"The Iroquois have, properly speaking, only a single Divinty - the dream. To it they render their submission, and follow all its orders with the utmost exactness." Father Jacques Fremin, 1669
From 16th June, Chiron, the Wounded Healer is also Retrograde like Neptune until November 19. Chiron brings change through healing crisis and like shamanic illness these point of crisis are not breakdowns but often breakthroughs. In the next 5 months as we journey deep in to Winter and then into Spring there will be opportunities to heal old wounds or to go back in dreams and reverie to points of healing crisis in the past. The beauty is that with full understanding of these events, we can release the deep pychic wound that we have carried and understand that these events are the making of us. That without the challenges and difficulties in our lives, like a pearl within the shell, this was the grit, the rub that helped us to form in all our unique splendour and authenticity.
If you are feeling the pain of past events in the next few months, this is the time to change your thinking and focus. Do not focus on the hardship and pain, look on the past as 'warrior training' for your Chiron, your inner healer. It is no accident that when we step into offering any kind of healing service that we attract people very much like ourselves, as if they are walking our own stories. This is the gift of moving through crisis, we develop a powerful toolkit of practical ways to deal with this crisis if it happens again. This toolkit is part of your Wise Medicine. These practical tools become your gifts when you come to serve others who are walking similar paths. Perhaps this Winter it is time to gently work with the deep fears and psychic wounds of the past and release the pain, let them heal from wound into battle scars. Scars gained on your own Mythic Quest to your Wisdom. Take stock of all of the gifts and tools you have gained along the way and share this hard-won wisdom with those in your community who need it most.
I see Chiron as the archetype that helps us to find balance between the Poet and the Warrior within. Working with Chiron is an opportunity to embrace both sides of your nature - Feminine and Masculine. And to also clear the binding of past beliefs that you are so different and weird that there is no place for you. The word that helps us to cross the threshold to embrace our Wounded Healer is Acceptance. Deep Acceptance of your unique self exactly as you are. And an understanding that your past helped to forge this authenticity. By removing even one of those past challenges, you would not be the person you are today. Take pride in your path and in your unique spirit. Yes you are strange! And guess what? There are many of us and we are growing. Welcome to the tribe.
"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here,and I'm just as strange as you." Frida Kahlo
'The Love Embrace of the Universe' - Frida Kahlo, 1949
Andy Kehoe's latest artworks 'Luminous Reverie' showing at Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York are so intriguing and beguiling. They are a combination of oil, acrylic, stained glass!! and resin. I'd love to be able to see them up close. In fact if I could, I'd love to live in those paintings at the moment. They seem to be holding a few of the Dream Keys needed to open the doors of this Neptune Retrograde. You buy prints from his Etsy store here.
I thought I was going mad and then I found out that on 6th of June Neptune went into Retrograde. Neptune is the planet that rules dreams, intuition, memory, magic and emotions. When a planet goes Retrograde (backwards) we begin to go back in our memories and dreams (Neptune) to revisit old events and experiences to understand how we dealt with those issues in past times. For the past week I have been dreaming back into my past - not the great memories that I'd like to relive again. Oh no, I haven't taken a trip back to all of those amazing early gigs I went to you in my youth - the gigs I can't quite remember unfortunately because I having so much of a good time. No, I have been revisiting all of the terrible workplaces and jobs I did in my teens, 20s and early 30s - so many soul-destroying temp jobs. So many... I've pretty much done it all. And the driving force? To pay the rent. To survive. And I've been getting a nightly reminder - it's not a trip down memory lane, more like being dragged down a dark alley that I've avoided visiting for a long time.
Spirit Dancer, Encaustic Oracle - Julia Inglis
And it's ok. Because the gift of Neptune Retrograde is that if you stay with your dreams long enough, really sit with them, write then down and connect with all the very uncomfortable feelings that come up with them, you will receive a great gift : a missing part of yourself returned. I am seeing all of the ways I mistreated myself in the past when I could not admit that I was an intuit and artist. I have been feeling again the pain of what it was like to go into an environment every day that felt like enemy territory. And there's no judgement of the people there or even the work itself, it just wasn't the right environment for me. A painful reminder of what it feels like when you are ignoring your own spirit and trying to accommodate everyone else. Each night I am being shown that these kinds of actions, particularly done daily over many years, creates Soul Loss. Soul loss occurs when you become so far removed from your authentic Spirit, your Dreaming Self, that a part of you gets lost or bound up in the past event. And even though we feel this missing part of ourselves keenly, we often don't know why and so we try to fill this hole with all kinds of shadow behaviour.
