Ep. 113-The Interview: Catherine Cox

Hello,

Everyone,

And welcome to another episode of Bite-Sized Blessings.

Happy Easter to all those who celebrated today.

And for those of you who are celebrating a more ancient festival,

Happy Yoster to you.

This celebration today is very on point because my guest,

Katherine Cox,

We talk thin places,

We talk the magic and the mystery and the British Isles.

We talk a whole lot of super cool stuff in this episode.

This amazing human being is the author of an incredible book,

In the Tracks of the Moon Hare,

Exploring the inner life through imagery.

And the hare is quite a powerful animal in Celtic lore and legend,

And absolutely has had divine associations the world over.

Celtic peoples looked on the hare as a creature having supernatural powers and strong links to the spirit world.

In Irish folklore,

The hare is associated with the other world,

Which was a spiritual dimension accessed through caves,

Ancient burial sites,

Cairns,

And mounds.

I loved our conversation.

We got to talk a little archaeology,

A little bit magic and mystery,

And how thin places just seem to populate the British Isles pretty much everywhere.

So now,

Without further ado,

Episode 113 of Bitesized Blessings.

But we found out that there's this little stone bridge,

And there's a gate on the bridge.

And there's a little sign there that you can go to millhouse just across the bridge and get the key.

So you leave a deposit and get the key and come and let yourself in through this gate down these stone steps.

And you're suddenly on a little island in the middle of the river,

Where there's a graveyard.

We're wandering around and Peter stops and kind of looks at me and then moved himself And he described to me,

You know,

Came over there and told me that he felt this guardian spirit there.

And it was so powerful that he wanted to get himself between me and guardian spirit.

Well,

I'm Catherine Cox.

I am an author and a coach.

These days I live in southern Tasmania.

So for people who don't know,

Tasmania is a triangular shaped island off the south coast of Australia.

And we live in southern Tasmania,

So almost as far south as you can go in the world and still be,

You know,

In a kind of a normal.

It's a rural lifestyle,

But it is still,

We're a long way south of most places.

So,

Yeah,

So I live here in a rural location on a small farm.

It's beautiful.

It's called the Pelverata Valley,

Which the first time I heard it,

I thought it sounded like the Ponderosa,

It sounded something quite bizarre.

But it's a beautiful location,

Wherein it's part of the Huon Valley,

Which is one of was one of the first areas to be settled,

Not just in Tasmania,

But in Australia.

It's a very fertile agricultural area,

Miles and miles of orchards,

Cherries and apples and other stone fruit.

And just,

It's a beautiful,

Beautiful area,

The Huon Valley.

So yeah,

I've lived here nearly four years now.

Prior to that,

I had been living in the UK for nearly 20 years in a few different locations.

But I think still probably my favourite was the Isle of Skye.

It's such a magical place.

Most people,

I think,

Well,

I'm making a judgment here,

But I think an awful lot of people who live in all sorts of countries have heard of the Isle of Skye.

It's quite famous.

And yet,

Even when you get to the UK,

Even when you get to Scotland,

It's still a long way from anywhere.

So it was a very special place.

Yeah,

I was a teacher in the early part of my career.

I taught music and German,

Was involved in pastoral care.

And my last job was teaching at an all boys school for 11 years.

So that was,

That had its moments.

But it was also right for me to leave teaching when I did.

It was the right time.

And I went to the UK and,

Yeah,

Lived and worked there for,

As I said,

Almost 20 years.

So,

Yeah,

So my background was in teaching and then moved,

Morphed,

I suppose,

More into coaching really,

In various forms.

And now I've published my first book late last year.

And that was very exciting.

That's been a very long held ambition.

And I'm working on another one.

So I was going to ask,

Can you tell me what your book's about?

Like how would you describe it to your audience?

My audience?

Any audience.

Any audience.

Okay.

So my book is called In the Tracks of the Moon Hair,

Exploring the Inner Life Through Imagery.

