Autumn Equinox came and kicked some of our asses, inviting us to meet our fears at the negotiating table. And Saturday's upcoming Harvest Moon is asking us to look at the powerful and mystical within ourselves, as well as around us, and take inventory.
It would seem that Persephone will not be denied her journey into Hades, no matter how rigorously we try to prepare for the Fall. Part of living into the sacred and divine feminine is to honor the Dark, as much as we bow to the Light. The work I've done this year with women in the communal context of SouLodge & Matrilumina has shown me (again) that there are layers within all of us that express on the surface as routine fear: the feeling.
Fear expresses itself as a result of natural and power center-located anxiety: that whole body sensation that something is out of alignment. And deeper still, if we dig down, we find that there is a body of angst that is made up of old conditioning: existential worries of death, guilt, shame, sublevel and mostly unconscious concerns that we will be rejected, deemed selfish, unloved, poor, lacking in worth, and perhaps that our ideas are not valuable.
Some beautiful presentations will be made by members of the SouLodge community to offer herbal medicine for what feels unbearable, wisewoman storytelling, crafting to heal, and more.
Our sanctuary for Wild Women offers a space for authentic expression and lights at the end of the tunnel.
When we are ready to walk our walk, we're called to go down and examine these things. The good news is that if you are experiencing some of these things, you're not alone. Embracing the Fall can be symbolic of our courage and willingness to explore our depths, as well as our heights. Autumn SouLodge: Goldmining the Shadows with Black Panther is a call to sit in a community of women possessing fierce integrity and ego-strength, in order to take a gentle sojourn down into the mineral-rich darkness.
Registration closes Monday, October 1. Class begins on Monday, October 8th.
The Spring Equinox is this week on March 19th at 10:14 p.m. here on the west coast. We'll be celebrating Ivy Tallulah's third birthday. Our little vernal queen has chosen to go to Disneyland, which is not exactly my idea of heralding Spring in a ritual way, but this is what we're doing. The year she turned one was my favorite, as celebrations go.
Needless to say, I am putting invisibility spells on all of the princess gift shops as a pre-emptive tactic to spare my daughter the models of flimsy feminine archetypes. I haven't got much time before it finds her somehow! A mama can try.
I'll be creating some ceremony the following weekend, and likely all the way through the Beltane, the fiery time of mid-Spring when the earth is wild and fully alive. For ideas about celebrating Spring Equinox, slip over here and have a listen to some pre-Lodge audio. This season is packed more than any other with animal teachers, meaningful handcrafts, and spirited creative guidance to keep you inspired all season. Registration closes this Friday, so if you're feeling the call, sister, get on over.
In other news, there is a BOGO sale going on in my shop all week on fine art prints. When you purchase a print, tell me in the notes to seller which additional print you would like me to send you.
Yay! Spring! I'm going outside to play with my family now. Look what they've discovered while I was creating this post!
The Equinox is coming and it's a very special day around here because my baby girl will be turning three, just as our part of the world wakes up to the first day of Spring.
We typically celebrate the Equinox by planting seeds and imagining what it is we are manifesting for the rest of the year. If ideas are in their "egg state" now, what will they look like when they hatch in a short time? When they've made a stronger kinship to life as we know it?
We'll be exploring some of these questions of the East in SouLodge beginning on April 2nd, and if you plan to register by March 15th, or already have, join me for a sweet telelounge on Saturday March 17th at 10am PST to hear about some ways to celebrate and integrate the messages of Spring Equinox into your Lodge experience. Watch your inbox for details :)
Sitting outside today, it was noisier than ever. Birds of all kinds, hawks dipping, soaring and screeching, squirrels scuttling about, bees buzzing...the Earth is waking up again. I am so excited to see what sort of hay can be made with all of this beautiful sunshine.
I'm happy to announce that Nicole, Petrea, and Terra have won the spots by our Spring fire this upcoming Spring SouLodge season. Lightseekers, if you will kindly send me an email at soulodgeretreatsatgmaildotcom, I will see to it that your welcome and instructions are sent out to you this weekend.
Thank you so much to everyone who fluttered in to toss your names into the (cyber) hat. I truly want all of you to come in and experience our circle, because... it's awesome. It really is! I'm not choosing my fanciest words to say that, but *awesome* pretty much covers it.