Last night I feel I had the last of this sequence of dreams when I saw myself in a tiny room in a high office block. I was working for a bank and pretending to work because there was actually nothing to do (how many of us have been in that situation before?!). I was so bored that I deciding to sneak outside for a walk and I found myself beside the ocean. It looked so beautiful and deep. However I ignored the sea because I realised that I could not find the door back into the building and panicked. I wandered the city streets and laneways trying to find my way back until I came to a small make-shift pop-up-shop, where a couple were calmly and happily creating the most beautifully crafted and detailed hand-made boots. The shoemaker smiled and asked me to sit down and began to measure my feet, preparing to create a pair of boots for me that were made to my exact needs and measurements. When I woke up I felt this beautiful pair of boots was actually the missing part of my soul that I'd lost all of those years before. When I woke up I saw so many links and symbols of meaning. How many of us 'work for the bank' - basically to pay off debts and mortgages? Becoming debt-free is of utmost importance for us now. As much as we can we are urged to live simply and within our means. It was a reminder of the beauty of what it feels like to be doing my own work now with my own hands, and most importantly, beholden to no-one. The intricate boots were a symbol of authenticity and individuality and even a little nod towards the traditional shoe of the witch?!
In retelling this dream I hope that it helps anyone who is feeling the burden of these changing times. I know it can be scary sometimes and we are often consumed with worry over how we are going to pay our bills. Believe in what you are doing and try not to make decisions out of fear. We are at a time of change and I believe we will soon see the Artisan acknowledged and honoured again. We are so sick of anything that is mass-produced and cheaply produced. We want to support local businesses and craftspeople. And we want to hold something unique and hand-crafted. This is the sacred art of enchanting inanimate objects - infusing them with love and care. The archetype of the shoemaker has stayed with me all day and I was reminded of the fairytale The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Grimm Brothers. I think it's a story to encourage us all to put our love into our work, to hang in there in the tough times and to be grateful for kind help that comes along the way - however strange and magical that may be!
As I was writing, The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen began to play. I read that Ian McCulloch woke up from a dream with the words 'fate up against your will' in his head and wrote the song from there. This 'All Night Version' is so beautiful, I hope it helps you to sail the seas of this Neptune Retrograde that is going to be with us until November. Do not fear it but set sail with all of your divining tools - stay with the ship and read the maps, become the cartographer for your Dreamer. In the depths are the jewels and you can only reach them by diving right down.
Sweet dreams, beautiful artisans. See you in the Deep.
Over the past 2 weeks there have been many sightings of Deer and Stag in Sherbrooke Forest. It is indeed a magical world here in the green, especially in Winter. Winter is my favourite season and I am opening more and more to the messages and oracular wisdom being shown to us daily here in forest. In the Dark Moon I felt the presence of Deer so close to our home and I began to create a medicine doll that brought such a sense of nourishment to me that I decided that she was for me to keep. At first I thought she was Stag Woman - carrying the energy of both Sacred Masculine and Feminine but as I was making her I began to remember an elderly couple who cared for me when I was child. Their names were Mr & Mrs Elks and they were so incredibly resilient and wise. Brought up in the bush, they lived simply and mended what broke down and and whenever I went to their home I was always excited because I never knew what creature would be in their house. Because of their childhoods spent in the bush, they were used to wild creatures and any time an animal was found hurt or sick by a local, they brought it to 'The Elks' to care for it before it was released into the wild again.
