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That’s how I spent much of the last few days. After a couple months of tediously ripping out the weeds that had become half of our front lawn, my husband and I spent Friday night under the almost full moon leveling the earth, adding top soil, planting, and getting really really dirty! There was something truly magical and reconnecting about doing this work in the cool evening beneath the silver light of the moon. Watching our subtle moon shadows move together felt like a dance of sorts, one that felt familiar in that ancient kind of way. For me, moonlight has always had the mystical, ancient, yet timeless quality to it. Things illuminated by that sacred lunar glow hold a different sort of “sight” to them. Moonlight offers a different perspective. One that casts familiar, mundane objects and spaces into a more magical view. The moon vibes continued as I chaos planted the back garden beds under the lunar eclipse last night. (Chaos planting = planting random seeds to see what happens) Did you see that Full Blood Moon in Scorpio? Perhaps more importantly, did you feel it? What did you notice? Eclipses offer insight for me into the way the hidden becomes visible, the unseen seen. They are a revealing, usually of something that has always been there but that we perhaps hid away or have been avoiding. Once that veil is pulled back we can not forget what has been revealed. Working with the Diving Deeper community yesterday for our full moon ritual, we explored what shadows inside of ourselves were being illuminated by this full moon. What shadows are you “seeing”? Re-Story Your Life begins this Thursday May 19th! Are you feeling stuck or off track? Having a hard time hearing your inner wisdom? Or perhaps you can hear your intuition clearly but what to do with that information is confusing? This five lesson course is made up of exercises and prompts to help you not only tune into your intuitive Self, but to also create a plan to get you out of your stuck spots, and back on the course your Soul is here to walk. This course is available to you anytime, but if you want to move through the five lessons live with me we will be gathering each day Thursday-Monday for a meditation or exercise, and check in. Replays will be available if you can’t make the lives. Divination is at the heart of this class and I look forward to sharing some really fun activities and tools with you! You can find the schedule of livestreams and registration here. Gotta Get Away The Summer Solstice Retreat is just weeks away! Gather Witches, around the fire, beneath the sky, surrounded by Oaks and Bay. The beautiful landscape of Sonoma County welcomes you to the Summer Solstice Retreat June 19-21st. We will spend our time together,
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Green witch? Kitchen witch? Weather Witch? Elemental Witch? Or perhaps you follow a specific tradition (ex: Dianic Witch, Gardnerian Witch). Or maybe like me, you have drawn from a variety of traditions and sources as you have grown your path and consider yourself more of an Eclectic Witch. This week on the Witch Next Door podcast, Veronica and I discuss this idea of defining your witchery with a label. Listen In! Whatever type of witchery you practice, I bet you use divination in one form or another. The tools of divination are an excellent way to dig a little deeper into the unconscious, to unlock the power of your intuition and to gain insight by illuminating places that seemed to dark or congested to understand. This is why I placed divining tools and practices at the center of the course Re-Story Your Life. Through five lessons we explore the life you are currently living, look at where it is you want to go and craft a map of action steps to get you headed in the right direction. Using divination as our guide we unstick the stuck spots, quiet our noisy brains and listen to the wisdom within. We begin together May 19th. Over five days we will move through each lesson. I will be going live each day to add more experiential practices and create a space for you to check in about your journey if you desire. The schedule and sign up page can be found here. If you want to join us but can't make the livestreams, these will be recorded and posted the same day so you can stay in sync with the journey or revisit at your own pace. Retreat registration is OPEN! If you are ready to make some magic in the great outdoors now is the time! We gather June 19th-21st to celebrate the Summer Solstice amongst the oaks in community. Our time together will be crafting spells, creating ritual, honing our intuition and connecting with nature as well as each other. You can click here for all the details, then email me to reserve your space.  I have been thinking a lot about ritual. About how we humans have crafted rituals and ceremonies to help us make sense of the world around us. Rituals happen across cultures and have existed for as long as humans have been around. Some are known by most: things like weddings or funerals, graduations or birthday parties. Others are less known, less discussed. The rituals of morning pages or leaving offerings for our animal friends or spirits of the land for example. Some are even less seen, more private: grief rituals of keening in solitude, silent prayers sent up as a plane is boarded. Rituals can be as simple as stirring an intention into your morning tea, or as complex as casting a circle, invoking deities, and dancing prayers into being. This morning as I walked with a dear friend, we revisited the idea of being witnessed. Of the many thresholds we cross in life, the milestones and markers that are never spoken of or are cast to the side. The things we do not take the time to name and acknowledge that might require just that, a naming, an acknowledgement, an honoring and perhaps a witness. Being held in ceremony or ritual is one of the beautiful things about community. It is one of the gifts we give each other. Before my wedding my Circle held a ceremony for me. A marking of moving from single to married. It was elaborate and there was a blindfold and gates to cross and surrender in trusting these women to guide me as I moved blindly through the portals. It was powerful and moving and consisted of deep magic and love. This was not the ceremony of marriage but a ceremony acknowledging my own shift, my own claiming of a new role and an honoring of who I had been before. It was as much a celebration of something new as it was an honoring of a letting go. What rituals do you participate in? What are the daily practices or prayers that hold space in your life? In what ways do you long to be held by community in ritual? In what ways are you already? I’d love to hear from you if you want to share. You can reply to this email. Just a reminder, that if you are longing to gather in community and share in ritual and magic, the Summer Solstice retreat is being held here, in Sonoma County June 19th-21st. Details can be found here.  Wise Ones, today in the US we celebrate Mother’s Day. A day to honor Mama’s.
