely not the best person to ask exactly where I walked during that heady time but as for the people involved in what was a rapidly burgeoning phenomenon in 1990/91 I remember them well, or so I’d like to think. As an artist - and at the time an art teacher - I was interested in the beauty of the designs, of course, but as a writer I was even more interested in the human response to the whole crop circle fandango. Here, then, is what I recall.

My first experience was being dragged off to a field by a dual carriageway on the outskirts of Bath by my then boyfriend (I was young enough at twenty four to have a boyfriend and not a partner). We shall, for the purposes of preserving his dignity, call him Tim. Tim was a local of a village near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, and had become acquainted with a bunch of lads who had alerted him to circles. I was a resident of North London who had just broken up from school for the summer holiday and was staying down in my preferred area of the West. So it was that Tim took me to Newton St Loe and I trailed up things called tramlines and then wandered round a field of flattened corn for the first time.

I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Passages and circles? But I loved being out in the early evening sun, all alone in this swaying field of crop - in fact I felt a bit miffed that someone had vandalised it. Tim advised that I was meant to feel the force or vibes of some kind because that’s what people apparently did in crop circles. Yet to someone who had lifelong experience of the ‘unexplained’, i.e. me, it didn’t feel like anything other than a nice field. The idea that people had blinding headaches and fell over in awe in these things didn’t sway me. Tim was disappointed that my psychic sensitivities didn’t alert me to something…anything…but my interest was more practical. Who, not what, made them, that’s what I wanted to know? Tim thought it was space ships perhaps and, wait a minute, there…look! Over there! A little green man was running through the standing crop, did I see? I must have done. He had looked evil. Tim, my scientific boyfriend, was spooked. Quick, we had to chase after him.

I wish I were joking but I am not. If Tim he thought he saw an apparition, well who was I to say her hadn’t? I’m not sure if Mulder was even invented then but just for that one evening I wanted to believe, for Tim’s sake. So I chased through the itchy, scratchy crop and found doodly squat but yet more bent stalks.

By the time I got to my next crop circle visit Tim had made me a pair of coat hanger dowsing rods and I was off with all the others, eyeing the squashed crop balefully as I meandered up and down the mysterious rows and rings. Other people were walking round with swinging rods, ooohing and ahhhing over the dramatic responses. But me? De Nada. I just wasn’t getting it, whatever it may be. I quickly got bored with the rods just sticking straight out and began to watch the people instead. To my surprise there were lots of them. The sun shone, the crystal pendulums were in full swing and a distinct air of earnestness hung like a pall over their proceedings. Over in the centre of a swirl of crop would be a meditating figure, in another someone chanting or channelling while others looked on in awe. It was enough to goad me into the naughtiness I felt throughout my whole brief encounter with the genuinely wacky world of the circles…and later, their makers.

The next thing I knew there were crop designs (the newly named ‘pictograms’ or ‘agri-glyphs’) of Led Zeppelin Remastered proportions appearing and ariel photos to show me what I had actually been walking round in. It was a revelation to see the crop art in its entirety after all those seemingly meaningless mazes I’d been traversing all summer with Tim. He was hooked on finding the next one and the next, of just being there. Something fantastic was actually happening in his neck of the woods and there was no way he was going to miss it. I was just hooked on watching the madness that ensued around me, from people collecting on the gate for entrance fees to someone playing a song to the Pleiades on a tin whistle. Badly.

That winter Tim and I experienced one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve ever heard of which occurred late one night at Stonehenge. To say it involved altered time, a UFO and a seven-foot black entity doesn’t even cover it. I’ve written about this in three other published books but suffice to say Tim was drawn deeper into the world of the mysterious and I, hating my chosen profession and my London location, couldn’t wait for summer 1991 when I could move to Wiltshire and join him in the search for truth, whatever that may turn out to be.

Things took a definite turn for the more interesting in June 1991. I moved to a room in Bath and we first went to the Waggon and Horses at Beckhampton near Avebury in Wiltshire. Tim had heard it was the place to go to hear all the circle news and so we went with another couple. The most notable thing about the first night there was we weren’t allowed into the hallowed Tack Room were the circling meetings took place –the doors were closed to us – and Tim’s mate had his new leather jacket stolen. Oh, and we met Rob Irving.

