Sally: And the Wheel of the Year

By Chantal Soenen

When I started my studies and learned about the goddess, my daughter always wanted to hear the stories about the goddesses over and over, and so Sally came alive. Sally is a girl of ten with a strong character. She always wants things to happen her way and never considers how other people feel. She has her own friends, who are her fairies, and for that reason, she doesnt have a lot of friends at school because other children find her strange with those fairy tales. And then there is also her bossy way of being. So she has to learn still a lot from life. But these lessons she will not learn at school or at home but at her secret isle, where she will receive the help of some lovely friends. She travels to this isle during the night on a moonbeam, and when she arrives there, some friends are waiting for her. These friends are her companions and guides on the islea big gray cat known by the name Bulby and a flower fairy, Germaine. The three of them will have a lot of adventures together.

During one year, Sally will travel there and will meet nine goddesses and will learn more about the nature of all that happens during a year, and most important of all, she will learn some very important lessons of life, about friendship, respect, and even love. During this year, she will celebrate different feasts, with dwarfs, gnomes, pixies, and fairies. She will fly on a dragon, dance around a fire, and dive into the ocean with dolphins and seals. But most important of all, she will have a great time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477230398

Chantal Soenen

She was born in Belgium, and at the age of 27 arrived in Spain where she found her spiritual path. In 2010 she got handfasted and this was the moment when the Goddess entred her life. So she decided to study more in that way and became a Priestess of the Goddess. As a Priestess she is giving workshops and talks mostly in Spain but also where people ask her to come. But in the first place she is also mother of a daughter of 11, and that is also the reason that she is busy in the school life of her daughter. Her love for children opend the way for writing this book, and of course she took some inspiration from the daily life with her daughter and from her studies. For her are the "Children the adults of tomorrow". So if these children can grow with love and respect, this will show of in a future, and so we can make the worl better for every being that is living on it. She hopes to reach not only the children by this book but also the adults, because inside each adult there is always a child, and so this book is for everybody who still feels a little bit child inside. This is the beauty of every person and we may never loose this!

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© 2012 by Chantal Soenen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3037-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3038-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3039-8 (e)

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

1. Who Is Sally?

2. How Did It All Started?

3. God, Goddess??????

4. My Secret Isle

5. Samhain

6. Yule

7. Imbolc

8. Eostre

9. Beltane

10. Litha

11. Lammas

12. Mabon

13. The Lady Of The Centre

14. The End?

Your Part:

About The Author

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Acknowledgements

I had never thought about writing a book, until one day my dear friend and teacher Erin McCauliff gave me that idea, thanks my dear Erin. At that moment I was doing the first year in the Priestess of the Goddess training.

So I would write a book, but, . . . . From the start on I was sure it would be a book for children, because they are our adults of tomorrow, and also inside each adult there is always a child. I found the inspiration for this story in the combination of my studies and my daughter Sarah Leona who was 10 at the moment I started to write. So the main character looks a little like her. For the cat Bulby, I took the image of my own cat Nounou who came from France and is also a little special. The whole story is about the Goddesses from Britannia and the wheel of the year, so they gave me the inspiration.

It was not always easy to keep on writing, but my husband Walter always believed in me and my book and supported me whenever it was hard to go on. Sometimes we took a brake and went to a lovely place called Peralta not far from Tarragona (Spain) where I wrote a big part of this book, and I would like to thank 2 people who work there, Miriam for asking her daughter Lara to make some drawings for the book and her husband Najim for his lovely tea whenever I needed some inspiration. It was also in this place that Merlin (our baby cat) was born and came to live with us when he was 4 weeks old.

Once it was written we arrived with at the grammatical part, it was Miss Mabet (Vizcaino), and her friend Leigh Ann Gilmore who became my proof readers and helped me with this part.

The next step were the pictures, a children book without them isn’t possible, and I had the idea to use drawings from children. So I talked to the director of Sarah Leona’s school, and immediately he offered his help to ask the children of the 5th and 6th class to make them. So I would like to thank Enric Masdeu and the children of the Escola Joan Ardèvol in Cambrils (Spain) for their help.

A word of thanks goes also to Georgina Sirett Armstrong Smith, because she was the Priestess at our handfasting and was the first person who I met on my path to the Goddess, and to Kathy Jones for sharing her knowledge and teaching me how to walk the path to the Lady of Avalon.

I may not forger to mention also Glenn and Steve from The Overlook in Glastonbury for taking such a good care of me when I stay with them for my training and to Christine who became a very close friend and is on the same path as I, and all my brothers and sisters that I could meet on this path.

Thank you all for your help and support in your own way.

Chantal Soenen

FOREWORD

Chantal Soenen has created a magical story for children about the wonder of nature and the changing seasons of the year. ‘Sally’ travels on amazing adventures, meeting the Goddess of each season and learning valuable lessons with her friends. This is so beautifully written, every child and adult who read about Sally’s journey will be captivated and enchanted. Chantal brings alive the feminine spirit of the land with humour and wisdom. Everyone will love Sally and look forward to more of her adventures!

Erin Mc Cauliff

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1. Who is Sally?

Who am I? My name is Sally and I’m a normal girl, of 9 years old. Or at least that is how everybody thinks of me. I’m 9, that is a fact, and normal, okay, let’s say, I have two arms, two legs, a pretty nose and long blond hair. So I look very normal. I don’t have any diseases, or there isn’t any part of my body missing, but there is something strange about me. I don’t really have any friends. I play at the playground, I like to talk to children of my own age, but a real friend with whom you can share everything; no I don’t have somebody like that.

In the playground at school, when the children play, sometimes I play with them, but I find the games to be stupid. They’re playing football, skipping rope, . . . and now that we are growing up, they talk about television, and other friends. But that isn’t my kind of thing. I like to go to the school library and take out a nice book, about fairies and dragons, or old cultures. That is much more interesting than talking gossip. Other children look at me strangely, and say that I’m an alien and come from another planet, they laugh at me, because I still see fairies, and other little people. So that is why I don’t like playing with them. When I’m not in the school library, I’m sitting in a corner of the playground, and I talk to my fairies.

In the classroom the same thing happens. I like to study, oh, yes, I like it a lot, but why do I understand everything so easily and the others do not? The teacher has to repeat over and over again, which is so boring. Are they stupid or what? Don’t they see how easy it really is, you only have to think logically and the solution is there. And then you have to repeat it over and over again. Why? Hello, I know it already, didn’t you get it? I will not do it any more, I know it already, so let’s move on to something new! But it seems that the teacher doesn’t get it, so she sets a test, and then another one. And I just don’t feel like doing it, maybe tomorrow, but not yet. I’m in the middle of an interesting conversation with my fairy, about how flowers grow, and how they open their petals. That is really interesting stuff, but multiplication, and division, problems, lectures, and all those kinds of things, are just childish and so uninteresting.

And then you have the teacher. She starts again, Sally, how much is 300 multiplied by 7? or Sally, what is the past tense of drink, or sit?, Sally, what is the capital of Spain?, Sally what time is it?, Sally . . . .. She never stops asking. Doesn’t she know the answer? Why do I have to tell her everything? The other day she even wrote a note for my parents. And that really got everything going.

Yes my parents, they’re such a nice couple and they only want the best for me. But they don’t see what I really need. They want me to be smart, and study hard, so that I get good grades and have a brilliant future, growing up to be a responsible adult. But is that what I want? They never have asked me. They just decide for me.

My mum is lovely, but she spends all day going on and on. Clean your teeth, wash your hands, clean your nose, clean your room, take care of the animals, see if they have water and food. Is your homework finished, did you put your dirty