I am preparing for our Winter Solstice Workshop - Enchantment of the Dreamer by walking in the forest daily and looking around for fallen leaves, branches, berries and other plant medicine. I am loving seeing the world from a miniature point of view - a twig that doubles as a staff, a leaf as a cape - endless possibilities. During this workshop we will be journeying with plant wisdom from sacred herbs such as Blue and White Lotus, and the Passion Flower. At present I am placing these ancient medicinal and dreaming herbs inside the spirit dolls. It is a wonderful feeling when a doll tells you what it needs to carry.
Deep inside our hearts, where the Dreamer resides, we remember the ancient shamanic and witch practice of doll-making and enchantment and we have ancestral memory of Plant Medicine. At Winter Solstice we will clear past life vows, oaths and sacred contracts binding the Artisan, from full expression of Intuition and Creativity before engaging in this sacred craft again. If you wish to join us in this deep dreaming pool as remember how to make all that we touch sacred, I have 2 last places, please get in touch by Friday morning if you would like to take one of them.
Spirit Sister Plant Medicine Dolls available for purchase here.
"The Iroquois have, properly speaking, only a single Divinty - the dream. To it they render their submission, and follow all its orders with the utmost exactness." Father Jacques Fremin, 1669
From 16th June, Chiron, the Wounded Healer is also Retrograde like Neptune until November 19. Chiron brings change through healing crisis and like shamanic illness these point of crisis are not breakdowns but often breakthroughs. In the next 5 months as we journey deep in to Winter and then into Spring there will be opportunities to heal old wounds or to go back in dreams and reverie to points of healing crisis in the past. The beauty is that with full understanding of these events, we can release the deep pychic wound that we have carried and understand that these events are the making of us. That without the challenges and difficulties in our lives, like a pearl within the shell, this was the grit, the rub that helped us to form in all our unique splendour and authenticity.
If you are feeling the pain of past events in the next few months, this is the time to change your thinking and focus. Do not focus on the hardship and pain, look on the past as 'warrior training' for your Chiron, your inner healer. It is no accident that when we step into offering any kind of healing service that we attract people very much like ourselves, as if they are walking our own stories. This is the gift of moving through crisis, we develop a powerful toolkit of practical ways to deal with this crisis if it happens again. This toolkit is part of your Wise Medicine. These practical tools become your gifts when you come to serve others who are walking similar paths. Perhaps this Winter it is time to gently work with the deep fears and psychic wounds of the past and release the pain, let them heal from wound into battle scars. Scars gained on your own Mythic Quest to your Wisdom. Take stock of all of the gifts and tools you have gained along the way and share this hard-won wisdom with those in your community who need it most.
I see Chiron as the archetype that helps us to find balance between the Poet and the Warrior within. Working with Chiron is an opportunity to embrace both sides of your nature - Feminine and Masculine. And to also clear the binding of past beliefs that you are so different and weird that there is no place for you. The word that helps us to cross the threshold to embrace our Wounded Healer is Acceptance. Deep Acceptance of your unique self exactly as you are. And an understanding that your past helped to forge this authenticity. By removing even one of those past challenges, you would not be the person you are today. Take pride in your path and in your unique spirit. Yes you are strange! And guess what? There are many of us and we are growing. Welcome to the tribe.
"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here,and I'm just as strange as you." Frida Kahlo
'The Love Embrace of the Universe' - Frida Kahlo, 1949
Don’t you remember, in early childhood, when, in play or talk, as one stepped across the puddle or reached the window on the landing, some imperceptible shock froze the universe to a solid ball of crystal which one held for a moment…
Andy Kehoe's latest artworks 'Luminous Reverie' showing at Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York are so intriguing and beguiling. They are a combination of oil, acrylic, stained glass!! and resin. I'd love to be able to see them up close. In fact if I could, I'd love to live in those paintings at the moment. They seem to be holding a few of the Dream Keys needed to open the doors of this Neptune Retrograde. You buy prints from his Etsy store here.
