An Cailleach

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Preparing for our Immramma - Beyond the 9th Wave

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Cover Illustration by Patricia Ariel for our meditation cd 
Beyond the 9th Wave

Tomorrow night we will make our Immramma (Irish for Wonder Voyage) as we cross over the threshold of this world into the Celtic Otherworld in our Celtic Shamanic Course: Beyond the Ninth Wave. On this journey we will enter a realm of mystery, magic and healing and deep connection to the earth as we meet the ancient healers, teachers & guardians of transformation of the Celtic Otherworld. As we journey we will be shown how to embody our own wise healer within, how to develop the sight of the ancient Seer through our own eyes, and how to become like a quiet mountain of deep strength and trust in these changing times.

 Our Immramma will be held in the strong arms of An Cailleach the Old One. She is the wise, ancestral deity of the Celtic lands and she has stepped forward to guide this circle & watch over what is changing and falling away in our lives so that we can be strong, calm and radiant in the new world of deeply conscious living that is opening up all around us right now. Who will step forward to help you to reclaim your inner gifts & your own mythic story? Who will walk beside you along the ancient Celtic pathways? Will it be An Cailleach herself, the Crone goddess of Death & Rebirth? Will it be Brigid, the Fiery Arrow? Morgan Le Fay with her wisdom from the Isle of Avalon and secrets of the Fae? Or Cernunnos the Green Man of the Forest come to awaken & balance the Sacred Masculine with the rising energy of the Divine Feminine? They are waiting for us, just beyond the 9th Wave...

In this small and quiet circle, we will be reigniting our Ancestral & Past Life Celtic Soul Memories to embrace these beautiful and healing gifts in our lives here and now in Australia. Our intention is to reclaim these gifts to bring healing to our new home, to heal Ancestral ties and to bring great to love to the earth. We will spend the Full Moon night of this course walking the land of Williamstown and meditating on the Bluestone rocks at the shore of the Sea. We will be remembering our Oracle Reading skills and learning to read the signs in Nature all around us.

If you have already felt the call, I encourage you to step into the energy of this voyage tonight by nourishing yourself, listening to your dreams & tuning in to the natural world with all of your senses - what messages are already being sent to you? You may also begin preparing or finding your Shamanic Tools - gifts of feathers and stones from the Earth, wands and staffs of beautiful power to aid you on the journey. If you are feeling the call and have not registered, we have 2 places waiting to be filled - if one of those is for you, please let me know as soon as you can.

We will meet you on the shore,

Julia & Tony

Starts: 7-9pm  Wednesday 29th February (leap year night)
Length: 6 weeks
Williamstown Community Centre
Cost: $220 ($110 per month)

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Sitting with the Grandmothers at Dark Moon

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I woke up this morning and saw this image over on the site of the woman of wonder that is Sister Wolf and I thought how apt it was for the energy of the Dark Moon at the moment. It is a particularly heavy Dark Moon tonight and tomorrow as we are processing the changes and experiences of our lives since the nineties - the era of Neptune in Aquarius. For some of us the last week has felt like a very lonely time, I saw an image of debris being washed up on the shore just then - as if the arrival of Neptune into Pisces earlier this month was a 'moving in time' and we are realising only now that this new energy is making us aware of old furniture and clothing in our 'house' that doesn't fit the new us. There may be relationships that we are seeing with new eyes & employment that feels so old and far away from who we are right now. I have heard from many clients who are experiencing changes in their workplaces that are out of their control - much like the 'dark night of the soul' this is the Dark Moon before the illuminating light of the New Moon in Pisces on Wednesday (9.35am). This New Moon is also conjunct Neptune making it even more magical and flowing - a truly incredible and quite possibly the most powerful New Moon of 2012. So whenever there is a build up to such an important time, we will feel this even more deeply than usual.

Goddess of the Western Isles by Iain Lowe

So in these next 2 days we cannot fight the release and really why would we want to? The Dark Moon is a time to rest, reflect without thinking to much - to open ourselves to feeling the loss of the old before we make way for the new. We are letting go of the old structures, work and relationships that have helped us so much in the last 2 decades and we need to release them as they will become prisons that our heart needs to move beyond in this new era of spiritual awaking. We are being called to be more connected to the voice of our own Spirit and to the voice of the land, our Mother Earth. In this time I will sit with the energy of An Cailleach - the Crone Grandmother of the Celtic Otherworld. This archetype is strong and sometimes fierce - she has no time for wasting - she helps us as we sit at the crossroads of our life. The crossroads are where we are right now, a liminal space of transformation right at the point of stepping out of the old and before we have taken a step into the new. This is a time to talk with our ancestors, our wise relations to ask for guidance and then to listen to our own hearts to find the direction our new path is taking.

The Little Mermaid, Karel Kachyna, 1974

So for everyone who is feeling the rise of debris from the old life as it hits the shore, don't try to hold on, to cling to the past - let go, there is another path waiting after the birth of the New Moon, a path bright & glittering. What is your new path? What is your new commitment to your Spirit? This may come to you over the next 2 nights - a beautiful time for consulting oracles, the Tarot and meditation. If you feel called to deepen the connection to your spirit with the wise old crone An Cailleach, we will be journey with her on Wednesday, the New Moon night as she helps to strip away the debris, the old self before she rebuilds us again, breathing new life into the new self. In this ceremony we call Commitment to Self, held on the date of 22.2.2012 a powerful day in the Mayan Calendar called the Red Solar Serpent Day, a day of creating Harmony within ourselves directed by the balancing energy of the Number 2 we will feel the threshold of the New Path just in front of us and at the New Moon take a conscious step into it.

If you wish to join us please let me know - we are donating all proceeds from this powerful and magically charged evening to the beautiful koalas of the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter. Let's take that step into the future together.

And the song 'Anthem' by singer & poet Leonard Cohen that always helps me to let go... 'there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in'.