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However you are celebrating this day, may you discover many treats and may the tricks be playful.
May your connection through the veil be strong, your messages clear and your heart full. If you haven’t yet checked out the community Samhain ritual I hosted yesterday, you can view the replay here In this hour long ritual you will be guided on a journey to connect with those that have come before. Grab your journal and settle in for this excursion to Summerland. And if you are wanting to connect even more deeply with your ancestors, my class Ancestor Wisdom offers an additional journey and exercises to help you access the insight of these wise ones.
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This week on the Witch Next Door podcast, I chat with My Tarot Lady Christine Michele about a couple of her Spirit Encounters. This is part two of our ghost story episodes. I dropped this episode today a day earlier than usual to give you plenty of time to listen before Halloween next week. Enjoy! And remember to keep an eye on your inbox over the next few days. You will be receiving emails with suggestions for connecting with your ancestors during this time where the veils are thin.  This time of year we talk about the thinning of the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead. We are moving ever closer to Samhain, the celebration of the final harvest, the welcoming of the darkness and the day when these veils are at their thinnest. This is an overlapping of worlds. Historically this was when animals were butchered and final crops were pulled in the push to prepare before Winter arrives. The leaves are falling and the days are shortening.This is a time to leave offerings and tokens of remembrance for those that have come before. A time to remember and honor our ancestors, known and unknown and for our beloved dead. In the liminal there is wisdom. In the coming days I will be sharing with you several emails that offer ideas and exercises for connecting with your ancestors. If you have been on my email list for a while you may recall receiving these emails last year. These offerings can be explored again and again and you will most likely find that you will have a different experience each time. Starting Tuesday you will receive an email each day for four days with these offerings inside. In addition I am opening up the Samhain ritual I host for the Diving Deeper Membership Circle to all of you. This is scheduled for Sunday October 30th at 11 am PT. I’ll send you the link and reminders as we get closer.  ’ve always been deeply curious about the spirit world. When I was small I believed Casper the friendly ghost lived in my closet and I have devoured ghost stories and lore since I was old enough to read. During this season when the veils thin between the worlds, you might find yourself a little more connected to the spirit world. And with the general spookiness of the October vibe I wanted to share some ghost stories with you all. This week on the Witch Next Door podcast, we step into the spirit world with some ghost encounters from our listeners. Listen In! Grief, my Companion My Dad died just over 11 years ago. There were losses before and have been significant losses since, however, that loss was one of the most profound and painful. Even now 11 years later there are moments I where I walk into the grief of losing my Dad, often seemingly out of nowhere. These might bring a few tears and that familiar hollow feeling in my belly, or the moment might bring me to my knees with the same velocity of fresh grief. You see grief never goes away. It gets integrated into who we are and it comes out to visit from time to time. When my Dad died a friend came to my house in the days following and guided me to create an altar for him in my kitchen. That altar has morphed over time and now holds more than just my Dad ‘s photo. It is a place where we honor and connect with our beloved dead. It is a place where I go to be with my grief. Our grief is precious. No matter what we are grieving or the time that has passed since a loss occurred, our grief remains sacred. This Saturday, October 22nd, I am co-hosting the Leaves of Grief-a ritual, with my friend and fellow Witch Irisanya Moon. We are creating a sacred space to bring your grief, to name it, to work with it and to share it if you so choose. If this speaks to you, you can register here  I am both wanting to ride the momentum and high of a successful conference and go full Hermit to recharge.
