Mother Earth, the Great Goddess

Long ago, in all cultures, people lived in, with, and by the grace of Nature. They found their shelter, food, clothing and healing remedies in nature. They perceived planet Earth and all of nature, as “Mother Earth”, personified as the Great Goddess. This is why societies, cultures and religions were predominately matriarchal for thousands of years.

Prehistoric Earth Goddess Statues

The solar & lunar cycles (or deities) were known to govern all activities; the sun and moon indicated the right time to sleep & to wake; the best time to sew seeds or to reap and harvest them; the time to hunt cattle / livestock. Nature showed what food to eat when, indicating when one could consume bountifully, and when to ration, store and preserve. Rites were performed to mark the transitions from season to season, and there was an honouring and gifting of gratitude to the gods or goddesses for everything.

Sun & Moon

Shamans, Wise Women (Sybils)

The Shamans & the Wise Women of such communities, were especially aware that everything in nature had a certain degree and level of consciousness: trees, stones, birds, animals, the elements: fire, water, air & earth, ... and even the planets. They perceived everything to be saturated with, and surrounded by energy. With each and every-thing, every-one being considered an essential facet, an integral part of the ALL. Everything being seen as one interconnected living ecosystem.
This is not dissimilar to the ‘Gaia Principle’ of today, and not dissimilar to what the quantum scientists today are discovering:- that particles of matter, when split and reduced down to a quantum level, are energy. “Everything is energy, vibration, frequency” - Tesla. Everything is interconnected.

Gaia Hypothesis

Yet gradually over many millennia, right up to the present day, our ‘evolving’ modern lifestyle has increasingly detached, estranged and disconnected many of us from this holistic image / this holistic concept of our world,
Now, with the prevalence for the rational; for science, commerce & capitalism; and with an emphasis on industrial production, digital / automated technology - resulting in huge percentages of us now living in urban societies: eating mass-produced supermarket food, with a dependence on the pharmaceutical industry for health - today our lives have seemingly so very little directly to do with nature, and our inseparable connection with it.
Increasingly, more and more people are taking the view that an innate restlessness, dis-ease and even many illnesses (both physical & mental) are the direct or indirect consequence of this detachment from nature (true self). As compensation, there is the continuous search for distraction, diversion, for finding ways to fill the gap, fill the hollow emptiness and lack of meaning / purpose that many are experiencing (especially during mid-life). Often, this search, or the compensatory activities, achieve only temporary relief, - before an inner restlessness / dissatisfaction swiftly returns, - leaving us feeling even more disengaged with ourselves and nature.
In this present day and age, it is virtually impossible to go back to nature, to live the simple pastoral life of yesteryear, (though some people do succeed escaping to live off grid). Nor is it actually necessary to try to escape our era, or even to deny all the pluses that advances in technology, science and medicine have brought…. What is necessary is a profound rebalancing.

Tree of Life - Archetypal symbol of balance.

What we can do, by choice, is to become reacquainted more consciously & actively with nature. We can become more aware of acknowledging & celebrating the changing seasons, noticing the phases of the moon, and the effects these processes and shifts have on all of us. Being more respectful to the planet we live one. Making time to spend time in parks, at the beach, with & in nature, ... actively engaging in small reflective rituals: a storytelling, a long walk, a mandala, and by cooking & honouring local seasonal foods with friends, by making or creating or recycling something beautiful inspired by each season, - and in so doing, honouring a rich symbolic heritage that is innate to us.

This is what we as “Sybilings” would love to do, and share with you.

'Last Days of Summer' - Mandala, Flavo Park Amsterdam 2019

“We live only to discover beauty, all else is a form of waiting” - Kahil Gibran.

