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I cried on my garage floor this morning
Only for a minute or two I was doing leg lifts and the tears accompanied by a few sobs just bubbled out One thing you may know about me is that connection to body is huge. It is the core part of my emotional and physical wellness to be able to move my body and the energy and emotion that lives inside. It is also one of the biggest ways I connect to my spirituality. When I fully inhabit my body intentionally energy flows, I feel more connected to my Self and to Source. The channels feel open. The last couple of months I have been very physically limited by an injury that turned into severe sciatica. My daily walks got way shorter, my workouts waned.. My sleep was interrupted by pain. Sitting required props to tolerate. The last couple of weeks have been the worst. I’ve dug up some old coping strategies, like overeating, overthinking, and distracting myself. And I’ve been feeling a little lost. Sure I’m getting the things done that need doing. Sure I’ve been practicing my Craft. But I haven’t quite been myself. Something has been missing. Today I woke up, the pain was hardly noticeable and knew I needed to move. So I put on my work out clothes, I turned on the Class (my workout of choice) and got moving. During meditations I often encourage people to find the stuck spots in their bodies and use their breath to unwind the stuckness. Sometimes this works for me, but sometimes I don’t even know I have a stuck spot until I move and stretch and then this heat and itchiness begin in an area and alert me to tension and the release. I found a few of these spots and as they came unstuck emotions rose with them. I was laughing and angry and joyful and eventually there were the tears. I went with it. I trust my body. When I listen it always tells me just what to do. We all come up against the edges of these stuck or lost places. Sometimes we feel fully submerged in them. Yet if we can listen hard enough our bodies can often guide us out. They can help us find our way back to flow. Our bodies are connected to the Earth, and in our Earth based practices our bodies are a powerful tool of connection. For me, self care is a sacred act, and movement and stillness and all that lie between those things are a crucial part of this practice. Have you been listening to or ignoring your body’s needs? How do you care for your Sacred Self? How do you nourish yourself? Tend to the vulnerable bits? How do you listen to your body? I’d like to invite you to join me for Self Care Saturday. This is a mini class being offered in collaboration with Erin LaFaive of Full Circle Herbals. We gather tomorrow Saturday, January 1 at 1pm PT for about 30 minutes. You can catch this FREE class via livestream in my Facebook group A little self care feels like an awfully good way to kick off the new year. If you want a little more, you can join my three day mini retreat. As soon as you sign up you will receive emails for three days that offer an intention, some ritual ideas, a suggestion for meditation or visualization and links to 20 min videos on the topic of the day. You can sign up for this HERE. And if you (like me) are feeling a deep need for some reconnection and nourishment to and for your Sacred Self, you are invited to a two day retreat hosted virtually in real time, January 14th and 15th. The details of this retreat including times and content can be found HERE Note that if you register before January 7th you get 30% off the registration. However you decide to do it, I hope you will take this time as we cross the threshold from the old calendar year into the new one, to honor your Sacred Self and nourish your body, mind and spirit. Gift yourself with some renewal and reconnection with magic as your guide. With Love and Blessings, Emily
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When I awoke yesterday I sat in the living room with a video fire on the TV listening to holiday songs and the crackling of the wood burning, enjoying the tree lit up with colored lights and I felt content. Not joyous, not excited, but instead this pleasant sense of contentment and presence. There was no hurry (family didn’t want to gather until after 9) it was still dark, I was warm and cozy and it made a space for my mind to wander and dream and remember. I recalled the story my Grandmother used to tell about a time when she was in her youth and one year at Christmas the children in her house received the gift of an orange. This was during or just after the Great Depression. This orange was a huge treat. Living in a coal mining town in the mountains of Utah, there were no oranges easily within reach. Yet here was this gift of sweetness and sunshine. Here was a gift that meant so much that my Grandmother told this story into her 90’s. You may or may not celebrate Christmas. And if you do you may or may not celebrate it as the birth of Jesus (Yes, Christians can be Witches too my friends). But regardless of what you celebrate this time of year you are likely not immune to the “Christmas” messaging that is everywhere! In this modern world of consumerism so often the simple joys of this season are lost. The preparing of traditional meals, (or perhaps the tradition of preparing something new), the connections with loved ones (in person or virtually), the care for community members who might need support during this colder darker time. The giving of oneself (in time or energy). During the dark and cold months of Winter we are invited to not only turn awareness within and reflect but also to lean in, to those around us. Discovering our edges in the way we bump up against theirs. There is so much that has changed and transformed from pre Christian times until now. Yet what has remained the same is the human connection we have. The coldness of Winter. The coming months that still hold the tendrils of darkness even as the Sun returns to its power. As we move into Winter our work is to nourish that flame within, and perhaps lend a little of its warmth to others who might need it. Lean in. Tending your Sacred Flame You are invited to feed your flame with a virtual retreat We gather Friday January 14th from 3:30 pm -5:30 PM PT and Saturday January 15th 9-12 am PT and 1-4 pm PT. Erin LaFaive of Full Circle Herbals and I are co hosting this two day event. Nourish Yourself Through the Darkness Together we will:
