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Return of Life and Hope

March 1, 2021 By Jane Williams

As Winter begins, in this season of Imbolc, to turn its face towards Spring, so our resident Storyteller, Rose Rylands looks outwards with hope. In this second of her blogs in the ‘Wheel of the Year‘ TA Earth series, Rose shares her love of this season.

If you have enjoyed this video blog ‘Return of Life and Hope from Rose, look out for her March video coming soon.

Rose is running a series of four workshops on the TA Earth theme coming up over the next few months. Click on the links below for more information.

Rose Rylands in life and hope

Rose Rylands is a Storyteller and walking guide based where she grew up on the East Coast at Whitby. Her mission is to connect people to the earth as a place of magic, mystery and meaning, to arrest ongoing harm to both ourselves and the natural world.

“My passion is to connect people with the earth as a place of mystery, meaning and magic through story. I suppose I am a sort of cultural custodian of my own small space and beloved bit of earth.”

The next video blog from Rose will be coming out mid-March.

Rose Rylands Workshops

TA Earth header life and hope

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Sat 20 March 1 – 4pm

Storytelling: Connecting head, heart, earth and hearth, Sat 17 April 2021 1 – 4pm

Spiritual Ecology, Tues 15 June 2021 1 – 4pm

Loss of Language, Sat 10 July 1 – 4pm


What is TA Earth?

TA Earth header - hope

TA Earth series explores our connections with our home planet and the world around us. It is inspired by Hayley Marshall and Giles Barrow’s pioneering work, Eco TA. Moving ‘toward an ecological understanding of the individual embedded in relationship with others and the wider natural world’. 

Filed Under: Creativity, TA Earth, Video Tagged With: counselling, ecology, psychotherapy, TA Earth, taonline

Season of Imbolc – Hope Born Again

February 24, 2021 By Jane Williams

Following on from my previous video blog and the story of The Old Woman in the Cave, we have now entered the season of Imbolc and as if right on cue, in glides of one of the greatest deities of the Celtic pantheon, the glorious fiery divine power, patroness of Imbolc, Goddess Brigid. She of the sacred fire.

Brigid, Brigantia, Breo-saighead, goddess of the hearth and home, fire, alchemy and smithcraft, light, healing, divination, prophecy and poetic inspiration. A sun goddess bringing the vital energy needed for birthing new life. Even under the snow, new shoots are bursting forth and I am careful where I tread.

Imbolc – start of hope

Imbolc, literally translated, means ‘in the belly’. It is celebrated on the 1st of February as one of the four great fire festivals in the wheel of the year and heralds the return of life giving light and nature about to burst forth when Spring arrives. It marks the beginning of lambing season, and I always feel an uplift of hope, joy and promise when I hear and see the first lambs. Spring is on her way.

Imbolc – Time of hope

Just as the sap begins to rise again in the trees, it is a time of birth and beginnings, a new weaving of life in all her myriad forms. Hope is born again. People gather for the Feast of Brigid, to worship and give thanks with lighting of fires, sharing of food, invocations, songs and each to weaving an ancient solar symbol of protection for the home – the  three pointed cross of Brigid.

Sun through trees to represent Brigid and Imbolc

For the Celts, the deities were inseparable from daily life. Their world was infused with relationship to the elemental forces, nature sprites, ancestral spirits, and worship of gods and goddesses alike. Their understanding of how the inner worlds related to the cosmos and the material world was profound. They built sacred sites where ley lines intersected, knowing these were sacred places of power where physical energies aligned with the sun and the cosmos were especially potent. Places of divine conjunction.

Rose Rylands

Rose Rylands is a Storyteller and walking guide based where she grew up on the East Coast at Whitby. Her mission is to connect people to the earth as a place of magic, mystery and meaning, to arrest ongoing harm to both ourselves and the natural world.

“My passion is to connect people with the earth as a place of mystery, meaning and magic through story. I suppose I am a sort of cultural custodian of my own small space and beloved bit of earth.”

The next blog is a video of Rose sharing about ‘Imbolc – Time of hope’.