One of my strongest memories is of feeding a baby joey kangaroo with a baby's bottle whilst looking up at a painting of a deep green forest of Redwood trees and deer. I loved that painting. It seemed to calm me instantly when I got home from school and I understand now that I would often become entranced while looking at it and go into deep meditation. I always had a feeling that I remembered this kind of world. Even though I lived in such a hot and dry place, I remembered what it was like. Years later I discovered the exact same print: Serenity by Paul Delefsen, 1969, in an op-shop and felt such a wave of emotion and familiarity. It's kitschy and cute but I still love it and I hung it in our healing space. One day a client pointed out that it looked very similar to a photo that I had on my computer screen that I'd taken on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest. At that time I was waiting to find our new home and was using the photo to dream it in. I'd had no idea before that of how very similar the two images were. The forest we live and work in is populated with giant Mountain Ash trees, the second tallest hardwood trees in the world after the Redwood. And now I discover that there are also deer nearby... I see now this print from my childhood was perhaps my first vision board. One that my child-self recognised straight away and one, you could say, that worked slowly but very, very well.
Serenity - hanging in our healing space today
Photo I took on my first walk in Sherbrooke Forest - 10 mins from what is now our home
When I remembered all of this, I saw that my wee wise woman was not Stag but Elk Woman. She is a link to the beautiful elderly couple who introduced me to my future home so long ago and taught me how to handle and not fear wild creatures. It was my inner child that made her and brought this memory back to me. This is the power of Spirit and Medicine Dolls - they can be wonderful memory keepers and awakeners.
In this time of such a wave of change it's important for us to move towards not only work that nourishes and inspires us but also to move to land that calls us. To be connected to the Earth is so important. She is the best teacher and she truly is all you need. What Country calls to your Dreamer? Where do you feel most at home? Choose a photograph, a magazine cutting or paint a picture of your Dreamer's Home and put it somewhere you can see every day. No need to strive or stress or feel cut off - give this wish to your Dreaming heart and be patient, don't put any expectation upon it - instead sing to your Dreamer's Home, sing the songs of that Land and Country. Imagine you are there already. Take comfort in the fact that it truly exists and you will find your way back.
The mist is rising here in the forest today and I am just about to light the fire before stepping into the Swan Blessing dreaming with our first clients for the day. We have lots of beautiful events coming up where we will be opening up dreaming wells to journey with Swan Medicine - please let me know if you feel called to join us.
New Swan Blessing Past Life Sessions:
We have just opened up 6 new sessions for this weekend:
Saturday in Sherbrooke Forest: 11am, 1pm and 3pm
Sunday at Tree of Life Centre in Kew: 11am, 12.30 and 2.30pm
Swan Blessing Winter Solstice Workshop in the Forest:
Enchanting the Dreamer - Spirit Doll Enchantment
1-6pm 22nd June at Kumbada Studio, 6 Ridge Road, Kalorama. Cost $135 (includes doll)
Releasing Past Life Vows from the Artisan
In this workshop at the potent point of Winter Solstice we will focus on clearing past life binding on creativity, intuition and the powerful medicine of the Artist. The essence of Swan Medicine is to open up Vision and you will see your own past lives and understand the binding promises, oaths and sacred contracts that have held your Wise Medicine in a spell binding of your own words. In releasing these past promises you will once again reclaim your natural ability as joyful creators and build new energetic pathways to the Dreamer - your Intuitive Self. Once you have seen your Dreamer, you will be able to create Her as we are led by Doll Enchantress, Nicole Ahava in a shamanic process of making our own Medicine Spirit Dolls. These dolls become magical talismans for you after you leave the workshop, travelling with you to help you to remember, hone and express your own Wise Creative Medicine. We still have a few places so let me know as soon as you can if you wish to join us.
Sydney Swan Blessing Tour - Imbolc: July 31st - Aug 5th
We are already taking bookings for our Sydney Swan Blessing sessions at Imbolc. Beautifully synchronistic as we hold these sessions at the gorgeous Blacksmith's Cottage on the feast of Brigid, patron goddess to Blacksmiths and Jewellers - all who work at transforming metal (like the chains of our binding promises), and goddess of healing, creativity and wise words. If you live close to Sydney we encourage you to book soon as these sessions are already full.
Sydney Workshop: Enchanting the Dreamer - Spirit Doll Enchantment
7 - 9.30pm, Imbolc 1st August at Desire Books, 3/3 Whistler Street, Manly Cost $80 (includes doll)
Releasing Past Life Vows from the Artisan and Spirit Doll Creation. This will be a shorter version of the Winter Solstice workshop but just as beautiful and deep for our Sydney tribe. We look forward to meeting you all at the wonder-filled Desire Bookshop. As such a lover of words I am thrilled to be bring Swan Medicine to such an enchanted bookshop.