Early Bird Pricing is good through Jan 7th. This link should automatically give you 30% off the full price of the retreat. If for some reason the discount does not appear, use code SOLSTICE2021 at check out. Let us nourish ourselves through the darkness and build our inner fires. With Love and Blessings, Emily  You may have noticed the absence of an email your inbox this past Sunday. I am finding myself pulling my energy deeply inward as the season shifts from fall to winter and the holiday energy is increasing. This time of year I love to hunker down in cozy sweaters and blankets play some music and knit, or cook, or read. I adore the darkness and the quiet I associate with it. Each year I make something to gift to friends. This year I made some elderberry syrup, and with each stir imagined wellness and health and strength flowing into the mix. Kitchen Witchin in its simplest form. Yet the love and care put into each jar I filled felt energized and powerful. It is amazing what effect simple witchery practices can have on the world around us. How are you celebrating the Solstice? Today is the shortest day of 2021 and tomorrow the light begins to return to us. What lessons have you been learning in the darkness? What stories have been born here? Even as the light returns we begin a descent into Winter. The coldest months are ahead. How will you nourish your inner fire during this time? A simple practice- The evergreen holds the energy of growth and light throughout the year. Its cycles are more subtle than the trees that shed their leaves and leave themselves naked in the cold. Yet the evergreen too has its cycle. Bring evergreen indoors, notice how this energy makes you feel. Hold it. Smell it. Can you feel the energy? As you sit with this plant what thoughts, sensations and emotions arise? What message does this plant have for you? Keep an evergreen sprig on your altar through the Winter to keep you connected to the information it has to offer. The Cailleach In Celtic traditions/mythologies, the Calleach is the divine crone/hag often associated with the Winter. She is a powerful goddess who can change landscapes, crafting mountains and hills, herding deer, calling in and creating storms, and has a staff that freezes the ground. She rules through the Winter months and determines when she is ready to hand the crown over to the Summer Queen. This old woman of the Winter has many gifts for us. She knows the importance of the energies Winter brings. She holds the gifts of prophecy and vision that can be found in the dark of Winter. Although typically depicted as a destroyer goddess, her ability to craft mountains and lakes as well as her care for animals also bring her into light as a creatrix. During these cold days, how does the Calleach visit you? How can you work with her? What stories does she have to whisper to you by the fire? Nourish and Nurture The Diving Deeper membership closed last night at midnight. However my desire to go within my cozy solstice hut, kept me from sending out a reminder. As a result I am going to keep registration open until December 23rd at 9am PT. There are quite a few events happening still for the remainder of the year, including a prophecy class next week where we will work through 2022 with our Tarot and Oracle cards to discover what lies ahead. And on the Nourishment front… Save the Date for January 14th and 15th, when Erin LaFaive and I will be hosting a Winter Retreat, designed to help you care for your sacred self during these colder months. Details coming very soon. Until next week you wonderful witchy wise ones, may you find the light in the darkness, may your heart and hearth be alight with flame and however you are celebrating during this holiday season may you find moments of sacred peace and reflection. With Love and Blessings, Emily  Sometimes my past self has great ideas. Truth is, I often forget to say thank you. Back at the end of June I made a trek across the US and visited several friends. On one of her wanderings, my Summer Time Self picked up a bath bomb and some tea from a Witchy shop 3,000 miles from home. The tea has been sipped but that bath bomb has sat in a drawer in my bathroom for five months. Some of you may know that California has been in a severe drought. So for me, one of my favorite ways to re-set and renew has been off limits. No baths, only quick showers replete with a bucket to save the grey water in (waste not a drop). My Summer Time Self knew all about the drought. But she must have felt hopeful or a deep sense of longing that led her to purchase this spa like bath time treat. On Friday I discovered this bath bomb and decided it was time to get some water medicine. No, we are not out of the drought. But we have had some much needed rain. And all that fire that resides in my astrological chart was screaming for the solace that only water can provide. So I drew a bath. And as I slid into that