Anique’s Blog · January 2005

Greetings for 2005

To you all I send greetings for 2005. I am in a writing frame of mind, so get ready for a good read!

2004 was such a great year…lots of mixed emotions and experiences, but overall, a really full and challenging year, with much affirmation for the work I do both here in Australia and overseas. I want to share with you the two trips I took last year - the first a 7 week tour of the world and the second, a three week working holiday to the States.

I remembered to take photos this time, so I will do a photo essay for you, unfolding the story of my journeys as the photos tell it.

The year is 2004. I have been travelling to the US for over 10 years and it was time I spread my wings a little. For some years I had been watching the web page for the Glastonbury Goddess Conference, organised by Kathy Jones, a brilliant author, playwright and High Priestess. It was everything I had been trying to create here in Australia for women with the INVOKING THE GODDESS SPRING CREATION GATHERING. So I decided to write to Kathy and ask her if there would be a place for me to present my work. I mailed her my Invoking the Goddess CD, with a request that she go to my web page to check out my work.

When she replied, she was most welcoming and invited me to participate in the Healing Ceremony on the Friday night and also to present my workshop "SINGING THE CHAKRAS" on the Sunday morning. I was most satisfied and began to see what else I could do while I was in that neck of the woods. Something else I had wanted to do was take a tour of South West England, all around Cornwall, Somerset and around Glastonbury are some of the most awesome sacred sites for Goddess worshippers. Huge standing stones like Stonehenge and fabulous mounds like Avebury and Silbury.

I had come across a tour for women on the web, so I wrote to the organiser and offered my Priestess skills and Sacred Singing in return for a reduction. She agreed and I signed on. The timing was perfect; the tour would be in Glastonbury at the same time as I had to be there for the Goddess Conference. I was thrilled. When I went to my travel agent to book my airfare, I received another very pleasant surprise. I explained that I was going overseas and I wanted to go to New York first to see my son Marc, then to London to pick up the tour and then to Taipei to visit my son Ben. Lo and behold, she tells me that a fare to just those places would be far more than a "round the world" ticket which included 5 destinations within a certain number of miles.

After many hours of planning and changing and shifting flights and destinations, we came up with the following plan. I would leave from Sydney for Honolulu to visit my friend Susan Ann Staufer; then on to San Francisco to see my friend Anya Silverman and dear Vicki Noble; then on to New York for a few days with my son Marc; then on to London to pick up the tour at Heathrow; then on to the Glastonbury Goddess Conference; then on to Paris to meet my cousin Martine Reydiboym for the first time and do some singing; then on to Lesbos for some workshop presentation, singing and touring; then to Taipei to spend a few days with my son Ben. What a trip!!! I was over the moon.

Little did I expect to crash down to the depths of despair. On the 3rd July 2004, my superb canine companion, Gemma, passed from a tick bite. I cannot express my grief. I cried more than I have ever cried in my life. My grief was so deep, my body reacted with an ugly weeping rash which covered my whole body. I also developed a very painful condition in my bowel which caused so much pain I could hardly walk. This was only two weeks before I was due to leave. But I made a special altar for Gemma, and laid her out with all her little toys, and my circle sisters and I buried her the next day.

The weekend before I was to leave, I had been booked to sing at the Alliance Francaise July 14 Bastille Day celebrations. I was in shocking pain, but I managed to give a great performance. I’ve always said I could sing on my deathbed! But it did cheer me up a little and I was reminded that all I have to do to change my mood is find an audience and sing!

I was pleased that I had lost weight grieving and was able to wear my tux again. The last time I wore it was for my 50th birthday 7 years ago!!

Soon, it was time to go, and before I knew it I was on the plane and looking out the window at the amazing sunset. I cried as I thought of Gemma, but I also remembered that I had some amazing times ahead.

I arrived in Honolulu to be greeted by Michael Stauffer, Susan Ann’s husband. She had written me just before I left to let me know that she would not be joining me as she was still packing up her house in the US. I blessed the Goddess, because if she had been there, we would have been up all night talking and sharing. I needed to rest, so I was grateful that I would be able to sleep and heal a little before I arrived in the US mainland. Michael was a peach; he met me with a beautiful lei and when I arrived at their lovely home, he had made up the spare bedroom with lots of cushions on the bed and one which said "Good Friends Are Sunshine On A rainy Day". I was very touched.

After resting for a couple of days, he took me to the Polynesian Cultural Centre, run by the Mormons. I did not know what to expect, and as I still could not walk very well, I was worried. When we arrived, I noticed that there were wheelchairs for hire. Joy oh joy! Soon, I was comfortably seated and Michael - bless his heart - pushed me all around the centre.

The rest of this letter has not survived.

Anique Radiant Heart