The Art & Beauty of Letting Go - new meditation circles
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)
New Moon in Pisces - This is the Sea
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| Patricia Ariel |
Welcome to the New Moon in Pisces may the sea send a wave of blessings to you today. Here is the beautiful cover art created by the incredible hands of visionary artist Patricia Ariel for our new meditation CD 'Beyond the Ninth Wave'.
I look forward to sharing her with you very soon.
Oceans of love, Julia
Sitting with the Grandmothers at Dark Moon
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.
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| 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.
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| 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'.
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.
Let's be Brave - Full Moon in Leo Tonight
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| Odilon Redon, Joan of Arc |
Neptune is Home
Welcome Home! At 6.05am this morning the planet Neptune the ruler of spirituality, mysticisim, imagination and dreams returned to it's home in the sign of Pisces and will stay there for 13 years. To celebrate I could think of nothing better than sharing the underwater photography of Zena Holloway & of course, Jimi Hendrix and his wildly prophetic, Valleys of Neptune. Lovers of music, art, mysticism...are you ready for the wave? Let's dive in!
The Inspired Fire of Brigid
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| Brigid Goddess of Inspiration by Emily Balivet |
Hello Bright Ones!
today is the feast day of Brigid Goddess of Inspiration, Creativity & Healing in the Northern Hemisphere. Last night we had our first encaustic art class and it was fantastic - so much wild creativity and beautiful insight into the power of healing ourselves through art - thank you to everyone who attended. I will be organising a new encaustic class to be held on Saturday, 10th March for anyone who would like to keep adding to their encaustic oracle or for anyone who missed this class - come along! You will be hooked, I promise.
We are drawing ever closer to the wave of Neptune taking up home in Pisces this Saturday 4th Feb. In honour of this auspicious time I will be offering Daughters of the Well healings with the precious water collected from the wells of the Wombat Forest and aromatherapy healing oils, unctions and elixirs - all made from pure organic plant sources to aid healing, open the heart to love and unlock creativity. If you feel called to experience the Daughters of the Well, please let me know,
Yours in the Glow,
Julia
This Charming Man - Fire King by Nadia Turner
This charming man is ‘Fire King’ by the wonderful Melbourne illustrator, Nadia Turner (www.waywardharper.com). Thanks to Nadia’s warm generosity, he has pride of place on our Summer Courses poster. We have chosen the Fox as our animal totem for 2012 - a deeply intuitive creature so beloved to us.
If you would like to have your very own print of Fire King, Nadia has informed me that she has just a few of these prints left. The fine art prints of Fire King are absolutely stunning - just looking into his deep & wise eyes is a daily inspiration. I love him & I know you will too.
New Moon New Year Water Dragon
Hello beautiful people! Tonight we stepped through the threshold of the New Moon in Aquarius in the year of the Water Dragon - can you feel how light and flowing the energy just became?! This is the year of the Artist and if you'd like to read more about this and Neptunian wave of 2012, I have just written on this in the New Year New Moon Newsletter coming out tomorrow to all of our subscribers. Look out for beautiful artwork by Nadia Turner & Alex Gross. If you wish to receive a copy, please join our mailing list or you can email us at tribe@sacredfamiliar.com.au
Oceans of love,
Julia & Tony