The charming Rob was like a magic talisman that gave you access to all circle areas. He came out of the Tack Room for a beer and homed in on us. Who were we, what were we doing here? We gave him cigarettes and he gave us snippets of juicy gossip from behind that big studded door. That was the night he did his impersonation of Pat Delgado trapped behind an invisible force field – like a psychotic Marcel Marceau. I hadn’t laughed that much in an age. I didn’t have a clue who Delgado was but I soon found out, as that was the year of Operation Blackbird or some other covert sounding debacle. What was clear was that Rob was far more interesting than most people I met and everyone coming out of the back room seemed to know him and want his attention. Thankfully Rob didn’t find us too tedious with our lack of insider circling knowledge and seeing me game for a laugh (and probably as a potential admirer of his) he invited us back. We had our backstage pass.

Only Tim and I returned, his pals not being too keen on stolen jackets or weird goings on. The next time Rob gave us entry to the Tack Room and we sat down at the fringes of the ‘big table’. I wouldn’t have had to be a sensitive to notice how unwelcome we were by the rest of the distinctly motley crew assembled there but I wasn’t going to let that spoil my fun. Then to my astonishment Rob discreetly slipped his Dictaphone out under the table and the meeting kicked off.

It seemed to consist of a bunch of old geezers bickering, one theory tumbling out over another with scant regard for social etiquette. Distinctly well-to-do, educated men in the main they raised their voices and then lowered them in subterfuge. I recall being mightily peeved by their implication that they had the secret but weren't telling…yet. Rob just smirked. I looked around and now know that I was seeing George Wingfield, Jurgen Kronig, someone that may have been Montague Keen or Archie Roy, Richard Andrews, Busty Taylor and the only woman I can recall being there besides me, all the way from Leicester Rita Goould and her special friend (Ron?) I suppose Lucy Pringle was there on most occasions though - it was so hard to tell as the room was dominated by plummy public school men (Busty excepted). The room was always so full, everyone straining to be seen or heard around the periphery of the ‘big table’. And there was I, an outsider in with the apparent insiders as they tried to put together an answer to the what, why, who and how of the crop circle enigma. This they did noisily and with a level of bad manners usually reserved for the classrooms of North London in which I taught. Only the accents were different. It was a bicker-fest with the veneer of a civilised Upper Sixth common room debate.

That night, after the ‘meeting’ was adjourned (and nothing was solved or even agreed on) I wandered round the Waggon with a man and his dowsing rods – these were proper job rods, not like my (now abandoned) coat hanger efforts. Richard Andrews seemed a very competent sort of chap and intelligent too but as his rods pivoted and swung he was coming up with stuff vis-à-vis the layout and location of the place that I found rather quirky to say the least. Yet he was pleasant and it was fun, dowsing for spirits and leylines when most people were watching TV.

Then we went there all the time, as if addicted. I think Friday was the ‘big night’ but we probably went Saturday too. Then, as now, I didn’t drink so I was a clear-headed observer of human behaviour and the politics of circling. No one ever introduced themselves; all I ever received from the assembled throng was a supercilious once over and dismissal as not being of suitable interest. I was tolerated as an Irving acolyte but I wasn’t suitable material to include in the chain of command that was rapidly being established. We’ll see about that, I thought.

Next time we arrived Tim and I wrote CROP CIRCLES HOAXED TO ORDER in the dirt on the back window of his Fiesta then we sauntered into the pub and waited. Hoaxing was the latest buzzword. Either circles were ‘genuine’ (made by unspecified supernatural forces) or ‘hoaxed’ (made covertly by blokes) although how you can ‘hoax’ a beautiful creation is beyond me. Before we knew it people were rushing in and out yelling “whose is that car?” and “ the hoaxers are among us!” The level of paranoia and the desperation to find the culprit responsible for this pesky phenomena and/or the solution to the greatest mystery of all time was palpable. We smirked. Irving smirked. Rob Irving was already suspected as a Government spy/member of MI5 (how did he live when he didn’t work and wasn’t a private income sort like some of the ‘croppies’?) and so he loved to hype things up and set people running about, accusing each other and hypothesising wildly. We had spent many evenings in his flat in Bath while he whispered to one member of the crop Illuminati on the phone about another of their number then had the other person phone him, only for him to wind them up about someone else. Subterfuge was the name of the game - that and one-upmanship. Irving just saw what was already there and took advantage…he was, as with Brian in the Monty Python film, a very naughty boy. But fun.