And basically,

I,

My book is about harnessing and accessing and harnessing the wisdom of the unconscious,

Really,

I suppose,

Is the simplest way to describe it.

So imagery is a natural language.

It's something we're all born with.

We dream,

Dreams are a form of imagery,

But it's a language.

And it's a language with which the brain stores things,

Stores ideas and memories.

And it's so powerful.

It's so powerful once you start to explore imagery and how it works.

And that's really what the book is about.

It's about practical ways for people to begin to understand that language and use it for themselves.

So things like dreams,

Like guided meditations,

Folk stories,

And tarot imagery for reflection,

Not for divination.

So that that's essentially what my book is about here.

Why did you choose the moon hair?

I'm so curious.

Well,

The title,

The title rather than the subtitle,

Just came to me one day.

It was one of those moments that in the tracks of the moon hair came to me.

And I'd had I'd had a feeling about the kind of book that I wanted to write.

Then that title just,

You know,

Sometimes those ideas just will land seemingly from nowhere.

They kind of just arise from,

You know,

In your mind.

And so the title in the tracks of the moon hair came spontaneously like that.

But apart from that,

The moon has and in in the book,

I explain,

I describe an experience that I had with a dream.

That's some years ago now when I was living on Scotland.

And it was a very powerful,

Very moving dream.

I've never had a dream like it.

And the moon featured very prominently in that dream.

The moon hair is a symbol which appears in a number of different cultures.

But for me,

It was the the Celtic image of the hair.

Really,

The hair is a very popular symbol in folklore and in in Celtic countries.

And I was born in the year of the rabbit.

So I'm a hair myself.

So it's kind of a few different strands that came together.

But the title itself just came spontaneously.

I didn't I wrote it down as soon as it came because it felt so right.

Well,

It's just such a beautiful image.

It's a very magical.

It's a very magical image,

The hair.

Absolutely.

And a symbol of fertility and creativity and those sorts of those sorts of things that it associated with Easter and the goddess Estra.

And,

You know,

Those sorts of elements.

So it's a very fertile image,

I think.

My parents grew up in the Salvation Army and so my my childhood was in the Salvation Army.

We we left for a number of reasons.

When I was 12.

And so but that early childhood period was certainly very,

I wouldn't say immersed,

But it's a very involving kind of community,

You know,

Choirs and bands and different groups like that.

And so certainly I think,

You know,

I've been obviously thinking about this for for today's conversation.

And I think the thing that it imbued,

You know,

Within within our family was,

I suppose,

Kindness,

Compassion,

You know,

And and just that.

It's not that I can remember.

A direct lesson about how important kindness and compassion and looking after your fellow man is,

But it was just there.

It was just there in the in the culture,

I suppose,

Of the Salvation Army.

So the certainly the sense of community,

The sense of the significance of music.

My first degree was in music.

So,

You know,

You kind of grow up immersed in musical groups and this sort of thing.

So I think those sorts of elements and that being just part of your life had a big impact on me.

As I said,

We left when I was 12.

My parents,

Who are now in their 80s,

When they retired about 20 years ago,

Found their way back.

They they became very involved in in the Salvation Army again.

And they attend and are still very active again now.

So but for me as a young adult,

I was certainly looking for something,

You know,

Of a spiritual nature.

And I explored all sorts of talk about Bec and Mix.

I went to I tried all sorts of different churches,

Really.

So within the Christian world,

I suppose I went not for very long,

Any of them.

But I tried Catholicism,

Church of England,

Other Protestant churches.

None of it.

There were things that they each offered and I learned,

But none of it felt quite right.

I still felt a bit like a square peg in a round hole.

I just want to say as an aside that my mom is has Scottish in her.

And so when I saw those pictures from the Isle of Skye,

I wanted to cry and I wanted to get on a plane or a boat or whatever.

I didn't care to get over there immediately.

I mean,

The sense of the land calling me,

I could feel it calling me from your photos.

And it was disturbing for me.

I mean,

I felt it felt like I understood instantly that I was in a state of separation from where I should be.