water and began to unwrap that bath bomb the small handwritten label made me laugh outload. The name of said concoction? Winter Witch. Apparently my Past Summer Time Self had a plan. I took the most delicious bath, whispering to the ghosts of Summer and those of Fall, welcoming in my Winter Self until the water turned cold and it was time to let the pieces that were no longer serving circle down the drain. Why such a long story about a bath bomb? Because our past selves so often lay the ground work for our future selves. Sometimes this happens unexpectedly, sometimes it is just the way that life plays out. You might be thinking “Emily, of course what we do now paves the way to what happens next.” And you’re right. It does. But sometimes the synchronicities are profound. Sometimes our Past Self had an intuition whether we knew it at the time or not, and this created a new path, a new possibility that was going to be exactly what our future self needed. So after reading this story of bath bombs and time travel, I invite you t ask yourself what intuition your present self might be having about what your future self might need. This is after all the season of dreaming and prophecy. Spend some time with your present self. Get curious about what kind of paths and treasures your past self put into motion for you and dream of what your future self might desire, need or be grateful for. Time is a curious non linear journey that we as humans have laid out with a beginning middle and end. What happens when you allow all of your selves along this path to get together for a cup of tea? What might you learn about who you are, who you have been and who you will be? What kind of wild unbound dream might you imagine into being? During our last new moon ceremony, I invited people to write a letter to their future self. Something to be opened at a later date. Perhaps a year from now. Perhaps more. What do you have to say to your future self Wise One? What do you want them to remember? As autumn dies and winter nears, make some space to wonder. And perhaps leave a message for your future self. I bet they would love to hear from you. An invitation Most of you know that the Diving Deeper membership Circle is currently open for enrollment. This will stay open until the 20th and then the doors will close again until Spring. One of the many benefits of this Circle, are rituals that mark the turning of the year. (You can learn about all the benefits of membership HERE) Perhaps you are not yet ready to step into this circle. Perhaps you are curious about what rituals might look like. Winter Solstice is just over a week away and Erin La Faive and I have crafted a Winter Solstice ceremony together to share with our communities. We are extending this invitation to you. This is the first time we have collaborated on a ceremony and it is going to be an amazing magical get together. When you register for the ceremony you will receive all the information you need to prepare for our time together including an invitation to infuse your own magic into the heart of the ritual. We gather December 19th at 11 am PT. During the season of long nights and cold weather. As we dream and imagine, I look forward to sharing sacred space with you. With Love and Blessings, Emily PS Did you get your Winter Solstice Celebration mini guidebook? It’s a free treat Erin and I co created to get you thinking about and connecting to the energy of the Winter season.  The weather has shifted here in Sonoma County. After some sunny warm days that confused some trees and bulbs into blooming, the temperatures have dropped and a heavy blanket of fog has been rolling in almost daily. My body is shifting into stillness. I find my dreams continuing to deepen and my desire to sleep past my 4:30 alarm each morning following suit. I’m using this shift to practice being more gentle with my often driven self. Taking time for a few extra minutes of quiet gazing at the holiday lights in my living room before reading the newspaper and checking emails. Taking extra care in the shower by using salt scrubs and warm scented soaps. This weekend I participated in a class where we used memory and season to craft a 65 card Oracle deck (thank you Danielle Dulsky for this brilliant class!) It was a powerful reminder of the sacredness of prophecy and divination during this shift into winter. As the earth around us slows and the night’s lengthen, we are invited to dive deeper into our intuition, our visioning and our dreaming. How are you nourishing these things, Wise One? Are you slowing down? Listening? Asking the questions that you long to know the answers to? If you haven’t already, be sure to hop over and sign up for the Free Winter Solstice Mini Guidebook. Inside you will find a Tarot spread for the Solstice that is a great launching point for exploring the themes of this moment. If you find you want a little more (more reflection, more ideas for celebrating and some recipes too, you will notice links in the guidebook that offer you the chance to purchase the 40 page full guidebook. This project is a collaboration between Full Circle Herbals and Wise Woman Witchery and is loaded with ways to help you connect more deeply to this time of year and plan your own Winter Solstice Celebrations. And, if you are wanting to join in community ritual for the Winter Solstice, you can gather with Erin and I on December 19th as we co-create ceremony for this holiday and season.  