Create vs Integrate Stillness vs Motion In the push and the pull I find the freeze. Do you know the one I’m talking about? It is not intentional stillness, not that delicious place where integration and absorption can arrive, but the frozen, stuck kind of feeling where nothing moves. What do you do when you can’t talk yourself out of the freeze? I move my body. Coming back to the need of my muscle and bone, to unwind, release. Most of the time this requires some coaxing. A rhythm, a drum beat embedded in song. Unlocking the freeze with sensation. Simple Practice Choose three songs. One that slowly awakens you, one that invites big movements and one that slows you down again. Play them in succession This week I gathered paper and markers, thumbtacks and gourds and met up with Irisanya Moon, at a local cafe where we created a Community Altar of Remembrance. We hung lights and clips and left paper and pens for people to share the names of their beloved dead, or leave pictures or write a memory. We decorated with tiny mirrors and the fruits of the season and scrawled the names of our own dead hanging them by tiny hooks as an invitation. This simple yet sweet practice is an invocation to memory, to spirits, to our grief. It is a reminder of the sacredness of life and the endlessness of love. During this Samhain season we remember in community. And cast this net wide, so that we need not be alone in our grief. So that we can remember together, and in the togetherness feel the preciousness of the love and the grief, for these two are nothing if not deeply intertwined. You are invited to share in remembering during the Leaves of Grief-a ritual. We will come together in a virtual circle to step into a ritual of acknowledging, remembering, honoring. We will make space for the griefs we carry, whatever they may be. Step from the mundane into the magical and into the sacredness of your grief. With so much love, Emily 10/10/22 Healer, Priestess, Witch I saw these words at the top of my friend Erin LaFaive’s Facebook post yesterday and actually got chills. Say them to yourself. Say them aloud. How do you feel when you hear these words? How do they taste on your tongue? There is power in naming And power in claiming. What are your gifts, Wise One? In our Full Moon ritual yesterday we laid our gifts out under the energy of that abundant lunar light and really looked at them. When was the last time you truly took inventory of all the unique beauty you bring into the world? After two days immersed in the gifts of magic that were at the heart of the Season of the Witch Conference, I am buzzing with all these energies. I am feeling deeply inspired, moved, humbled and transformed, by the work that was done and the invitations that were set forth. I am also reminded of the power we each carry in the belly of Self and the way we can weave amazing things together when we tap in. Do you ever know something, and then have an experience and you “know” it on a whole new level? That’s me today. Just integrating this knowing. I invite you to take some time to let this waning full moon energy illuminate your gifts. Explore those corners in your inner realms and dust off the pieces of Self you might have forgotten about or tucked away. Take inventory. Then give your gifts a name and claim them with an open heart. Simple Practice Journal and or card pull prompts
The Thinning Veil Yesterday I was recording the Witch Next Door with Veronica and we were talking about mediumship and both of us were tapping into our grief. Grief is accessible any time, yet somehow for me when the veil is thinner it feels so much closer to the surface. Do you have this experience? With the dying away of the growing season, the falling of leaves, the decay of windfalls, there is a sense of loss, of ending and this makes it so much easier (I believe) to feel into edges of our grief and sadness. Grief is something that can bring an awkwardness or avoidance with it. But I want to remind you that grief is sacred. Whether you are grieving the loss of a human, a beloved pet, a tree, a relationship or an expectation, feeling into and honoring our grief is a profound and often transformative experience. On October 22nd at 4 pm, Irisanya Moon and I are hosting “The Leaves on Grief” a Zoom based ritual where we will bring our grief into sacred space and make room for it, tend it and if you choose be witnessed in it. You can register here As we deepen into the Season, I am sending you blessings for riding the winds of change. I saw these words at the top of my friend Erin LaFaive’s Facebook post yesterday and actually got chills. Say them to yourself. Say them aloud. How do you feel when you hear these words? How do they taste on your tongue? There is power in naming And power in claiming. What are your gifts, Wise One? In our Full Moon ritual yesterday we laid our gifts out under the energy of that abundant lunar light and really looked at them. When was the last time you truly took inventory of all the unique beauty you bring into the world? After two days immersed in the gifts of magic that were at the heart of the Season of the Witch Conference, I am buzzing with all these energies. I am feeling deeply inspired, moved, humbled and transformed, by the work that was done and the invitations that were set forth. I am also reminded of the power we each carry in the belly of Self and the way we can weave amazing things together when we tap in. Do you ever know something, and then have an experience and you “know” it on a whole new level? That’s me today. Just integrating this knowing. I invite you to take some time to let this waning full moon energy illuminate your gifts. Explore those corners in your inner realms and dust off the pieces of Self you might have forgotten about or tucked away. Take inventory. Then give your gifts a name and claim them with an open heart. Simple Practice Journal and or card pull prompts