Rose is running a series of workshops on the TA Earth theme:

  • Loss of Language
  • Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm
  • Storytelling: Connecting head, heart, earth and hearth
  • Spiritual Ecology

Take a look at our other TA Earth articles and workshops.

TA Earth header

Compass image linking to courses overview page

Deeper relationship with the natural world

Communication with the divine, the spirit world and the non human web of life, combined with a deep kinship and reciprocity was part of their culture, as it had been for thousands of years. Nature was known to be woven through with numinous magic and for millennia people lived with reverence for the living world around them. In all, the living world was the church of our ancestors.

There was no separation between the seen and the unseen worlds. They knew full well that many otherworldly beings existing in other realities, could come and go at will. The veils were thin and much was seen, envisioned, midwifed and balanced in accordance with ancient esoteric laws and practices.

Enormous respect was given to the gods and goddesses. Brigid was one whose appearance was welcomed with relief and warmly celebrated with thanks and praisegiving after the long winter.

Ancient times

It is hard for us to imagine how it was thousands of years ago when sacred fires were kept alight in holy shrines dedicated to Brigid. They were tended and fed with hawthorn, potent branches signifying entry to the Inner World, by priestesses who were also trained to tend sacred wells, groves, caves and places of worship in the hallowed hills. It was the time of Druid magic and wise women of the hedge.

St Brigid's Cross to celebrate Imbolc
St Brigid’s Cross

In Kildare, Ireland, there was a shrine to Goddess Brigid where a fire was attended by 19 priestesses that it should never go out and would burn eternal. The Brudins, a place of magical cauldron and perpetual fires, disappeared when Christianity took hold.

Arrival of Christianity

When early Christianity arrived on these shores, millenia old customs and ceremonies were appropriated and moulded into Christian doctrine. Some of the deities and goddesses who had been celebrated and worshipped over thousands of years were banished. Others became Saints instead. Suffice it to say, Brigid is one of those who epitomises the marriage between the Pagan and Christian traditions. She remains strong as she bridges both worlds, albeit now as Saint Brigid.

But eventually goddess consciousness rotted into the idea of a malevolant, putrid, evil underworld that was projected onto witches (the wise women).They became cast as the evil sorceress. Much esoteric knowledge and wisdom was lost and the later witch who practised occult arts became the half baked shaman, with only half knowledge.

Loss of respect for the old ways – and women

And there we have it – the fire and the cauldron, both symbolic and literal, tended by women, was extinguished by the banishment of pagan culture. It is a long and painful story . Too long to go into here when whole books have been written about it. But it involved a long and drawn out persecution of women. The banishment and murder of priestesses, nuns and women of the hedge. The genocide of the Druids, burning of sacred groves and banishment of millenia old ways of worship. These ways had kept humanity attuned to the deeper rhythms and cycles of nature, and responsibilities as stewards of both the seen and unseen worlds.

Gosh…we have drifted a long way from there to the transactions we now have with our world.

Brigid and Jesus

The involvement of Brigid in the birth of Jesus became the stuff of legend. The story goes that Brigid was midwife and placed three drops of water on His forehead. An ancient Celtic myth tells that three drops of water were placed upon the head of the Son of Light in order to confer wisdom. I think it’s vital to remember that Jesus Christ was born in pagan times. The story of his birth is woven through with the symbolism of his time.

Imbolc - harvesting seasons image

But here, on the emerald islands of Britain, even until a few hundred years ago and before this industrial civilisation, grass was cut with scythe, earth ploughed by man and horse. Crops were harvested by hand, fires lit for both warmth, cooking, and to gather around. Life had it’s own simple rhythms in accord with sunrise and sunset, the turn of the wheel, the cycles of nature and the seasons. Each community celebrated the seasons with song, dance, rituals and gatherings. God fearing and yet still alive with the old ways inherited from ancestors.

The household fire is sacred to Brigid. At the time of Imbolc the fire should be kept going, and each evening the woman of the household should smoor the fire, (cover it over to keep the fire overnight), asking for the protection of Brigid on all its occupants.