As the weeks flip by, I am becoming more and more inspired and adding more content to choose from (Lodge offers lots of options around how to show up and receive the teachings-and this season is going to blow.your.mind.) It must be the Springtime air and maybe the full mama Moon in Virgo that's kicking me into high gear. This is the fourth Lodge, you see, and it was born last summer, so this is the very first one that carries the energy of Spring with it.
There will be much about creativity this session, envisioning it, surrendering to it, allowing it to be born, and be who it wants to be, watching it grow and evolve. The landscape is calling, waking up, and all of the critters are moving about, showing us the way.
I've read much about what "experts" are calling Nature Deficit Disorder-it's what children (and adults) suffer when they stay indoors doing indoor things for far too long. But less has been said about what happens to the soul of Wildwoman when she does the same.
Just as Rabbit wakes up and scratches it's longish ears, thumps it's hind legs and doesn't question whether it should hop out of it's warren and shine it's rabbity light, so, too, will we allow the Medicine Wheel to remind us how to be at peace just as we are in our most natural state. Better yet, to be thrilled about it.
Driving into town one day two weeks ago, she called to connect again. I stopped the car abruptly to wrap her warm body in a towel, and take her home for sacred burial. I received a large dose of medicine from her that day and am still working with it now. She is a mysterious creature, and a mighty totem, despite her petite physique. With the help of a friend and our two girls, we honored Fox and gave her back to the Earth with blessings. Part of walking my path means taking care to honor the medicine, as I was taught to.
My guys were gone camping, and so I opened the Earth myself this time, placing her bundle between Mama Sycamore and Grandmother Sage. Thank you to all who gave support and blessings the day she went to the other side.
Honoring the sacred lifecycle.
Fox has come in, along with Red-Tailed Hawk, Great Blue Heron, and Elk to accompany our Eagle eyesight into the East with Spring Lodge teachings. It is a very strong Medicine Wheel to walk this time around. After restoring in the North, it's time to warm up the soil and plant the seeds for the remainder of the creative year. The fourth Lodge running will be pretty fiery, with an emphasis on soaring high without burning out.
So let's give away some seats by the fire, shall we?
THREE winners will be announced SATURDAY MARCH 10th.
*Enter with a comment, and be entered again for a tweet, a blog post, and again for a Facebook share. Be sure to let me know in your comment how many entries to put you down for.
**Those who register by March 15th will be invited to the Spring Equinox call to take place on Saturday, March 17th. I'll discuss the animals who'll be joining us, as well as how to do some clearing and planting ceremony for the Spring Equinox taking place on Tuesday, March 20th.
Registration closes on March 26th. Class begins on Monday, April 2nd.
Gratitude to YOU, the awakened women who walk the path, to the creatures that work as allies with us, to our ancestors, to the Four Directions, to Mama Earth and Father Sky, who teach us all we need to know.
******
For me Soulodge has been life enhancing and nothing short of miraculous. As a person who strives to connect, remain open, and worship Mother Nature and all of her critters on a daily basis, I had no idea how much more was available. How connecting with your own soul can make one a happier, stronger, more fulfilled individual.
I have done many classes and workshops before and they have been interesting and fun. Soulodge, on the other hand, has rocked my world! Giving me faith when my own was waning, making me laugh (at finding out how many carry rose quartz close to their bosom) and making me cry when I feel the human-ness of the struggles we all face.
Pixie Campbell is a pioneer for the soul. She has started with her workshops a revolution for wise and wild women to gather, create, support, connect, conspire and heal themselves, each other and the world. I am blown away by her courage, honesty and the beauty with which she portrays the balance of being 'strong as mountain and gentle as feather'.
I will never forget my time in Soulodge and my whole life will forever be enhanced by the lessons I have learned here.
I bow deeply and gratefully to Pixie Campbell ~ The 'Queen Bee' of Soul.
Nicole, Terra and Petrea. I've replied to your posts below. Welcome into Lodge, sisters! Send me an email at soulodgeretreatsatgmaildotcom and you'll receive your welcome instructions in your inbox. Thank you all for playing! I hope to see you under the flap on April 2nd.