I thought I was going mad and then I found out that on 6th of June Neptune went into Retrograde. Neptune is the planet that rules dreams, intuition, memory, magic and emotions. When a planet goes Retrograde (backwards) we begin to go back in our memories and dreams (Neptune) to revisit old events and experiences to understand how we dealt with those issues in past times. For the past week I have been dreaming back into my past - not the great memories that I'd like to relive again. Oh no, I haven't taken a trip back to all of those amazing early gigs I went to you in my youth - the gigs I can't quite remember unfortunately because I having so much of a good time. No, I have been revisiting all of the terrible workplaces and jobs I did in my teens, 20s and early 30s - so many soul-destroying temp jobs. So many... I've pretty much done it all. And the driving force? To pay the rent. To survive. And I've been getting a nightly reminder - it's not a trip down memory lane, more like being dragged down a dark alley that I've avoided visiting for a long time.
Spirit Dancer, Encaustic Oracle - Julia Inglis
And it's ok. Because the gift of Neptune Retrograde is that if you stay with your dreams long enough, really sit with them, write then down and connect with all the very uncomfortable feelings that come up with them, you will receive a great gift : a missing part of yourself returned. I am seeing all of the ways I mistreated myself in the past when I could not admit that I was an intuit and artist. I have been feeling again the pain of what it was like to go into an environment every day that felt like enemy territory. And there's no judgement of the people there or even the work itself, it just wasn't the right environment for me. A painful reminder of what it feels like when you are ignoring your own spirit and trying to accommodate everyone else. Each night I am being shown that these kinds of actions, particularly done daily over many years, creates Soul Loss. Soul loss occurs when you become so far removed from your authentic Spirit, your Dreaming Self, that a part of you gets lost or bound up in the past event. And even though we feel this missing part of ourselves keenly, we often don't know why and so we try to fill this hole with all kinds of shadow behaviour.
Last night I feel I had the last of this sequence of dreams when I saw myself in a tiny room in a high office block. I was working for a bank and pretending to work because there was actually nothing to do (how many of us have been in that situation before?!). I was so bored that I deciding to sneak outside for a walk and I found myself beside the ocean. It looked so beautiful and deep. However I ignored the sea because I realised that I could not find the door back into the building and panicked. I wandered the city streets and laneways trying to find my way back until I came to a small make-shift pop-up-shop, where a couple were calmly and happily creating the most beautifully crafted and detailed hand-made boots. The shoemaker smiled and asked me to sit down and began to measure my feet, preparing to create a pair of boots for me that were made to my exact needs and measurements. When I woke up I felt this beautiful pair of boots was actually the missing part of my soul that I'd lost all of those years before. When I woke up I saw so many links and symbols of meaning. How many of us 'work for the bank' - basically to pay off debts and mortgages? Becoming debt-free is of utmost importance for us now. As much as we can we are urged to live simply and within our means. It was a reminder of the beauty of what it feels like to be doing my own work now with my own hands, and most importantly, beholden to no-one. The intricate boots were a symbol of authenticity and individuality and even a little nod towards the traditional shoe of the witch?!
In retelling this dream I hope that it helps anyone who is feeling the burden of these changing times. I know it can be scary sometimes and we are often consumed with worry over how we are going to pay our bills. Believe in what you are doing and try not to make decisions out of fear. We are at a time of change and I believe we will soon see the Artisan acknowledged and honoured again. We are so sick of anything that is mass-produced and cheaply produced. We want to support local businesses and craftspeople. And we want to hold something unique and hand-crafted. This is the sacred art of enchanting inanimate objects - infusing them with love and care. The archetype of the shoemaker has stayed with me all day and I was reminded of the fairytale The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Grimm Brothers. I think it's a story to encourage us all to put our love into our work, to hang in there in the tough times and to be grateful for kind help that comes along the way - however strange and magical that may be!
As I was writing, The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen began to play. I read that Ian McCulloch woke up from a dream with the words 'fate up against your will' in his head and wrote the song from there. This 'All Night Version' is so beautiful, I hope it helps you to sail the seas of this Neptune Retrograde that is going to be with us until November. Do not fear it but set sail with all of your divining tools - stay with the ship and read the maps, become the cartographer for your Dreamer. In the depths are the jewels and you can only reach them by diving right down.
Sweet dreams, beautiful artisans. See you in the Deep.
