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This week on the Witch Next Door podcast we are back to exploring magical tools! Ritual knives have been used throughout history, however they have shown up in witchcraft practice more recently with the name Athame. Learn the origins and listen in as Veronica wields her own athame during our chat.
The Witch Next Door can be found here and on all your favorite streaming platforms. Spring is almost here! Next Monday marks the Equinox, that point of balance between Solstices, where day and night take up equal space just before the sun takes over for the next 6 months. You may recall Erin Lafaive and I created a celebrating the seasons guidebook for the Solstices and Equinoxes. This guidebook is full of suggestions for reflections, recipes, rituals, divination and more. You can now get this guidebook in one of two ways-digitally you may access the Spring Equinox on its own. This also includes a recording of a Spring equinox ritual hosted by both Erin and I. Or, if you are a hard copy kind of person, you can get the printed guidebook that includes all four books in one. You can order either one of these books here. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the printed version) Dust off those Tarot decks, crack those journals and make sure your pen is full of ink! We’ve got some magical writing to do. This Saturday March 18th at 9:30 am PT, Once Upon a Time… the Tarot guided writing workshop is happening live! If you haven’t yet registered there is still time. We will use our lifetime and year cards, writing prompts and additional card pulls to inspire our storytelling. Register Here Early Bird pricing is about to end for the Cauldron of Wisdom 3! Get 20% when you register before midnight Saturday. We have 10 workshops over two days, a little ritual a round table chat with our presenters and of course giveaways too! See you round the Cauldron April 14th and 15th.
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Wise Ones, is the month of March roaring its way toward Spring where you live or are you still feeling the claws of Winter? We have been in a lion of a month, with so much rain (and snow at higher elevations). The water is a welcome for our parched soil and diminishing reservoirs, yet I find I am beginning to feel a bit soggy. The weather has kept me in a bit more which has led to house and creative projects unfurling all around me. Friday I taught a class about plant spirits and this morning as I was dancing with the muse, I was pondering magical herbs and wondering about the spices we have in our kitchen. These two endeavors sent me down a rabbit hole of rediscovery about the magic of everyday culinary spices. As you must know by now, I am all about everyday practical magic, and this can often mean using what you have on hand. So before you make a special order or pop out to the market to get the herb you need for your next spell, perhaps take a moment to see if you have a substitute already in your kitchen Here are a few discoveries I’d like to share with you: Thyme-courage, protection and even fairy communication Rosemary-energizing, good for memory, also great for clearing Cinnamon-protection, money, success (also good for speeding up spells) Anise-Calm, luck, psychic awareness Oregano- courage justice, luck Culinary Sage-wisdom, grounding and clarity Bay Leaves- wishes, protection during travel, success, healing And these are just a handful of the herbs many of us have in the cupboard. So as you craft and cast your spells and rituals remember that you likely have all you need at your fingertips! Super Simple Spell for wishing/manifesting- Take a Bay Leaf and write what you are wishing for on it. Burn the leaf and cast the ashes to the wind. Are you ready to write? Once Upon a Time… is less than a week away, This 2 hour workshop combines your lifetime and year cards with writing prompts and additional card pulls to inspire and guide you into telling the story of you in this moment. We gather Saturday, March 18th at 9:30 am PT. At the end of our writing time I will hold space for an additional half an hour for anyone who might like to share a piece of what they have written (this is totally optional). Register Here! The Cauldron is bubbling! Have you attended one of Wise Woman Witchery’s conferences before? If you have it is likely you have already signed up for this next one. If you haven’t, I promise you, you don’t want to miss this! We’ve got two full days of magical workshops, (10 in total), giveaways, a little bit of ritual and an after hours round table chat with our presenters all wrapped up in the circle of our witchy community. I love these events and I know you will too! It’s truly a time to celebrate your magic, explore new practices, enhance old ones and maybe even make some new friends. You can take advantage of early bird pricing when you register before Saturday March 18th. Let’s make some magic!  Whether its the coziness of my bed on these extra cold nights, the new moon, or just the creativity that has been cranked up a notch, I’m unsure.