So I don't know if you've experienced that with other people,

But it was a little disturbing for me.

Look,

I think what you're describing,

Kirsten,

I think is really it is a very powerful experience and it's something which it's something which I'm actually trying to explore now myself,

Which is this connection with place.

So there's a Celtic concept called thin places that they describe as thin places,

That certain places in the world are thin,

That you can connect with the other world,

With the mysterious world in certain places,

Kind of more easily is quite the right phrase.

But those are places that you can go to.

And really,

I think I think that's one of the things about Skye that certainly visited around a guest house for seven years.

Visitors are amazed.

And it's not just because of its beauty.

It's quite stark in places,

You know.

But yet there's this feeling,

You know,

If when I first arrived on Skye to to to live,

When I went there to live,

I'd visited very,

Very briefly some years earlier.

I went for a walk.

And there were these two standing stones just near where where I lived.

You could see them from from the windows of the house.

And the they were just by the side of a lot.

We looked down over a sea lock and looking to the west.

And they were just down by the edge of the the lock up a little.

You know,

There was a kind of a little drop of about,

I don't know,

12 feet or so down to the water's edge.

But they were there standing.

They were like sentinels.

And I can remember that first day that I went for a walk.

I hadn't even I knew the standing stones were there and I was walking down along the road to get to a point where I could see them.

But it wasn't when I was looking at them that I had this experience.

It was I could feel like a hum in the earth coming up through the soles of my feet.

And and then I sort of paused and looked and these standing stones just looked like a portal.

They just looked like a portal.

And I think that these places,

These there are these special places and they're everywhere,

Not just in.

I think the Celtic idea of the thin places describes it most appropriately for me anyway.

That's you know,

That's my background.

I've got lots of Scots on both sides.

And the that concept,

I think,

Explains it for me.

But they are everywhere,

Those places.

They're also in our consciousness.

So when when you're waking up and you you're not quite awake and you're not quite asleep and you kind of remember a dream or there's images from a dream.

So that's a thin place.

That's a liminal place.

They're liminal places and states.

When you go into a cinema to see a movie.

You know,

There's there's gosh,

I've had a number of experiences in movies where it just hits me between the eyes.

You know,

There's something happening.

It's not just the story and identifying with the story.

It's you're in the dark.

There's the sound all around you.

You're in this you're in this place and you're experiencing the story more potently,

I think,

In that kind of atmosphere.

And then this image hits you and it it can be very powerful.

So I think liminal experiences,

These thin places,

They're they're so fertile,

So potent and.

And it's strange because you can't make them happen.

You can't make a liminal experience like that happen.

But you can go to places that have traditionally been associated with that kind of experience.

So there's all these there's all these places in the UK where there are sacred sites,

Really.

There are places of where there's barrows and there's standing stones.

And there's,

You know,

There's the places where ritual occurred from thousands of years ago.

And why were those places chosen?

You know,

You can archaeologists sometimes very kind of logical about it and say,

Well,

You know,

Perhaps this is where the first community was established for that particular group of people or whatever.

Or this is where they first stopped,

You know,

Moving around and as hunters and gatherers and started to farm.

And those things might be part of the story.

But I think there's something more as well.

And,

You know,

Sacred wells and all sorts of things.

And those those experiences are so special to me.

Those are the those are the experiences that I I feel so blessed,

You know,

When with those.

So what you're what you're describing of something calling to you,

I think I experienced something similar when I left teaching.

I didn't know what I was going to do.

All I knew was that I had this visa and I was going to Scotland.

Scotland was,

Like you say,

Calling me.

I felt this need to go there.

And it's yeah,

It's a very it is a very difficult feeling to describe.

But it's it's it's one of those things that your intuition tells you something that your logic will defy it.

The irrational mind will defy it.

But your intuition tells you and follow it.

And that's when I think you discover these really special places.

So those thin places are just amazing.

And they can they can pop up,

You know,

Or they don't pop up.

But you go somewhere and it's like,

My God,

What's this?