Over the past 2 weeks there have been many sightings of Deer and Stag in Sherbrooke Forest. It is indeed a magical world here in the green, especially in Winter. Winter is my favourite season and I am opening more and more to the messages and oracular wisdom being shown to us daily here in forest. In the Dark Moon I felt the presence of Deer so close to our home and I began to create a medicine doll that brought such a sense of nourishment to me that I decided that she was for me to keep. At first I thought she was Stag Woman - carrying the energy of both Sacred Masculine and Feminine but as I was making her I began to remember an elderly couple who cared for me when I was child. Their names were Mr & Mrs Elks and they were so incredibly resilient and wise. Brought up in the bush, they lived simply and mended what broke down and and whenever I went to their home I was always excited because I never knew what creature would be in their house. Because of their childhoods spent in the bush, they were used to wild creatures and any time an animal was found hurt or sick by a local, they brought it to 'The Elks' to care for it before it was released into the wild again.
One of my strongest memories is of feeding a baby joey kangaroo with a baby's bottle whilst looking up at a painting of a deep green forest of Redwood trees and deer. I loved that painting. It seemed to calm me instantly when I got home from school and I understand now that I would often become entranced while looking at it and go into deep meditation. I always had a feeling that I remembered this kind of world. Even though I lived in such a hot and dry place, I remembered what it was like. Years later I discovered the exact same print: Serenity by Paul Delefsen, 1969, in an op-shop and felt such a wave of emotion and familiarity. It's kitschy and cute but I still love it and I hung it in our healing space. One day a client pointed out that it looked very similar to a photo that I had on my computer screen that I'd taken on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest. At that time I was waiting to find our new home and was using the photo to dream it in. I'd had no idea before that of how very similar the two images were. The forest we live and work in is populated with giant Mountain Ash trees, the second tallest hardwood trees in the world after the Redwood. And now I discover that there are also deer nearby... I see now this print from my childhood was perhaps my first vision board. One that my child-self recognised straight away and one, you could say, that worked slowly but very, very well.
Serenity - hanging in our healing space today
Photo I took on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest - 10 mins from what is now our home
When I remembered all of this, I saw that my wee wise woman was not Stag but Elk Woman. She is a link to the beautiful elderly couple who introduced me to my future home so long ago and taught me how to handle and not fear wild creatures. It was my inner child that made her and brought this memory back to me. This is the power of Spirit and Medicine Dolls - they can be wonderful memory keepers and awakeners.
In this time of such a wave of change it's important for us to move towards not only work that nourishes and inspires us but also to move to land that calls us. To be connected to the Earth is so important. She is the best teacher and she truly is all you need. What Country calls to your Dreamer? Where do you feel most at home? Choose a photograph, a magazine cutting or paint a picture of your Dreamer's Home and put it somewhere you can see every day. No need to strive or stress or feel cut off - give this wish to your Dreaming heart and be patient, don't put any expectation upon it - instead sing to your Dreamer's Home, sing the songs of that Land and Country. Imagine you are there already. Take comfort in the fact that it truly exists and you will find your way back.
The mist is rising here in the forest today and I am just about to light the fire before stepping into the Swan Blessing dreaming with our first clients for the day. We have lots of beautiful events coming up where we will be opening up dreaming wells to journey with Swan Medicine - please let me know if you feel called to join us.
New Swan Blessing Past Life Sessions:
We have just opened up 6 new sessions for this weekend:
Saturday in Sherbrooke Forest: 11am, 1pm and 3pm
Sunday at Tree of Life Centre in Kew: 11am, 12.30 and 2.30pm
Swan Blessing Winter Solstice Workshop in the Forest:
Enchanting the Dreamer - Spirit Doll Enchantment
1-6pm 22nd June at Kumbada Studio, 6 Ridge Road, Kalorama. Cost $135 (includes doll)
Releasing Past Life Vows from the Artisan
In this workshop at the potent point of Winter Solstice we will focus on clearing past life binding on creativity, intuition and the powerful medicine of the Artist. The essence of Swan Medicine is to open up Vision and you will see your own past lives and understand the binding promises, oaths and sacred contracts that have held your Wise Medicine in a spell binding of your own words. In releasing these past promises you will once again reclaim your natural ability as joyful creators and build new energetic pathways to the Dreamer - your Intuitive Self. Once you have seen your Dreamer, you will be able to create Her as we are led by Doll Enchantress, Nicole Ahava in a shamanic process of making our own Medicine Spirit Dolls. These dolls become magical talismans for you after you leave the workshop, travelling with you to help you to remember, hone and express your own Wise Creative Medicine. We still have a few places so let me know as soon as you can if you wish to join us.
