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Solstice Tarot spread and Spirit Doll Giveaway to our Subscribers

Last readings today for the year of 2013 Year of the Witch what a journey with the Water Snake it has been. On Sunday I will be sending out a newly created Tarot spread to integrate the lessons & gifts of the year to all our subscribers here at our website and for all new subscribers over this Solstice weekend. I will also be giving away a Solstice spirit doll to one of our beautiful subscribers. You can subscribe by adding your email to the box at the top right corner of this page  x

for all the Decorated Ones...

Vali Myers by Marco Bakker

Some inspiration for all the Decorated Ones. Medicine Women come in all Colours - we are all intricate threads of the Great Weaving. Here is my beloved friend and teacher of the Wild, Vali Myers at the age of 71. 

Vali told me to decorate ourselves is the most natural thing in the world. I believe when we adorn ourselves we are romancing our own Spirit, playfully calling to the Other Self in the Dreamworld. This kind of adornment is not to hide or change or disguise but to call forward, illuminate and honour the temple of our bodies. Why so serious? Let's play!

One of Vali's favourite poems: 


If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

Before the World Was Made

William Butler Yeats 

Passions by Vali Myers

Water from the Mountain

Yesterday Tony and I returned to the underground Spring at the top of Mt Donna Buang to draw water for ceremony this weekend. It makes me happy to know that after all their hard work, the members of this beautiful circle will be drinking such pure water - gift of life. My intention this weekend will be sending love to all of those who feel alone at this time of the year. This month I have been focussed on healing the lineage of suicide in my family. It is a line of pain that has marked both sides of my family tree and I have been working to make sure those souls are at rest and know they are loved and were always loved and to know that they were never truly alone. Today I will be building an altar outside to remember the branches of my family tree that were stopped short, for the hearts too sensitive to weather the storm. 
I believe that talking about suicide is healing for us all, so many of us have been touched by it and when we share our stories we help remove the bindings of shame and taboo. If this time of year is difficult for you, reach out to a friend, gather your dear animals around you. Speak to someone about how you are feeling and remember, you are never alone.  We all have gentle hearts and I hope we can remember that in our meetings with each other this month. 
To draw water from this crystal clear spring here is a map from the great site Find a Spring. 

Legacy of the Burning Times

(AP Photo/Russell Contreras)
Curenderos at a Healing Conference in Mexico this year

'We are the granddaughters of the witches you were never able to burn'
Tomorrow I will journey to NSW to sit in circle and ceremony with my beautiful sisters of the School of the Shamanic Midwifery. Together we will hold sacred space for The Deepening for a Swan Blessing that will carry over 3 days, a 3-day spell-unbinding to assist them to answer the call of the Grandmothers and bring their wise medicine to the mothers and sisters and babies of our world again. I will hold this dreaming with my sister, shamanic astrologer and medicine woman, Mikailah and I am filled with deep honour at the energy already moving through me this week leading in. 
My main intention and fiery arrow of purpose in bringing the Wild Swan to the midwives is to clear the name of Witch and release the memories and past life binding of the Burning Times from their medicine so that they can hold their beautiful sacred birthing spaces and shamanic ritual with fearless love, even in places that may be hostile. For in the past and yes, still, even now, to simply be Midwife was sometimes to be called Witch. In fact, any woman carrying strong medicine was known as Witch.

Witch is a word that still affects us deeply. It is a name that frightens us, confuses us and intrigues. For myself the name Witch is one of honour and beauty. A medicine woman chosen by the Trees. I feel we have become entangled in the binding lies created around this name in the medieval period when women of magic and healing were hunted and murdered in a period that become known as The Burning Times. Without realising it, we are still carrying ancestral memories of this time and the binding beliefs created by those events stop us from daring to meet the medicine of Witch. I see this as a great wound to women that we still fear our own birthright gifts of magic, mystery and healing.