I caught the bug of naughtiness from him and before I knew it was verbally prodding Terence Meaden when he did a talk on vortexes and sending George Wingfield letters of protest about his elitist attitude. I had taken great umbrage at Wingfield suggesting in the Waggon that we could all hire planes and do what he did if we wanted access to the truth he intimated he had acquired (but, as yet, was unwilling to share). Personally I didn’t care a cockerel’s fart who or what made these things but I did object to such wilful snobbery and the (empty) claims that he had inner knowledge of the answers that he couldn’t possibly share with anyone who didn’t have a handsome income, as he did, from IBM. I had expected the debonair chap to be a little aggrieved that someone dare challenge his mystical/masterful authority but I hadn’t expected to be treated with such suspicion was I was. Wingfield and his wife both circled me with deep suspicion and hostility, questioning Irving about my origins and my possible role as a spy/infiltrator. If I had dared to question the party line (i.e. his) I must surely be up to no good. As it was Rob certainly played me off against them. I have no idea what he actually told them about me but no doubt it was inflammatory. The fact I was only a teacher would have been far too dull for such people to consider when they wanted intrigue and espionage.

Meanwhile the crop circles and shapes just kept of appearing regardless (or because of) the level of interest in them. Barbury Castle happened and I was utterly amazed. I even heard myself utter the immortal words ‘no human could have made this!’ Standing up on the hill fort on a breezy evening seeing that awesome shape it did seem as if some fabulous supernatural force was at work below me in the field. But people needed to know more and the buzz around me was focussed on what on earth was it trying to communicate with all those cogs and triangles? People thought they knew, of course (the Earth was dying, Mother was calling out etc.) but I didn’t care enough to hypothesise – it was eloquent enough as a piece of art. I also thought it was very kind of the designers/makers to provide us with a lofty vantage point from which to see their art in full – a feature of many of the subsequent ‘pictograms’ that were, and still are, made.

Rob definitely thought that crop circles were just art, art for the people by the people, and this was my own open-minded position from then on in. Crop art was (or should have been) a beautiful egalitarian form of communication that was why I resented bigwigs pretending the ‘formations’ (as they insisted on calling them as if they were mysteriously formed and not made) were their exclusive property. I understood back then (and know now for sure having seen enough being made) that crop circles could be created by people…people being unique expressions of the Creator themselves. Why not? We can do anything if we think we can! As an artist myself I thought it more than likely that someone had sussed out a good way of sculpting in corn and creating ‘happenings’ or installations by which you could observe the viewer’s response to your creation. At the time it appeared unlikely that it was solely Doug and Dave’s ideas and output we were seeing in the fields (and the newspapers) but I appreciated their down-to-earth sentiment and liked them as folks far more than the elitist, precious crew in the Tack Room. Then I met the circlemaking U.B.I (Tim’s Wiltshire friends) and knew, for a brief time, the sensitive Paul Randle and his mad pal Bart (who liked me to apply his make up). Then I knew for sure that there were other teams out there creating gorgeous crop art as an altruistic act. Tim even went out and joined in with them but I never did. We would often drive along through Wiltshire and Tim would say ‘we did that one’ quite casually. I had no reason to think he hadn’t – why lie when you were getting nothing out of it?