**Those who register by March 15th will be invited to the Spring Equinox call to take place on Saturday, March 17th. I'll discuss the animals who'll be joining us, as well as how to do some clearing and planting ceremony for the Spring Equinox taking place on Tuesday, March 20th.
For any of you on the fence about taking Spring Lodge, I want to tell you a little bit about the community and how supportive it is in the video below. It is a beautiful, sustainable women's community which provides us with a space to share our hearts and the gifts that have resided in our soulselves since before we were born. We're entering the powerful season of Eagle, which allows us to start fresh with Spring and begin all things anew.
This season of Lodge transitions softly from Winter's period of restoration and calls upon us to carry the aspects of self-care forward, as the Earth warms up and beckons us forth into the "doing" and "planting" seasons.
Do you have a dream you'd like to create some support around? Are you in a transition that requires new tools? Eagle implores us to step off of the ledge as empty vessels and soar.
This is Eagle. Broad of vision and sharp taloned, having come to me last year. This pair are a magnificent sight and medicine that I am working with extremely carefully. There is so much to learn about this powerful bird, most of which I am only just beginning to see.
When I was twenty, I had to get corrective lenses for my nearsightedness. I still have excellent close range vision, but my far-sight has been impaired since early adulthood. I experienced a trauma at nineteen, and I've always wondered if it had anything to do with my fear of the future. Thinking this way has caused me to do everything I can come up with in order to cure my own vision. It may not be in my power to do so, but I will keep trying to shift my perspective-out of Mouse's tidy little den and up into the great blue sky to take in what lies outside my close range. I believe we can heal these things, if we can go into the origin and do what is necessary to free ourselves from the obstacle that once served as much-needed protection. Letting go. That's what it's all about for me: Trusting that I am safe. Soaring.
Eagle is the token representative of the East, rising with the morning Sun, bringing up the day and all possibilities with it. It is a symbol of vast and wide creativity, trust, connection to Spirit, and grasping what nourishes. Eagle has helped me tune into healing my family's past, present, and future, and he assists me in taking responsibility for my own growth. I have called upon him for guidance in matters of conducting sacred commerce, making educational choices for my children, and infusing my creative path with the flame and possibility of the dawn. It is my honor to work with Eagle and to realize that everything I do ripples out, and that I have a responsibility to understand what that will look like, even a hundred years from now.
Winter SouLodge is rounding out nicely, with its beautiful participants honoring White Buffalo's aspects of elder Wisdom, stillness, and inner council. This is the season of the North, in which we draw inward to conserve energies, connect to the hearth, and nurture the seeds deep inside the womb of Mama Earth-the very same seeds that will pop into action with a spark of warmth come Spring. Spring Lodge is filling quickly, where the focus will be on trust, new beginnings, and nurturing your creative and personal seedlings of 2012 and inspiring them with Eagle's sky dance for our energetic journey into the East on April 2nd.
SouLodge, and the community of women within it's sheltered circle, has become a place for me to hold sacred space for growth and healing of all kinds, and it is my honor to welcome the awakened ones who are called to come to the fire and dance.
Sometimes it can be very difficult for me to receive a compliment. I wave my hand and make an oh-come-on-it-was-nothing face, just like my mother does. Go silent like just my Grandmother does, and look away not knowing what to say, then change the subject. I'm learning to just say *thank you* without qualifiers. I am not one who requires validation, (that sounds so weird to say, eh?) so I just keep plodding along on my path, trusting that the right road will keep rising up to meet me. We've been down this road before, you and me.
I read this today, and am sharing it with permission. It was written by an Elder who attended SouLodge this Autumn with a friend. I am always extremely humbled when a Grandmother enjoys anything I have to offer; I have always made my most longlasting friendships under the wise ones' wings.
In this whole wild world of paths and streets and avenues and roadways we can easily become lost. I created this account a full cycle of flying around the sun ago.
Much has come and gone, been seen and heard and tasted and touched in that time. And then I took some time and space for me and discovered this wonderful kindred spirit Pixie Campbell.
Pixie provides a space for wild women to truly howl and growl and re-member their whole true selves. A space of teaching and “permission” for journeying and communing with a circle of sisters within the context of nourishing our spiritual selves as well as companionship on this walk.