For all those who have already journeyed with Swan, you are welcome to keep returning to work with your Wise Medicine as with each journey with Swan grows stronger and deeper. Below is a Swan Story I received this week from Rebecca - a beautiful release from her Vow to carry on alone.
Today I share Rebecca's Swan Past Life Story. I met Rebecca when she was co-presenting an ecoprinting workshop - a workshop that fascinated me as it involved cooking up in a cauldron recycled items like old keys, pieces of metal, wood and leaves and flowers to create natural dyes for silk. I loved the transformation of items regarded as waste or rubbish into incredible beauty.
Rebecca's story is of a young girl who on her mother's death-bed promised to carry on in life alone. To survive without the love and assistance of any members of her Feminine Matriarchal line. As with many of these Soul Promises made in past lives, the energy and binding of these oaths are carried by our spirit with us into the present. It is a beautiful remembering of a life endured with quiet strength and in the release of the binding comes the release from that word 'endure'. How many of us have endured our lives? For so many lifetimes we have had to 'make do' in hard times. I am so happy to see that we are now remembering ancient ways of creating communities through creativity and motherhood and sacred medicine. If we are without elders in this lifetime we can seek them out in community and this is why the Red Tent movement of creating sacred space for women is so important. As are the sacred spaces being created by our brothers for men to meet and share and receive the guidance that may not be available to them in their birth families.
The painting you see above, 'Christina's World' by Andrew Wyeth was chosen by Rebecca to accompany her Swan Story and I am always so fascinated to see the threads of art symbolism woven into the words of story. When I looked into the story behind this painting I discovered that the model for it was Wyeth's neighbour, Christina, who had polio and had lost the use of her legs. This painting had been inspired when he'd seen her pulling herself across the field to her home with strength of her arms alone. It is poignant to me that when parts of our spirits are bound by past life vows, in soul loss, our present lives can often feel like this - as if mobility and movement is somehow limited by energy beyond our control. The gift of this impediment is that we are often forced to develop new skills and ways of finding nourishment beyond the normal constraints of culture and society. This is why, I believe, we are seeing a rise in the shamanic approach to spirit - regardless of the fact that western society has become so urbanised and materialistic. Our spirits are wise and we remember the truth - that we are all one, that our mothers and fathers are many, and the greatest source of Feminine Love is always available to us when we connect to the Earth.
Deep in the heart of Mother Mountain, in the home of the Crone, who has a name I can’t remember, I looked into the Well of Memory. She emerged, a young girl with red hair, wearing a dress with an old-fashioned collar. She stretched out a hand, and we met, palm to palm. I joined her in a country field, wheat waving golden in the afternoon light. We walked towards a farmhouse, and her sadness, grief and loneliness were tangible within me.
The girl led me into the empty house, upstairs, to a bedroom. The bed was smoothly made, a sense of timelessness in the air. Without words, I understood that her mother had died here, and in the last moments of her life, she’d compelled her daughter to make her a promise: to live, to survive, to carry on, despite the painful lack of any feminine energy. No mother, no grandmother to hold her.
The girl was stoic and sad. She had to hold herself, and it was a very lonely path.
I felt grief, tears, and the familiarity of her pain deep within me. The resonance of making do without loving feminine energy around me. Nowhere to receive a deep hug, or older wisdom and nurture. I felt all that, and how I live that, and I also felt how this no longer serves me in this lifetime. I felt how it is shifting. I have survived that painful absence of Mother, and now I can soften and seek out the love and support of the feminine all around me.
Crow came and led me out of the mountain, flying from tree to tree. I felt her energy of watchfulness and waiting, a companion high up in the branches. I felt the holding all around me. There is enough. I am safe and loved. And I can offer safety and love to my daughter and all those around me. Rebecca, 2013
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your beautiful story and helping us all to remember that we are not alone. Rebecca is embracing her medicine as Artisan and this is one of the many ways to express the limitless power of the Feminine. You can read her inspiring words at her website: Healing Tools - I visited yesterday and spent a couple of hours immersed in her nourishing stories and wisdom. And you can also see the stunning ecoprinting creation and take part in workshops with the Oracle Textile Collective here. Love to you beautiful Artisan x
Is my soul asleep? Have those beehives that work in the night stopped? And the water- wheel of thought, is it going around now, cups empty, carrying only shadows?