Talking of lies, it is worth mentioning here that the supposed ‘materialisation medium’ Rita Goould had been a suspect for Barbury Castle and she turned up a great deal in the rumours of the time. I found this a hilarious idea, along with the notion that she was receiving ominous rhyming communications from some strange force/organisation. Rob was always on the phone to her about something like this. I think it turned out in the end that she was actually sending these communications to herself and other crop Illuminati for some reason. She always seemed like a harmless but cuckoo woman to me, a notion confirmed when she introduced me to a group of people who were the maddest I have ever known (one of whom thought he was a manifestation of John the Baptist, an alien and Hitler.) Oh, and she also tried to sell me her Avebury caravan, complete with mock-Tudor beams, because she was moving to Loch Ness.

It was now being said that Irving, no longer content with spectator status, was out making circles with a newcomer to the scene, Jim Schnabel. Jim was from the USA so it figured that he just had to be CIA or FBI, paid to come over here and discredit the whole genuine ‘phenomenon’. Whatever that meant! Whatever it was, a whole industry featuring books, t-shirts, photos and talks/conferences/workshops was growing up around the crop art at this time. An industry that certain people try and keep afloat to this day, refusing to acknowledge that they know as well as I do who makes the pretty designs each summer. Such is the human nature I love to observe.

To end the ‘season’, as people had begun to refer to it, the ‘Mandlebrot Set’ crop design happened out of the ‘sacred landscape’ of ancient Wiltshire. Uncannily, this fractal image was discovered close to Cambridge University. People were blown away by it and the whole notion of the ‘season’s finale’ was born – as were a glut of fractal design posters and an interest in quantum physics and chaos theory. Nice one, Cambridge!

My own season’s finale was the caricatures I lovingly drew, egged on by the ever-naughty Irving. I don’t know what his motivation was there, to get me ostracised for good and all, perhaps? To provoke violence over the Tack Room table? My pictures were, if I say so myself, pretty damn good and featured Busty in his plane while Wingfield flew like superman over Avebury and Kronig sat on his UFO; Colin Andrews with his paradigm shifting in a Hopi loincloth; Pat Delgado as a Jester with the Coca Cola logo in the crop (‘yes, this one’s definitely the real thing!’) and Meaden being taken up in a spacecraft’s beam rather than a vortex (‘Holy electrified spinning air, I’ve finally seen the light!’ But, oh, how badly they went down! As Rob carelessly threw my A3 sheets onto the ‘big table’ in front of the self-appointed experts there was not even a titter. Being a Palin I have never felt very enamoured of those who can’t crack a smile over the absurdities of life and I slunk away disgruntled, determined to do something with my images.

As summer turned to autumn and the last of the crop disappeared the elite looked for other vital things to discuss over the inner circle table. What would next season bring? Was Wilhelm Reich relevant? Who were the ‘Friends of Hecate’? Anything to try and sustain the mysterious momentum. But for me my money and my interest had run out and by winter I had returned to London to teach. My own circle dancing days were over - for a while at least - but the circus continued to come to town every summer.

This wonderful place is the site of one of the greatest wildlife spectacles anywhere in the world: the roost of seven million starlings, many of them migratory birds from Russia overwintering in the West of England.

Around this time of year they can be seen at approximately four p.m. swirling and swooping as one body through the darkening sky. Some evenings they will roost in the redbeds of Shapwick Reserve, across the Levels, but visitors are often graced with this most moving sight at Westhay.

It is hard to think of anything that expresses the individual interconnectedness of all life more eloquently than this breathtaking display. The intelligent, beautiful individual birds are such a cohesive unit at twilight that it is a great inspiration for anyone who has faith in the ultimate unity of each unique aspect of Creation . The sound of their wings alone can move the soul deeply.

Aren't these wonderful images? Both capture the incredible numinous halo that appears in the chamber entrance at this time of year. Both were taken inside the passage of this Neolithic womb/tomb in Somerset. The pale glimmering in that pulsing darkness is so evocative of the primary polar forces of existence, at one yet at odds always. Similarly this place is an absorbing paradox - deeply loving yet unsentimental, wholly welcoming whilst remaining unsettling. Within its folds the scent of loam and stone entice us to rest our bones even as we are suddenly expelled, thrust back outside by our fears into the waning light of an autumn afternoon.

Here are two more autumnal images of Overton Hill, Wiltshire, taken by Gary Howe

These show the delicious contrast between the two faces of Poppy's favourite month, October.