The path for a solitaire may seem rocky and untravelled but when we walk with others we see that the path is actually well lit and there are rest places for weary travellers along the way. Stories are shared at the fire, songs are sung, and sisters bring cups of warmth that strengthen and soothe our weary bones. There are places along the route that feature huge brambles, that when you travel with others their eyes see the berries among the thorns. The thorns may rip at your hair and scratch your flesh, but the berries heal and soothe those wounds as they open your heart and eyes to their beauty and enchant your tongue with their flavour. You may feel that there are roots to trip you up and boulders that impede your path, but with companions there is always a hand to help you up from the ground or a foot well placed to provide the necessary “kick in the pants” to get you over the boulder.
Yes, SouLodge is a sanctuary for wild women who dare to be who they are, truly are, and it is also a place to find yourself in the company of others who are ready for the adventures of the path we have chosen to walk this time round.
***
Thank you, deeply, Baba. We also sometimes need a swift kick* of a reminder to receive a compliment with grace.
Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking. --Antonio Machado
The light is making it's way back and the post-release hangover wore off in no time. It's been so energizing to read all of the posts that came in, to know that energy was being raised, consciousness committed to, and women and families in circle around the fire were gathering everywhere. Mission accomplished! When I birthed the idea many months ago, I had no idea how the video would be made, much less received. It was loaded over 25,000 times, which exceeded my dream to be amazed, by far. Thank you to all of you who embraced this ritual, some of you for the very first time.
It takes so much courage to create the road by walking.
Snuggling in with my babies for Christmas, I was reminded of just how little it takes for a young mind to be amazed. It's not even their dream to be amazed, and yet, it's so simple for them. For Miles and Ivy- being together, making platters of food, seeing Santa's cookie with a big bite taken out of it, being in awe at the lights and the laughter, pecking out Silent Night on the keyboard, having everyone in their tribe circled around them...I could see the wonder of celebration all over their faces-excitement for life seeping out of their skin.
Marking special occasions ceremoniously has a tremendous impact on the young and young-at-heart. Tribes of all cultures have been burning fires, even Solstice fires, for millennia. As I've taken the work of SouLodge narrower and deeper, into what it really means to connect to the Earth and the seasons, it becomes evermore clear that we are all connected by a distinct thread. This very tribe of rebellious moms, creative spirits and wild women burns so brightly that the thread is unmistakable, and oh-so-powerful.
The Four Season Pass has sold out of it's limited quantity-but there are still seats open for Winter SouLodge. I hope you'll take your commitment to connect and circle to new den-like depths and nesty heights with the howling pack, where we'll be focusing on deep restoration and care of Self and Earth during the quiet time of year, before bursting into bloom in the meadows of Spring.
Thank you to everyone who made this video come to life. My hope is that it brings vitality and energy to your Solstice ceremony, sacredness to your season, Trust in your process, and a shared belief with the women who participated that Women deserve a circle.
Ritualizing release is a way to "bind the medicine" of moving beyond the past, the pain, the obstacles, the resistance, the old traps, the excuses. I'm so grateful to lead us into the new year and into the flames to be rebirthed for 2012.
Please share this ritual in your tribe, with your family and friends, or enjoy it in sacred solitude. If you share the video with your online tribe, please comment here so that I can enter you into the giveaway for one of two seats in the Winter Session of SouLodge. It is my gift and pleasure to circle with you.
Good Monday morning, sweet readers. I'm so grateful for this space. I know I say this ad infinitum, but it's so true. It's really hard not to bow to the screen every time I come here, because I truly am living my dream of creating and connecting in exactly the way I know I'm meant to.
I'm working hard behind the scenes to create a beautiful ceremony for the Winter Solstice that I want to invite all of you to be a part of. (Yes, I'll do a button and all of that yummy stuff for you who are so deliciously button-hungry :)
It's called The Mother of All Releasings Ceremonies, and I will perform the ceremony live and share the video here on December 21st, the day before the Solstice, the darkest day of the year. You and hopefully thousands of others can do the same on the 22nd and raise energy and consciousness around this, if you feel called to, which I hope you do!
