Ep. 113-The Byte: Catherine Cox

Catherine and I talk thin places in this episode. From bridges that cross rivers to haunted graveyards to standing stones in the British Isles-they're all sacred, all potent, and all carry a reminder that every single space on this planet is enchanted.

Transcript

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.

Look,

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 the 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.

So I'm 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 the guardian spirit.

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,

You know,

Mysterious world.

In certain places,

I don't know if 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,

I ran a guest house for seven years,

You know,

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 live,

When I went there to live,

I'd visited very,

Very briefly some of these earlier.

I went for a walk and there were these two standing stones just near where I lived,

You could see them 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 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 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,

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 my background.

I've got lots of Scots on both sides.

And that concept,

I think,

Explains it for me.

But they are everywhere,

Those places.

They're also in our consciousness.

So when you're waking up and 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 still,

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,

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 place and you're experiencing the story more potently,

I think,

In that kind of atmosphere.

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

So I think liminal experiences,

These thin places,

They're so fertile,

They're so potent.

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 places in the UK where there are sacred sites,

Really.

They're places where there's barrows and there's standing stones and there's,

You know,

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

And why were those places chosen?

You know,

You can,

Archaeologists are 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 moving around 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 experiences are so special to me.

Those are the experiences that I feel so blessed,

You know,

With those.

So 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 a very difficult feeling to describe.

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

Your rational mind will defy it.

But your intuition tells you and you follow it.

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

So those thin places are just amazing.

And 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 very,

Oh,

It's an infamous battlefield,

I suppose,

Called Culloden,

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 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 travelling around a few years ago and we went to a little place called Culloden,

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

Right in the centre,

It is right in the centre of Scotland,

There's these famous falls there.

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 these,

You know,

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 Mill House 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 one's in the 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 Linda's Farm or Holy Island,

Which is off the east coast.

Again,

Islands,

Right?

So there's so many of these places.

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 Katherine because I knew that the conversation was going to be fabulous.

I need to thank my enchanted and fabulous guest,

Katherine 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 Naccarata,

Justin Allen Arnold,

Frank Schroeder,

And Sasha End.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bitesizedblessings.

Com.

On the website,

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

Including Katherine'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 Katherine.

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.

We 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.