Swan Blessing - Religious Vows of the Seer and Mystic

Today I share again Sharon's Swan Blessing story of the release of the Vows of Chastity and Poverty taken as a nun in a past life. Sharon felt these vows very keenly in her present life particularly the Vow of Poverty. And there was also something deeper, harder for Sharon to name or understand with her conscious mind. It manifested as a deep fear of rejection, particularly by her family and also a need to hide her true self in belief that to reveal it, would lead to the dreaded outcome of being rejected and outcast, not only from family but from society itself.

As the Swan Blessing opened Sharon's gift of sight, she saw a lifetime that began with abandonment. She saw herself as a baby being left on a doorstep by parents too young to keep her. She was taken in by a family who did not welcome her as a child of their own but as an unpaid servant. It was a childhood of hard work and of feeling unseen but deep within the child was a knowing that she was somehow meant for greater things. She was a child with a gift to see and communicate with the angelic realms. This secret gift was the only source of solace and joy in her life but when revealed became the source of ridicule, forcing her to run away from the adopted home. Like many female mystics of the past, she entered a religious order in the belief that she would not only be allowed to carry on her spirit communication but that she would be understood and honoured.

To enter the convent she had to take the heavy vows of Chastity and Poverty - vows that meant little to the young girl who was seeking a safe place to share and celebrate her medicine as Seer.  She was again relegated to the duties of servant. Over the years she gradually managed to rise up in rank in the convent but again felt the calling of her medicine, a deep knowing that she was made for deeper and stronger spiritual work and began to slowly reveal her gift of communication with spirit. In thinking that by entering a convent she would be in a place where this gift of direct revelation with spirit would be honoured and accepted she was greatly mistaken. Instead she saw herself experiencing the fate that befell many healers and medicine women of the past, she saw herself suffering the greatest of betrayals when her gift was labelled as witchcraft and she was burnt at the stake.

By releasing this story that has bound and held her medicine for lifetimes, Sharon felt enormous release and sense of freedom. I am glad that she is able to begin to embrace her ancestral wisdom once more and share her gifts in this lifetime free of fear.

"I Sharon am a Healer. 

Dear Julia, I just wanted to say thank you so much for yesterday's session. I had an AH-HAH moment in the car on my way home. Now it all makes perfect sense as to what has been going on in my life. 

As I looked into the well and saw that girl aged 15 with her piercing blue eyes and long blond hair, I felt a sense that I was looking at myself from centuries back. When she showed me that she was in a nun's outfit. 

She was such a tough little girl, to be abandoned by her parents when she was a baby, being rejected from her first day of life. Then to be taken in by a family where she never belonged and felt rejected once again, being a maid. Her only solace was talking to her friends the angels. Then being ridiculed because people thought she was crazy when she told people about her gift. Her only option was to run away.  

She thought that being a nun was her only way of being able to talk to the angels again, but she was made to be an outcast, so she renounced her gift and took on the vows of poverty and chastity and joined the order. Yet she never felt that this was her vocation and when she had risen through the church and decided to once again explore her gifts, she was burnt. 

This all makes sense to me, all my life, I have tried to do everything for my family. I always feared that they would reject me if I did anything wrong, This caused me so much anxiety and I even suffered from depression. 

The vow of poverty resounded so well for me, never being able to have a stable job because I didn't think I belonged anywhere and never giving myself fully to a relationship. This is all about to change. I am reclaiming my freedom and from this day forth I will ensure I lead my life . I am so looking forward to opening myself to the spiritual realm, to explore meaningful career opportunities and to welcome abundance. Thank you so much."

Blessings, Sharon

 

Artwork: Suscipe Me Domine, John Henry Frederick Bacon (1895)

Asha's Swan Blessing Story - BoneWoman

Susan Seddon Boulet

Today I share with you Asha's Swan Blessing story of past life Ancestral Medicine.

There are many reasons why we block and resist opening full connection to Ancestral Medicine again. Sometimes the medicine we have access to is so ancient and unknown to the mind that it frightens us. It may also carry the bindings of memories of carrying these gifts in times when it was dangerous and misunderstood. Many witches, healers and shaman were persecuted for possessing healing medicine that was viewed by a later religion as evil. The seeds of Ancestral Medicine are ancient and indigenous to the land they were birthed through, but these lands may not be where you find yourself living now and the wisdom needed to understand your medicine may not be available to you in your current environment or family.