On the left the cold bright crispness that turns to shades of muted periwinkle and indigo as twilight approaches and the land's chill breath shrouds the scene from human eyes. It is then time to go back to hearth and home, to the blessing of our own burrow or nest.

On the right the stark bones of the season, stripped by a ragged wind, , a sight which touchs a part of us so deep it can hardly become known to us, by turns unbearable and ecstatic.What better place to visit but a silent long barrow, ringed with solomn beeches, at this time of passing into the Beyond.

Each year Poppy experiences a yearning inside to keep this time of mists and sighs forever. She recommend,amongst others, Ed Alleyne Johnson's 'Purple Electric Violin Concerto', Albinoni's famous 'Adagio for Organ and Strings' and Kate Bush's 'The Sensual World' as great 'soundtrack to Autumn' listening.

Overton Hill is on the Marlborough Downs along the Ridgeway and the tree covered barrows are known locally as 'hedgehogs'.

As many of you may know, the Waking theWild Spirit Tarot has (sadly) been out of print for several years. Here are some of the images that Poppy has updated. Poppy has all the remaining copies of this Deck/Book set, contact her for details.

Please do come back soon and see any additions to this site that POPPY is (slowly) able to make!

Synopsis of SPIRITWALKING
"Spiritwalking" is a practical guide to working with the 'unseen', including spirits, entities and energies, be they human or otherwise. Drawing together the wild craft of the shamanic practitioner and the wise counsel of the medium or psychic, "Spiritwalking" takes the reader through a practical course in becoming an effective, empathic spiritwalker; one who can look beyond our physical existence in order to bring healing, balance and deeper understanding. It includes examples of 'unexplained' or 'paranormal' events from the author's own life and offers ways that we may understand them whilst giving instructions for how to deal with similar situations. This book is a highly original 'how to' manual that will enable anyone to deal with unwanted psychic intrusions, balance inharmonious energies or welcome in spirits who can work with us for positive ends. The personal examples from the author mean that this book is not a 'dry' read but rather is entertaining as well as instructional. It will give the reader an opportunity to understand how we may work with the unseen in everyday life and will bring a deeper understanding of our 'otherworldly' counterparts who share our space, be that indoors or in the landscape of city or countryside. It is an accessible course which is suitable for anyone with an interest in finding more meaning in life; a reader need have no beliefs for here is a pure, fresh approach to spirit-full living which only requires an open mind and a sense of adventure.

As with so many areas of esoteric exploration and self-realisation spiritwalking contains a central paradox. The core premise of living and working with the unseen is comprised of two elements which may seem diametrically opposed yet flow into a seamless whole. These two components are:
1. Contemplation: Contemplation in its various forms is a deep communion, usually alone and in silence, with the unseen aspect of existence. This spiritual, or within, aspect of spiritwalking allows us to establish a conscious connection with the omniscient Source of Being. By so doing we also connect with the many expressions of Source energy that emerge from the centre of power - including, of course, our own eternal internal being. This re-union enables us to live more purposefully and care-fully in the manifest world.

2. Action: This denotes the actual living of a spirit-full life, engaging respectfully and perceptively with an apparently ‘ordinary’ seen physical reality - the walking part, or without aspect, of spiritwalking. Our daily actions become informed by our inner realisations and so we have new insight into our sacred world and our particular place in it. With this perspective we are able to work with other beings for the good of the All.
As we can observe from this brief introduction, contemplation and action form a loop, one feeding the other endlessly. These two fundamental elements of spirit-full existence merge within the transfomative cauldron of ourselves to create a more dynamic way of experiencing existence. They give us the opportunity to be more rounded individuals, growing in wisdom and compassion within the greater whole, and allow us to re-member how to be fully in our power. The power we refer to here is power with, a collaborative and co-operative experience.
However, before we consider spiritual contemplation and action in more detail we must first apply a procedure that is as essential as putting on a crash helmet when going on a motorbike. This procedure is psychic protection - the defence of our essential energy. All beings have this radiating animating force, be they animal or human, incarnate or discarnate, and consequently we are surrounded by ‘invisible’ external energies at all times.