But what I know is true is that I am finding my dreams creeping into my waking reality and bringing up questions and imaginings and wonderings too! Although we are moving into longer days and shorter nights, we are still in Winter and the season of deeper sleep. This invokes that sense of journeying deeper into the dream and “other” realms. Have you ever posed a question to your dream self and slept on it (literally, with the question under your pillow) to see what would come? If not, it is a fun exercise and one that can be repeated with the same question several nights in a row for a little added bit of information and perspective. The tricky thing about working with dreams is that they offer an abundance of information but we don’t always know the best way to interpret it. “But I don’t remember my dreams…” you may not remember your dreams upon waking, or you may only recall a snippet of one and without a context, or perhaps you just find yourself at a loss for meaning. I want to encourage you to start a dream journal, or perhaps just a morning journal if you can’t recall images or feelings from your sleep journey. The more you take the time to connect with your dreams the clearer they become. And if you aren’t connecting with your dreams because you find it challenging to recall them, a morning journal will allow you to tap into that between worlds just awakened state of mind which is often rich with messages. Some people have experienced what they call visitations in their dream state, often from those that have passed away, or from guides. Other have had premonitory dreams where what they dream happens in the waking world in the future. Have images you just can’t quite figure out? People or places or beings that don’t seem to translate. Try writing from the perspective of that being or place. For example, the other night I dreamed of being on a ferry boat and the water felt vast all around. The images have lingered over the last week and to discover more about the dream I wrote in the voice of the water and then the ferry too. This is just one way to work with your dreamscape and the rich information that resides there. It is also a way to play with your creativity, your intuition and story telling. It’s true that sometimes our dreams are just a way of processing our day, or our feelings, but sometimes they offer insight and wisdom we might not have accessed otherwise. Sometimes our dreams truly are Magic! Once Upon a Time… When we set aside our logic and let our creativity flow, we discover new angles and edges of our Selves. We might find the answer to a question we have, or insight into our Shadow, or we might just have fun! Once Upon a Time is a 2 hour workshop that utilizes your lifetime card, your year card, a series of additional Tarot card draws and writing prompts to create a story of YOU in this moment. This class is a little playful and often insightful for participants. It also offers you an opportunity to explore your work with Tarot in a new way. We gather Saturday March 18th at 9:30 am PT to embark on this journey. Register Here. Outdoor Summer Retreat Have you been dreaming of the warmer days and magical nights of Summer? Does the idea of gathering with other Witches in ceremony, and around the fire in storytelling make your heart beat just a little bit faster? The Wise Woman Witchery Outdoor Summer Retreat is scheduled for June 25th-27th. Together we will co-create sacred space, delve into ceremony, connect with the spirits of the land, cast spells and bask in our magic. You can find all the details here And every story shifts and changes as we move through our lives. One of my passions is creative writing. I have written poetry, short stories, plays, a very cringy vampire novel and have filled stacks of journals, matchbooks, and receipts with ideas and story for most of my life. It is also one of the things I drop when practical writing (in college it was papers in my career it is client records) takes the forefront. One of the things I love about Wise Woman Witchery is that it keeps me writing. Each time I sit down and write you an email, or create curriculum, I get to write. As a result I have notebooks and word files with thousands upon thousands of words and ideas and outlines, littering my bookshelves and desk drawers. Sometime near the end of last year arrows started pointing me back to my writing. Early this year I had a reading with a psychic medium (shout out to Sara Carlson), that was very clear about the fact that I am to be writing. So I made a commitment to myself to bring writing back into focus. I’ve signed up for creative writing classes, dusted off a couple of story ideas and gotten to work. Yesterday during an astrology reading (thank you Christine Michele @ My Tarot Lady) this focus was once more reaffirmed (along with the purpose of Wise Woman Witchery (to empower women) and my purpose within it to bring people and their gifts together)). So today with this re-affirmation at the forefront I am inviting you to bring your writing gifts and join me in a circle. Last year I created a 2 hour writing and Tarot class called Once Upon a Time. This class uses writing prompts coupled with Tarot cards to guide you into the telling of your story. It also includes your lifetime card and year card to bring extra personalization to your story. The class is mostly writing with an additional 30 min at the end for anyone interested in sharing their writing. It was a really enlightening opportunity to explore some inner realms, intuition and creativity and we are going to dive back into all of it! I am offering Once Upon a Time live on Saturday March 18th at 9:30 am PT. If you can’t make the livestream, the class will be recorded for you to come back to. If you registered for this class with me last year you are welcome to join us using the link in the course site. Grab your notebook, your cards, your favorite pen and register!  On Sunday I walked a trail with the Ocean waves pounding a rhythm to my right unseen behind the dunes and a road to my left, hidden behind the cover of trees. It was such a liminal space between the vast ocean and pavement of humanity.
