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This last weekend I co-hosted a Summer Solstice ritual with the intention of opening to the energy of the sun to illuminate and ignite our strengths. On this longest day, I invite you to step outside and feel the warmth of the sun, allow it to cascade from your crown to the soles of your feet and back, moving through your body, shining it's powerful light into the shadows and showing you all the beauty of the strengths you hold. Then celebrate them! Create affirmations to place around your home and on your altar, call a friend and share about your strengths, dress in clothes that bring the energy of your power to the surface. Shine like the light that you are! When we shine, we invite others to do the same! Let's turn it up! Summer Solstice and the Sun card. This week on the Witch Next Door veronica and I chat about the Solstice and the Tarot card, the Sun. Listen in! Want more about the Summer Solstice? Listen in to the Summer Solstice episode from 2020. Now get out there and celebrate the turning of the wheel by honoring your strong, bad ass, magical self! 
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I was blindfolded and barefoot. The late Spring sun was already bringing the scents of Summer to the surface of the earth. Drying grasses, sweet bay, and warm earth, were all intensified with my vision hidden beneath layers of cloth. I was led then, from one threshold to another. Each stop along the way a question asked, a pledge made. Pieces left behind as gates were passed through. The ritual was powerful, supportive, emotional and deeply magical. Certainly I could have created a ceremony for myself for this transition. And it would have been meaningful. Yet there was something profoundly more meaningful, more magical and more powerful about letting myself surrender into an experience being created and held for me by my Coven. These women that I trusted to not let me fall, to ask me the questions that mattered, to honor my transition from single to married. These are some of the gifts of working magic in a Coven, a Circle, a Clan. Whatever you call it, there is so much to be learned and to experience in a group practice. I am inviting you to join me for a two hour class, June 25th from 9-11 am PT, where we will delve into Coven Crafting. You will learn:
Can’t make the class live? The replay will be posted along with the handouts shortly after the class wraps up, so you can watch at your convenience. I can’t wait to delve into Coven Crafting with you!  After a year plus of waves of discord, an ending occurred. During that time we had tried (belatedly) to come up with procedures for conflict resolution and guidelines for expectations. We processed and talked for hours and hours. The grief and frustration were palpable. Our magic had been set aside. Even during our rituals there was an energy leak. The container was cracked. It was easy at the time to point fingers and let anger fuel the fires of friction.. But in the end there was a resignation. A decision to release what we had created. I walked away as that decision was being made. I was not part of the group dissolution ritual. Instead I cut cords during my own ritual under the night sky and felt the pang of loss coupled with the relief of letting go. In the following months some relationships were surrendered while others were solidified. And eventually, at the waning of Summer half of our group came back together to try again. And we did. And we have. Still learning, still growing, still navigating the challenges and joys of human connection. This time though we had more tools, we knew what to focus on. How to work with conflict. How to show up. How to make decisions. These are some of the lessons I have to share with you. I know the gifts that come from practicing magic in a Circle and I know the challenges too. Tomorrow we gather for Coven Crafting, where you will learn about the foundational pieces of creating a Coven, as well as some practices for keeping your Coven healthy over time. I want you to have all the magic and as little strife as possible. Registration closes at midnight tonight. You can sign up here and I’ll see you tomorrow! With Love and Blessings, Emily 6/22/22 The spell began its weaving without my words, without my knowledge. The spell began with the molting of crows and the turning of flowers to seed. Every Summer Solstice my Coven gathers at the Coast and walks a labyrinth for our ritual. The center of this labyrinth holds an altar decades in the making. Some years we bring offerings, others we each just take a moment at the center before making our way back out. Yesterday’s ritual required an offering. The morning brought me crow feathers and the spell began. Hours before I gathered these feathers I could feel something within starting to spin and weave. In the heat of the noon hour I sought the feathers for my offering. Each one standing like a flag from grass from soil, from stone. And on this path the dried heads of flowers, now bulbous and heavy with seed, called to me and made their way into the bundle forming in my hand. Seeds are story, story is everywhere. As we create release old story, we are creating new ones. In the ever churning tides of life, we are in constant motion of releasing and creating story. As I walked the labyrinth on the longest day of the year, my feet naked and warmed by the earth, I took in all the offerings all the stories left behind by those that traversed this path before me, I took in the glimpse of my own stories left in stones and shells over the years buried beneath time and growth, and I began to cast out seed stories. Ones I was releasing, ones I am growing. In the center I left the feathers, an acknowledgement and offering in honor of my own molting, my own growth, my own ever unfolding story. And the sun watched, and warmed and ignited. And the spell was cast. As I walked the unwinding path of the Labyrinth, my circle sisters began their drumming and my body danced its way back to join them beneath that fiery Solstice Sun and add my own rhythm to the song we were writing. This Solstice the theme we all seemed to be carrying was one of release and opening to renewal. What did this Solstice carry for you? What is the echo it is bringing into today? Are you looking for your Circle? I want to help you find it! Working magic in community offers us endless gifts of knowledge, growth and connection. It can also bring challenges. Using my own experience of working in a Coven for 18 years, I have created Coven Crafting, a class designed to help take out some of the challenges of creating and maintaining a magical community. In this two hour class you will discover: What Covens can offer Where you might begin to find people for your Coven The foundations and considerations you will want to use to create your Magical Circle Ways to maintain the health of your group over time You will also have an opportunity to vision your Coven into being. Join me Saturday, June 25th at 9 am PT. (Replay will be available for all registrants) Not ready to craft your own coven, but looking for a community to learn adn practice magic with? The Priestess Path 13 moon, 12 lesson journey begins with a new cohort July 23rd. Get on the waitlist to not only learn more but have access to early registration!  The spell began its weaving without my words, without my knowledge.
