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| Frost - Sarah Joncas |
Both of these beautiful films can be found on the website of husband and wife shamanic artists, Will and Niamh of Tobar Trua (Well of Compassion) based in the Northwest of Ireland. Together they work with the spirit of the land and craft shamanic drums and rattles. This area is very dear to my heart and is a place I return to often in my dreaming. Home to sacred waterfalls, holy wells and turloughs: disappearing and reappearing lakes - it is also the ancestral home and origin of Swan Blessing. The waterfall and pool that Will is singing beside in the video below is so very much like the one I see in Swan Dreaming that I felt a wonderful jolt of recognition to see it in this beautiful water song. A song that is beyond words and time similar and reminding me of a post I wrote recently: Your Spirt Has Songs Beyond Time. After writing this post I was contacted by many singers who felt deeply connected to this message.
Recently I was asked to write for School of Shamanic Midwifery's Women's Mysteries Teachers ejournal about my personal journey to teach Women's Mysteries in the Swan Blessing. I wrote a piece called Hiraeth - the Heart's Call to the Dreamer. Hiraeth is something felt deeply in Australia as many of us came to this wise place of ancient dreaming from many other countries in the scattering of diaspora. I feel it is so important to heal the trackways, ancestral pathways with song, storytelling and remembering as these are often the same paths we need to follow to find and reclaim the Dreamer.
Next year we have been invited by our dear friends Karen Ward and John Cantwell of Sli An Chroi (Pathway of the Heart) to bring Swan Blessing to Ireland. It will be such a homecoming to visit this waterfall and sing my gratitude back to my ancestors. To feel the water flow deeply along this ancient liquid pathway from the origin of the Dreamer back to my heart.
Here is Will's description of the beautiful Celtic Shamanic Icaro singing and drumming you hear, derived from journeying with plant spirit and medicine. Thank you Will and Niamh for your hearts, your craft and your songs.
"This type of singing is derived from working with the plants. It is similar to the system of healing known as Curandismo in Peru where the healers "diet" with a particular plant to learn its medicine and how to carry its energy in the form of Icaros.
I've learned through working with the plants certain vibrations and melodies which flow through me as energy and information which has the capability to clear, inform and heal. These icaros or healing songs call on the intelligence of the plant spirit world.
This Icaro is a type know as "puro sonido" or "pure sound", where words of a language are not used but primal sounds relating to plant sentience comes through, the sounds, though not a language per se, do carry intent and meaning. By the fact that it is not a constructed language, it can bypass our rational mindset and speak to us on a deepr transrational layer where it can be felt and understood in an intuitive way.
This song is never the same, as it changes to suit the moment and the environment where it takes place. When sung in the power spots of nature such as the waterfall, the spirit of the place amplifies and lends itself to the song as a combined expression of the beauty of spirit.
Perhaps it is not a matter of singing but of being sung, of becoming a channel or instrument for the divine to come through."
This song can be downloaded for free at the following link.
http://hu.lk/w8l5wf3gj7uc
I have been an admirer of the beautiful dream worlds painted by French artist Isabelle Bryer for many years now and she is an artist that I return to at poignant moments in my life...strange moments that sometimes catch me by surprise. I have only recently realised that I can see and feel the essence of the Dreamer in her paintings. The otherworld self, the holder of our mythic story. This dreaming and magical self often carries with it, the heart and wishes of our inner child. I love how her heroines are always so watched over and supported by both nature and totem animal spirits. I once sent Isabelle the video for Sarah Blasko's 'All I Want' as I thought it seemed to remind me somehow of how I felt when I looked at her art and Isabelle noticed that Sarah was wearing one of her art motifs, a rose-red heart embroidered on her jacket - I love these little and real signs of connection.
Isabelle has graciously allowed me to share her artwork Divine Intervention to represent the Dreamer in our Winter Solstice Swan Blessing - Enchanting the Dreamer. My Dreamer is definitely enchanted by Isabelle's magical creations and you can see more of them at her website - a wonderful place to learn more about what inspires the artist and also to glimpse a little of the mysterious process of making art. And you can purchase prints here at her Etsy store. Thank you Isabelle for your generosity and endless enchantment.