As my Dog led me along and my husband followed close behind, I ducked under a Cypress branch and heavy wings pounded inches above my head. When I looked up, a turkey vulture had just taken flight. So close I could reach up and touch it. Two others followed. I paused, breath taken at the sight of being so close to such massive wings. The turkey vulture is such a powerful animal. It thrives on death and in doing so keeps the living safe. It lives in the in between tending to dying while living and tending to the living through consuming the dead. The timing of this encounter was so perfect I actually laughed aloud. I have been hanging in the liminal of late. I am newly perimenopausal and through a brief but necessary hormonal ingestion, I have been completely out of sorts. In the past few weeks I kept finding myself wondering where all my magic had gone. The sparkle and flow were fleeting or void like, my thoughts were cloudy, my dreams were loud yet offered me no clear insight instead leaving me awakening in the morning with a deep longing for someone I used to be. It’s been a ride my friends. Yet the arrival of Turkey Vulture and their timing with the ending of the medication, felt like a stunning reminder that I am a bridge between worlds. That we all are. Sometimes we walk in the light and sometimes in the dark. Sometimes we wander while straddling the two. But there is passage between worlds. We banned not be stuck in one place or the other. It can feel sometimes like darkness is surrounding us and the light will never arrive. Yet the truth is the light is there parallelling us at all times we just have to find the access point. It is not always as straightforward as a chemical shift. Sometimes we need help, allies. Sometimes we need Turkey Vultures to take flight above our heads and sometimes we just need a friend to hold our hand or make us a cup of tea. The day after this encounter, I was directed into the realm of the Fae by a very wise tarot deck and guided to reconnect with some old fairy allies that I’ve been out of touch with for way too long. With my renewed faith, the beginning of Spring and some Fairy Folk guiding the way, I’m feeling pretty certain things are looking up! Questions to ponder: How do you bridge worlds? Is the liminal a comfortable place for you to reside? How do you find guidance in the dark places? Who are your allies? This celebration marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.
It is a time for celebrating the coming Spring, for preparing homes and (where possible), garden beds and fields. Imbolc or Imbolg means “the belly”. This is the belly of Winter to be certain but it is also the belly of fertility, as animals begin to mate and some to birth. Weather witching also arrives with Imbolc. Remember our friend the Groundhog? It is said that if he pokes his head out on the 2nd of February and sees his shadow, 6 more weeks of foul Winter weather are to come, while if the sky is grey, and his shadow is in hiding, then these last 6 weeks of Winter will be mild. A similar story of weather divination lies with the Winter Hag, the Callieach, who goes to gather her firewood at Imbolc and if the day is fine and fair, she finds herself able to gather lots of wood which suggests the remainder of Winter will be fierce, while if the day is dark and dreary and only a bit of wood is found, the Spring will emerge sooner. It is likely you also have heard that Imbolc is the goddess Brigid’s day. She is a goddess of fire and water, of forge and healing, of creativity and poetry. This day was a day to celebrate and honor her and ask for her blessings. If you want to read a bit more about Imbolc and get some ideas for celebrating you can cheek out my blog from Imbolc 2020 And if you would like to meet Brigid at her sacred well, you can listen to a meditation on the Witch Next Door podcast here Speaking of the Witch Next Door… This weeks episode takes us to Iceland, where we discover the way witchcraft appears there both historically and in present day. Listen in! Happy Imbolc Wise Ones! If I’m honest, mine are not great.