The spell began with the molting of crows and the turning of flowers to seed. Every Summer Solstice my Coven gathers at the Coast and walks a labyrinth for our ritual. The center of this labyrinth holds an altar decades in the making. Some years we bring offerings, others we each just take a moment at the center before making our way back out. Yesterday’s ritual required an offering. The morning brought me crow feathers and the spell began. Hours before I gathered these feathers I could feel something within starting to spin and weave. In the heat of the noon hour I sought the feathers for my offering. Each one standing like a flag from grass from soil, from stone. And on this path the dried heads of flowers, now bulbous and heavy with seed, called to me and made their way into the bundle forming in my hand. Seeds are story, story is everywhere. As we create release old story, we are creating new ones. In the ever churning tides of life, we are in constant motion of releasing and creating story. As I walked the labyrinth on the longest day of the year, my feet naked and warmed by the earth, I took in all the offerings all the stories left behind by those that traversed this path before me, I took in the glimpse of my own stories left in stones and shells over the years buried beneath time and growth, and I began to cast out seed stories. Ones I was releasing, ones I am growing. In the center I left the feathers, an acknowledgement and offering in honor of my own molting, my own growth, my own ever unfolding story. And the sun watched, and warmed and ignited. And the spell was cast. As I walked the unwinding path of the Labyrinth, my circle sisters began their drumming and my body danced its way back to join them beneath that fiery Solstice Sun and add my own rhythm to the song we were writing. This Solstice the theme we all seemed to be carrying was one of release and opening to renewal. What did this Solstice carry for you? What is the echo it is bringing into today? Are you looking for your Circle? I want to help you find it! Working magic in community offers us endless gifts of knowledge, growth and connection. It can also bring challenges. Using my own experience of working in a Coven for 18 years, I have created Coven Crafting, a class designed to help take out some of the challenges of creating and maintaining a magical community. In this two hour class you will discover: What Covens can offer Where you might begin to find people for your Coven The foundations and considerations you will want to use to create your Magical Circle Ways to maintain the health of your group over time You will also have an opportunity to vision your Coven into being. Join me Saturday, June 25th at 9 am PT. (Replay will be available for all registrants) Not ready to craft your own coven, but looking for a community to learn adn practice magic with? The Priestess Path 13 moon, 12 lesson journey begins with a new cohort July 23rd. Get on the waitlist to not only learn more but have access to early registration! I was blindfolded and barefoot. The late Spring sun was already bringing the scents of Summer to the surface of the earth. Drying grasses, sweet bay, and warm earth, were all intensified with my vision hidden beneath layers of cloth. I was led then, from one threshold to another. Each stop along the way a question asked, a pledge made. Pieces left behind as gates were passed through. The ritual was powerful, supportive, emotional and deeply magical. Certainly I could have created a ceremony for myself for this transition. And it would have been meaningful. Yet there was something profoundly more meaningful, more magical and more powerful about letting myself surrender into an experience being created and held for me by my Coven. These women that I trusted to not let me fall, to ask me the questions that mattered, to honor my transition from single to married. These are some of the gifts of working magic in a Coven, a Circle, a Clan. Whatever you call it, there is so much to be learned and to experience in a group practice. I am inviting you to join me for a two hour class, June 25th from 9-11 am PT, where we will delve into Coven Crafting. You will learn: some of the benefits of working within a group. Places you might connect with other witchy wise ones The nuts and bolts of creating your Circle Tips on maintaining the health of your group And you will have the chance to vision exactly what you are wanting out of your Coven After 18 years of practicing magic in a group, I am excited to share all I have learned with you (and I have learned A LOT!) Can’t make the class live? The replay will be posted along with the handouts shortly after the class wraps up, so you can watch at your convenience. I can’t wait to delve into Coven Crafting with you!  The bone weary kind of exhaustion that calls for slow movement, the setting aside of to do lists, long minutes spent staring at the motion of leaves in the breeze and soaking up the sun spots on the rug with the ever wise cats. It is a day where my solar driven self is being forced to take a back seat. Yesterday I taught, I co-led a ritual, I went to a Witches market, and then attended a Wedding. Yesterday was a day of action and interaction. Today is most definitely not. Part of my own Witchcraft practice is learning to flow and not force. It is a work in progress. (I am a work in progress). The energy of this almost Solstice sun ignites my already directed self to bite off even more than I can chew. And to do so with exuberance and conviction. The flip side of this is that rest and renewal must also occur. I have a lot of fire in my Astrological chart and sometimes that fire needs to be banked. Not extinguished, just turned into a slow smolder instead of a raging flame. For me this can be found in the elements of water and earth. A bath or shower with intention, a trip to a meandering river or creek, a lake or the ocean all offer a quieting effect on my inner fire. Alternately, laying myself down on the earth, watching the natural world around me from a place of connection to the ground or with my back to a tree, can slow my runaway flame. How do the elements live in you?