There's a there's a very it's an infamous battlefield,

I suppose,

Called Culloden in near Inverness in Scotland,

Where a very famous battle took place.

And that,

You know,

Places where there's been lots of death like that,

They haven't they have a kind of an aura about them.

Certainly Skye,

There's a place called the Fairy Glen,

Which was magnificent and just,

You know,

Near the Standing Stones.

And but it doesn't need to be anything that obvious,

I suppose.

So when Peter and I were traveling around a few years ago and we went to a little place called Culloden,

K-I-L-L-I-N,

Right in the center,

It is right in the center of Scotland.

There's these famous falls there are thousands upon thousands of tourists will go through to Culloden or through Culloden,

Stop and take their photos of this,

You know,

This formation of rocks in the river and all the water rushing down.

And yeah,

It's beautiful,

Magnificent or inspiring.

But we found out that there's this little stone bridge and there's a gate on the bridge and there's a little sign there that you can go to millhouse just across the bridge and get the key.

So you leave a deposit and get the key and come and let yourself in to through this gate down these stone steps.

And you're suddenly on a little island in the middle of the river where there's a graveyard,

Right?

We're wandering around and Peter stops and kind of looks at me.

And then moved himself and he described to me,

You know,

He came over there and told me that he felt this guardian spirit there.

And it was so powerful that he wanted to get himself between me and the guardian spirit just to kind of protect me,

I suppose.

And yeah,

That was a special place.

And then I kind of walked away from him and felt something as well,

Not as powerfully as he did.

So there's these little islands.

So on Skye,

There's a place,

St Columba.

And it was just a few miles from where I lived.

Again,

It was a little island in a river.

And there's a graveyard on it.

And the bishops,

The isles were buried there for generations.

So you go there and it's just this amazing place.

So little islands in rivers or then there's the big ones east and west in England.

So sorry,

One's in Scotland.

The other ones are very north of England.

In the west is Iona.

Millions of visitors go to Iona.

That's where St Columba landed from Ireland.

Then there's Lindisfarne or Holy Island,

Which is off the east coast.

Again,

Islands,

Right?

So there's so many of these places.

One of the other things I wanted to tell you was when I walked Camino through France,

One of the things that was very powerful for me because I did it alone.

I did it in a year where there weren't many other people walking because the weather was terrible.

I'd be walking,

Walking,

Walking,

You know,

And then all of a sudden in the distance,

You know,

This beautiful field,

I would see a standing stone.

And 100 percent,

You're right.

It was I always felt like it was a sentinel,

That it was watching me,

You know,

Because it had been I suspect that had been placed on the route for the pilgrims who'd walked for a thousand years before me.

And I always felt less alone because they were witnessing the approach.

I would stand and kind of talk to it and feel its vibes.

And then but it comforted me that those stones were there.

They were almost singular.

They were just these massive like I don't even know anybody move them,

But they were in the landscape and they really helped me to feel less alone.

The other thing is when I lived in Oregon,

I got to the beach and I would climb this mountain called Neocote Mountain that overlooks the ocean.

And if you went just past on the trail,

Got to the top,

Still kept going down the trail,

It would descend on the other side of the mountain.

And I swear.

It went through this little kind of the trail went through this weird opening in the woods.

I've done that hike so many times and there is something.

It was a dark place.

And it was and I would look into the trees and I would intuitively just say to myself.

I do not want to mess with what's back in those woods because I feel just this really powerful feeling.

It wasn't malevolence,

But it was more as if something so old was back in those woods.

And I just couldn't handle it if I because I thought,

Oh,

I can maybe talk to whatever's back there.

And I thought,

Nope,

I can't handle what's back in those woods.

Like something so ancient.

I don't know.

The First Nations people there said that that mountain hid a dragon.

Like there was a dragon living in the mountain.

And so I don't know if it was the dragon that was living in the mountain,

But whatever it was,

Was beyond my pay grade.

I knew that.