To help us accept this we can refer to what we already understand about ‘invisible’ forces. We are now, wherever we may be, surrounded by radio and microwaves, as well as mobile phone and television signals - all of which are travelling around in the air, doing what they do regardless of us. We know that just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there as they make themselves known to us each time we make a call or switch on the radio. We do know that to expose ourselves to such forces may have adverse consequences. Similarly to open up to extraneous unseen energies during contemplation may have unwanted effects on our being, however subtle. So we need to anticipate this as a matter of course and to be safe.
Although what follows is a sketch of a much more detailed procedure, here is a quick means of psychic protection for primary use.

Simple Shielding
1. Ensure that we feel our connection to our bodies and the Earth, experiencing our feet planted on the ground as we stand or sit.
2. Take three deep breaths through our nose, feeling the abdomen inflate as we take air in, hold for three, and then feel the abdomen as we release the sustaining air again.
3. Using our preferred method either envision in the mind’s eye (visualise) or describe (verbalise) a protective flexible seal that covers our body from head to toe. For example, imagine that we are stepping into a light rubbery all-in-one suit of vibrant sky blue. Experience this as a reality on the screen of our inner vision as we pull this bright membrane up over our knees, up further over buttocks and stomach, sliding our arms and puling it up to our neck. Or if description is our stronger skill then simply describe this process vividly. Finally imagine donning a full face cap of the same flexible shining material – a material like a second skin that allows us to still see through its diaphanous covering.
4. Now we experience this suit glowing, emitting pure white light until we are engulfed in a brilliant sphere. Either see or state this.
5. Whether we are seeing or speaking our procedure we should then assert ‘I am protected, may only those who come for my highest good draw close and may the rest turn back, unable to approach the cold fire (or kind-light) of my protection’.
Now we have a basic way of protecting ourselves can now consider opening up for contemplation.

CONTEMPLATION
There are five core aspects to contemplating the unseen and exploring our relationship to the All and these are meditation, connection, chanting, prayer and affirmation.

1. Meditation: By this we mean entering the silence, safely shifting our awareness from the mundane to the Great Mystery without becoming ungrounded or confused. We can achieve this by use of controlled deep breathing as we consciously and systematically relax our body and still our chattering mind. We are creating a quiet pool within, an oasis of profound reflection where we may observe our thoughts as they rise and let them go. Continuing with this watery analogy we may use the sound of the sea as an aid to the process, experiencing the breath being taken in through our nose to the lungs as the waves being taken from the shore, held for a moment, and then released in a steady rush through the mouth with a sound akin to the rushing of the tide back to the shore.

2. Connection: From this place of meditative stillness we are able to centre ourselves without the distractions of ‘ordinary’ reality. Once we are centred within we can then ‘plug into’ the Source that is to be found at the Greater Centre. Without external or internal interference we become an unblocked conduit for pure life-force energy, allowing it to flow through us unimpeded. The invigorating and inexhaustible life-force of Creation will refresh and strengthen us, allowing us to be fully in our power – recharged. This union also allows for us to feel our importance as a valuable one within the One, thus making us more confident of our individual worth and aware of our relationship to all beings, be they seen and unseen.

3. Meditative chanting: Once we have entered the silence we may use chanting as an aid to focussing more deeply on the oneness of being. Although when we chant we are no longer silent (or entirely still) we are engaged in a repetitive act which becomes hypnotic, not distracting, carrying us deeper and facilitating our receiving that essential energy. A positive mantra, such as Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo (dedication to the Mystic Law of life), or a simple resonance such as Aaaah (the sound found in so many names of worship (for example, Shivaaaah, Jehovaaaah, Allaaaah, Danaaaa, Krishnaaaa etc) can help us ‘zone out’ extraneous mundanities and become harmonised with the pulse of Creation. A rocking motion whilst chanting can help this hypnotic effect.