Sydney Swan Blessing Tour - Imbolc: July 31st - Aug 5th
We are already taking bookings for our Sydney Swan Blessing sessions at Imbolc. Beautifully synchronistic as we hold these sessions at the gorgeous Blacksmith's Cottage on the feast of Brigid, patron goddess to Blacksmiths and Jewellers - all who work at transforming metal (like the chains of our binding promises), and goddess of healing, creativity and wise words. If you live close to Sydney we encourage you to book soon as these sessions are already full.
Sydney Workshop: Enchanting the Dreamer - Spirit Doll Enchantment
7 - 9.30pm, Imbolc 1st August at Desire Books, 3/3 Whistler Street, Manly Cost $80 (includes doll)
Releasing Past Life Vows from the Artisan and Spirit Doll Creation. This will be a shorter version of the Winter Solstice workshop but just as beautiful and deep for our Sydney tribe. We look forward to meeting you all at the wonder-filled Desire Bookshop. As such a lover of words I am thrilled to be bring Swan Medicine to such an enchanted bookshop.
For all those who have already journeyed with Swan, you are welcome to keep returning to work with your Wise Medicine as with each journey with Swan grows stronger and deeper. Below is a Swan Story I received this week from Rebecca - a beautiful release from her Vow to carry on alone.
Today I share Rebecca's Swan Past Life Story. I met Rebecca at Seven Sisters Festival where I was presenting a Swan Blessing workshop: Femmina Unbound. Rebecca is a writer and artist and was also co-presenting an ecoprinting workshop at Seven Sisters - a workshop that fascinated me as it involved cooking up in a cauldron recycled items like old keys, pieces of metal, wood and leaves and flowers to create natural dyes for silk. I loved the transformation of items regarded as waste or rubbish into incredible beauty.
Rebecca's story is of a young girl who on her mother's death-bed promised to carry on in life alone. To survive without the love and assistance of any members of her Feminine Matriarchal line. As with many of these Soul Promises made in past lives, the energy and binding of these oaths are carried by our spirit with us into the present. It is a beautiful remembering of a life endured with quiet strength and in the release of the binding comes the release from that word 'endure'. How many of us have endured our lives? For so many lifetimes we have had to 'make do' in hard times. I am so happy to see that we are now remembering ancient ways of creating communities through creativity and motherhood and sacred medicine. If we are without elders in this lifetime we can seek them out in community and this is why the Red Tent movement of creating sacred space for women is so important. As are the sacred spaces being created by our brothers for men to meet and share and receive the guidance that may not be available to them in their birth families.
The painting you see above, 'Christina's World' by Andrew Wyeth was chosen by Rebecca to accompany her Swan Story and I am always so fascinated to see the threads of art symbolism woven into the words of story. When I looked into the story behind this painting I discovered that the model for it was Wyeth's neighbour, Christina, who had polio and had lost the use of her legs. This painting had been inspired when he'd seen her pulling herself across the field to her home with strength of her arms alone. It is poignant to me that when parts of our spirits are bound by past life vows, in soul loss, our present lives can often feel like this - as if mobility and movement is somehow limited by energy beyond our control. The gift of this impediment is that we are often forced to develop new skills and ways of finding nourishment beyond the normal constraints of culture and society. This is why, I believe, we are seeing a rise in the shamanic approach to spirit - regardless of the fact that western society has become so urbanised and materialistic. Our spirits are wise and we remember the truth - that we are all one, that our mothers and fathers are many, and the greatest source of Feminine Love is always available to us when we connect to the Earth.
Deep in the heart of Mother Mountain, in the home of the Crone, who has a name I can’t remember, I looked into the Well of Memory. She emerged, a young girl with red hair, wearing a dress with an old-fashioned collar. She stretched out a hand, and we met, palm to palm. I joined her in a country field, wheat waving golden in the afternoon light. We walked towards a farmhouse, and her sadness, grief and loneliness were tangible within me.
The girl led me into the empty house, upstairs, to a bedroom. The bed was smoothly made, a sense of timelessness in the air. Without words, I understood that her mother had died here, and in the last moments of her life, she’d compelled her daughter to make her a promise: to live, to survive, to carry on, despite the painful lack of any feminine energy. No mother, no grandmother to hold her.