Sometimes,

Sometimes,

Though,

I think is to know you sense those sorts of potent energies,

I suppose you'd call it.

And it's sometimes it's what what they have to to tell you or show you.

Or,

You know,

What if you if you become aware of something like that,

Then why why are you aware of it?

And is there something that they that that that spirit,

Whatever you want to call it,

Wants to communicate to you?

You know,

So I was in a very low place,

Depressed at one point when I was living in the south of England.

And I used to go and sit under a magnificent hornbeam tree sort of down behind the house.

And it was very old,

Probably a couple of hundred years,

I'd say,

Or near enough.

And at the base of this hornbeam tree was the roots,

You know,

That were come out at an angle and all this moss had formed and it was like a seat.

And I used to sit and lean back.

And it was like the back of the behind me.

The tree was like the back of a chair.

It was sort of shaped like a chair.

And I used to sit there and just lean my head back and just just sit really until the day I realized there was a communication coming from the tree.

And I couldn't tell you today now anything that anything concrete that I remembered it saying,

But I felt the I suppose the I felt this this being that was strong and old and just.

Kind,

You know,

I'm sure a psychiatrist would give you another explanation,

But at a time when I really needed it,

There was this presence there that it's one of the trees that's considered a fairy tree.

In folklore,

And so so sky sky's very much a fairy place.

So we're not talking gospel winged beauties now.

We're talking more like,

You know,

A Lord of the Rings type beings and,

You know,

That kind of mythological creature.

Yeah.

So those sorts of places,

When you notice them,

When you notice those places,

I think it's sometimes it's because there's something that's being offered to you.

If you try and explain it to to acutely.

You can you can lose the point.

So there's there was another place on Sky,

I used to like to go to every now and then it was on the south of the island.

There was a there's Castle Ruins called Dunskyer.

And it's the place where there was a there was a legendary warrior woman called Skyer.

She appears in different legends associated with that region.

Yeah,

I had an experience I've described in my book about sitting there in the sunshine in summer,

Just relaxing.

And you can relax into this.

Like before,

I was saying this liminal space.

And suddenly I got a sense of this Celtic warrior and what it had to communicate about identity and about,

You know,

That that sort of thing.

And people might call it a that it was an internal psychological construct,

Maybe,

Or that I just had drifted off in my imagination as I was relaxed,

Maybe.

Or it was a what they call a genius lowkey,

Which is a spirit of place.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

I learned something.

And it's something that has been really helpful to me over the years and that I've been able to share with with with clients as well over the years.

So who cares?

I don't need to call it anything in particular or explain it beyond that.

It doesn't matter where it came from.

It doesn't matter what it was called.

It was benevolent.

That experience was benevolent and helpful.

It doesn't matter beyond that.

I love that you bring up spirit of place,

Because that's not something a lot of my guests have talked about.

And it is very,

Very powerful,

Especially in the relatively small areas of the world that are,

Quote,

Unquote,

Unspoiled at this point.

So I'm grateful that you brought that up,

Because I think it's an important thing to understand is that each place on this planet or wherever,

There's there's a spirit that kind of inhabits that space that kind of,

I don't know,

In my mind,

Shows up when people want to recognize it for the sacred place that it is,

That you can maybe honor it and recognize it and say,

I see you and I respect you.

So thank you for bringing that up.

I appreciate it.

Well,

You've already told me some stories,

But I would love to hear any stories of magic or miracles or anything kind of astonishing,

Which you already told me some.

But anything else you'd like to share?

I'd love to hear whatever you want to share.

OK,

So one of the one of the experiences I had that is not in this book,

My book was I visited a river in Anglesey,

Which is another island off the west coast of as part of Wales.

And that's one of the regions that another one of the regions that really honors the goddess Bridget.

So Ireland,

Cornwall,

The different Celtic countries really honor Bridget either as saint or goddess.

And the River Braint is one of those sacred places.

So again,

It was a it was certainly wasn't summer.

It was quite cold,

But it wasn't it wasn't might have been early autumn sometime like that,

But warm enough.