. This day is a tricky one for many. There are those sometimes complicated mother-child relationships, the grief that exists for those who might have lost a child, or those who have lost a mother. There are those people who longed for motherhood but, for whatever reason, have not been able to bring this longing into being. And of course so many more ways we relate to the idea and concept of mother that muddy the waters of this day. I am not a mother to a human. I have not given birth. I have not adopted a child. In the past there have been times that have felt a deep sadness on this day, not having a child of my own, not feeling a part of the “mom” club that so so many of my friends have joined over the years. The flip side of this is that I am blessed to have amazing women in my life (my own Mother top of this list), who have gifted me with love and care and guidance and support. And even at times when I felt sad, I have been most fortunate to feel such gratitude for these women that celebrating them has been easy. Whether you are a mother or not, if we look at Mother as an archetype, as an energy, we might begin to explore the ways that the Mother lives inside us all. In the Tarot, The Empress is often considered to be the personification of mothering energy. The divine feminie, fertile and bursting forth with creation. Yet creation and nurturing is not only found in the parenting of a child. It is found in the ways we care for and nurture others in our lives (human and animal), it is also found in the way we care for and nurture ourselves. Creation comes in many forms, and creativity is bursting forth from the Empress, creativity is part of the heartbeat of the mother. Motherhood is not all sunshine and rainbows. There is a fierceness is mothering too! There are limits to set and boundaries to hold. There is protection to provide and sacrifices made. Looking at all the facets of mothering is crucial in understanding how this energy flows through the world. So on this day where we celebrate and honor Mothers. How are you celebrating and honoring the mother that resides within you? I invite you to nourish yourself, to fuel the seeds of creativity, of creation of care. Part of tending your magical self, is in fact a mothering of yourself, physically, emotionally and of your craft, through practice and continued learning and growth. In my own spiritual path I lean into the energy of the earth as the Mother, this vast intricately woven world we live in. This world that is governed by cycles and the circle of life. And I often picture Mother Nature as her own entity, holding the energies of birth and death, creation and destruction inside of her. The earth holds us, feeds us, nourishes us and provides for us so much. This planet is something we are intrinsically bound to. How are we caring for and connecting with her? Taking the idea of Mothering one step further, perhaps today is also a day to reconnect with nature. To let yourself be held by her and in turn to offer her care and tenderness as well. As we honor the Mother, let us honor the many forms this energy takes, within ourselves and outside of ourselves. Let us celebrate the gifts of creation and nurturing, the gifts given in the form of boundaries set, and limits tested that held. May we all revel in the power and beauty, the mess and upheaval that mothering brings with it in all of its forms. A Blessed and Joyous Beltane Wise Ones! The new moon in Taurus and solar eclipse are bringing their energies to us from above today and tomorrow we celebrate Beltane, the fertility of the earth. Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are halfway between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. The Earth is alive with growth and we celebrate this abundance. We sluff off the remnants of winter with purifying fires and baths of morning dew. We don flower crowns to honor the divine feminine and we drive poles into the ground and dance about them to celebrate the coming together of masculine and feminine energies and the blossoming this union creates. This festival is full of symbolism and tradition. There are many ways you might celebrate Beltane, from the weaving of ribbons into spells, to dancing barefoot on the budding earth. From the honoring of the Fae Folk, to the baking of bannocks and oat cakes. Or perhaps you are attending or participating in a handfasting or Maypole dance. For many more detailed celebration ideas and some history of the symbolism alive at Beltane, visit my blogs from 2019 and 2020 If you would like to join in the community ritual I host for the Diving Deeper Circle, I am opening the doors to you all on a donation basis. We will be coming together tomorrow, Sunday, May 1st at 9am PT to celebrate and work with weaving of masculine and feminine energies within ourselves. This is donation based, pay what feels right (no one will be turned away for lack of funds) Just click HERE to donate and I will send you the link Sunday morning and details of what to bring. (Be sure that the email you use for Pay Pal is the one you check as this is where the link will be sent) You must sign up before 8 am PT Sunday. However you choose to celebrate this festive holiday, may your Beltane be Blessed and Bright!  |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
December 2024
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