I’ve been seeing some variations on this question popping up all over the interwebs these last few weeks. Alternatively I have also seen “Is it ok to celebrate Yule, Winter Solstice and Christmas?” What do you think Wise Ones? Sometimes when we find our way to a magical path, when we find our home in the title of Witch or Pagan, the transition from what we have done and known before to what we are discovering, can bring up questions. It can bring up confusion. Sometimes even when we have been practicing for a time we can find ourselves wondering “Am I doing this right?”. This might be particularly true if you are practicing alone or only getting information about your craft from one or two sources. The truth is your path is your own. I celebrate Christmas and Solstice and I find Christmas very magical indeed. Not because I celebrate it from a Christian viewpoint, but because there is so much lore and mystery involved in the Christmas holiday. Santa, flying reindeer, magically appearing gifts, elves....I mean this holiday is loaded with magic. Plus many of these traditions have their origins in lore that predates Christianity and comes from a variety of different cultures. I’ll be honest friends, the more I learn about anything, the less I know. Every time I learn something new it opens the door to a whole world I hadn’t yet considered or understood. When we move through the world (and our practices) with a beginners mindset, we find a rich tapestry of wisdom unfolding before us. I have cast a circle thousands of times, yet I am still learning new ways to do this every time I participate in a new ritual or gather with a new group or take a new class. When we think we have nothing left to learn our paths become dead ends and we become stagnant in our magic. So yes, Wise Ones’ you can celebrate Christmas and Yule and Solstice too! Stay open. Learn the origins, learn the lore. Notice what pieces of the holiday(s) stand out to you. Discover why. Dig deeper. Be open. Be present with your experience. The richness of winter has so much to offer! A Gift for You! The last couple of years I have offered our community a magical daily calendar for the month of December. This calendar offers you a small practice to do each day, to help cultivate magic in your day to day life. It ties into the season and the lunar cycles and invites you to gift yourself with a little sparkle and reflection each day as we countdown to the end of the calendar year. You can get your Calendar for this year HERE I’ll be including posts to correspond with these activities each day in our Facebook group. You can follow along and share your journey by joining the group HERE Upcoming Winter Solstice Planning Pages and Ritual… I have been working on an amazing collaboration with my friend Erin LaFaive of Full Circle Herbals. We have crafted some Winter Solstice planning pages for you! These will be available very very soon, so keep your eyes on your inbox as I’ll be sending you the link to get them in the next couple of days. We will also be co-hosting and co-facilitating a Winter Solstice ritual. Details for this are also coming very soon!  This morning I woke up with a noisy brain. A project I'm co-creating required tending and instead of sleeping a little longer the excitement of getting my fingers on the keyboard lured me from warmth into the predawn. As I finished my part in the magical collaboration, I felt accomplished. Content. Satisfied. A couple hours later I was in a shame spiral. A well meaning friend made a simple comment. One that sent my ego into self comparison. Self judgement. One that made me want to crawl back in bed and perhaps never get out. Imposter syndrome was in full effect. And that's it. It happens that fast. One minute, content and accomplished, and the next feeling sick, and certain that it is only a matter of time before I am discovered to be a fraud. Or maybe it has already happened. I tried to talk it out. I tried to use music to shift that contraction in my belly I even took a shower and visualized washing it away But none of it worked. I was convinced I was the least magical, capable, wise human on the planet. Do you know that feeling Wise One? The one that whispers "You're not good enough" or "You're doing it wrong"? These simple and untrue statements have so much power. Sometimes. So when my strategies for crawling out of my shame spiraling imposter syndrome failed, I tried something else. I stepped away from my computer. I crossed the threshold from inside to out, and let the earth soothe me. Escaping to a sacred space here in Sonoma County, where the fossils of now extinct redwoods lie in repose, the story that nursed my imposter syndrome into being was silenced. Where new growth sprouts from the remains of trees covered in ash 3.4 million years ago, my magic began to stir. The song of the wind through leaves and needles and the voices of birds, the smell of drying but still damp earth, the feel of soil and sand, roots and rocks and volcanic ash now stone, echoing up through the soles of my shoes landed me back in the moment. Back in my Self. Reminding me of the energy that is magic, coursing through the natural world. Coursing through me. In my childhood home, Desiderata hung on my bathroom wall. Today I was reminded of several of the poignant and powerful lines in that piece of writing. Today, I want to share these with you. " If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." and "Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should" (If you are not familiar with Desiderata, you can read the full text HERE) Wise Ones, today I invite you to find something that reminds you of the magic that resides within and the connection that you have to Source. And when you do, be with it for awhile.  |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
August 2024
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