And I was walked down to this river and there are these what's called a medieval the remains of a medieval clapper bridge,

Which they look like enormous stepping stones.

But you can't step.

You'd have to almost.

Well,

I'm quite short.

I'd probably have to jump almost from one to the other.

They're enormous.

But it's where there was a crossing where there was a bridge there.

Medieval bridge.

So just down there by the river.

And you could almost well,

I could almost feel like it's like Bridget was the land was humming.

The river was humming.

And again,

I could see her there,

That sense of being compassionate.

It was just a lovely reminder.

It was a very special experience to and I had a little drink of the water and and that kind of thing.

Suppose it was an experience that uplifted me enough to you need that kind of boost every now and then to keep going with a certain process.

And Bridget is one of the as a she's a goddess of just about everything.

But she's very much goddess slant patron saint of poets and authors and creative people and that kind of thing.

And I think that that's something that the feeling I can return to the feeling.

That's what makes it so special for me,

Is that I can go back in my imagination to that day and that place.

And the feeling comes again.

And that that's to me,

That's having been touched by something special.

It's not just my memory.

It's the the feeling of it that that was very,

Very special experience.

Another one on that same trip with Peter and I took.

We went we both wanted to visit this place called Flag Fen,

Which is in Norfolk down in the southeast of England.

And it's a it's an amazing place.

Flag Fen was discovered in mid 80s,

I think,

By a man who is now a very quite a famous archaeology TV presenter,

Author,

That kind of thing,

Called Francis Pryor.

And he literally tripped over a root,

What he thought was a root and got down on his hands and knees and that's not a root and found.

The remains of this TV is his wife is a specialist in in timber archaeology,

Archaeological timbers and took took a piece home for Maisie.

And yes,

Well,

That's that's never been cut by a modern axe.

Anyway,

Long story short,

They discovered a kilometre long causeway across the Martians.

The fen's a very marshy ground.

Right.

And so there's this timber causeway that they discovered and,

You know,

Did this archaeological dig and found all these deposits,

Blades and all sorts of things in the in the mud and,

You know,

That had been deposited into the water.

Turns out it was a ritual place for I can't remember how long now,

But it was a ritual place.

It was a place that people they had this big long causeway and in the middle was like an island with little holes.

And they found all these deposits.

They've been able to reconstruct,

You know,

What was there.

So we went to visit Flag Fen and they've got what they call Preservation Hall,

Which is a building that they've erected over a particularly well-preserved part of the causeway.

So you go in this museum area and you go through into this darkened room.

There we are again in a,

You know,

Kind of place.

So you're in this darkened room and there's a a walkway that goes around.

It's like a mezzanine floor.

You know,

It goes around a big square sort of area where it's all kept very carefully humid and it's temperature controlled and all that kind of thing.

Because you look down and there are 3000 year old timbers in the mud and the water.

So you're looking into this world.

So Peter and I went in there and I,

You know,

I wanted to visit,

But it wasn't like I had any expectation about,

You know,

Anything special happening.

Walked in,

Looked down and I was transported.

I could have been a Bronze Age woman looking down into the water.

It was very,

Very special.

Very special.

Just again,

It was one of those experiences of where you can connect with people across thousands of years to the same,

Not the same,

But,

You know,

A similar experience.

You can,

You know,

That connection with others who've stood there in awe,

You know,

Had this numinous experience,

This experience of the divine.

And it's again,

It's something you can't really explain very easily in words.

But the experience of looking down into the water at these timbers and knowing,

I suppose,

That sense of knowing that there's a world beyond and that it's accessible.

I think that's,

That's,

That was really awe inspiring.

Those experiences,

I think,

Come.

You can be receptive to them,

But you can't make them happen.

They're,

They really are a gift.

They're a blessing.

Well,

That site is astonishing,

Because if you look at pictures,

If you do a little reading,

It is amazing that they built this causeway across these.

It's astonishing.

It is an astonishing feat and that it's lasted.