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| Snow Angel by Isabelle Bryer |
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| Enlightened |
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| Mystical Cat |
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| Enchanted |
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| Tess guarding the Mystery and her Love |
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| Drumming the Moon - Lucy Pierce |
This morning I received a most treasured gift - a poem written by artist, Lucy Pierce after her experience journeying with the Swan Blessing at Seven Sisters Festival. I too felt the presence of Horse at the festival and I was so glad to see that this totem of the Spirit had also come to assist Lucy as she journeyed back to Retrieve the Dreamer. Since Seven Sisters Lucy has visited me in the forest to take a personal journey with the Swan again and I am very excited to see the art that births from Lucy and her Dreamer in the coming months ahead.
In past lifetimes, many of us have bound our wisdom of sacred art and her symbols. These esoteric teachings are our birthright and in this lifetime we are free to share them with fearless love again. I am always honoured to assist artists and musicians to clear past life contracts binding free self-expression. It is often the voice of the artist that sings to the world from the crest of the Wave of Change, they are the Seers of the future.
You can see the full beauty of Lucy's creations here and purchase your very own prints and sculptures at her Etsy store.
Thank you dear Lucy for sharing this potent poem - your vision, your purpose, your authority, your love... I could hear the quickening like a drumbeat of Horse Hoof on the Earth as I read it.
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| She Meets Herself |
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The Changing Woman project was conceived by artist Patricia Ariel and is focused on raising awareness about woman’s issues and rights, as well as promoting women’s empowerment through examples from real life.
The project’s goal is to create twenty-one art portraits of women with stories to tell about how being a woman in the current model of society has impacted their lives. Stories of trauma, abuse, neglect, struggle, and how they fought and thrived, being transformed by the hands of the artist in models of support and encouragement for other women under similar circumstances.
The project is being launched on the Indie GoGo crowdfunding platform in order to raise funds to make it viable and give to it a bigger and more embracing dimension. The goal is to put together an art show, a “behind the scenes” video for the internet, an art book, and to produce limited edition art prints which sales (along with the books) will support an organization for the protection of women.
The site was created to feature all the twenty-one works created for the project, along with their creative process. It will also feature works of artists all over the world on the theme on women empowerment and women’s rights.
We are now in the space of Samhain - Halloween here in the Southern Hemisphere. Some of you are celebrating this final harvest festival this evening and some will wait for Sunday when it is the celestial point of Samhain. There is no right or wrong. Samhain is a festival we celebrate before preparing for the approach of darker winter months. The cosmic veils are thinnest at this time and we can hear more clearly the whispers of the ancestors. After the immense activity over the last month, I'm sure it is going to be a potent week. Feel into the week for a space of time to connect to the Earth and to your ancestors. I will wait for May 5th as this Sunday feels right for me. I am still in a deep process with my ancestors after this last weekend...they are teaching me how to live life more fully.
I hope these stunning photographs by Constant Puyo provide some inspiration for your Dreamer to know how, where and when to tune in to tune in. Happy listening...
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| Monica Sjoo |
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| Leslene della-Madre |
The gift that Leslene gave to me was the reminder of permission to 'drop it'. We spend so much of our life trying to fix or heal difficult issues and relationships. In fact I feel we spend most of our time obsessing about what we feel is 'wrong' and trying to make it 'right'. When truly all we have is this moment and to be present in it's mystery is all that is required from us. And so I gladly embraced 'dropping it' and in that moment embraced so much more of my life energy and space. Creating sacred space around Death also teaches us to create the same sacred and clear water around ourselves in our daily living. We cannot be all things to all people. We are here to honour our spirits and live its full expression. And this expression is felt so deeply when we drop into the mystery of presence. When we give up all need to 'know' we are in the presence of something far deeper and sustaining: belief and faith. And what we believe and have faith in, is totally our own choosing - no need to give any explanation.
My heartfelt thanks to you Leslene for bringing this celebration of return to our wise women's ways as we reclaim our belief in our ourselves and our innate and sovereign ability to mother the dying. It is such intense and deep work - not fearful as we have been taught to feel about death but a process of facing and then dropping our deepest fears to discover the bliss and joy that awaits when we do. I regained such a strong trust in the regenerative powers of nature, the cosmos and my own spirit. And an enormous thank you to The School of Shamanic Midwifery for bringing Leslene to Australia and for the endless work you do to create pathways or memory back to the Women's Mysteries.
