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Swan Blessing Story - Child of the Forest

The Barefoot Princess - Igor Oleynikov

Today I share again the Swan Blessing story written by Kat or Kat-Fox as I call her. I never could really put my finger on why I called Kat that until her Swan Blessing and then I got a glimpse of the beautiful, wild girl that had been bound by a Past Life Vow of Silence. This is Kat's story of the untamed child, the child of the forest and how this wild knowing, our intuition, can be taught through nature, through the land itself. Even in present times, the self-taught child, the one who is comfortable playing on her own, or the child who communes more easily with trees and animals is still feared and misunderstood. Thankfully we are waking up. We are opening and I hope that we will find new ways to welcome the wild child, to learn from her before it is trained or tamed out of her. Those secrets of the wild world. It is time to lift our Vows of Silence, to break the ties that bind our voices, our unique expression. For all who feel this ancient restriction, particularly around the throat chakra, find ways to speak and write and sing your words - let the wise trees be your first audience.
She emerged from the waterfall and stepped towards me. Her skin was glowing olive smooth. She had toiled, but not in the sun. Her green almond-shaped eyes held the memory of a smile. Her white fine hair cascaded in waves down her back. She trod lightly, silently, her back was rod-straight.She led me back to her home, the entrance of which seemed to be an invisible knot in the trunk of a tree. Her home was without edges and warm with dusk light. A wooden table with two chairs, a few pots and pans, a kettle. Little but ample. Herbs drying in bunches hanging from the ceiling.Tea poured, she took my hands and looked into my eyes. My breath seared my throat as she took me back… 
A small girl, about eight years old, playing. A perfect circle of light gleaming down through the tall trees onto her honey curls. She lay on her belly, her feet languidly searching for clouds oblivious to the butterflies dancing between them. Her play was serious, focused: naming the plants for herself, steeping them in her kettle, experimenting.Barefoot she ran, darting between knees and dodging heavy baskets, through the dark clouded marketplace. She headed precisely to her destination, barely detected but not oblivious to predators. She approached his tiny table quietly, head bowed respectfully. He was small and gnarly, and benignly nodding his ragged grey beard towards the tiny bundle of sticks at the end of the table. She pawed them nimbly, knowing they were exactly what she had been seeking. With silent thanks, she turned and disappeared into the darkness, flying towards her clearing, eager to progress her research.A dark cloud loomed across those almond-shaped eyes as rivers streamed down our cheeks…They came for her: tall, black, hooded, angular. Grabbing her roughly by the arms, lifting her feet from the earth. She kicked and screamed, writhed and bit, like a wild wild thing. She summoned the image of her protectors: young, love, glowing. They were far far away, and could not help her now. The marketplace table of the gnarly old man was empty, his chair smashed on the cobblestones.Times were changing.All that she had done, all that she had been, was wrong. A threat. Her solitude, her freedom, her enquiry, her craft: unacceptable. And those hooded ones: they did not even know half her story. 
Twenty years…
That wild girl who had run like a fox and communed with the trees in a circle of light now lived somewhere stone, cold, square. Her back was straight. Her mouth firmly closed. Her eyes hooded, downcast. Her wild hair pulled back, lank and dull. She walked with muted purpose alongside those long cold walls. She washed, she swept.At night she lay staring up at the blank ceiling, that thick coarse rope biting into her back. Gritting her teeth she vowed that she would never completely dampen her flame, that ember in her womb, that spark of curiosity, that life that had been hers. One day, she knew, she would walk right out of that place. Until then, she would not speak, she would not sigh, she would hardly breathe.And then, that day came. It was all over.Her chin rose, eyes meeting the horizon…The gates of that forbidding place were prized open by forces completely unknown and entirely irrelevant to her. Without loyalty, without regret and without rancour, she walked as she always had done: unseen. In the midst of the chaos. Right out of those front gates. As the walls crumbled around her. She walked.No direction but forward. She walked and walked and walked. Never looking back and never to return.The place that she found was not so different from that clearing where she had played as an ancient child. She made her home, stripping bark and twig slowly from one gnarly old man tree, taking her time, open to the gifts of the forest spirits and the seasons.She looked me straight in the eye. She saw me and showed me what I needed to see…
That vow of silence: it bound her forever. It was a vow she had been forced to take, symbolised by the rough rope binding her waist, constricting her breath, knots slicing into her spine. That ache would never quite leave her.The daughters of the well emerged from the waterfall and ignited the rope. It disintegrated to ashes, which dispersed on the breeze. We saw that we were now safe to nurture that ember, the flame that had been dampened for so many years. We understood we would nourish it back to crackling roaring life, one golden feather-like filament at a time.This was our work.My almond-eyed olive-skinned crone took my hands for one last time.She was safe. She welcomed fatigue, hunger, cold. She could endure.She lived alone and invisible to most. She was never lonely.And she healed, those tiny ones had started to arrive. Tiny as she had once been. Wordlessly peering into her window, gratefully pawing a lovingly-bundled collection of sticks carefully placed on the table within a small arm’s reach, knowing that it was exactly what they had been seeking. 
Post script: I have had a lower disc injury in my back, the origins of which has – up until the Swan Blessing – always been a mystery to me. 
Post post script: Whilst undertaking the Ninth Wave Water Rites to complete the Swan Blessing, I received my calling: to heal with words. Daughter of a nurse and an educator, gifted with words, I finally saw my life’s true purpose. The vow of silence, the prohibition on healing, had been broken. For this, I will be eternally grateful to Julia and Tony, and the daughters of the well.
Thank you Kat-Fox or Kat McNally as some of you may already know her, through Kat's writings and blog: I Saw You Dancing.  Tony and I are thrilled that you received the message about your true vocation in your Swan Blessing. Love to you Wordsmith and we can't wait to read and hear your beautiful healing stories. The fox is free xx

Balance and Swan Sessions

Alan Lee from Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson

It seems that we will now be leaving Williamstown in the New Year and so we can offer these last balances for anyone who wishes to see us here in the west before we go. This week we are at the threshold of a doorway into the NEW. This potent portal will open this Wednesday on 12.12.12 and deepen at the Summer Solstice on 21.12.12. Between these energy points we are sharing these last sessions of the year beside the sea.