And those timbers have lasted for so long is equally miraculous.

And I remember because I love science magazines.

So I read about this stuff when they were saying,

Oh,

This was just a way to get across the marsh.

That's all this was so practical,

So practical,

So practical.

And then they start doing the archaeology.

And it turns out to be this incredibly sacred,

Incredibly beautiful,

Potent place for ritual,

For worship,

For what have you.

And I just thought,

You know what?

We're so ignorant and scratching the surface on so many things.

And I'm going to actually provide a link to this amazing discovery on my website,

Because it is just you can't describe it.

It's humans are endlessly creative and endlessly amazing.

And just what they come up with and create,

Because I think a lot of people think,

Oh,

3000 years ago,

They were,

You know,

Ignorant and superstitious and basically primitive.

Yes.

Primitive.

Absolutely.

But,

You know,

We're discovering more and more just how gifted,

Creative,

Intelligent,

Astonishing these peoples really were and how they worked with what was around them and how they changed the landscape and how they worked with the landscape.

It's really astonishing.

I think the thing the thing that really,

I think,

Struck me about Flagfen and the it's this marshy area.

And again,

You're in this in-between liminal space.

It's not water.

It's not land.

You know,

It's why did they choose that particular place?

It wasn't just because they lived there.

It was it was chosen.

I think the thing about those places like Flagfen,

Like the stone circles,

Like,

You know,

These these places in the ritual landscape,

They the people that built them in invested enormous,

Enormous resources of time,

Of effort,

You know,

Across generations,

Some of them,

And that because it was so important to them.

So this sort of experience,

I suppose,

Of the what's what's obvious about the ritual life of these prehistoric peoples is how important it was to their everyday life.

It's not simply a matter of calling it superstitious.

It was part of their their day to day life.

And I think that's one of the that to me in itself is awe inspiring.

The place is awe inspiring.

It's it's also another kind of question I have,

I suppose,

Kirsten,

That I'm exploring at the moment is also like I was talking about the river in Anglesey and the place at Flagfen.

Those sorts of experiences you think,

OK,

So people have known those places.

They've respected them.

They've put enormous resources into being able to perform their rituals in those places.

So they felt something.

But they've also invested in those places.

And so when you when you go there,

You're feeling the spirit of the place,

But you're also maybe feeling the spirit of the person or people who were working there,

Who were praying or honoring their gods or so when I was in the river by the river with Bridget,

It's like it was that place special anyway,

Probably.

But she added something to it.

So something of her spirit is there as well as the place itself.

And I think that's also really interesting in terms of these these places in the landscape is there is a real magic.

If you think of magic as alchemy,

As a mix of things and something spontaneous arising from that mixing,

Then you've got the place,

But you've also got man's interaction with the place and how it may have been subtly changed by that.

Remember when they used to say that neither rain nor sleet nor hail would keep the post office from delivering your letters?

Well,

By now,

I think it's apparent that me having a terrible cold does not mean that I'm not going to do the interview.

I was determined to interview Catherine because I knew that the conversation was going to be fabulous.

I need to thank my enchanted and fabulous guest,

Catherine Cox,

For sharing all of her stories with me.

But I also need to thank the creators of the music used in this episode.

Music Elle Files,

Alexander Nakarada,

Justin Allen Arnold,

Frank Schroeder and Sasha End.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at Bite-SizedBlessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to all sorts of groovy stuff,

Including Catherine's book and that last archaeology site that we talked about.

It is a really,

Really fascinating what's going on there.

You'll find all of this on the treasures page of the Bite-Sized Blessings website.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Catherine.

Find those thin places.

Find those places that are enchanted.

And that's really kind of a trick statement there,

Because literally every single place that you see is,

In fact,

Enchanted.

The humans might have ruined it or spoiled it a little bit.

But that sacred energy,

That beautiful enchantment is hiding beneath.

See if you can find beauty and enchantment everywhere you go.

And I guarantee it will make your life a whole lot sweeter.