Honouring Brigid through Imbolc

There are many ways to honour Brigid.  She is sacred to so many things – but she is also known as Brigid of the Sacred Wells. In Druid ritual, Brigid is honored by placing candles around a well. The well is dressed with flowers and green foliage. Coins and silver objects were offered to the well. Many of her holy wells still exist, some thousands of years old. Her waters were said to heal all manner of disease.

Lambing season - begins on 1 Feb, Imbolc

I have a Holy Well at the end of my street that is now known as the Well of St Hilda. But eons ago it would have have been one of Brigid’s Sacred Wells. It is supposed to heal diseases of the eye. I might go down there and splash some water in my eyes and perhaps I will see more clearly..

And now?

So we labour on in lockdown and under a foot of snow. I am listening to the lambs in the field and hoping the farmer will take care of them. I feel in accord with Brigid. The well has been visited and I have been keeping my log burner going overnight. Keeping the fire burning and praying for poetic inspiration. I fight back the darker thoughts that prowl around the edges. I just live in hope that somehow a better normal will arise out of this Imbolc and new beginnings. Let the new weaving begin.

Filed Under: Continuing Professional Development, Creativity, TA Earth, Training Course News, Training to be a Psychotherapist Tagged With: counselling, CPD, creativity, ecology, psychotherapy, storytelling, TA Training, taearth, taonline, transactional analysis

TATO News Jan 2021 – launching TA Earth

February 5, 2021 By Jane Williams

Waking up to another morning with snow blanketing our part of the world brings to mind this quote from Albert Einstein.

In the midst of yet another lockdown, we have all become more aware of how important outdoor space is for our physical and mental wellbeing. The Einstein quote sums it up wonderfully.
We’ve got some new additions at TATO which we are excited about. We’ve launched a new series of workshops and articles, TA Earth, exploring our relationship with the world outside of our screens and homes.
We also have more of our winter series of shorter evening seminars coming up in February and March. 

Rose Rylands and TA Earth

We are delighted that Rose Rylands, the keynote speaker from NETAC 2020 and Whitby Storyteller, has joined us. She is running workshops and writing a series on the theme of TA Earth – looking at our connections with nature, ecology and the planet.

Rose is also recording some stories and video blogs for us. The first is called Picking Up The Thread. Click here to watch it. Check out her monthly blog here.

Rose Rylands pic for news Jan 2021
TA Earth pic for News Jan 2021

Workshops with Rose

TA Earth - Loss image for News Jan 2021
TA Earth. Plant pic for News Jan 2021
TA Earth. Storytelling pic for News Jan 2021
TA Earth. Spiritual Ecology pic for News Jan 2021

Loss of Language 
Thurs 4 March 2021 1 – 4pm, £25

Re-enchanting our vocabulary, expanding code and consciousness.

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm
Sat 20 March 1 – 4pm, £25

Explore a wider use of the senses and creativity.

Storytelling: Connecting head, heart, earth and hearth
Sat 17 April 2021 1 – 4pm, £25

This workshop will help you become a custodian of stories from your own landscapes.

Spiritual Ecology
Tues 15 June 2021 1 – 4pm, £25

The content of this workshop will cover reclaiming the spiritual wisdom and reverence for the spirit in all things


Evening Seminar Programme

Evening seminars coming up this month are part of our TA Winter Sparkle – beginning with Bev Gibbons’ and James Sweeney’s seminar on songs that have helped shape our lives – Soul Songs.

Winter Soul Songs
Life is a celebration image
child ego state

Soul Songs 

Bev Gibbons PTSTA(P) and James Sweeney PTSTA(P) .

Monday 8 February 5.00 – 6.30pm

Life is a Celebration. Are You Celebrating, Just Getting Along, or Suffering? 

Michelle Hyams-Ssekasi PTSTA(P).

Tuesday 16 February 5.00 – 6.30pm

Getting to know the Child:  An exploration of different structural models of the Child ego state

Beren Aldridge PTSTA(P). Wednesday 10 March 6 – 7.30pm

Other News for Jan 2021

We are now putting the training and CPD programme together for 2020/21. Keep an eye on the Events Diary on the website to see what is coming up.