When Asha came to me, she came with a heavy fury and pain. She also came carrying deep shame from lifetimes of believing that she had been the cause of a terrible and traumatic event. Asha's medicine in another lifetime was that of BoneWoman and Midwife. In this lifetime Asha had been drawn again to shamanic midwifery but was experiencing great pain and confusion when she sat with her sisters. In journeying back to the point of Soul Loss and closing down of her medicine, Asha saw that she'd lived in a time of high infant mortality and was a healer from the forest who was looked on with fear as she came not to birth the baby but to save the mother after the baby had died and heal the baby's soul and spirit through bone magic. Like many female healers, Asha experienced being blamed for the illness and 'bad luck' in her village and was made to watch as her sisters were murdered for her supposed crime. This led Asha to make the Sacred Vow to close down her Medicine and close her heart to Love.

This Swan Blessing was painful for Asha but so very beautiful in it's healing and return to Love. Asha gifts her Swan story to us here to help anyone else who may be resonating with these feelings.

"Her eyes are dark, black like ink. Thick black eye brows snake to a sculpted nose and her hair like coal rests heavy down her breasts.  

She is enraged, I feel it in my body, a hot convulsion, a shudder behind my brow, thick in my throat. But she trusts me, she trusts me and she reaches out her hands and I fall quickly and wholly through the inky pools of her eyes. I am in a dusty street, and alley between square earthen homes. Little stalls line the street and although it is not overy busy I cannot see her. Then it is that I glimpse her, see her walking briskly, almost, almost running, her scarf and clothes conspiring in the shadow of the buildings to conceal her almost completely. We come to a door way and when I enter at first I cannot see. There is a smell of death and metal. I cannot decide if I am in a home or the halls of a sort of hospital, not as I know it, but there is a long dark hall and I feel if not see many rooms. I feel other midwives, and also I don't and then we are in the room and my eyes have adjusted, just, and there is a mess. Blood and sweat and tears and the echo of pain to great to bear drench the air. A metalic stench. The mother, thick and heavy with her body's outpourings, past screams that have racked her body, and her hallow moans are all the worse for their subdued volume. A liquid is given, brought I assume by my dark eyed self but it is not she who holds it to her lips. Her entire focus is elsewhere. The babe stuck and dead.  

I watch her a long time. I think she wants me to know what it took. The physicality, her whole body wrenching from the woman's now limp one the the dead babe. Every thing she had. And more. And the numbness necessary. A resigned determination. Or a determinded resignation. She does not know if the mother will live, and in this very moment, in a certain way, she does not care, and the babe is too long dead. But she must pull it free. All she knows is that she must. And then it is done. There is a chaos in the room but we are removed from it all. No one looks at her. No one looks at the baby. No one looks at us. Too many dead babies.  

We are in the forest. A very small clearing created from the felling of one tree on whose stump rests something important. Show me, and she does, but it comes slowly. There are bones. For a long time all I see is the bones. As she moves them I understand she has collected them. Here is the skeleton of a rabbit. A deer. At first I do not understand. Teach me. She carefully aranges each bone to form the skeleton of the creature it once was. But one bone, one bone she takes from the baby. One bone she replaces. And then she breathes on the bones. She breathes the breath the babe never took. She breathes it into the rabbit bones until they breathe themselves. The rabbit lives, and the child lives in the rabbit. In the deer, in the birds of the forest. She is calm. She is sad but she knows what to do.  

She is old. She is so old. She is bitter. So bitter. I shake with her rage and she tastes like poison, like bile, yellow, green, black. The front of my body rots from it. And I ask her why. And she shows me. There is blood. There is blood. And there are limbs. Pieces, pieces, pieces of them. Mothers, daughters, sisters, midwives. They are hacked. They are hacked. They are hacked. And their blood pools and she is held. She is held by hard rough hands and arms, it takes many to hold her. There is an arm thick with muscle with soft blonde hairs. But they make her watch. They make her watch what she has done. They tell her this is her fault. The blood. The faces. The pieces. What do they call her? Witch. 

And it shivers though our spine. And it shivers through our time. I have to fly above it to understand what cannot be understood. But she is held in place. All she can see are those she has killed. She is old again and she coughs up the binding like stale phlegm. I will not help. I will never help again. What I know her to say is, I will not love. I will not heal. I will not love again. She binds her love and her healing gifts. I go to her. With my heart I see her. With my heart I understand. And I love her. I forgive her. And I tell her we are free. 

Our soul family comes, her sister midwives, and we are shocked, because they welcome her, they love her with open arms, here are her sisters who died, whose deaths we feel responsible for. But they do not ask us to hold this pain. They ask us to let ourselves be forgiven. And they become light like balloons, light like feathers, and she is rabbit, she is deer and she bounds into the forest. I cry for us because we are welcomed. We are welcomed home. We are welcomed back into love.  