The girl was stoic and sad. She had to hold herself, and it was a very lonely path.
I felt grief, tears, and the familiarity of her pain deep within me. The resonance of making do without loving feminine energy around me. Nowhere to receive a deep hug, or older wisdom and nurture. I felt all that, and how I live that, and I also felt how this no longer serves me in this lifetime. I felt how it is shifting. I have survived that painful absence of Mother, and now I can soften and seek out the love and support of the feminine all around me.
Crow came and led me out of the mountain, flying from tree to tree. I felt her energy of watchfulness and waiting, a companion high up in the branches. I felt the holding all around me. There is enough. I am safe and loved. And I can offer safety and love to my daughter and all those around me. Rebecca, 2013
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your beautiful story and helping us all to remember that we are not alone. Rebecca is embracing her medicine as Artisan and this is one of the many ways to express the limitless power of the Feminine. You can read her inspiring words at her website: Healing Tools - I visited yesterday and spent a couple of hours immersed in her nourishing stories and wisdom. And you can also see the stunning ecoprinting creation and take part in workshops with the Oracle Textile Collective here. Love to you beautiful Artisan x
Is my soul asleep? Have those beehives that work in the night stopped? And the water- wheel of thought, is it going around now, cups empty, carrying only shadows?
No, my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its eyes wide open far-off things, listens at the shores of the great silence.
This documentary is in 6 parts, the second is here.
It is a long weekend here in Australia and so I am winding down for dreaming in the forest. Here is a very good documentary, The Burning Times, giving an in-depth look at the witch-hunts that are still held within our collective memory as Wise Women. In our Swan Blessing Past Life ceremonies it is my greatest love and gift to be threshold guardian to the many women who are coming this year to clear past life memory of these times.
And so for those of you who live too far to come for personal Swan Blessing sessions and those who wish to understand more of the historical path of the Medicine Woman, I hope that this film gives you a deep understanding. Do not hold on to the wound. Instead use this wisdom and remembering to create the intention at New Moon on Sunday - a Moon in Gemini perfect for breaking old beliefs and ideas that no longer serve - to release any past life bindings on your own Wise Medicine.
I leave you with the beautiful Swan Story of my dear sister Bec 'Rainbowalker' who was one of the first women to ever experience the Swan Blessing and opened my eyes to path of my work with Swan Medicine. I will be forever thankful to Bec for showing us all the beauty and freedom of Fearless Love.
Blessings on all of your bright wishes for New Moon and we will return from our dreaming soon.
Another beautiful Swan Blessing story to share with you today from our book in creation: 'Releasing the Ties That Bind'. Thank you Bec for your sharing as I read it, I felt the healing for us all again. With your telling you are helping so many who are feeling the bindings and very real fear of persecution of the Wise Woman again in our time. This Swan journey is so amazingly empowering, I honour you sister and the return of your great gifts in fearless love.
I was in a small cottage in the woods, surrounded by small children , an elderly lady was crying as I kissed them goodbye. I knew they were coming for me. I knew I was a wise woman and they feared me. I actually felt at peace. I told the elderly woman it would be alright. I was quite young with beautiful long hair.
My next thought was to get away from cottage as I could see the torches in the distance. I started running through the woods. They caught me about 500 meters from my cottage. My thought then was are my family are safe as I looked back towards the cottage? They had me on my knees with my head pulled back by my hair. I was surrounded by men and could feel the fear in their heart. I was taken under the cover of darkness. It was a lynch mob. A powerful man with the authority was behind the scenes. Orchestrating the outcome. I felt he was scared of my inner power.
The very next thing I saw was a vision of her standing on a pyre. It quite surreal as I stepped out as myself from the future to see my past self on the pyre. I could see a sea of what looked like Pilgrim hats, and a town square. She was searching frantically for someone or something in the faces before her; she knew this was going to happen. There was no hatred in her body, only sadness and compassion, for the people doing this to her. I watched as the tears streamed down my face. I stepped forward and her eyes locked onto to mine. She smiled at me and said with her eyes: ah good you are here! I have been waiting. My soul felt like it exploded in to a million pieces, it was such a deep and profound connection.Her words to me were: You are free, Have no fear. They cannot come for you in this lifetime. Your family are safe. Be true to your soul and path. With that she closed her eyes and tilted her head skywards. And whispered 'I am ready” to the Heavens. As they lit the pyre. I saw a bright white light come down from above. She was enfolded by light and I could see two beings beside her. The flames had only reached her feet. But she was already free.