The elements are very much at the heart of my own practice. Where do they reside in yours? Simple Practice- Take 5 minutes and reflect on which elements you feel most led by in your life. Are you most connected to water and find emotions always close to the surface. Does air keep you connected to your thoughts more than your body? Are you earthy and grounded or does earth keep you stuck in patterns that are familiar even if uncomfortable? Then take another 5 minutes and reflect on what elements help balance and soothe you. What practices can you use to access these energies? Finally, choose one balancing/soothing activity and DO IT! Coven Crafting Have you registered for Coven Crafting yet? Maybe you have already begun to practice your magic in a group setting. Maybe you are solitary and a little Coven curious. Either way, Coven Crafting has some magic just for you! In this two hour class you will begin the visioning of the Circle you want to be a part of. We will explore the puzzle pieces of crafting your Coven, looking at everything from meeting frequency to dues. We will also identify some key components to maintaining the health of your group. Much like any relationship, Covens need some tending and I’m going to give you the tools to do this. By the end of our 2 hours together you will have a clearer picture of not only what kind of group you want to create, but also how to make it happen and keep it going for the long haul. Coven Crafting is happening June 25th from 9-11am PT. The replay and handouts will be available to all participants whether they attend the live class or not. See you there!  I was wearing an emerald green silk dress, it was warm and a very rare summer storm was churning the sky into shades of purple and blue. Thunder rolled. Then the heavens opened and the rain came. Sheets of it. The smells of Summer blended with the scent of wet asphalt and I was intoxicated with all of it! There was a farmers market/street fair happening and people were racing to cover their wares. I just stood there getting soaked and laughed. Laughed at the joy and freedom of a storm, of Summer, of being 18, of being in new love. I laughed because I was completely present, and in that moment present meant happy and awestruck. Even at 18 I recognized the sacredness of this rare thunderstorm, of this wild and unbound moment. There are many memories from Summers before and since, yet as I sat to write to you today about Summer Solstice, this is the one that came to foreground. This was before I celebrated the change of seasons, before I found home in the word Witch. Yet this moment was magic. What memories come to the surface when you hear the word Summer? The official turning of the Wheel is June 21st this year. This is the longest day and the first day of Summer. How are you celebrating? Simple Practice Ghosts of Summers Past Take some time with your journal to “remember” the following (pick at least 4 or do them all if you feel called) A Summer Storm A Beach Day A Rope Swing A BBQ Lawn Games Fireworks Summer Smells Summer Songs A Summertime love Summer Vacation *Revisiting your Summertime Past Self, what themes did you discover? *What feelings, energies, synchronicities arise from these rememberings? *In what ways can these weave themselves into an intention for your Summer? *How can this intention become a ritual for your celebration of the Solstice? Want more? I’ve got a couple of options for you. If you haven’t signed up already, get your FREE Summer Solstice Planning Pages Or if you are ready for a little more, get the full 40+ page Summer Solstice Celebration Guidebook, full of ideas for celebrating the season, divination ideas, questions for both reflections and exploring the natural world around you, recipes and craft ideas. As a bonus you get access to the Community Summer Solstice Ritual hosted by Erin LaFaive of Full Circle herbals and I. This will be on Zoom June 18th at 2 pm PT. (Replay will be available) According to the Merriam Webster dictionary A Coven is: 1): a collection of individuals with similar interests or activities 2): an assembly or band of usually 13 witches The truth is, a coven does not need to be made up of 13 witches (thus the “usually”). It can also be called a Circle, a Gathering, a Community, a Clan, or even a Gang. Are you part of a Coven? Do you want to be? Whether you are looking to breathe some new life into an existing Circle, or curious about starting one from scratch, Coven Crafting has all you need to help you create and maintain the Coven you have been imagining. In this two hour class we will
 In April of 2004 I sat in a circle with three other women with a used copy of Ariadne’s Thread in my hands.