The reason I feel so strongly about this day and this ceremony, is because I've discovered in my own work, as well as in observance of the women in my classes, that we women are carrying and holding onto and holding *in* SO MUCH. I want to grant permission to do what we are designed to do, which is to gather and empty, gather and empty. It seems that this is on my mind all of the time now. I notice that when I am stepping into my visionary shoes, I cannot afford to drag a dead horse behind me. Women are communing and taking amazing leaps all around me, and none of us need to be stalked by the stagnant and outmoded. I hope you'll join me when the day comes. Envision a fire, and see yourself tossing your old worries and fears in there. The elements love to compost. Let's give them the best of our garbage. The most choice, decaying, bits.
I'll be putting up a recipe here at the end of the month so that you can create your very own releasing bundle, (the same that I created for my Lodge Women), filled with the energy and words that you are ready to let go of in order to greet the new year with open arms, a bright light and no dead anything clinging on and loitering up your beautiful space!
Registration has opened for Winter SouLodge and there are also four-season passes available for all full-length sessions being held in 2012. I'm so excited to be doing this work and sharing my tools and resources with awakened women. It's become a safe and lively container, and I've learned so very much inside the shelter about the true nature of Woman. It keeps my fire burning. :)
Holy Glowing Lamplight, Wild Women! There is some serious magickal poetry brewing in all of the comments that came through for the giveaway. I want to offer a torch to every wolfsister who howled up, for knowing what you needed and asking for what you wanted.
It was no easy task compiling all names, many of them several times from two blogs and Facebook, so I'm a bit late in announcing this, so I'll get right to it.
Send me an email and I will get welcome letters out to you :) And include your mailing addresses so that I can get your Mother Of All Releasings Ceremony kits out to you, as well.
*howl*yip*yowl*
Thank you, beauties. I didn't think I could be more excited about beginning this Lodge (on such a perfect day) and leading up to the Solstice release, but somehow there is a fire burning so brightly now, it's destined to keep us warm and in our creative, healing spaces all through winter. Yeah!
I'm catching a plane to North Carolina in a few hours, and while I'm away making art and merry on the beaches of the Outer Banks, the last week of SouLodge registration will complete. On Monday, the 24th, I'll close the flap and cleanse out the classroom, and we.will.be.ready.to.roll, sisters. I have so many yummy things to share with you, and for us to create.
Have a magnificent week and weekend, and thank you ALL, every shining one of you for supporting this work, especially the luminescent woman who made this giveaway possible.
An amazing and illuminated woman has gifted us with the opportunity for TWO women to join the next session of SouLodge coming up on October 31st. Leave a comment to enter....and include the words light, lit, lamp or glow in your entry. Share the link in your public spaces by "liking" or "tweeting", by blogging it, or sending out an Owl messenger-let me know and I'll enter you that many times. Good luck!
I'll announce the winners just before 4 pm tomorrow.
We're getting so cozy close to the next session of SouLodge, registration is open for one more week and class begins in two, just before Sacred Samhain, on All Hallow's Eve and at the beginning of the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. I purposely chose this week to begin class, as it is thought to be the time of year when the veils between worlds are thinnest and access to spirit guides and ancestors is within greater reach.
This season we'll be talking a lot about releasing, giving back to the Earth and giving away what no longer serves. It will also be a time to come into clear consciousness about the holidays and how we can create ceremony and ritual around them that feels in alignment with the work of awakened women. A giveaway season is a beautiful time to give away pieces of spirit medicine that has waned in power for you, but may prove to be potent to a dear sister, child or beloved. This time I have a special secret releasing kit I'm mailing out to all participants, which I'm basically silly-giddy about. This will tie into the Mother of All Releasings Ceremony I have planned for Winter Solstice. So I'm sort of feeling like one of Santa's elves...
As with the last session, I'll be offering one-on-one phone council sessions with women in the class, which was a total joy for me last round. As we worked our way around the medicine wheel- connecting with our totem animals, creating traditionally inspired crafts to bind the teachings, and coming into acknowledgment of what our obstacles are, these sessions proved as powerful gateways for women to dig a little deeper with support. The secret is that I delight in these sessions as much as the women I'm working with. They are pure energy and light, of waking up and standing tall. Some of us designed ceremony together to push through resistances, talked over obstacles, while still others just needed permission to be. To know what they know. To do what they do. It's all such an enormous blessing.