Last Sessions: 

Thursday and Friday 13th - 14th December Tues - Thurs 18th - 20th December
Evening appointments available Wed & Thurs

Balance Sessions: 1 hour ($100)

The Swan Blessing Past Life Healing Sessions: 1.5 hours ($160) Black Swan Tarot, Astrology and Healing Session: 1.5 hours ($160)

If you are feeling like you need some assistance at this time we urge you to embrace it - the transformative energy available to us now is immense,

Oceans of love for all that is unfolding, Julia & Tony

Fortune by Charles Allen Winter

 

Eclipse Balance Sessions

9th Wave Water Rites for the Eclipse

Last week I created an essence holding both Black Swan and Frog Medicine to be used  in a Self-Blessing Water Rite activated at the Solar Eclipse New Moon in Scorpio. I am over the moon with this particular essence - it's energetic presence is so profound. I journeyed deeply with me Celtic ancestors and the water elementals to create this water essence to be used in beautiful self-blessing rites. We are heading for the Lunar Eclipse next Thursday 29th November and for some this Eclipse period has been extremely testing and challenging. To assist in helping to release all energy no longer needed and to create flow and space for what is birthing in this new time, I have created Eclipse Balance Sessions to be held over the next 8 days. 

Eclipse Balance Sessions:  One Hour - $100

Tues 27th Nov: 11am, 1pm or 3pm
Wed 28th Nov: (Eve of the Lunar Eclipse) 2pm, 4.30pm 
Thurs 29th: (Full Moon Gemini Lunar Eclipse) 3pm, 4.30pm, 6pm
Sat 1st Dec: 12.30 and 2pm

In these sessions of balance and renewal you will receive a reading into the current energies and the Eclipse season is asking of you at the moment as well as a shamanic balance and gift of the 9th Wave Water Rites. We will be working with Black Swan & Frog Medicine to remove and cleanse your spirit from the deep memory of shame and guilt carried in the wound of the Divine Feminine. It is time for us all to sing and dance and in BEAUTY.  If you are feeling the heavy burden of energy that is coming up to be released at this potent season of ECLIPSE I encourage you to come and receive this deep and gentle release of the 9th Wave Water Rites.

9th Wave Water Rites Self-Blessing Essence and Ritual:

$25 (Free with an Eclipse Balance Session)

You may also purchase your own bottle of the 9th Wave Water Rites Self-Blessing Essence and Ritual instructions to be performed over the Lunar Eclipse period. This potent essence was activated at the Solar Eclipse New Moon in Scorpio 14.11.12 with Black Swan & Frog Medicine. Created in hand-drawn natural mineral spring water from the wells of the Wombat Forest in Victoria & organic plant essence of Blackthorn Flower. Self-Blessing Water Rites for women to cleanse and remove energy of shame and guilt or wound of the Divine Feminine from this life and past lives. Restoration of trust and knowing in the beauty, power and grace of  being Woman.

Oceans of love for the unveiling and receiving of your True Spirit, Julia x

Answering the Call - the Living Path

One morning I watched as a woman in her late 40s walked out on to the volcanic bluestone rocks on Point Gellibrand in my home of Williamstown, stripped off and dove out into the deep sea. The sea here is very deep and the tides stronger than people realise, it is not a place where I've seen anyone swim before and I was blown away by her strength and fearlessness. Waiting on the rocks was her beautiful companion, a strong black dog who with great focus watched his mistress swim out to the depths. Not too long after she climbed easily back onto the rocks, dressed quickly and off she and her dog went into the distance. This small and great moment has stayed with me.

This year more than any other we are hearing the call of Mother Nature & the wise voices of our ancestors. We are feeling the earth moving and breathing beneath, around & through us - the spirits of the earth are awakening. In Williamstown we are on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water, on our shores are ancient volcanic bluestones like the ancient markers of Stonehenge - geologists are still amazed at the strange rock formations found here - they are a mystery. We are on land of the Kulin Nation, the spirit of those ancient Aboriginal tribes is still with us here. We are on the land of the first white settlement in Victoria, home to sea captains and sailors, convicts & orphans, a place of Arrival for many, from all over the world.

This year Tony and I will be sharing the energy of this beautiful & sacred land in our workshops & classes as we remember again those who have gone before. We can learn much from these spirits of the land.

The Oracle Speaks: learning to channel messages from the Earth's Oracles & reading the Elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air. Receiving the wise wisdom from our own hearts & from Spirit.  Includes Full Moon meditation & journey on the rocks at Williamstown Beach.
Commitment to Self Circle: A night of honouring our spirit as we journey with the ancient Celtic grandmother An Cailleach who will help us to shed what we no longer need to embrace our radiant future. All proceeds of this night go to the koalas at the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter.
Beyond The Ninth Wave: Dedicated to the wise grandmother An Cailleach, in this 6 week course of developing your own personal practice, building strength and resilience, we will discover the ancient teachings of the wise ancestors of the Celtic Otherworld. Develop connection to your own Animal Totems, Plant Helpers & Spirit Guides.  Includes Full Moon meditation & journey on the rocks at Williamstown Beach.