My heart was racing. I was excited. Nervous. Cautious. I only knew one of these three women and I felt vulnerable. My novice self, certain everyone knew more about witchery than I did. The plan was to work through this book chapter by chapter. In this way we would nourish our own spiritual practices, have space to reflect and share about what we learned and enact a suggested ritual to solidify what we learned. We thought we had a plan. But like with so many well laid plans we diverted from the path. Over time, we began to insert our own topics into our gatherings. We started creating our own rituals and exploring our own curiosities. In time we each began to bring more and more of our own magic to the group. At the end of the first year, one of our members moved away. The remaining three of us, enacted an initiation ritual and our Circle was solidified. In the 18 years since we have grown and shrunk. Shattered and reconfigured. We have changed our format and gone back to basics. Two of us from that original 4 remain. There has been lots of celebration, heartache, learning, practicing and making magic. There have also been things that have flopped terribly or nights when we had to pivot because the plan did not align with the energy of the group. We are always learning. Always changing. I still have that now well annotated copy of Ariadne’s Thread. But the truth is I never finished the book. Instead I co-created a Coven. If you Are curious to discover the way bringing energies together can amplify your magic Are open to learning, listening and growing your practice Desire community Coven Crafting may just be the class for you. This class has been designed to help you vision the collective you want to be a part of, give you the nuts and bolts considerations in crafting a Circle and teach you some of the important strategies for maintaining health in a group over time. 18 years is a looong time and I want to share with you what I have learned. We come together June 25th 9-11 am PT and will delve into all of this and more! Early bird pricing for Coven Crafting ends today at 2 pm PT. Register today and get 20% off! This past week a T-Shirt arrived in the mail that reminded me (yet again) how much influence our allies can have on us. Whether fictional characters, people we admire but have never met, those in our day to day lives, trees, plants, stones or animals, our allies can support us, stand with us and help us access parts of ourselves we feel less confident in or connected to. Any other Buffy fans out there? Buffy the Vampire Slayer played an integral part in my 20’s. The allure of the supernatural, the power of a bad ass heroine and her own allies, the witty dialogue and the very human challenges addressed, this show had it all! Buffy was a powerful ally for me as I navigated one of my more angsty decades, discovering who I was, finding my own power, navigating relationships, college, grad school, my spiritual path, my alcohol use (and abuse) and so much more. The second I opened my new “Slay the Patriarchy” T-Shirt in Buffy font, I was reminded of this powerful character and all she brought to my life. I was reminded of just how powerful our allies can be. And just how necessary they are. I was also reminded how a talisman (in this case my snazzy new tee), can help us stay connected to those energies. After weeks of news that has been hard to stomach and having it all come to a head with the shooting in Texas I have been feeling pretty beaten down and honestly more hopeless than usual. Yet that t-shirt sparked something inside of me and I wearing it brought me some extra strength and hope. Sure it might just be a T-shirt, but it represents an ass kicking, world saving heroine and one of my favorite allies. Simple Practice: Whoever your allies are, however they show up for you, take some time to ask yourself what you might use as talisman to connect you to what they offer. What can you carry with you to help you stay in relationship with these helpers? Reminder: Sometimes our allies tell us and/or show us things we don’t want to see. (Shadow work anyone?). This does not mean they aren’t allies, it just means they might be able to help hold us as we navigate some of those less desirable aspects of self. Summer Solstice Celebration! I have shared with you all the Summer Solstice Free Planning pages. But did you know we also have crafted a 40+ page Summer Solstice Celebration guidebook? You can learn more about it and sign up for it HERE. Plus when you purchase the guidebook you have access to the Summer Solstice ritual I am co-hosting with Erin LaFaive of Full Circle Herbals. Grab the book and craft up your own practices and rituals, then join Erin and I to celebrate in our community!  Do you listen to the Witch Next Door podcast?
Have you ever thought you’d like to ask Veronica and I a question? Or chime in on one of our rambles? Now is your chance! This Friday June 10th at 9 am PT we will be together on a Facebook live, streaming onto the main business page and in the Facebook Group. If you haven’t yet liked the page of joined the group be sure to do one and set your notifications so you’ll know when we hop on. We will be chatting witchery and answering any questions you might have been carrying around. Looking forward to sharing this time with you! |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
September 2023
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