I hope you'll join us in the Lodge, run and howl with those already assembled and gearin up. It would be my honor to guide you into and through your deeper landscape where the elements and creatures share their wisdom, and the sisterhood is a warm fire to dance around.
The Moon is in her full splendor tonight as I write this. I am filled with so many feelings surrounding your releasing comments. We all have so much fear, not-enoughness, anxiety, doubt, control, anger, grief...the old baggage, as someone called it. This connection with each of you, over what we are holding onto...well, you know I consider it my life's work to Let Go. To release again and again whatever stands between me and peace. Me and love of one and all, my foolish self included. So this has touched me so deeply, and come at the perfect time.
Misty mentioned that she wanted to "shake it" and I remembered these words when I sampled (and pre-ordered) Florence's new record today, Ceremonials. A beautiful sign! It popped into my field of vision at iTunes just as these thoughts were percolating in the cauldron of my consciousness, meditating on just how heavy the loads are that we carry. We sometimes forget that in order to keep our baskets full of what nourishes us, we must move on from the old.
I drove around a little bit tonight, shaking it off, and thinking about what a powerful ritual it would be if we all gathered collectively, on the same day around the world, to Shake It Off. Let it go. And as Florence says, "I'm always dragging that horse around... tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground..."
I danced in the driver's seat. I threw the devil off my back.
And that's when it hit me like a blast of light.
WE NEED A CEREMONY FOR LETTING GO.
I've created them many times, but never for a large group. And so there came a vision.
Here is how the full moon evening unfolded in my nest from there:
I sat in my studio and put together a Letting Go Kit, which I decided to mail out to each of my Autumn SouLodge sisters the week we begin class on October 31st. It will include the simple ingredients we will need to create a charged-up little container to hold all that we want to release.
The session will end on December 4th, and we will have once again circled around the Medicine Wheel and worked with the elements that have come up for us, looking at where our resistance is, flushing out what wants to come into the light and be expressed and embraced, come face to face with our guides and creature totems, working with them to overcome the obstacles that give us access to Source in a way that is meaningful to each of us. We will have discovered what no longer serves and how we want to proceed. We will declare it.
THEN, when Winter Solstice arrives on December 22nd, we can all take our little packages stuffed with fear, grief, not-enoughness, doubt, rage, disappointment...ALL OF IT to the fire. We will take it to the fire: be it at a roaring bonfire, a fireplace, a chiminea on a deck, or a firesafe bowl in our kitchen sinks, and we will burn those babies up. ALL ON THE SAME DAY, creating an agreement with our sisters around the world to Let It Go. To dance around the sacred fire of our awesomeness and watch our bundles go up in flames! Can you imagine?!
And all just in time for the New Year, which is by no accident, 2012, the year the Mayan calendar beckons us to move into the next dimension of consciousness. The one in which fear, doubt, self-loathing, and not-enoughness, are not needed. They have tried to serve us well as protective forces, however, their time is up. The darkest day of the year is the perfect time to create energy around this letting go. How can we go wrong if we collect all of our desires to release, and do it in sacred, feminine ceremony in the company of hundreds of other women on the cusp of the return of the Light?
Time and again, the image of dancing around a fire comes up for us in journeywork in the Lodge. It is time to make this real!
I was guided to call this The Mother Of All Releasings Ceremony.
I'll make a huge deal out of this on my blog, as well as in my public spaces, I'll provide you with buttons to share at your home sites if you wish, discover a way for those of you who cannot attend Lodge to participate, and share all of the details of how to take advantage of this potential for transformation and make it real. I'll share a video from around a fire to connect us all in this rite of passage on the day of Winter Solstice.
There will be flames. And there will be dancing! And there will be releasing.
This is an exercise in letting go and of binding the medicine. Of owning your power as an intuitive woman, which you do not have to try to be- it is your birthright.
Judgment, guilt, negativity, unkindness to our bodies, shame, stuckness -Mama Earth is always ready to take it from us, and together with the alchemy of fire, make something useful out of it- leaving us free to TRUST that we are so much more than what we needlessly carry around.
We get to take the first steps as a community, TOGETHER, to shake it off, in the Mother Of All Releasings Ceremony, on the upcoming Solstice.