Julia and Tony I thank you for releasing my fear/binding, in this life as a healer/witch/ wise woman. I hadn’t realised that this fear of judgement and persecution had been holding me back. Also my intense dislike of authority makes sense. My past self had no fear; No anger, she accepted it, in perilous times of who she was. Her message to me was the gift of Freedom, acceptance and walking the path of self truth. No more Hiding.
With Love, Bec 2012
I urge you all to experience the potent and healing medicine of Bec Rainbowwalker. For years Bec worked as a nurse and in palliative care had many experiences of the divine crossing over of the soul. I am so happy to say that she is honouring her wise gifts and is now offering incredible sessions of energetic and intuitive healing here in Melbourne. She offers such beauty and grace to all especially those recovering from grief and loss after death as she is a beautiful 'midwife of the soul' and has such a deep understanding of the journey of the soul from this life to the next. After experiencing Bec's healing work personally, I can not recommend her transformative sessions highly enough - so needed in this Wave of Change.
"She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore."
How many of our gifts and natural skills are we holding back in this lifetime because of mistakes made in past lives? For Emily it was her natural ability as a leader and wise man that became bound when in leading people away from war she found she did not have the skills to help them all survive in the wild. When she lost the person that she loved most in that lifetime, she blamed herself and created a very strong binding vow upon her spirit in this lifetime - the Vow to Never Lead Again. In moments of trauma, fear and remorse we often make promises and vows to our own spirits that carry heaving binding. When we create theses Sacred Contracts we may believe in them so deeply that we carry their binding energy into our next incarnations. These kinds of vows and promises carry a heavy burden of shame and guilt and a deep sense of unworthiness to live a happy and peaceful life - indeed for some it is hard to feel worthy to be living at all.
It is not my belief that we are here to 'make amends' or be punished for the mistakes of past lifetimes - I do not believe in 'bad karma'. I see each lifetime as an opportunity to be conscious in each moment and to do our best. This does not mean we have to be perfect, we are all learning. It means to recognise when we have made mistakes, to learn from them and to choose differently next time we are in a similar situation. It is important not feel regret and guilt about the past - whether it be from past lifetimes or a more recent event from your current lifetime. Let it go and open your heart to the opportunities to be your Authentic True Self that await in the PRESENT moment. Every morning is a new birth, a new lifetime - full of choice and possibility. By embracing life as a mystery that keeps unfolding, you are letting go of needing to 'know' or to be 'right', letting go of carrying the burden of guilt and shame for events that cannot be changed. We must learn compassion for ourselves and embrace our Life Path as a journey to Wisdom and in doing so we will also be more accepting of the diverse paths of others.
I first heard from Emily when she sent me her Swan Story: Awakening the Black Serpent after journeying in the Swan Blessing Past Life circles that I held at Seven Sisters Festival. And to accompany her story, she sent me the most incredible collage artworks - it was a wonderful way to experience Emily's story on a very visual and deep level. It really touches my heart when I hear of people creating in any capacity after they journey with Swan Medicine - I believe creativity and opening visionary gifts is another 'wing' of the Swan Medicine after clearing past life binds. Recently I got to meet Emily in person when she travelled to Sherbrooke Forest to journey again with Swan. Emily discovered that in the next lifetime she was a Scholar, living like a Hermit away from the world on top of a mountain. When she looked into his face she felt such love for this gentle soul but it was love that he could not feel for himself.
"I see and hear so many birds on my way to the
forest and I immediately feel the wild swan’s wings wrap around me when Julia
welcomes me under the chestnut tree. It feels so safe and gentle. My heart
sighs. I easily slip into my mindstream, into the green of the
forest where the water is calling to my heart. I let my heart lead me to the
water and look deep into the still pool. I see an ancient face, tanned and
wrinkled like the face of an old tree. Clear blue eyes crinkled at the edges
with kindness. Is it a man or a woman? It doesn’t matter. I feel so much love
and wisdom. As a hand reaches through the water to take mine I see it is an old
man’s hand. He takes me across the threshold. Everything feels so easy and
gentle. I let my heart follow.