I am as heavy as she is light. The daughter comes to me. I see my binding, it is arms. It is hands wraped around my torso. It is metal shackles on my ankles. The daughter comes to me and she hands me a scythe, the same one, and I shudder, but I hack away the hands that bind, and when they fall I slice smoothly through the metal on my ankles, the chain crumbles into dust. But the real work is the poison. The daughter puts her mouth to mine and she sucks the poison. She sucks and she sucks and she is serpent and woman and she sucks and she sucks. And she is done. Except there is something left. I spit out the last bit of bitterness.   

We are free. 

And I, I am safe to love again."  

.........

Deer Julia,I have felt profoundly this releasing. I am feeling more whole and more held in this life. And I can see today swan and in her gentle permeance. Gliding on the rivers of my journey. I have called in my sisters when I have felt my need, and they have come. And I feel them, all the women who have chosen to love me in this life. All the women who have chosen to love me in many lives. And I am releasing my shame. And in allowing myself to receive this love, allowing myself to be part of this cycle, allowing myself to love, I am coming to the freedom to be more and more alone. More all-one. Asha, 2014

Thank you Asha for sharing your heart and your story, oceans of love for the gentle holding of your beautiful medicine again, love Julia x

Swan Blessing with Julia

Jane's Unbinding of the Wise Woman

Recently I had the honour of holding a Swan Blessing dreaming well at the Deepening Retreat for the sisters of the School of Shamanic Midwifery. What a powerful dreaming on the sacred land of Jane Hardwicke Collings, the founder and creatrix of school. Jane's dream of birthing the new shamanic sisterhood left a deep impression on me, her energy is beautiful - without judgement and full of encouragement. If you are looking for a guide to step into your own shamanic practice I can recommend no-one more highly. I first met Jane in person when she came for her Swan Blessing just over a year ago and since this time we seemed to have journeyed so closely in our medicine and wishes for this new Golden Age. 

We will be holding the last Swan Blessing sessions for the year next week at the Summer Solstice, if Swan is calling to you please get in touch it is such a beautiful point of the wheel right now to be creating more freedom in your life. Many of the seekers who take part in a Swan Blessing are also sending us their journeys for a book in creation: Swan Blessing - Releasing the Ties That Bind. They are so very potent and beautiful. Here is Jane's memory of her journey with the Swan. 

I saw her, old, long scraggly hair, wrapped in tanned animal hide for protection, by the river, in the forest, alone, very alone, sad, resigned, quiet. She'd been banished from the village, or maybe she'd run away and been hiding, either way it was because she'd been found out or would have been and that meant she'd had to leave or die.   

I saw her, young, she was writing furiously, long feather quill, hiding somewhere in a corner of the attic of the dwelling, in the dark, a lone taper burning. She was scared, fearful of being seen, yet she wrote and she wrote, pausing only to hear more to write.The words were coming to her from others, words she couldn't see who spoke, yet the words came and she wrote them.The Grandmother who lived in her hut in the forest had told her that the voices and their words that she heard were important and that she must write them down and give them to her. She taught her to write and read and told her to keep it a secret, not to tell anyone and to keep on doing it. 

On the Grandmother's death bed, she made her promise, make a vow, to never let anyone else know about the words she heard and to not let anyone see her writing, otherwise she would be killed. She wrote and wrote and the words soothed her soul. She shared them with her mother and her sisters because the words spoke of a different way, a way where they would be honoured and respected, it was so different to how it was for them.... The vow she made to the Grandmother kept her scared, scared of being seen, scared of being found out and scared of what would happen should she be discovered and the vow kept the words secret, but the words wanted to be shared and read.....   

The vow she made stayed with her until another lifetime when she went to the Blacksmith's cottage and met a Witch who flew with Swan. The Witch helped her find a way to cut away the web that was the vow, that had stuck to her, that was stuck in and around and all over her. And Black Panther came then, to be with her, to protect her and guard her. She was safe now, the vow was released and the words could come freely and be shared.    

Jane, Sydney 2012

Thank you Jane for sharing your story and sharing your love and vision with us all. How lucky we are to have you back with us again.

Robyn's Swan Blessing Story - Sacred Vow to Hide the Healer

Far From Home - Morgan Weistling

Today I share Robyn's Swan Blessing past life story of her Vow to Hide the Healer - to not let anyone know who she truly was. This fear of persecution is one of the strongest ties that binds us and stop us from stepping into spiritual and healing work again in our current lifetime. I was very touched by Robyn's courage to face this fear and was thrilled to see her rapid transformation after she released her spirit from this heavy vow. I hope that in the telling of Robyn's own story, it helps those who are also feeling this same fear to realise that this vow is ancient and does not belong with your spirit in this time of change and rise of the Sacred Feminine. I hope it helps you to feel that you are not alone and that you can come out of the shadows and into community with your sisters and brothers again.