***************************************
Thank you to Lauren of VisionWise, for sharing her work so generously with us here. She is offering a 15% discount at her shop using the Coupon Code: INTENTION.
Erica Wilson won the giveaway for the pouch, and she said, "Blessed be this season of release and balance! I wish to let go my belief that I do not deserve the beauty and blessings of my life. I deserve to be loved and can let it all in. I would like to cultivate the belief that I have valuable and beautiful and powerful things to share with the world. Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful. Blessed be our Journey."
I couldn't agree more. Blessed be our journey as women in love with our lives and living our visions.
Thank you all so much for your sweet, wise and supportive comments about Bee and Miles. I am feeling so much stronger for it. I love this community so dearly.
Before I get down to business, I also want to mention that there are exactly five card decks left after the Squam raid, and they can be found in my shop now. It'll be a few weeks before the next batch comes in, so grab 'em while they're hot.
Now, it is with proud relief that I announce that there are officially no more medicine bundles available in my shop for sale. Because the good news is that I've evolved into full time teaching of how to discover and create your own medicine by my heart's own hearth, the SouLodge (the Autumn Session is coming up on October 31 and filling quickly). This has felt like the right direction for me to go, as the intensity of new energy among women is building, and Trust that we know our own way is becoming a common language between us. My invitation to you is to accept your own power to go in, dig deep and goldmine for that inner medicine. What is coming up in these sessions (I'm hosting a private one right now, as well) is really astounding, and I'll share some of what women are saying here soon soon.
I've put in a shiny lump of hematite-for magic, reflection, grounding, for removing self-limitation, for confidence building, and soul protection. And Lauren has graciously offered up a quartz point, which brings an offering of self-healing, removing negative energy, and clarity. I've also included some white sage leaves to bump that purification up a notch further, and really assist in dissolving those aspects that are ready to be released into the psychic compost pile and create room for something new to come into being.
Leave a comment here to enter, and if you feel called to, please share what you would most like to release down into Mama Earth as we pull inward with the changing season- or for those of you who live where Spring is quickening, release up and out into the fresh sky. Check back next Wednesday to see if you're the lucky winner.
So many blessings to all of you, as this fine and magickal month opens up her simmering brew of possibility to us all.
Yesterday I did some journalling to clear my head about some things-about where I want to go, about SouLodge, about all of the work that I seem to be immersed in...always. I love to work, and sometimes it's an obsession that becomes an obstacle to the higher purpose of my short life. As soon as I became clear about what it is I really want to do, you know, with my life (!) two plants, a stone and an animal came to me. I wrote them in block letters on my journal page and my mission became even more clear.
I always find it rather humorous to discover this need to realign myself. It's kind of like cleaning the dryer lint out of the tray: things/thoughts/ideas just get all clouded together and I find myself walking in circles, but not circulating meaningfully.
I bound the medicine of what it is I'm living up to in a bundle pouch, making something just for me-which is something I haven't done in years. All of this bundling for others, and none had really encompassed all that I wanted to affirm. I think this is why I'm enjoying teaching medicine-making in the Lodge so much. Only *we know* what we need the most, how to bring it all together, not leaving out important parts, when it comes to the overall vision. It's felt so right to teach women how to do this for themselves. Just a few tools and a bit of inspiration, and women are lighting up and recognizing exactly what they need! Community is so beautiful this way. Making the way back to our roots seems so easy when we realize that we're not alone...
For my personal medicine, I chose Yarrow because Matthew Wood called it "natures band-aid" and it's stuck with me ever since. I've experienced this sister as one who is like a balm on fears and ouchies and because reverence for the Earth is high on my list, I felt she needed to be in there. I'm feeling once again, overwhelmed by the amount of waste that goes out of just my home and so I'm renewing my commitment to reduce that dramatically. I've been buying used as much as possible for a long time and it's food packaging that really bums me out. So, YARROW. To keep me conscious about this beautiful place that nourishes us from birth and takes us back at the end of our lives so graciously.