The Thinning Veil Yesterday I was recording the Witch Next Door with Veronica and we were talking about mediumship and both of us were tapping into our grief. Grief is accessible any time, yet somehow for me when the veil is thinner it feels so much closer to the surface. Do you have this experience? With the dying away of the growing season, the falling of leaves, the decay of windfalls, there is a sense of loss, of ending and this makes it so much easier (I believe) to feel into edges of our grief and sadness. Grief is something that can bring an awkwardness or avoidance with it. But I want to remind you that grief is sacred. Whether you are grieving the loss of a human, a beloved pet, a tree, a relationship or an expectation, feeling into and honoring our grief is a profound and often transformative experience. On October 22nd at 4 pm, Irisanya Moon and I are hosting “The Leaves on Grief” a Zoom based ritual where we will bring our grief into sacred space and make room for it, tend it and if you choose be witnessed in it. You can register here As we deepen into the Season, I am sending you blessings for riding the winds of change.  At this point in the fall season, we begin to see the sights and sounds of Halloween appear around us. Pumpkins and Skeletons are popping up on lawns and doorsteps. This season is so often associated with Witches and perhaps its because of the spooky nature of the season and the spooky associations often made with witches or perhaps it is simply that as we move toward Halloween we also feel the mysterious nature of the season emerge and witches often hold an allure of mystery too. Does the word turn you off? Repel you? Confuse you? Excite you? Awaken you? I ask you again, Wise One, what do you feel when you hear the word Witch? The thing is, “Witch” is loaded. It has been tossed around as a slur. Women (and men) have lost their lives over accusations of being a “Witch”. The word itself can conjure images of green faced, wart covered cackling hags or women in the woods luring children into their homes in order to cook and eat them. We may think of Witches as women casting hexes or curses. Or we may think of them riding off on their broomsticks or cavorting with the Devil. Yet, Witch has also been reclaimed by many women and men to reflect their following of Earth based spirituality. Wicca and Wiccan practitioners often use this word to describe themselves. But not all Witches are Wiccan. And I have yet to meet a Witch who worships the Devil or eats children. Of course, there are light and shadow sides to every word, every belief system and to humankind in general. We all hold shadow and light. I will spare you the long historical story of the Witch word. If you are interested in learning about this there are a myriad of books on the topic. Today I want to share with you my identification with the word Witch and how this connects to my spiritual practices and most importantly to the work I am doing at Wise Woman Witchery. First of all, I am not Wiccan. I practice some things that are found in the Wiccan belief system, but this is not how I identify my path. My spiritual practice has been formed over time through experiencing many different earth based practices and different takes on some of the same practices. When I hear the word Witch, my associations are naked feet on the earth, herbs and herbal medicine, living in rhythm with the cycles of nature (for me part of this is following the Wheel of the Year), using the tools of divination as a way to tap more deeply into one’s intuition and the messages of Spirit/Source, and tuning into and honoring the energies of all things (including place, stones, foliage, animals, people and spirits/guides). The Witch path for me is so embedded in my day to day that making Magic in my life can be as simple as stirring love into the food I’m cooking, calling a friend or loved one when they randomly pop into my mind, lighting a candle and saying an intention or a prayer, or anointing myself with oil and an intention as I prepare to move through my day. It is also gratitude for all things.