I walk behind him on a faint forest track, meandering
through sun and shade, slowly winding up a mountainside. I feel how connected
he is to this world, how the plants and animals and the richness of the earth
pass through him on a cellular level. He is totally at one with his
surroundings. He is the forest and the forest is him. He is filled with this
knowing in his being.
We reach the mountaintop. It is rocky and windy and wild.
An eagle glides above us, just out of sight but a part of our interaction all
the same. He is showing me the view…a ruined city far below. Just rubble and
tumbled down towers and charred remains of what was once great. He is heavy
hearted. It was his home. He has lost so much and been alone for so long.
He shows me his happy childhood in the city...playing on
the floor in a sunlit tower, learning to read and write with a loving tutor, growing
into a wise scholar and advisor to the king. This king is his friend and like a
brother. But he is a ruthless and brutal leader. He brings chaos, destruction,
war and famine to his city. My wise and gentle scholar,
he cannot change this man, he has failed, his advice has led to this ruin.
He shows me how he fled the burning city, leading a small
group of people to safety across the mountain. But he did not know the forest
then. It was a long difficult journey and they were weak and starving. He
didn’t know how or what to feed them. He was a city man and had never killed an
animal in his life. Many of the people died on this journey because of his lack
of knowledge.
We look into the face of a woman as she dies. He loves
her, she is his one love that he never fully acknowledged or had time to
appreciate. She whispers her love, her patience and forgiveness as she dies.
She tells him her child is his daughter, please take care of her. When she
passes, he is so desolate and alone. He takes the remaining people to the safety
of a village and wanders away into the mountain forest. He will live as a
hermit forever. He is responsible for so much death and destruction. He vows to
never lead his people to harm. He will never be a leader again. This binding
weighs as a heavy stone in his/my heart.
I see his home in the forest, a simple wooden hut, cosy
and full of books and dripping candles to light his long nights alone. He is
writing, writing, filling so many pages. He is recording histories, forest
wisdom, his deep knowing. He will share this so that no one need die or suffer
for lack of knowledge. His daughter visits him here in the forest. She loves
him so much and understands his heavy heart. She has the same energy as my
mother in this life…such a wise, big hearted woman (who I can share so much
time with now, healing the loss in his life).
I am back beside the deep still pool. I let go of the
stones in my heart. A sister of the well hands me a clear crystal to crush
these stones. They smash into dust and blow away with the breeze. She guides me
into the pool, it is warm, thick. It is no longer water but blood. I curl up in
the heart-womb that the pool has become and the other sisters join the first,
so that nine of them surround me. They peel back the veils that are wrapped so
tightly around me, they peel back my skin. They remove all the bindings and
heaviness that surrounds my heart and then slowly drift away so I am alone in
the warm pool. I AM FREE. I feel my open heart beating. It says “I am a true
and shining guide”.
I see my past-self smiling at me from the forest. His
wife and daughter have come for him. He is light hearted and FREE. Then I feel
myself pulled upward with the wind. I feel the lightness and strength of my
huge wings spread wide…I am the eagle, soaring and drifting above the
mountaintop, visioning the world." EMILY 2013
Thank you Emily for sharing your Swan Stories and art so generously it was an honour to guard the threshold as you reclaimed your Wild Wisdom again.
And Emily has just informed me that she will now be teaching this beautiful art process and if you would like to learn how to make your own Collage for the Soul, Emily is holding an Introductory Workshop on Sunday 23rd June at the Mindful Wellness Centre. You can find out all of the details through Emily at emilymorter@ymail.com or phone: 0402 672 482.
Collage created by Emily Morter after her Past Life Swan Blessing
"Fairy tales, myths, and stories provide understandings which sharpen our sight so we can pick out and pick up the path left by the wildish nature. The instruction found in stories reassures us that the path has not run out, but still leads women deeper, and more deeply still, into their own knowing. The tracks which we are following are those of the Wild Woman archetype, the innate instinctual self....
"To adjoin the instinctual nature does not mean to come undone, change everything from right to left, from black to white, to move from east to west, to act crazy or out of control. It does not mean to lose one's primary socializations, or to become less human. It means quite the opposite. The wildish nature has vast integrity to it. It means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find out what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as we can."
