Ovatic Work from the bards (2)

The Growing Years of Siusaidh

This is a story which grew from a small part of some regression hypnosis that I had several years ago while I was living down in Manchester, Piet (my partner & husband) also had this done and remembers things from the same period!

I must tell you first how I came by the name of ‘Siusaidh’? It was the name that my family and friends called me in the village, it just sounded like ‘Shoe’ ! One of the first things the man who took me through these regressions asked me was ‘what is your name?’ I found it very hard to answer at all and had no idea what to say, but he probed me further and just asked me if I was alone, and I was not, so he asked what others were calling me and that’s how I found my name.

I was born in a village in the south west of Ireland. The village consisted of several round houses with a hole in the roof where the smoke from the central fire escaped. The house was divided inside into different rooms of you might say area’s. the village had a much larger house which was built of stone, this had a meeting room which served for all the major occasions that the village needed to meet inside. In these times, when the Druid Elder’s would come to the village at major festivals, they would lead the major ceremonies of the village and folks from miles around would come to join with us for these. The Druids came from their Island which I could see from the beach about half an hours walk from our village.
My father was a well respected elder and I had two sisters and a young brother who had red hair and very pale skin, I remember him as a gawky boy. I don’t remember much at all about my Mother, my older sister seemed always to be at the head of the family. I can only guess as to what happened to my Mother and it may well have had a link to the birth of my young brother, for he was the last in that generation in our family.

The village was an enclosure with a tall fence around it made up of tree trunks. The tops of the tree trunks were sharpened to a point. It had gates in two places which were closed at night and at times when there was possibility of attack from raiders who came by sea.

Near the edges of the village and close to the fence were animal stalls, where I went to feed my animals and where I kept any sick animals that I was treating with herbs. This was close to one of the gates to the village. Someone would always park a cart half was across the left hand side of the gate which would make it impossible to open both gates at the same time. The cart was a simple one with two long handles.
When I was not required to do any chores as a girl I would be allowed out onto the hills.
I spent a happy early childhood, playing up in those hills, always looking for my childhood friend Euan who was three winters older than me and looked after the sheep in the hills beyond the village. We would play happily and innocently and at the same time keep our eyes on the sheep. I think I must have driven him mad at times, for I followed him everywhere and wanted to do all the tasks he would do!

The Druids were not the only spiritual people who came to our village, there were the women who wore the blue robes of the healers! They would visit sometimes at festivals and at other times.
One day we had a visit from one of the Priestesses from that temple that trained young girls. I did not fully understand exactly what this all meant, but I was chosen along with three other girls to travel three days to the East where we would become part of a community of girls, all training under a High Priestess called Bridget. I remember that this was a title and not a personal name. There had been others who had led this community and all of them were given the name Bridget when they became the High Priestess. These were healers, wise women and teachers.

I can remember the first journey, which we took over to the East with one of the Priestesses and a man who I understood to be a member of another community that trained young men. I am sure the men became what we now understand to be Druids.

I can remember flashes of times during the years I spent studying. I remember looking up at the sky and noting the positions of the stars and the moon at night, planting and growing herbs, and taking my turn to keep the fire/flame lit. The fire was kept alight all year until a set time came for it to be put out and it was then relit the next day from a major fire where we met up with the boys and men for a special ceremony. I also remember looking after some of the little ones who came to train with us; and some of the happy times I spent back with my village each year when we were all sent back to visit with our families.

I remember being taught all about Bridget who was our Goddess, her name had been given to the chief High Priestess who led and taught a group of girls several generations before my time at the community. By the time I came to join them it was a given name passed to each High Priestess in turn In time the present Bridget would become ‘Mother Bridget’ and have a role as wise women to the community and a young Priestess would hold this name and lead the community. These women were dedicated only to the Goddess and had to have a very good reason to step down before their time was up.
These were very happy years of my life and I learnt a great deal, some of which I have brought with me into this life. Where in that life I worked very much with herbs, in this one I trained as a Nurse, learning about alternative healing later. But the ‘soul’ of feeling that I have for a sick person, or a dying one or even a very small infant is something I have memories of from that previous lifetime. It’s very difficult to explain to someone, but I hope you can understand what I mean.

As I grew up in that earlier lifetime I worked more and more in the village during my holidays. I brought herbs with me that I had grown back in the community and used these to treat the sick animals. When I was older still, I also used these herbs for sick members of the village. When five years had passed I came home to stay and work within my village, trained now to serve my community and to take a partner. I would grow and gather herbs that I needed to make tea’s or infusions. Other herbs were gathered fresh and bound directly onto wounds. But it was just a part of the role I played in the village. I was called on to nurse others if they became ill or to advise the women of the village who were nursing there sick kin. At lot of this was common sense when I think back on it now, little things like to keep giving a person with a fever drinks of clear liquid, little and often. About not leaving a person in one position for too long, turning them if they were deeply asleep…..we would refer to this now as a ‘coma’. In those days each person in the village had a role to play in society as a whole, no one was left out and all roles were respected.

My second sister had also trained at the temple, but she had become the village midwife, helping women who gave birth in the village. She was also handfasted herself, but I don’t remember her having any children.

Once home in my village for good I became handfasted to my childhood sweet heart Euan and was pregnant with our first child when he was called away along with his brothers to fight invaders who had landed along the coast. Others from villages near us also went at that time.

I can remember the day my labour started and the long time it went on, I became very tired and eventually gave birth to a little girl, but I had started to bleed very heavily and try as they could, my sister and her helpers could not stem the flow. I died there having given birth, without Euan knowing and I can still clearly see the picture in my mind as I looked down from what seemed to be the air above the cot I was lying on and looked at my sister crying and holding the little girl in her arms. I knew she would bring my little girl up and love her as her own. Even now writing the story down it gives me great pain to see all these pictures in my mind.

I didn’t understand for a while after that regression hypnosis that the name I was called all those years ago was the Gaelic Susan, the name I have been given in this life now!
My childhood pal who I knew as Euan….or at least that’s what the name sounded like in my regression was my husband Piet in a past life. We have both had regression therapy and have stories about the same village……slightly different stories, but many of them are just two sides to the same tale!
We believe that we were handfasted in that lifetime and we have repeated that handfasting in this one; we believe that we will meet up again in the future and share other lives together.

© Susan Kennedy 2003.