When I wake up in the morning, (usually at 4am), I often beat my alarm and I never hit snooze. If I try to sleep in (or lie there for a bit), I get fidgety and am soon asked by my husband to get up (he is very good at sleeping in) as apparently my fidgeting keeps him from his rest. Even when I have a staycation I struggle to rest when I can see all the projects needing to be done. In fact in order to truly rest I often have to get away. Whether it is camping, or visiting an out of town friend or even vacationing, rest comes easier when I am away from the reminders of my responsibilities. The thing is, rest is critical. We must have space and time to dream, to vision, to make magic. The muse needs some room to dance and your guides and allies often need some quiet to get their message through. So sometimes rest has to be forced, and sometimes rest arrives in a different form. This weekend I have rested a bit, but I have also played. I have taken time for a silly outdoor adventure scavenger hunt of sorts, I spent time wandering about my yard and pruning (this is always soothing to me for some reason), I watched some fun TV (Lockwood and Co. anyone?) and I took time to read a book while my car was washed and detailed (it was real dirty!). And you know what? I feel rested. My brain got a moment to stop with the hyper focus, task oriented fire it is so often churning out, and I had some lovely moments of creative ideas, of complete and total presence, and of relaxation. Sometimes rest is the simple act of changing the scenery and doing something different. How are you calling rest in Wise One? As Imbolc nears and the halfway point of Winter is nigh, are your bones getting the recharge they need? If not, how might you do one thing just a little different to bring yourself some down time? Magic needs space to grow. Give yourself some. Mini Retreat This coming Friday-Sun, Feb 3-5th, join me for a three day mini retreat. You will receive an email each day, inviting you to do some simple tasks and rituals with the intention of tending to your Sacred Self. I will be going live each day to offer support and some additional goodness to your experience. There is nothing for you to do to sign up. You’ll get to participate simply for being on the email list. Let’s take some time to Love Ourselves! Summer Retreat I am offering an outdoor Summer Retreat here in Sonoma County California. This is an in person experience where we will gather at a local campground under the Oaks and Bay trees, create ritual, work with our intuition, connect with this sacred land and each other and make all kinds of magic! Sunday June 15th- Tuesday June 27th. You can read all the details here. Diving Deeper Membership Circle is Open! The membership circle is open for registration. Together we work with the energies of the lunar cycle and the seasons through twice monthly lunar ceremonies and wheel of the year rituals. There are also seasonal astrology and plant classes. You receive access to a massive archive of classes, workshops meditations and some rituals. You can opt in for inspirational text messages (in USA only at this time) Receive deep discounts on conferences, workshops and retreats (the next conference is in April!) And get a calendar each month that offers suggestions for exploring the archives and joining live ceremonies. Hope to see you in the Circle! We are ever changing beings. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes circumstantially, yet always there is a metamorphosis occurring. This might be a physical change, it might be emotional or spiritual, yet somewhere within us a shift happens. Even when we feel stuck. Yes, that’s right, even when we feel stuck in our patterns, or situation, there is subtle (and sometimes not so subtly we are in the process of fluctuation. This weekend as one of the current cohorts of the Priestess Path stepped across the threshold of their initiation ceremony, I was struck by the changes within each woman. As we reflected on the past 13 moons, we honored and acknowledged that there was a transformation that had occurred inside every person in that circle. And it was beautiful! Change can be a scary thing. Committing to a path, a healing, a practice, can feel uncomfortable, it can bring up doubt and inner criticism. Yet the truth is we are all changing all the time, and we open ourselves to this with intention, that transformation can enter into our lives and ourselves more profoundly than we ever imagined. In this colder and darker time of year we might find ourselves feeling a little stagnant or still. This is actually a wonderful time to reflect, to remember.