"We are all filled with longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of the Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed."
Your heart has dreams of it's own. Do you have a place of such deep dreaming that it is something the rational mind cannot understand? I spent many years living in my ancestral home of Scotland and even though I journeyed to the sacred isle of Iona I did not visit her sister island of Staffa. And yet I dream about her constantly, I travel to her in visions to sit inside the basalt temple of Fingal's Cave, the Cathedral Cave. Last night I spoke to a dear sister about this dreaming cave and how I feel I will finally journey to her next year. How I long to swim in the freezing turquoise waters, to sing into the stone arch... it is a place my heart remembers, it is a home of Swan Blessing.
I would love to know more of these Dreaming places...where are yours? Let's share them here and here. Below are some of the songs of Julianna Barwick including her latest release 'Forever' - this is the music I hear with Swan Medicine, I imagine this to be the sound that fills the Cathedral Cave. it is the sound of the Place of Dreaming calling me Home.
Patricia Ariel is an artist close to our hearts. She is a dear sister to us and is the creator of the Swan and Her Lady illustration you see in our emblem for Swan Blessing. For me, Patricia is someone who can draw and paint visions that speak straight to my heart, images that are in my dreams but hard to describe. Over the years I have loved seeing her create the mysterious visions that I have been feeling - almost simultaneously - and this is why so much of her art graces the room we hold Swan Blessing in - I believe art helps us to open immediately to the mystery and to the dreaming within. Patricia inspires me so much, she recently conceived the Changing Woman project to raise awareness about women's issues and rights through the expression of art. Here she is talking about the project and her dreams for it - I love to hear her beautiful voice and I hope she inspires you to become a part of this wonderful project.
You will see so many stunning artworks on theChanging Woman site and here are a just a few to wet your appetite. Go Patricia!
How did I survive the Season of Eclipse? By making 13 Medicine Women dolls. I had no idea when I began that there would be 13 and so it was a lovely surprise to put them all together yesterday and see that they were indeed a wee tribe. I love to work with art and crafting during deep points of lunar activity. And it is no small work that we do in these moments. The dolls your see above and below were amongst the first creations and I realised they were threshold sisters. The doll in the black box became a mourning doll for my best friend who just lost his father and the doll in the white box made right at the point of eclipse became a Blood Moon Guardian for my dear 13 year old faerie god-daughter as she awaits to step through the threshold into womanhood. Both of these dolls were very alike in energy, both deep and silent in their voice, serious work to do looking after their new owners. I was so happy to be able to assist both of these beautiful friends in this way - in times of threshold crossing and transformation, we rarely find words that do justice to the Mystery.
I feel Medicine Dolls help us to connect to the magical child, the Otherwordly Dreamer that exists within us all. We are at a time when the veils to the Mystery are becoming ever thinner and many of us are feeling the call to connect deeply to our dreaming selves and intuition again. If you feel you have lost the Dreamer or do not have one, you are feeling a common ailment in the western world. I call this feeling Hiraeth from the Welsh for Homesick Spirit. Making art, writing songs, dancing with our own Spirit again - are just some of the ways to call the Dreamer home. We must make time for our dreaming self, how else can know the difference between thought and intuition? I hope you can find time to create for your Dreamer as we head into the Dark Moon.
In our Winter Solstice Swan Blessing workshop will be focussing on clearing binding Vows, Oaths and Sacred Contracts made in Past Lives that are still binding the Dreamer and trust in our natural intuition. These binds can be created from lifetimes were we embraced strict religious beliefs, temple vows and also lifetimes where we may have trusted our intuition only to see something go terribly wrong - we are often carrying fear and regret from these lifetimes that do not serve our spirits in the present. At Winter Solstice we will journey back into our past lives to understand the oaths we have made and why we made them and with great love release our spirits from these heavy binds. We will then be guided by Doll Enchantress, Nicole Ahava to begin creating our own Spirit Doll in the likeness of our Dreamer. I am so pleased to be offering this deep SoulCraft in my beloved Sherbrooke Forest, the wild green home to the magical Lyrebird - Medicine Totem of Lineage, Storytelling and Memory.
You will find all the details for the Winter Solstice Swan Blessing here. And you can see the full range of the 13 Eclipse Medicine Dolls on our Facebook page.