We are also now recruiting for our online Exam Preparation Group for Sept 2021.

We offer longer term training too. If you are looking to train as a psychotherapist – carry on reading.

Foundation Certificate in Transactional Analysis

We are now interviewing for the Foundation Certificate course starting in September 2021. This is a 1 year part-time course (1 weekend per month) covering the foundational aspects of transactional analysis. As well as being a standalone course, it is also the first year of our clinical training programme.

Foundation Certificate

News Jan 2021

Filed Under: Continuing Professional Development, Creativity, News, TA Earth, Training Course News, Training to be a Psychotherapist Tagged With: counselling, counselling CPD, eco ta, learning to be a psychotherapist, psychotherapy, psychotherapy training, TA Earth, taonline, transactional analysis, transactional analysis training

‘Picking up the Thread’ – story told by Rose Rylands

January 28, 2021 By Jane Williams

As a Storyteller, Rose Rylands uses stories both old and new, to illustrate, challenge, delight, provoke and spark our curiosity. Together with her blog, this ‘Picking up the Thread’ story is the first of her monthly features. She will be using the Wheel of the Year as a basis to explore the theme of TA Earth.

If you have enjoyed this ‘Picking up the Thread’ post, and Rose has whetted your appetite. She is running a series of four workshops on the TA Earth theme. Click on the links below for more information.

TA Earth header picking up the thread

Loss of Language, 4 March 1 – 4pm

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Sat 20 March 1 – 4pm

Storytelling: Connecting head, heart, earth and hearth, Sat 17 April 2021 1 – 4pm

Spiritual Ecology, Tues 15 June 2021 1 – 4pm

Filed Under: TA Earth Tagged With: psychotherapy, psychotherapy training, TA Earth, TA online, transactional analysis

Picking up the Thread – weaving our stories

January 27, 2021 By Jane Williams

Rose Rylands, January 2021                          

Picking up the Thread. I was very glad when asked to put together a monthly blog and video blog for TATO to explore our relationship with the Earth and Environment – TA Earth. Any contribution I can make at this time feels a privilege.

My blogs will be running around the central theme of The Wheel of the Year. So right here in the first month of the year, when everything feels like an ending and a beginning, while we are deluged with information and dispiriting news, I am starting with ‘Picking up the thread’. I like to remember that spring is around the corner, the light is returning, and the living world knows not of the pandemic or world economics.

Wheel of the year diagram - Picking up the thread of the year.

It is also encouraging to witness the groundswell of people now working together globally in many fields to sow the seeds for a new story to heal the earth for future generations.

My Thread

I am no expert in any field. I’m just a storyteller who profoundly loves the natural world and runs guided storytelling walks. I work in Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, and the North York Moors National Park where I grew up. I’m not an academic, a mythologist or a historian. I just try to keep old stories alive and to be a kind of cultural custodian of my own few miles. Looking after the landscapes I grew up in and love. I can only speak of my own experiences, what I knew as a child and what I know now.

I hope the following will lead into different themes over the coming months. For now I would like to begin with a love story.

When I was a child my mother wasn’t always emotionally available. She carried a lot of pain from her own childhood. She kept it in her own secret inner space and she could often be distant, unreachable. She was kind, and took care of us on a practical level, but in many ways I learned at a very young age how to be alone. Especially when my elder sister first went to school and I was still at home. I longed to be closer to my Mum. She just wasn’t always able to be there in that way. ‘Go outside and play’, she would say.

Outdoor Thread

So, even at pre school age I would spend hours playing alone in the orchard garden in a make believe world. I would talk to the trees, climbing up in their branches and seeing each one as a different being with its own body and characteristics. I loved the cooking apple tree with the gnarly curled branches, the little red sweet eating apple tree too slender to climb but it had the best apples ever. The victoria plum tree bending under the weight of it’s juicy sweet soft plums, which I learned to share with the wasps.