Speaking of tending ourselves... If you are having the Winter blues I have a little gift to help perk you up. February 3-5th I will be sending you a Mini Self Care Retreat. These are simple magical practices to help you nourish and support yourself. Included will be a link to a Zoom call each day. I’ll be going to live to add a little more to your 3 day refuel. You may have done this email series with me before. Even if this is the case, I hope you will take the time to follow along as we tend to our Sacred Selves.  Sonoma County has been getting hammered by storms, and to be honest, as grateful as I am for the rain, I am admittedly out of practice about living in it. So after three weeks of grey days and very little sun, I was starting to feel a bit blue. As the temps dropped and the skies cleared and the sun rose yesterday I was thankful and energized by the soft Winter warmth and glow. Just enough, so that as the skies grey up once more today I actually find, I’m not blue at all. How are you wintering where you are Wise One? This colder time of year invites us deeper within. It reminds us that there is value in the quiet and the dark. The spaces where we dream and imagine are sacred. The listening we do to our inner realms is the foundation for all the actions we take. This is the groundwork in preparation for lengthening days and the quickening of earth. What is germinating in you? How can you tend this? This is a really lovely time of year to begin a meditation practice. (If you already have one this is a fabulous time for deepening into it). Meditation is one of the most central tools in my own spiritual (and wellness) practice. This intentional focus and/or quieting, invites inner expansion, rest, and clarity. If you already practice meditation, you might try lengthening your current practice by a few minutes, or trying a new method of mediation to stretch your edges. If you are new to meditation, you might try setting a timer for 3 minutes, closing your eyes and focusing on your breath. Breath in and out through your nose at your own pace and just notice the experience if this. If you are like me and need a little extra palace to focus, you can count your breaths in groups of 10- Inhale 1, Exhale 1, Inhale 2, exhale 1, Inhale 3, exhale 1…when you reach Inhale 10 exhale 1, take one big clearing uncounted breath and then begin again with “2”, Inhale 1, Exhale 2, Inhale 2, exhale 2, Inhale 3, exhale 2…and so on until your timer runs out. You can also download the app Insight Timer, which is free and offers many meditations/visualizations for you to explore. Looking for a little more? You might play with visualizing different items using all your imaginal senses. A lemon for example. Set a timer for a couple of minutes and let yourself visualize the texture, color, smell and taste of a lemon. Explore it fully. I am also sharing a little video meditation I made a year or so ago about calling your energy back to yourself. You can watch it here Exercising our vision, allows us so much more access to the imaginal and visioning realms and as such enhances our magical practices. New Episode of the Witch Next Door Podcast!This week Veronica and I chatted about a couple of the many sects/traditions of Wicca. If you are curious about origins and paths like we are take a listen in. You can find it here.  How do you clear your energy and calm the chatter of your mind?
Grounding and clearing are the foundation of every magical practice I create. Letting go of the noise in my squirrel brain and reconnecting to the earth allows me to both hone my own energetic focus and open to the energies around me with intention. This is why I put these practices at the forefront of the Priestess Path. When we prepare ourselves for our spiritual practices in this way we can go deeper, channel more and stay present throughout. (When practiced regularly, side effects include a more prominent state of calm and focus in our day to day) This Wednesday I want to offer you a sneak peek into the first lesson of the Priestess Path. If you have been curious about what you can expect in this journey you can join me Wednesday at 10 am for a taste of what this path has to offer. In this 30 min class we will briefly explore a couple ways to clear and ground and the importance behind this as well as do a grounding exercise. And of course there will be time for a little Q and A. Join live tomorrow, Wednesday at 10 am PT https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88296826641 |
Emily Morrison MA, MFTArchives
May 2023
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