Thank you Robyn and we are so happy to see the unveiling of your Wise Medicine here in this world again.

As I looked into the well I became a seven year old girl with long sandy brown hair in plats. All around  was forest. Beautiful majestic trees that were as high as the sky. I  was met by a lady, but could only see her curly, dark auburn red hair.  She was wearing an emerald green cloak made of raw silk. It was stunning and shiny.  I couldn't see her face through the shadow of the hood.  I felt we were mother and child. She beckoned me to follow her and seemed very excited to show me something. We were skipping and running with such excitement and freedom through the forest. 

We came to a clearing in the trees where there were some people in a circle surrounding a fire. They were pagans, all holding hands chanting blessings to the earth. I could see their shapes in white with no defining marks. The only defining vision was a giant rabbit joined in amongst the people, my mother and myself. We joined the circle and began to become one with earth and all the people. We prayed for healing of the world, for peace, for the sick, for all in need. We were healers, shamans and in an age where this belief could have you branded and killed as a witch. 

Suddenly there were screams and men attacking us with sticks, breaking up the circle and beating anyone they could catch. As we fled into the forest they grabbed my mother. They pulled us apart, our arms stretched out for one last chance of touch. I  watched as my mother was carried away screaming and kicking holding her arms out to me. I was crying out for her with no hope.  I had to hide until it was safe to emerge. As I looked up, a hand reached out for me. It was a man who had come to help. He took me to a secret place where we were allowed to be free and safe. We all lived together in harmony with nature and continued to heal. They taught me the ways of nature and how to use the powers that I possessed. 

I grew into a tall, stunning looking woman that walked tall and proud hiding my deep secrets. I  was a healer with such powers that I could heal with a single smile or glance. I had my secret kept deep within, not sharing through fear of being killed.  I healed from afar. I was living in a Scandinavian town on the edge of the forest. Nobody knew who I was, but I had respect. 

When it was time to see my binding I felt a huge rope coil around my entire body much like a snake would strangle their prey. I was bound with this rope with a giant knot in my mouth. The knot represented how I swore to never discuss my secret within. Never to let anyone know I am a healer.  Then my mother was reunited with me to show me I was safe. As she put out her arms for me, a feeling of love and peace shot through my entire body. Then my ropes were cut and they fell to the ground. The young girl was free to talk her truth. No more silence, no more fear, I too am free.

After my blessing the Swan circled above with the sun behind her. She came low enough to pick me up and carry me away.  I embraced her with gratitude for allowing me to take this journey. I felt safe with her as she flew through the perfect sky, then spiraled down and around to land in the dam paddock of my home. A home I can now appreciate and feel settled and safe in from this day forward. 

What an amazing experience. The most interesting guided meditation I have ever done. The emotion that was experienced was so intense inside my heart, but was finally put at peace through this magical healing. Having picked some cards Julia described exactly where I was in my heart. I was feeling trapped with my strong spiritual belief having to remain a secret, through fear of being persecuted, criticized and judged.  At the end of the day, my choice to be who I am truly within my heart was being ignored, leaving me untrue to myself and my life as who I am today. 

I believe more and more in past lives and at times have had some amazing things happen to convince me even more again. I have always had a yearning to be in India. It was a place where one of my many spiritual steps were taken and where I have always felt at home and allowed to embrace spirituality. I have always felt a strong connection to India through family history, past and present, but also in the heart.  In India, people show you respect for your strong belief.  Monks, nuns and Holy men are looked up to and never persecuted. My past lives as a holy being were many and I was loved and respected for who I was. This was making it hard to settle in my own home, a paradise surrounded by nature. A place that people come to enjoy and relax. But for me, no, India felt like home.  For a while now I had the feeling that my beliefs and abilities  should be kept secret, as judgements and criticisms I have had to face from opening my heart to people have felt so unfair. I am not cuckoo or going to hell, I am an amazing being with a lot to share. Life is good! 

So a couple of days pass. I start to see visions of my past again. This time, I recognize my mother. She isn't my maternal mother from this life as I originally thought, she is Judy, healer I bump into on occasion. In my Scandinavian life, Judy is my mother. Judy is also the healer that helped me on a few occasions. She turns up at the right time. A lovely lady I have always felt like I should get to know better, but has never had the chance. First thing the next morning After this visit to Melbourne my family all went to our chiropractor for our regular adjustment. We hadnt seen a single soul in town before entering the clinic. Guess who were the patients before us, Judy and her husband Jack. I hadn't seen them for over 18 months and now I feel its time to get to know them better. I think I have a new teacher. 

