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I’ve been moving through a grief timeline. And I had forgotten what acute grief tastes like. On Friday morning, quite suddenly we had to say goodbye to one of my beloved dogs. He had been my companion for almost 12 of his 13 years. I was shattered. My belly felt hollow, my heart literally heavy in my chest. The waves of tears then almost flat like numbness moved through. I held my other dog close. I canceled everything and let myself be in the grief. There is medicine in grief. It is uncomfortable. It is painful. Yet it sharpens the edges of the world around us. Of the important things. All the while softening the edges of the things that are more mundane. My love becomes amplified, my heart more open and even in the moments of tears I can feel that this pain is really just the other side of love. When we allow ourselves to love with our whole beings we will grieve a loss of that relationship with our whole beings. My Dad died 10 and a half years ago, and although I had experienced losses before he died, I don’t think I had ever truly profoundly grieved. I had never lost someone so deeply woven into the fabric of who I was. In the aftermath, in the depths of my grief, I felt the grace that resides at the core of such pain and love and love and pain. I told my dear friend, “I don’t ever want to stop feeling like this. I don’t ever want to forget this experience”. It felt sacred. There have been some profound losses since my Dad. And each new grief has had the ability to bring up old griefs. To reignite. To help us remember. My dog Gunner was my companion and my friend and he loved me with his whole self, which made it really damn easy to love him right back with fierceness. He was also my Dad’s dog before he was mine (although once we met I knew he was always mine). And so the potent combination of love and loss and memory have left me grief sick, my senses heightened and dulled simultaneously. The dance of the heart open and broken unfolding within. In her book For Small Creatures Such as We , Sasha Sagan writes “In every inhabited corner of the Earth, human beings have created rituals to give order and meaning to existence.” And she is so right. And this is what I am trying to do with my grief. Create rituals and offerings and memorials. And somehow in the middle of all of this a web unfolds between worlds, bridging life and death, magic and mundane, science and spirit. Grief can be a portal taking us out of time and space. Simple Practice What is Remembered Lives When we remember those we have lost they continue to live on. When we tell stories about them, make their favorite recipes, whisper messages to them on the wind, we are not only building a bridge between the world and the next, but we are tending to our sacred grief. We are letting the energy of our love continue to flow. When we laugh aloud because of something a loved one once said or did, we are inviting in the joy of the love we shared and allowing it to gently temper the sharp edges of loss. And I believe, when we do any of these things our beloved dead hear and feel us too. The invitation here is to tell the story aloud to the natural world or your four walls or to another living breathing being. Cook the food. Play the song. Remember. Once upon a time I created a class called Honoring Your Sacred Grief. Saturday I went back through this class and reminded myself of some of the tools and rituals I have to work with the energy of this loss. If you are moving through loss, new or old and wanting to create ritual and magic with your grief, I have marked this class down to $17, but if you need it right now and even this amount feels out of reach, reply to this email and let me know I hope this offers you some new medicine for your own grief journey. 