Once upon a time, as a young girl I loved mystery, magic, magnets, day-dreaming, dancing, stories, dressing-up, drawing, painting, animals and nature...
When I grew up, I studied art & design at Winchester School of Art England, acquired in 1987 a BA-Honours degree in Fine Art & Aesthetics from Reading University. My first job was spent working for André Montgomery a London based global events organising company; my next venture was to assist in the opening / running of “Waterhouse & Dodds” a Bond Street London Art Gallery. After moving to the Netherlands in the mid ’90’s (for love), it was hard to find employment as a foreigner. So I re-trained as a lace-designer for ‘Dentex’, an Anglo/ Dutch company, and went on to spend many years working in the international fashion world.

Penny as lace designer.

Eventually I set up ‘PJP-Design’ in 2000. I continued to work as a lace-designer / stylist, working under contract & creating the brand “Lila Lace”. Parallel to this, I started to focus on ‘Trend-Forecasting & Fashion-Storytelling’ - the creating & giving of marketing presentations to International Textile & Retail Companies. This involved distilling into collages & text the zeitgeist (collective impulses / trends) fuelling the consumer / fashion worlds. I began to realise that what I actually enjoyed most, was the meaningful connections or underlying patterns behind outer manifestations. I liked bridging & correlating the inner & outer worlds.

Lila Lace mood board. PJP-Design.

Naturally, during my early career, I enjoyed the fruits of success: the money, the glamour of international travel, expanding my horizons, a sense of personal achievement, and proving who I was in the world. Yet, as the years progressed all these glittering pluses began to loose their shine. Leaving instead, only an increasingly pressurised lifestyle of high stress, continual deadlines, soulless airports and impersonal hotels, and limited time / connectivity with family & friends, or the freedom to be creative. I found myself feeling trapped in an exhausting repetitive life-wheel that was spinning out of control, and was negatively affecting the quality of my life & my health. Somehow, I felt displaced, and disconnected from a deeper sense of self, and removed from all that I valued. I needed to find my way back home.

"Night Mind" (The earth which filled her mouth is vanishing from her). PJP Design.

In 2007 I made the decision to opt-out. There followed some difficult years, years without income, or vocational identity. This was a time spent doing much soul-searching. I re-focussed on grounding, and “knowing self” better... My focus went inwards: mind, body & soul: Reading, writing, poetry, intuitive painting, esoteric tarot courses, depth-psychology (Jung), delving into myths & symbols, practicing dream-analysis, making soul-boards, designing Mandalas, studying the natural laws. Along with simply enjoying gardening / healthy cooking, and a daily practice of ‘Contrology” (pilates) / body-work. I re-connected back to myself, by honouring a life that truly resonated with me.

Tension of Opposites. Wax & Ink. PJP-Design.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” - TS Eliot, Four Quartets.

So, now, in the second phase of my life, I re-apply all that was innate and true to me as a child, all that was emerging within my career days. Today I playfully weave these more evolved personal threads of self, into a life of my own making. A life that better aligns & flows naturally with who I am, and now ripples gently outwards into the local community.

I believe the threads (or fates) of life continually weave their own patterns; pattern-mapping towards an authentic personal blue-print.

“The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms” - Muriel Rukeyser... stories are literally yarns; the warp & weft threads, that as archetypal myths, weave back into our collective and personal DNA. As individuals we each have a unique story, an authentic singular thread / a personal myth to sew back into the collective tapestry of life. Authenticity of self, literally means being the ‘authority’ or ‘owner’ and ‘author’ of one’s own life.

The Three Fates or Moirai : Clotho, Lachesis & Atropos.

Sybiling Synthesis - Today, with Mariska, I now create & facilitate meaningful calendar events; events that delve into the underlying essences of daily life; events that are in tune with the rhythms, cycles and elements of nature; tapping back into a rich collective ancestral heritage; events that are rooted in rites, rituals and celebration. The aim, with such events, is to enable participants to: pause & punctuate, to ground & centre, and to partake in a more reflective creative dialogue with themselves and their lives, finding a connection to their own personal inner thread; adding more meaning and magic into their daily lives.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle” - Albert Einstein.

Lace & Mandalas - threads of Self.