ARTFINDER: The Magic Garden by Kate Monkman - It's always magical when the foxgloves appear n...

Magic Garden original painting available in my Artfinder shop

ARTFINDER: The Magic Garden by Kate Monkman - It's always magical when the foxgloves appear n...

ARTFINDER: Rainforest Fairy by Kate Monkman - I used watercolour for this painting picking ou...

New original painting available on Artfinder

ARTFINDER: Rainforest Fairy by Kate Monkman - I used watercolour for this painting picking ou...

Spring Equinox

The Caer Euni stone circle is only about a 40mins walk from my house so thought it would be the ideal place to celebrate the Spring Equinox, I headed up with my dog Sadie & we were lucky to get glorious sunshine but it was still quite cold seeing the first lambs of the spring on our way up a majestic Red Kite circled above taking advantage of the clear day.

I've visited the circle quiet often since I moved here & it always feels really atmospheric & magical, in sunshine its stunning with views of the nearby hill fort, the Arans & on a clear day Moel Famau in the far distance, but if the weather turns & a mist comes in it can feel a little oppressive & have sometimes had the feeling of being watched (probably just my over active imagination!)

The site consists of a large kerb circle 40 feet in diameter & a ring cairn immediately opposite, there is evidence of settlement on the site dating back to the 3rd Millennium but the circle isn't that well known so I can't find much information on it but I have read in a local walking book that the land around the nearby lake Llyn Caer Euni is linked to legends of the horned god Cernunnos.

I'm a complete novice when it comes to the pagan, celtic or druid ceremonies so I'm still kind of 'winging'it but I did my own version of a spring type blessing burning some incense,  Sadie didn't seem to mind & sat quite happy enjoying the sunshine, I wrote this little poem while I was up there

Spring Blessings

From Winters slumber deep underground, comes life returning all around

The days still are cold but bright, with a deep pink sun that sets at night,

With each leaf & bud so fresh & new, Mother Earth gently encourages to push on through, to stand tall & proud upon the world and sing with joy 'the spring has come, the world has turned'

Happy Spring Equinox!

Trip to Fairy Fayre & the Glastonbury Goblin!

I’ve always wanted to make it to one of the faerie events in Glastonbury & this year I finally managed it & went to the wonderful spring faerie fayre in the town hall organised by Karen Kay ( see http://www.faeryevents.com/ for more info on her fairy events)

I headed down with my friend Louise & her 2 children Freya & Luca who got dressed up in fantastic fairy outfits. Glastonbury itself is crystal shop heaven with more or less every shop being magical, pagan or new age in some way, even the estate agents had a toadstool in the window! We had a quick wander around before the fair started  which was next to the abbey which sadly we didn’t get time to visit there’s just too much to see in one day

The fair was fabulous with loads of stalls & amazing artists & crafts people, I got to meet my all-time favourite artist Brian Froud who’s books inspired me years ago to start painting the faery realm, I’d only ever seen flower fairy type images before his work & his faery art seems to capture what I would think was the true nature of faery it’s absolutely outstanding & well worth looking up if you have not come across his work before though chances are you have come across his work & maybe not realised as he did all the design artwork for the Dark Crystal & Labyrinth film with David Bowie, which brings me neatly to the most wonderful part of the trip & the highlight for me, which was a talk by Brian Froud & his wife Wendy (who is equally fantastic & created the costumes & puppets for the films from Brian’s designs) all about the making of the films featuring various props, costumes & sketches, the talk was really interesting & funny too as Brain & Wendy were so warm & genuine, we even found out some insider behind the scenes stories from the making of the films one of my favourites being that David Bowie had to do all the filming with wee stained gloves as they only had one pair for him & the first day on set their son Toby who was the baby in the film weed on him!

Some other highlights included visiting fairy artist Linda Ravenscroft's Mystic Garden shop which was beautiful & magical, lucky for us she was working in the shop that day so we got to have a chat & I brought a signed print of a lovely Owl from her vanishing series, also I loved going into the Starchild incense shop which is just gorgeous.

Near the end of the day something a little strange happened as I took a photo of Louise & her little boy Luca on the street running past the abbey, the sun was right in my eyes so I wasn’t sure if the photo had taken so took another one, when we looked at the photos later we noticed both photos had a little green spot in the right hand corner, I zoomed into the green blob on the first photo I took & it’s just a strange blob so I thought it was probably an effect from the Sun, but on the second photo the green blob is still there but this time a little goblin type face has appeared! I’ll leave it up to you to make your own mind up whether it’s a speck of dust on the camera lens or our own Glastonbury goblin; I know which one we believe!