Thank you Julia and Tony for helping me find peace. Look forward to another magical experience with you both.  Robyn, 2013

Swan Blessing bookings 

Forest of Life - Marian's Swan Blessing Unbinding of Many Stories

'Catskin' by Arthur Rackham

As well as holding Swan Blessing ceremonies in person, I am now able to offer Swan Sessions by Skype and phone by request from the forest. In these Swan sessions we will journey together to release your spirit from the binding of past life beliefs, vows and sacred oaths to receive the gifts of your ancestral medicine.  

Swan Sessions: by Skype or phone -  one hour $120. 

Please email me to request a time to journey with Swan together. 

Swan Blessing Ceremonies in person in Sherbrooke or Kew, VIC

1.5 hours    $160

Sometimes a seeker will come to journey in Swan Blessing with Tony and I to release a binding belief or promise of the past that unlocks not only one significant past life but many. All of these lifetimes are bound together because the same belief was carried and activated in each incarnation. This happened for Marian. All she had to do was to take that first step into the Forest to meet her own Spirit to begin a shedding of many lifetimes. In our journey, Marian received rapid vision after vision of the past experiences that were needed to release her ancestral medicine. With the shedding of each life, Marian felt lighter and freer until finally she found the new words to call back into her life with joy and trust the medicine of her birthright, the medicine of Healer.

Oceans of love to you Marian, radiant healer, child of the Earth.

Forest of Life.

The beauty of walking in the forest of life. 
It’s a deep place of wisdom, of welcome and soul birds in flight. 
This is where my life was begun. 
Safe and nurtured under the sun. 
Two parents, one daughter. A life full of love.

Stolen away so young.
When, as yet, I did not discern any one.
I hear my mother’s tears.
I hear the pain she now bears.
A life gone.  A life taken.

Soldiers in the smokey haze attacking.
One field, one tree, a hill, a wooden home.
Not my own.  But here I am grown.
Children playing with sun on skin smiling, laughing. Or is it screaming.
In the darkness woman staring. 

Dusty bricks. 
Yellow stone upon stone.
Walls rising up. Soldiers inside. Me out alone.
Yet not alone. 
A child accompanies me down the dirt road.

Who is she?
If only she were my own.
She leads me to a ghost home.
So many empty buildings. What happened here?
This once rich land holds nothing but fear.

Vision of illness and sickness.
Death and dying.
They sent me away to save the living.
Angry father thinks he knows best.
She killed the mother at first breath.

Back to the woods to an Aunt out of favour.
Skilled in an art form that makes her a saviour.
She teaches the ways passed from the ancients.
Guiding and leading. Crafting my healing.
Bark and herbs for the dying and living.

A woodland temple is where I am drawn.
Seeking solace after the beloved Aunt is gone.
It is beautiful, sacred, profound.
A home amongst trees if I give up the purpose for which many women feel bound.
Willing and happy to fulfil my call. I choose to serve the women, children, sick and poor.

Priest, ceremony.  Realisation.
Deceived by men.  An innocent victim.
Held captive, held prisoner for my knowledge and more.
My wisdom, my healing, my spirit, my light.
They’ll change it, they’ll break it, they’ll make it night.

Mad with rage I scream and I holler.
I pull on my life with vicious anger.
I throw myself round till I’m no longer there.
Head bangs, body shudders, blood running through hair.
Lying cold on the floor, face pale, eyes stare.

Always a child. Almost a woman grown.
But, never a mother, never a lover.
And, never a crone.The pledge was made to be alone.
To save the secrets of the soul.

A life gone. A life taken. A healer kept hidden till this incarnation.
A walk in the forest, a walk through life.
Brings forth wisdom, healing and a soul bird in flight.
Goddess of love, of wisdom and light.
Freely to roam now full of life.

Marian, 2013

She is walking out of the fires...Mishele's Swan Story

She is walking out of the fires. Her staff which connects her to the land below her and the skies above, reminds her of her Medicine. She wears a conch shell to remind her she is Woman. She carries her basket to collect medicine wherever she goes. She is Medicine Woman. She looks out at the world through the quartz crystal heart she swallowed... Seeing all with Love and Clarity. She holds the ancient sacred herb Desert Sage in her belly, connecting her to All that Was, All that Is and All that Will Be. She is taking Me out of hiding my Medicine. She is whispering into my heart, singing to my feet, calling my memories to awaken. Giving me strength to remember She is I and I am She. We walk into the world sharing our Medicine again. We walk into the world sharing our Medicine again. Dear Julia, After spending the weekend with you and all the sisters in the circle, I feel I Am AWAKE! How can one merely say Thank You for the gift you have given! For the Swan Blessing, the unbinding of Vows that have held me back in this life, introducing me to the Daughters Of The Well. The words Thank You cannot display the deep gratitude I feel, for Teaching me the Medicine of making my own Medicine Doll. For holding the space with so much Love, Compassion, Joy, Wisdom, and your Beautiful Voice to guide us to where we needed to go. For gathering together a circle of Medicine Women, making connections, sharing stories, releasing past life pain, and bringing us back to the present with our Medicine that we may have been hiding due to ancient fears. Julia, my way to honour You and all that you have awakened in me, is to Walk, Dance, Love, Forgive, Laugh, Be the Medicine Woman I Am and Walk that path in Truth and Beauty, sharing with All, as you have shared with All 