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This day is a day of balance between day and night, light and dark. It is a moment of pause in the ever growing and shrinking energies of the dance between the sun and the moon. Balance is something we so often talk about striving for. But balance is not a stasis state of being. The landscape of the world around us and the world within us is ever changing, ever shifting. Balance comes in moments, in the pauses, in the between. What does it mean to be balanced? To feel balanced? To bring something into balance? Balance is not permanent. Just as the Equinox is one day (two if you count autumn), our own moments of being in this state are fleeting. Yet, this doesn’t make the moment less valuable. It doesn’t take away the power in the invitation to pause. We are always shifting. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes with great jolts. During this equinox you can use the balance of light and dark to explore the way you feel balance within. Simple Practice Choose two rocks of approximately equal weight. Sit in a comfortable position and hold one rock in each hand Play with the weight distribution. Lifting one hand higher than the other. Then alternating. Find the place, the position where they feel “balanced” Sit with eyes closed and meditate on the word balance. On the sensation of balance Notice all the ways your body shifts and changes in these quiet minutes. As you sit with the rocks perhaps you name them and notice how this might shift the way they feel in your hands Allow yourself to readjust, to refind balance. Discover the way this pause, this moment is not one of stillness as much as one of a subtle shift to find equilibrium, Equinox is the first day of Spring! Welcome the season of awakening! Depending on where you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the quickening and green growth has already begun, or the promise of the thaw is on the horizon. This season is one of celebrating fertility, planning, planting and beginning to grow. What seeds are you preparing to plant? During the birth of this new season, I am co-hosting a Spring Equinox ceremony with Erin LaFaive of Full Circle herbals. This is happening tomorrow, Sunday, March 20th at 10 am PT. This ritual is part of the Diving Deeper Membership but is available to the community as a solo offering as well. If you would like to join us you can register here! And if you have been considering joining the Diving Deeper Membership Circle now is the time. Registration closes Monday and won’t reopen again until Summer. Curious what the next month of the membership holds? March 20th Spring Equinox Ceremony March 25th Divination Practice Group March 26th Spring Element Mini Class-Air March 31st New Moon Ceremony April 8th Seed Planting and Manifestation Magic Class April 15th Full Moon Ritual April 15th Divination Practice Plus as a member you get a deep discount on the Cauldron of Wisdom Virtual Conference April 22nd and 23rd. That’s two days, 9 classes and a whole lot of magic! Register Here! May your Equinox bring a moment of pause, inspiration on the breath of spring winds and hope in the growth around and inside of you!  Happy Monday Wise Ones, I’ve been spending a lot of time this week, reading the news, focusing energy on protection and peace. I’m a doer by nature, perhaps it's my Sagittarius stellium, or maybe it’s just my anxiety. Regardless, I tend to be someone who takes action, solves problems and makes shit happen. One of the most important lessons I have learned (and continue to have to re-learn) is to accept the things that are out of my control. I often find myself feeling responsible for EVERYTHING! And as my mother has told me throughout my life “Let it go Emily, you are not that powerful.” There is medicine in this. And yesterday as I stayed away from my computer as much as possible, and went on a long and lovely walk outside, I was reminded once again of how important it is to step back, immerse myself in the beauty that is all around, in the sweet connection with a friend and/or loved one, and to shrug off the weight of the things I can not change. However, in this space of release and surrender, I also discovered some inspiration for things I can do. So although I can not single handedly stop a war or protect a country, what I can do is connect with those that are on the ground bringing aid in the form of medicine, food and comfort to those that need it. Inspired by the nature break and good conversation, I decided to raffle off a Wise Woman Witchery mug, with the intent of raising money for people of Ukraine. All proceeds from the raffle will be donated to Care.org who are one of the organizations offering care for the Ukrainian people at this time. Raffle is $5 a ticket. You can enter the raffle here. You can enter as many times as you like. (If you want to enter but are not paypal friendly message me for an alternative) Drawing will be held Monday March 14th. Important: Be sure to include a note with your current email address so I can contact you if you are the winner. I will cover shipping in the US, but international shipping will be covered by the winner. Remember, magic is energy, we are all energy and we are all connected. Small acts have a ripple effect whether we know what this is or not. The energy is still in action. Flash Sale! Have you gotten your full size Spring Equinox Celebration Guidebook yet? At 40+ pages, this guidebook is full of guidance on crafting up your own Spring Equinox celebration. Including reflections on what Spring Equinox is, traditional correspondences, ideas for divination practices, recipes, crafts and more! You can get the guidebook for 30% until Tuesday at midnight Central time. Click here and use coupon code SPRING30 at checkout. And finally I want to let you all know that as we move toward the equinox, the Diving Deeper membership circle will once again be open for enrollment. This community only opens its doors once each quarter. The membership includes monthly moon rituals, seasonal master classes, seasonal astrology and plant magic classes, monthly divination practice, a massive library of resources and so much more! Registration opens Saturday March 12th. Mark your calendar and keep your eyes on your inbox for the link.  |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
February 2025
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