4. Prayer: This is a way of quietly acknowledging our personal power whilst in the silence of connection, using pure thought, word or visualisation to shape our will in the ether. Contrary to popular belief, prayer does not have to involve supplication to an outside force. Here we are not petitioning an externalised omnipotent being, an adjudicator who assesses worthiness and grants wishes. Instead we are offering a deep acknowledgment of the force that flows through all things, including ourselves. This force, as we personally understand from our contemplations, makes us a conscious creator as part of the greater Creator Consciousness. We have direct experience of our connection to every aspect of existence and so naturally our prayerful reflections on life, even if they focus particularly on our singular lives, will be for the good of the All.
We may use words to express gratitude and to focus on the positives, clarifying our hopes and dreams whilst we imbue - or charge up - the lyrical content with our associated heartfelt, soul-full feelings. A simple prayer of this type may be something like:
‘I acknowledge the beneficent Greater Spirit of which I am a singular expression and I feel the love that lies at the heart of Creation, and of my own created self. May this boundless love radiate ever outwards and may I represent it in all I do, say or think.’

5. Affirmation: When we affirm we select an aspect of our prayerful intent and establish it firmly in our consciousness by repetition. For this the affirmation needs to be succinct and impassioned. We don’t want we give energy to that which is not desirable and so therefore ‘no more war!’ may be a noble sentiment but ‘let there be peace’ is far more successful. In the former we naturally see images and feel the pain of violence and discord whilst in the latter we automatically feel the calm, loving essence of what we desire for all beings. Therefore a good example is:
‘Let there be peace and let it begin with me’.
This internal affirmation leads to action as we practically work towards what we want to see manifest in the physical world.

ACTION
As we have just established, our contemplation will inevitably raise our personal energies and awareness to a level where we will want to integrate the extra-ordinary into the apparent ‘ordinariness’ of our daily lives – supporting the unseen desire of our will with corresponding deeds.
Integration of these energies can involve the following active aspects of spiritwalking:

1.Trance Journeying: Through continual rhythmic deep breathing we may intensify our state of meditative relaxation until it becomes a trance state. We may then use our inner senses, most prominently our mind’s eye and ear, to make an etheric pilgrimage to another astral reality. This we do by using our innate creator consciousness to fashion a landscape from etheric energy. This ‘astral office’ is our workspace in the beyond where we may have safe interactions with non-corporeal, discarnate beings – most notably our companion spirits who are our otherworldly guides through life. Once we have an established place of ‘work’ and have a firm relationship with our companions we may use this place as a base to move further into the beyond. What we do here supports and reflects what we do in our physical lives, it is a way of actively seeking unseen wisdom that can be applied to seen reality.

2. Receiving Guidance: This we do either by actively entering into informative dialogue with trusted spirits safely in the astral office space we have created. Alternatively we can engage in guided, or automatic, writing whilst in a trance state. The latter is like receiving ‘cosmic dictation’ and gives us a valuable set of notes to refer back to as we move through our daily lives.

3. Living in Awareness: This means actively participating in life from the new holistic perspective we have. This is ‘walking our talk’, being unafraid to acknowledge we are constantly interacting with other non-manifest realities, forces and beings. This realisation brings with it a new accountability to all Creation, be it physical or non-physical. Our relationship to matter and spirit can never be denied once it is experienced so deeply and personally and we will find ourselves to be far more responsible as well as leading a life that is truly meaningful and
wonder-full.

4. Watching our Thoughts: With our awareness of energy, especially thought- energy and the power of the imagination, we will find that we now have a practical obligation to watching what we put out as ‘cosmic debris’. Our projected will, as a trained spiritwalker, must be concentrated on what we wish to create rather than dwelling on what we do not want to experience. This vital shift in consciousness and behaviour can be shown in the example of litter. We probably have always mentally berated those who drop waste in hedgerows etc. However, this adds more energy into the matrix of what we do not want. Instead we must actively represent what we do want by collecting litter uncomplainingly with the thoughtful affirmation ‘I am the change I wish to see, so may it be!’ By combining inner determination with affirming life-action we are part of the solution, not the problem.