What an amazing weekend I had! On the misty Mt Tambourine a circle of women gathered together, and under the gentle Guidance of Julia from Sacred Familiar we journeyed deep into ourselves and our past. Through her Swan Blessings, we released and healed Vows and Bindings we made in a past life, that was stopping us from our full potential in this life. We released our Grandmothers, Mothers, Daughters. We reunited with each other again. We shared our stories in the safe circle that Julia created in a magic place called Grail Haven, sharing in the Blessed Water from the sacred well. I encourage you to look into Grail Haven, it truly is a healing experience. Julia taught us the lost art of making Spirit/Medicine Dolls! Wow!! Having already been gifted one, I knew the power of their medicine, and to make my own was and is a life changing experience! I have learnt so much of myself during this process, and will continue to do so with all the others I will create! Yes! I am addicted! I met Such beautiful women, making connections that are ancient and now present ♥ We drummed and sang (thank you Vicki for teaching us the songs, I sang all the way home on the train) We had fun at the markets, meeting the friendly locals and spreading joy with our open hearts and Dolly's (who came with us sharing their magic to the young and the old, men and women) So many magical experiences, I think I could write a whole book about this one weekend ;-) Oh and I was taken back to when I was a child born from a Gypsy mother and towns man father. I ended up living on my own, in the forest, rejected for who I was, yet still consulted by the villagers for medicine and healing (in secret of course) I bring back with me my essence of the Wild Gypsy Woman, this time, I walk proudly into the world, with my Medicine, I will speak the truth and beauty to all ~ For All ♥ Thank You so much dear Julia and to all the women in the circle Bless You ♥

Mishele, Femmina Unbound on Mt Tamborine, 2013

Violet's Link to Plant and WOmen's Mysteries - Spirit Doll Medicine

Violet - Emily's Spirit Doll

Dear Julia, 

Here is the story of my Violet Medicine Doll... 

On the weekend of the Swan Blessing Spirit Doll workshop I had only recently discovered I was pregnant. I had been keeping this delicious, mysterious secret inside. Only my husband and I knew and we were surprised at how deep and dark the knowledge felt...how wrong it would be to talk about yet. 

I had been sleeping and dreaming a lot and was just starting to get waves of nausea when I woke or during the day when my mind wandered the dreamworld. A lot of my dreams felt heavy and I was having flashes of past life traumas. I started taking walks in the morning by the river to let these feelings flow through me and away. I was drawn again and again to a patch of violets growing in the shade along my walk. Their delicate smell made me feel better, like the flowers understood the important work I was doing and gently supported the secrets within me. So I came to the workshop with these violets, knowing that the doll I made would be a Violet Medicine Doll, one who could travel the darkness of my dreams with me and remind me of the delicate beauty to be found there.
The journey the Swan Blessing took me on was surprising but perfectly synchronised with the energies I've described...

I gaze into the pool and see the face of my other self. She is tall, slim, queenly. She shifts from being black haired and young to silvery and old. Sunshine and moonlight. Masculine and feminine. She is a desert woman, Bedouin.  

She works with the plants of the desert, the ones that bloom in oases in the moonlight, and survive in cracks and crevices and caves. Slow dripping, seeping water underground. Women’s mysteries. 

She sings the song of the desert, she calls these plants into life. She tattoos the journeys and knowledge of her people onto her skin. She bathes in underground pools at night. She is strong, powerful, respected and loved. 

She binds her wisdom when white men arrive to “study” their nomadic way of life. She puts a halt to the growth cycles. She will never share the songlines, the stories. The plants will die and wither away to dust, unnoticed in their secret places. She has forseen the destruction white man will bring so she will not pass her knowledge on to her daughters. She will not burden them with the secrets.
The binding is tight around my waist, my solar plexus. I cannot be true to myself. I cannot reveal the full extent of my wisdom, or pass it on to the baby in my womb. I am withholding, withering inside. I feel sick to my stomach.The sister of the well hands me a knife to cut the binds and I hear my other self begin to sing the desert heart song again. Her wisdom is free and it flows through her, through the desert sands and winds and the moonlight, through my open centre and into my baby. I feel the unfolding of my mysterious violet baby just as the desert plants unfurl and come to life in the secret dark places.Together we will find the balance again of sunshine and moonlight, masculine and feminine, learning and intuition, spirituality and grounding. 