(I am well known for talking to and thanking animals, trees, rocks and plants aloud and sometimes in public). When I make tea or medicine from plants I am making magic (this is a callback to my many potions I created as a child). When I clear space or energy, meditate for calm or for information, connect to my Helping Spirits and Wise Beings, do a tarot or oracle reading or hold a crystal or stone to share in its energy, I am practicing Magic. And when I am whispering a prayer, lighting a candle, taking an intentionally deep breath to clear my own tension or anxiety, choosing my Wonder Woman underwear or bright red lipstick for an extra energy or confidence boost, I am also creating Magic. This Magic lives in me (and you!) every single day. I choose to bring it to the surface in my daily activities and actions (to be honest, I’ve done this for so long now I can’t imagine living a non-magical life), and it is this Magic that for me I equate with being a Witch. When I state that I am a Witch, I feel the Magic that lives in me and in every being and I feel empowered by the connection this energy creates. All that being said, this might not be the right word for you. Even as new women have come into my women’s circle, (a place where we cast a circle and do ritual on a weekly basis) some have struggled with the word Witch. (Remember how I said it is a loaded word?). I have had family members be concerned, confused and even put off by my use of the word (You should have seen me trying to explain Witch Camp at a family gathering). I believe our spiritual paths are ours. It is important to take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. I trust that this is how we create and nurture our own Magic and empowerment. If Witch doesn’t fit, don’t claim it. You may resonate with all the practices and information I share and yet not consider it magic or not resonate with the word Witch. In fact that word may be very uncomfortable for you. That’s ok. You get to decide what sits right for you. You get to claim the words and practices that nurture your Spiritual and Sacred Self. And I want to support you in this! Regardless of your own relationship with the word Witch, something has drawn you to this community . Whether you embrace that word, or instead relate more to the idea of paganism or earth based spiritual practices, you have found your way here. Perhaps you identify as a Witch and perhaps you don’t, either way Wise One there is magic inside of you and I am grateful you are here because I want to support you in embracing it! In just two days I am gathering with 9 other Wise Witchy Humans to share with you our magic and invite you step more fully into yours. If you have ever been curious about the divination tools of Tarot and Runes, we have you covered. Want to learn how to bring essential oils into your magical practice? We have a class for that too. Perhaps herbal potions speak to you. We will be learning about ways to play with our plant allies and craft up some magic. Or maybe you are curious about deepening your own inner power and perhaps even connecting with Spirit and those that have come before. We will be exploring both of these practices. And maybe Samhain and the thinning veils are what call to you Wise One. During our time together we will be exploring ways to heal our ancestral story. The 3rd Annual Season of the Witch Conference is full of magical tools for your toolbox and absolutely loaded with wisdom for you to add to your own practice. (We also have some really stellar giveaways from our presenters) See you in the Circle.  Hello Wise Ones, I am a witch throughout every season, yet somehow when autumn arrives I feel like I’ve come home both in my body and in my spiritual practice. There is something about this invitation inward that Fall provides that creates a deepening of my own connection to Source. I find myself feeling more reflective, listening and recording my dreams more regularly, pausing in the wild rhythm of my days to gaze out the window or step outside. My dreams are in fact more vivid and my inner knowing seems to be reaching into the subterranean realms of consciousness with much more ease. This is the time of year when the veils between the worlds are said to be thinning and spirits can pass into our world with more ease. So too can our minds and energies wander to the other realms. Are you noticing more connection to these places in yourself? Have you had visits or messages from those now gone? Each year in October we spruce up our ancestor altar and make sure to add any beloved dead who might not yet be represented. We light candles and leave flowers and acorns out as offerings. Do you have an ancestor altar? This is a simple, yet powerful practice that not only honors those that have come before but also makes space to honor and remember those who are our chosen ancestors, the dear friends and cherished animal companions who have crossed over. Crafting your altar is as easy as placing pictures or treasured mementos or even written memories of your beloved dead on an altar space. What is remembered lives. There has been a massive amount of loss in the last 2 and a half years. Creating an altar to honor your beloved dead and ancestors can also create a place to honor and tend to your sacred grief. It can give you a place where your feelings can flow. I invite you to take this darkening time to not only reflect and connect with yourself and your own inner wisdom but also to honor and remember those who came before.  |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
August 2024
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