The Red Kite Angel - June 2025 Newsletter

A story of synchronicity

Pink poppy - waiting to birth

Welcome to the June 2025 Newsletter - following the introductory post last week which featured a red poppy in early morning sunlight, the photo above is a pink poppy, unravelling itself in order to bloom - a fitting metaphor for my journey on Substack. As I go forward on this platform I will discover ‘the way of Substack’ and gradually understand its intricacies, like a poppy opens itself to the sun. When this particular poppy opens, its petals remain crumpled. I like a bit of crumpling, like tissue paper or slept-in sheets or a comfortable linen garment.

As usual, I’d like to welcome new subscribers and thank those of you who donated tea via the Ko-fi site - which you can do here. One of my monikers is ‘writer’ and as such I plan to do more writing here on Substack. If you fancy supporting my writing you can become a paid subscriber using the appropriate button at the bottom of the newsletter. There are benefits apart from the writing like discounts on events and maybe some extra posts but I haven’t figured out what those posts will be yet. I’ll be very pleased if you do become a paid subscriber, but I’ll also very pleased if you simply read as far as that button and don’t press it. This newsletter will remain free to all subscribers - it is up to you if you’d like to support it.

A note for new readers - this newsletter originally started many years ago as a reminder of Shamanic Sundays, a monthly shamanic journeying group open to all, which, in this instance, is this Sunday 1st June - click here. I have one other event coming up, a workshop about Uranus entering Gemini on 5th July - click here.

Let’s get going with the newsletter writing.

The Red Kite Angel

Red Kite - photo credit: Arturo de Frias Marques

This is a recent story of synchronicity. When I say synchronicity I don’t mean your humdrum everyday co-incidences, I mean those events in your life that unfold your understanding of why you might be doing something. They usually last over several weeks, often more, as does this story which links back into the beginning of last year.

In this instance it all began, on a conscious level, early in May. I am reading a fiction book and one of the main characters is called ‘Angel’. During this time a friend, you know who you are, brings me a book about ‘angels’ via a friend of hers who has been given it by its transcriber. That is, it was written by someone who is now dead, gone out of print, been transcribed, given to a bookseller, given to his friend, given to me. A rather circuitous way of approach yet also fortuitous.

I have to own up to a deal of circumspection about angels per se due to not being able to stomach their cultural representation, on the whole. So I let the book rest a while on my pile of ‘books to be read’.

Next I am off walking, on my way to collect my weekly box of eggs from a not so close neighbour. During the walk a Red Kite swoops over me, extremely low, and cries its distinctive high and sharp yee-aw. For the rest of the week I hear it repeatedly near my house. Following this I happen to watch a nature programme where Iolo Williams is exploring various river catchments in Wales, this one is about the Rheidol River as it runs from from the mountains down to Aberystwyth (you can find it on BBC iplayer and the relevant bit starts 7 minutes in). It features a man who has Red Kite’s nesting in a tree at the back of his garden - where he and his families activities appear not to unnerve the kites at all. It dawns on me that there is probably a pair nesting in the nearby quarry and/or its surrounding woods and that is why I hear them so frequently. Then it occurs to me, from the depths of my memory, that I wrote a newsletter last year called ‘Acrux’ which featured Red Kite alerting me to the ‘Cross’ and the fixed star ‘Acrux’ which is the bright star at the bottom of the Southern Cross and is associated with astrology, spirituality, metaphysics and sacrifice. In my astrological birth/natal chart this is conjunct my mid heaven (the crowning point of your chart indicating your vocation/path/career). Rather apt don’t you think - to those who follow this newsletter and my work.

The Southern Cross constellation with the star Acrux at the bottom. Photo credit: Naskies

All this confirms my feeling that the Red Kite is trying to tell me something, or is a presage of unfolding events. As if it were an angel of some sort, guiding me to an understanding or consciousness of my journey.

Bear with me, the story is still unfolding . . . shortly after this I am attending a short retreat/study group in the grounds of a stately home. The retreat is a series of lectures and meditations on the subject of esoteric philosophy. During the breaks I notice a Red Kite flying over the gardens and parkland. The main purpose of the retreat is to partake of a meditation concerning the Wesak Full Moon (which was 12th May) - in Scorpio . . . whilst the sun is in Taurus. This full moon marks the high-water mark of spiritual blessing in the world and for esotericists it is the high point of the spiritual year when forces of enlightenment flow from the higher worlds into the mind of humanity. The meditation is a solemn and respectful event in the chapel but I won’t go into that here. Afterwards someone asks me what I got out of the meditation. After years of performing ceremony and ritual, I replied that whatever I got out of it would not make itself known to me for several days or weeks. I’m aware that our bodies - physical, emotional and mental - are quite dense matter and it takes a while for the results of spiritual or soulful work to arrive in our ‘consciousness’ and only when we’re in a state in which we can receive them.

The next morning during the break someone, from another land, wants to show me a special tree and we hot-foot it into the woods as we don’t have long. Here it is.

We get to the magnificent tree and bathe in her majesty. As we do so a Red Kite flies over and I comment that Red Kite has been appearing at poignant, or significant, moments recently. On our return we are discussing ‘language’ - English is not her mother tongue but I am talking about how we speak/listen with the natural world as a language. At that moment a Red Kite swoops down over our heads with its yee-aw cry as a crow mobs it. Immediately I draw my companions attention to this ‘happening’ and say ‘Look, look, look . . . this is the language I mean’. We both have goose bumps . . . although there were no geese in the vicinity.

The enlightening

The ‘download’ from the meditation occurs four or five days later. Firstly I have begun reading the angel book and it changes my perspective entirely, from sweet cherubim to powerfully energetic forces which don’t take on a ‘form’ as such although we may recognise them in a ‘form’ when we connect the dots between inner and outer experience - like this cloud formation that I saw from the ‘church space’ in my back garden a year or two ago. An angelic form expressing great power in what felt like a very benign way - like the Red Kite.

Secondly, I begin investigating the significance of the asteroid Vesta which had been mentioned in the lectures during my time at the retreat. Here is her glyph -

Vesta literally means ‘hearth’ but in astrology she is associated with many things. For me she is signifies one’s devotion and focus to whatever is your passion or soul purpose.

To my utter astonishment I find that at the time of the Wesak Full Moon, Vesta was conjunct my mid heaven (where Acrux resides). It just so happens that my mid heaven is in Scorpio which was the sign in which the Wesak Full Moon occurred during the retreat. And the Full Moon itself crossed the Vesta/mid heaven conjunction in my chart on that day. In short, this sequence of events underline my devotion to, and focus in, esoterics - it is my crowning moment, or vocation.

At this point I feel as if I am turning the dial on a safe lock, listening with a stethoscope as I turn the dial back and forth. I hear the lock click and see the door open on to . . . treasure. Accompanied literally, as I write, by the yee-aw cry of the angelic Red Kite.

With my all my best synchronous wishes to you . . . Mandy