I place seven violets inside my doll for each chakra and a sprinkling of Uluru red earth at her heart and feet to ground us in this land, connect us to our songlines and dreaming tracks. She carries the sacred gum in her medicine pouch. This baby will know the songs of the desert and the ocean, the blinding sun and the darkness. All the polarities. 

The doll dances and sways forward. She knows where she is going and where she is from. The strength and fragility of violets drifts from her like a sweet scent that you almost can’t catch except in your memory.

I am so in awe of the power of the spirit and medicine doll and the journey they take their creators on as they are made that I have begun collecting these journeys as part of our Swan Blessing book. Perhaps there will be so many that they will make a book on their own. I am also researching the history of this ancient ancestral practice of making a doll to help ourselves or someone else heal and it is a beautiful journey of it's own. Thank you Emily for sharing such a precious experience and time in your life, oceans of love to you and your growing tribe. If anyone would like to share their doll and the story of it's making you are welcome to send it to us. 

Our next Spirit Doll workshop: Reclaiming Ancestral Medicine of the Spirit Doll will be held on Saturday 19th October. 

There is a light on in the Magdalene Laundries

In the last 2 months, Tony and I have been making journeys to the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, the site of the old Magdalene Laundries. And every time we visit we see something that seems to be letting us know that we are not alone in our wish to bring acknowledgement to this site and the spirits of the women and children here. On one visit we discovered beautiful light sculptures inside the laundries themselves as part of an exhibition called Globelight. As we viewed them in silence I was aware of the powerful symbology here of the spiral, the spider-web and the wooden pyre crowned with a halo.

Swan Blessing - Releasing the Vow of the Outcast

Sylvia Ji - Shapeshifters

On this Full Blue Moon morning I share again with you Kristan's Swan Blessing Story of the Outcast. In her past life, Kristan belonged to a tribe that could not accept the powerful medicine that she carried. In her tribe this medicine was seen as taboo for woman to hold. She was asked to obey or to leave. She chose to say NO to the tribe so that she could say YES to her spirit.

Many of us have experienced similar stories in past lives and in our present lives. We have felt that to truly be ourselves, we must journey alone. Or we have put up with behaviour that hurts us just to stay a part of the tribe whether that tribe is family, society, peers. In this time of the rise of the Divine Feminine we are being called out of the shadows to embrace all of our natural gifts and to release the fear of being rejected and cast out by those who do not understand or accept us. Saying NO when it is right for us is a practice of honouring ourselves. When we release the belief that there was ever anything 'wrong' with us we remember that we are all creatures of the earth - as individual as every animal and plant and an integral part in the wheel of life.

Looking into the waters of the crystal ball of consciousness, I stared and I waited and I imagined I would not see anything. And I saw nothing for what felt like such a long, long time, I was beginning to feel I would not see, that my mind was too strong to allow my soul to show me what I needed and wanted to see

I stayed with prayer, asking and pleading at one moment to see, please let me see  . . .  and then the mists began to clear and I could see a clearing in the mountains, green pine all around, the smell of freshness and soil, and a teepee 

And horses, many horses And then I saw HER, myself in another time By the teepee, the wild life of the mountains surrounding HER  Ah, she was alone, living an isolated life, no tribe, a sadness surrounded herI could also sense an understanding, acceptance of her situation as the best possible outcome for her at that time and place We saw each other, she smiledI could see her deer skin clothing, her turquoise choker with red beads HER long, long braids of dark black hair I could feel HER and I felt a relief that we had met, that the veils had parted and that we could meet I began to track why she was alone in the woods, her only communication with the forest life; the birds, woodland creatures, trees, the natural world who heard her and loved her 

A new vision appeared
I found myself within a tribe of teepees A fire A Father, a Chief at the door of his teepeeAnd a Mother and more children (my siblings) sitting at the door of her teepee I stood by my Father, the Chief as he asked me again if I would do what was expected of me
and again, the 12 year old HER (me) said NO
I would NOT 

I was banished from my tribe 

For being who I was For speaking who I was For saying NO to what was not true for me I caught the eye of my mother and she caught mine sadness but understanding i saw there
and in my father too, not as cheif, but as my father a sadness and again an understanding
And away SHE went, alone, to live a life of isolation, to be herself
Again, I find myself back at HER teepee This time we connect, we stand in a pool of water, a water fall, falling behind us The vines from below come up, writhing and cover her, strangle her, snake like she is bound I connect with HER, I cut with my teeth the binding reedy vines I free HER She smiles at me, she becomes as of light and as a shooting star Returns  