I chose Coyote, which is no major surprise, but when I took inventory of my values, I saw how important this tricky one is. Bringing so much laughter and humor to my life lessons, I've become utterly dependent on the ultimate survivalist who travels fearlessly everywhere, adapting like no other. Coyote connects us all with her warm magic, her foibles, her humility. She parades her right to life in and around the hills, on the shores, and right on the city streets. I truly don't know where I'd be without this companion by my side.
Rose quartz is in there, because the deeper I get into the bones of myself I realize that love is the only thing that matters, and noticing every day that we are more ONE than we are not, this was an easy choice. Healing the world, one heart at a time.
Tobacco is there for gratitude and an offering to Spirit for making this life possible and awakened.
And Butterfly Bush literally called me from across the yard for Beauty and the sweet aroma of existence. Abundantly, she grows and feeds butterflies, skippers, bees, and hummingbirds, expanding her reaches over my neighbors fence and beautifying even his junk pile. She attracts the best- her beautiful equals in the quest for nectar- and I know my life has this blessing on it, too.
I added a couple of other things which I'm keeping secret because superstitious rumor has it that one is not supposed to reveal everything in one's magic satchel. It seems in keeping with the feminine to carry a bit of mystery with us at all times.
The beautiful bundle pouch was made by my sacred sister, Lauren, who creates medicine bags and all kinds of delicious goodies, while nursing her month old baby boy and unschooling her bright light of a daughter. Her store is a bit less abundant than usual, because I am taking many of her medicine items to Squam with me in two weeks to share them on vendor night. I had to have first pick and chose the above pictured pouch to put all of my items into. She inspires me to walk with more reverence, always.
Blessings to you as you find your way, dear sisters.
Much retreating is happening lately, as it seems the more I do, the more I need to stop and recharge-multiple R's, as it were :). I took the entire day off Saturday, which was big deal, considering I'm a workaholic and my forced weekend happens mid-week now. Yes, I have to be cajoled into having fun with my family. Actually, it's getting easier. Each time there's a big change, I need time to adjust. So I'm adjusting. -ed. For the time being. We took at journey to the Natural History Museum to look at dinosaur bones and also visit their Butterfly Pavilion, which we were all nuts about. I love museums, but at peak traffic, it felt stuffy inside.
We got to see a chrysalis not long after it's butterfly had vacated, as well as several monarch caterpillars. Did you know that they munch up a bunch of milkweed, as caterpillars, so that they'll be able to use the toxins as defense later on? It sits like a slurry in their bellies and transforms with them. Birds tend to steer clear of Monarchs, and other poisonous butterflies, for this reason.
I'm having the time of my life in the SouLodge. I've created more ceremony than I typically do, just by nature of conducting the class. We learn what we teach, right? The babes and I all created a prayer tie to carry in the car with us. Seems we've fallen into a habit of griping at each other on our mid-week adventures to Ojai and now it's coloring our realationships in a way I don't like. So we recalibrated and did some healing work with these little bundles, which I taught my group to make last week. I smudged out the car, and hung these from the rearview mirror. Much more sacred than fuzzy dice, don't you think? It's kept us mindful to communicate our needs peacefully during travel.
Sunday, I created a mini-retreat in the forest to make my video for the Lodge and found that I needed some recalibrating, too. I drove up the mountain with anxiety in my chest, and my heart feeling a bit weighted, and came down feeling much lighter. This is what retreat in nature does for me-and it doesn't take very long. I hiked and sat for less than two hours and it made a huge inner difference.
Blessings this Monday, dear readers. Oh! For those of you who do journeywork, I have a new secret tool that I love... (postscript: it's an iPhone App)
My lovely readers! SouLodge is upon us! If you were not able to gather for this class, fret not. I will soon be announcing the next run, which will begin in October. If you are registered, Yahooo!! Please be sure that you have received TWO emails from me. If you have not, please email me. I may not have your most used email account and pertininent information, and that is very important to make certain that you know how to prepare and show up next week.
I am going up a mountain to do some clearing of my own in my sacred circle of women that I've been so blessed to sit under many moons with, to gain some attunements for what's to come. It seems fitting, considering that what I am offering is so closely related heartwise to what I've experienced in the woods with these women. The sitting, the creating, sharing and feasting will soon begin! And not long after, we'll begin our virtual version, as well.
So much love and gratitude to you, for how deeply you live, for how courageously you connect, for how wildly you howl.