Copper beech tree - one thread in our stories

But the great copper beech tree was my favourite and I knew it loved me. It was while high in the branches of that tree that I had my first real felt experience of being loved by a non human being and I loved it back. I had two sisters and although we all loved the garden. It seemed I was the one who just had to be outside all the time and became quite feral.

Rose Rylands in Picking up the Thread

Rose Rylands is a Storyteller and walking guide based where she grew up on the East Coast at Whitby. Her mission is to connect people to the earth as a place of magic, mystery and meaning, to arrest ongoing harm to both ourselves and the natural world.

“My passion is to connect people with the earth as a place of mystery, meaning and magic through story. I suppose I am a sort of cultural custodian of my own small space and beloved bit of earth.”


The next blog is a video of Rose telling a story ‘Picking up the Thread’.

Rose is running a series of workshops on the TA Earth theme:

  • Loss of Language
  • Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm
  • Storytelling: Connecting head, heart, earth and hearth
  • Spiritual Ecology

Take a look at our other TA Earth articles and workshops.

TA Earth header picture

I grew up near the river in a deep green valley of woods, waterfalls, streams and endless places to explore. It was a wonderland where everything seemed to be a new discovery. The outside was fresh and alive, wind, rain, sun, snow, each season with its own magic.

Magic Thread

Every day would bring another creature to be cared for in the animal hospital – a little caravan in the garden. A hedgehog, a bird fallen from the nest, a stray cat, a baby rabbit, an insect in a jar, a few minnows caught in the beck. I played with boys because they were more adventurous. There were endless journeys into the woods. We we made our secret dens and kept watch on the badger runs. Whole afternoons were spent transfixed on the riverbank. Watching as giant silver salmon flickered vertically in the water on the weir, before lunging upwards to clear the wall and heading upstream to the spawning grounds.

Life held a constant sense of wonder, excitement, awe and discovery. I had immense freedom to roam and was encouraged to be outside for long periods of time.

From the earliest I can remember I was immersed in nature and it was there that I found a deep comfort and sense of closeness along with enormous freedom. I didn’t know it then, but I had found a different kind of mothering in the arms of the Great Mother. It was there in her myriad forms that I found an enduring love that sustains me to this day.

Healing Thread

Love between humans is a divine gift, but the door of love also opens opens when we have a relationship with the earth. Then we don’t have to try to get it from other humans all the time. We might soften and become more forgiving. The nourishment is all around us. We are mothered. Love of animals, fish, birds and insects, sunsets and sunrises, trees, rivers, oceans and elements, love of the running streams, love held within both the body of our Great Mother and our human mothers. We are not separate, we have an instinctual body and we are part of the earth. And when we love enough, the healing becomes reciprocal.

Hands up – I have been complicit in so many ways, part of a generation that has had enormous prosperity. We had material abundance and the freedom to travel. I don’t think any of us realised quite what harm we were doing to the earth with this way of life. And I didn’t get off scot free from the maternal wounds of my childhood. There have been years spent in TA therapy. But I have found that when I am in difficulty, long walks in nature have proved to be very healing.

Somehow my work as a storyteller has also enabled a recalibration of my relationship with place. An adult understanding that has come through learning about our own indigenous history and wisdom. Our psyche, myth, and the earth are so deeply connected.

Story Thread

We humans have such a deep instinctual connection with nature and story. Nowadays, in working outdoors as a storyteller my passion has always been to connect people with the earth. A sacred place of mystery, meaning and magic.

There has never been a better time to honour our place of belonging within the great tapestry of nature. I believe that when we begin to see this world as through the eyes of a child, with awe, wonder and reverence, we will start to find our way again, and both we and earth can begin to heal.

Meanwhile I hope that wherever you are, you might be able to find a place outside. This may be under the sky, in the air and perhaps some place to sit. By a tree or some water and just bring your heart to listen, especially at this time when we are all being kept apart.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

John Muir – Founding father of National Parks

Filed Under: TA Earth Tagged With: eco ta, psychotherapy, TA Earth, transactional analysis

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