As is tradition in the month of October we honor our ancestors with this series Gone But Never Forgotten: Their Voices Live On and in this installment, we re-broadcast my actual interview with Lady Olivia Robertson, one of the founders of the International Fellowship of Isis, formerly headquartered at Clonegal Castle in Enniscorthy, Ireland.
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Olivia Melian Robertson was born in London on April 13, 1917: “Friday the 13th!” she was quick to point out, as this holds an association as a day of the Goddess. Her parents were Nora (Parsons) and Manning Durdin-Robertson. She was the second of their four children. Her family moved back to their ancestral home at Clonegal Castle, Ireland, in 1925, when she was eight.
Olivia loved to paint and draw, as well as to write: "My writing expresses my mind and spirit: art for me shows forth my intuition and heart." Olivia had an early career as a writer where she often illustrated her own books. She also had two public art exhibitions in 1939 and 1956. In 1948 her second book, “Field of the Stranger” was released and received the London Book Society’s Choice award. Her other books include: “The Golden Eye” (1949), “Miranda Speaks” (1950), and “It’s an Old Irish Custom” (1954). Her last book, “The Dublin Phoenix”, published in 1956, sold out on its first day. Her love of the arts would later manifest itself in the creation of the Muses Symposium within the Fellowship of Isis.
It was 1946 when Olivia received her first spiritual awakening from Isis. However, she continued to pursue her life as a writer and only later in 1960 moved back to the ancestral home of Clonegal Castle with Lawrence and Pamela Durdin-Robertson. In 1963 the three formed the Huntington Castle Centre for Meditation and Study. It was then that Olivia discovered a talent for leading others in guided meditation, or “magical journeys” as she called them. This laid the foundation for the work she was led to do later with the Fellowship of Isis.
Read more at Fellowship of Isis