5. Keeping it Clean: This means not adding in our energy into things that are degrading, cruel and divisive. As we have established, there is no division between our ‘harmless thoughts’ and the energy ‘out there’. When we are empowered we know the power we have and use it consciously for the good. This means that engaging with violence either ‘through a lens’ of the television, through the pages of horror fiction or through a computer console is no longer something we can do as ‘harmless’ and ‘not real’. Anything we engage in and give our energetic attention to for any length of time is real, either ether-real or manifestly so. Nothing exists that was not dreamed into being first! For a film, book or game to engage us there has to be a level of involvement and that is enough for us to experience the creation as powerfully as we would our own dreams, let alone our daily lives.

The vast quantity of undesirable thoughts that have been unleashed throughout the ages, either as part of an organised belief or simply as part of a ‘harmless’ engagement with a programme or idea, still cause us problems today. These concentrated outpourings of fear and anger do not readily disperse from the astral levels close to our own and can be troublesome for us. It is for us to turn the tide and to cease adding to this etheric detritus. When we are fearful of the bad stuff ‘out there’ we are disconnected and clearly disempowered. In contrast to the self-limiting and isolating way of being that is fostered by fear spiritwalking is about an intrepid expanding of awareness and a personal response-ability as part of a vibrant, burgeoning whole. Rather than live in ignorance and resentment spiritwalkers wish to see and know to the best of their own unique ability.

SEEING AND KNOWING
Seeing and knowing are the two primary spiritwalking skills. To see is to look beyond - to gain insights through inner visions (contemplative insight). To know is to trust these intuitions and insights and to integrate them accordingly into daily life (active application). With an awareness of infinite possibility we can keep the balance between wild fancy and profound understanding and so use our grounded approaches to make decisions.
Here is an example of this sensible yet sensitive and practical philosophy as applied in daily life.

Joshua and the Lightening
When out walking I had found a local field that interested me. It was unlike all the surrounding fields and left rough and unploughed. I would constantly find little things that revealed to me that in the past folk had dwelled here and worked the land – many clay pipes and bone buttons for example. Because my wits and empathy were heightened due to my constant spiritwalking practice I detected a sense of melancholy there and I often stopped to think about these previous inhabitants. I always kept my psychic sight honed so that I would be able to pick up any clues for the land and to witness the spirits of the place - be they human, animal, faery or elemental.
One sunny afternoon I was walking as usual when I was stopped by the figure of a middle-aged man in simple peasant apparel. He told me that he was called Joshua and that he had been struck by lightening on a spot he was still standing on. He told me how shocked he had been and of his not wanting to go away from his family and life in this place. He simply couldn’t move on, he wasn’t ready, it was too soon and too sudden. Yet centuries had passed and he knew all the people and things he loved were gone. Indeed, I was the only person to have witnessed him in over three hundred years. I promised to come back and talk to him when I could, hoping that I could convince him to cease his earth-bound existence and move on. Meanwhile I asked my companion spirits for their advice and kept myself open, yet well protected.
One day I was in the toilet at home when Joshua appeared in the empty bath! He was in a state of great agitation. They were ploughing up ‘his’ field, he said, and it unsettled him deeply. I was the only person who could help him, wasn’t I, so could I escort him to meet his family? Now? I agreed of course and without ceremony I instantly shielded myself, accessing my wonderful companion spirits for their assistance in this delicate matter. Even though I was in the most undignified physical position I still managed to help this man leave this physical realm at last and to be reunited with the energies he knew as his family. Spirit is no respecter of manifest matters like modesty!
The next day I went to the field. Sure enough there were several new furrows, one running through the spot where I had met Joshua. Spiritwalking enabled me to be prepared and to work for the good, understanding the vital connection between all beings and all states of existence.

Spiritwalking is functional and assistive, not prescriptive, offering us the tools and the framework, the means and the meaning. This is why I felt the need to share this with readers, both in my new book and in this article. With spiritwalking as a starting point we can embrace the in-sightful yet ‘self-centred selflessness’ that leads to peace, wisdom, creativity and a lasting fulfilment. Go well and walk with spirit!

Poppy also hopes to get some of her music uploaded onto the site at last! This will happen within the next year hopefully.

Meanwhile do help save laboratory animals by joining the SPEAK campaign against the propsed animal lab at Oxford, UK