The wounding: I will be rejected, cast out, banished from my tribe if I am myself, authentic and truth speaking, if I say NO to what does not feel right I release this binding, this wounding as I bite and free the vines of that lifetime  

The blessing: authentic, true and free, I express myself fully, I am my actualized self, accepted, loved and cherished by my tribe, now and for eternity

Thank you Kristan Read, for sharing your beauty, strength and truth. Kristan is a Shamanic Midwife, Teacher and crafting creatrix extraordinaire! You can experience Kristan's inspiring medicine for yourself through her work at www.atmypractice.comand www.thecrafthive.com

Journey to the Magdalenes

A month ago Tony and I visited the site of the Magdalene Laundries at Abbotsford Convent here in Melbourne in preparation for workshop to beheld there. I have been wanting to visit the site for many years now but always doubted that I could be of any assistance - it always felt like such a huge undertaking. Would us gathering there be enough to help? Over the last year the reminders have grown, particularly with Royal Commission into Child Abuse being launched by the brave detective Peter Fox - some call him 'whistleblower' I call him the brave Fox. I knew that if I did not do something, that the rage and pain I felt for the women and children incarcerated there would only grow - maybe devour me.

When I sent out notice of this gathering, I began to have nightmarish visions and waves of fear moving through me particularly early in the morning. I received another vision to help me understand what I was feeling. I saw a young woman screaming at me and I felt her hysteria. Her hysteria, her madness, terrified me more than anything else. And I recognised it in myself, because it lives so deeply entrenched in the females in my family. We carry strong chords of madness, suicide, depression in my blood line, in our lineage. Many of the women in my family are psychic and Catholic - something that they never seemed to be able to hold together in harmony. And then in the vision I saw this frightening Lilith cowering but still hysterical as someone came towards her to help her. And she became like a small frightened dog who has been beaten too often. I saw the dog bite the hand that wanted to help it and return back to the abuser instead. The dog had lost all of it's natural animal instincts. I saw that this is what happened to the women when we had our ties to ancestral medicine and wisdom cut by religion and patriarchy. We lost our power and knowing of our own spirituality. We lost connection to our instincts and intuition. We no longer knew what was good or bad for us - we had become conditioned. To receive this message was huge for me, it has helped me to understand many of the women in my family, to understand my own poor choices of the past. In that moment, I felt the line of women in my family released and unbound from a belief that we needed to be forgiven.

Tree growing outside the Abbotsford Convent and former site of the Magdalene Laundries in Melbourne

Three nights ago I dreamt of an enormous tree. A tree like the Moreton Bay Fig at the top of this post. I took this photo 2 weeks ago while holding Swan Journey Sessions in Sydney - the place of my birth and family. In this dream I was shown that we are sleeping trees when we have not reclaimed our ancestral roots and gifts. But like a sleeping tree, when we are ready, we can blossom and grow to monumental heights. I received a vision on the morning of this dream and in it was shown that one of the most harming outcomes of religion and patriarchy on feminine mysteries was that it cut the tap root to the Ancient Mother.

When people move trees from different lands without wisdom, they often do not take care to look after the tap root - a root that travels far down into the earth way beyond the reach of the main roots. When they sever the tap root they cut a chord that draws from the deepest part of the Earth and this is vital to the health of the tree. And so when the tree is re-planted in a different environment, even when feed and watered and cared for, the tree never grows in the same way again and in many circumstances, the tree withers and dies. I understood this to mean that we are not dead, our wisdom is not so far removed from us in the modern world & that we can find our way to it again. By consciously creating an energetic tap root back to the healthy ancestors, we can awaken and leave our slumber to blossom fully in other lands and in the present time.

When I felt the gift of wisdom that came when I connected my own tap root back to the healthy ancestor, I was filled with such trust and love for my own way of being in the world again and a healing of my hiraeth, ancestral longing for the mother country of my ancestors. In that moment I felt the waves of fear and sadness I had been experiencing about returning to such a place as the Magdalene Laundries fall away. I felt the power of love to acknowledge, remember and assist the spirits of these women and children rise up. These buildings that held the incarcerated women and children are so superficial - so new in the ancient world. We are stronger than these buildings and false institutions.

I understand fears and concerns but I want you to know that these fears you feel do not belong with us in this time - they are from the past. Whether that be from a recent or distant past - they are past. Whether they are flowing from the wounds of your own blood lineage - grandmother to mother - they are past.

Tree growing in the quadrangle of the Magdelene Laundry compound which has razor wire on the high stone walls around it.

Here long before the convent and cruel Magdalene Laundries - Birrarung (Yarra River) which translates to river of mists and Wurundjeri people, part of the Kulin Nation, traditional custodians of the land and river.