It does not matter whether you are called to name yourself as Witch, I believe it is important however, to clear her noble name and to know the truth. What was done to the Witch was done to all WOmen - just like the Sacred Feminine she was either demonised or trivialised. But the Witch is no demon and she is no cartoon. She is a Medicine Woman, Wise Woman, and Healer. And She like other Ancestral Medicine Women is returning to assist the Earth and Her people and animals and forests again.  

Here is a link to an incredible article written by Ruby Hamad and published yesterday that gave me such confirmation and encouragement for this coming weekend. I thank my dear friend Sadie, for sending it to me and I look forward to swimming in the Deep with the Mermaid Midwives. 
Maria a Polish healer and visionary from WOmen of Power Project

gift at the Spring

Photo: We have just left this Bilby Spirit Doll at the sacred Spring in Mt Donna Buang if you find her let us know she is yours
Bilby 'shapeshifter' spirit doll waiting for her new friend at the Spring

Today Tony, Rory and I went to draw from the Spring on top of Mt Donna Buang in Warburton, Victoria. If you live close to this beautiful mountain I urge you to drink from this Spring - especially if you are in need of healing. It is the clearest and purest source of water in Victoria. It is absolutely the most beautiful water we have ever tasted and worked with in ceremony. We travel every 3 weeks to this source to draw for our needs and give thanks.

In the last 3 months I have been leaving a spirit doll as a gift each time we visit the Spring and I leave a little note with the doll to tell whoever finds her that she is a gift to them for visiting this magic place. It is one of my favourite things to do and I have noticed that almost all of the dolls have been found by men. I thought about this and it struck me that it is usually the men of the family who travel to the Spring because they are the strongest and they collect water for their family and friends. All of the men found the dolls because they had thought they were rubbish and like to clean around the Spring when they visit. 
How perfect that these brothers, the guardians of the Spring are receiving this gift for caring for the Spring and caring for their families. Today I left behind this 'Bilby shapeshifter' medicine doll carrying White Lotus in her tummy. She was made on the night I returned from the Spring 3 weeks ago and helped me to release what I no longer needed over the time of Eclipse. She is now waiting at the top of Mt Donna Buang as a gift to the next visitor to the Spring. I am looking forward to hearing from her new companion.

Water is free. It is a gift from our precious Mother Earth. Drink from the source and thank the Ancestors x

I took this photo after we sat and thanked the Ancestors on our first visit to the Spring
Home of the sacred Spring

for the lovers of Earth

Bjork by Laura Levine
Bjork (1991, Woodstock) - I'm often asked if I have a favorite photo and I can say without hesitation that it's this one right here. All of the elements combined to make it one of my favorite moments as a photographer, and it happened purely by chance. I met Bjork the night before when she invited herself along and joined some friends and me for a late night pool game up in Woodstock. At the time she was upstate recording with the Sugarcubes. I was already a fan, and had always wanted to photograph her, and when I asked her if I could she said sure. Just like that. We'd been talking all night, she trusted me, and I guess that was all she needed to go on. 

The next day I picked her up and brought her to my friend Ben's house, who helped out as my assistant for the shoot. I knew he had a lovely forest glade behind his house and I thought the setting fit in nicely with her freespiritedness. As happens often in shoots I've done (don't ask me why), she gradually began to to shed her clothes. I picked out a couple of oversized leaves (a la Eve in the Garden of Eden) and she stepped onto a large boulder. At that moment it started to drizzle, she stood on tippy-toe and opened her mouth to catch a raindrop on her tongue. Click. 

Having spent a long time talking with her the night before I felt this image really captured her essence - a woodland sprite, a free spirit, playful, earthy, and open . (Some other reasons why this is a favorite? No makeup artists, no stylists, no trendy fashions, no managers, no publicists, no record label politics, no artificial lighting, no gimmicks, no self-conciousness. Just natural light, some foliage, and Bjork.).  Laura Levine