No, my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its eyes wide open far-off things, listens at the shores of the great silence.
This documentary is in 6 parts, the second is here.
It is a long weekend here in Australia and so I am winding down for dreaming in the forest. Here is a very good documentary, The Burning Times, giving an in-depth look at the witch-hunts that are still held within our collective memory as Wise Women. In our Swan Blessing Past Life ceremonies it is my greatest love and gift to be threshold guardian to the many women who are coming this year to clear past life memory of these times.
And so for those of you who live too far to come for personal Swan Blessing sessions and those who wish to understand more of the historical path of the Medicine Woman, I hope that this film gives you a deep understanding. Do not hold on to the wound. Instead use this wisdom and remembering to create the intention at New Moon on Sunday - a Moon in Gemini perfect for breaking old beliefs and ideas that no longer serve - to release any past life bindings on your own Wise Medicine.
I leave you with the beautiful Swan Story of my dear sister Bec 'Rainbowalker' who was one of the first women to ever experience the Swan Blessing and opened my eyes to path of my work with Swan Medicine. I will be forever thankful to Bec for showing us all the beauty and freedom of Fearless Love.
Blessings on all of your bright wishes for New Moon and we will return from our dreaming soon.
Another beautiful Swan Blessing story to share with you today from our book in creation: 'Releasing the Ties That Bind'. Thank you Bec for your sharing as I read it, I felt the healing for us all again. With your telling you are helping so many who are feeling the bindings and very real fear of persecution of the Wise Woman again in our time. This Swan journey is so amazingly empowering, I honour you sister and the return of your great gifts in fearless love.
I was in a small cottage in the woods, surrounded by small children , an elderly lady was crying as I kissed them goodbye. I knew they were coming for me. I knew I was a wise woman and they feared me. I actually felt at peace. I told the elderly woman it would be alright. I was quite young with beautiful long hair.
My next thought was to get away from cottage as I could see the torches in the distance. I started running through the woods. They caught me about 500 meters from my cottage. My thought then was are my family are safe as I looked back towards the cottage? They had me on my knees with my head pulled back by my hair. I was surrounded by men and could feel the fear in their heart. I was taken under the cover of darkness. It was a lynch mob. A powerful man with the authority was behind the scenes. Orchestrating the outcome. I felt he was scared of my inner power.
The very next thing I saw was a vision of her standing on a pyre. It quite surreal as I stepped out as myself from the future to see my past self on the pyre. I could see a sea of what looked like Pilgrim hats, and a town square. She was searching frantically for someone or something in the faces before her; she knew this was going to happen. There was no hatred in her body, only sadness and compassion, for the people doing this to her. I watched as the tears streamed down my face. I stepped forward and her eyes locked onto to mine. She smiled at me and said with her eyes: ah good you are here! I have been waiting. My soul felt like it exploded in to a million pieces, it was such a deep and profound connection.Her words to me were: You are free, Have no fear. They cannot come for you in this lifetime. Your family are safe. Be true to your soul and path. With that she closed her eyes and tilted her head skywards. And whispered 'I am ready” to the Heavens. As they lit the pyre. I saw a bright white light come down from above. She was enfolded by light and I could see two beings beside her. The flames had only reached her feet. But she was already free.
Julia and Tony I thank you for releasing my fear/binding, in this life as a healer/witch/ wise woman. I hadn’t realised that this fear of judgement and persecution had been holding me back. Also my intense dislike of authority makes sense. My past self had no fear; No anger, she accepted it, in perilous times of who she was. Her message to me was the gift of Freedom, acceptance and walking the path of self truth. No more Hiding.
With Love, Bec 2012
I urge you all to experience the potent and healing medicine of Bec Rainbowwalker. For years Bec worked as a nurse and in palliative care had many experiences of the divine crossing over of the soul. I am so happy to say that she is honouring her wise gifts and is now offering incredible sessions of energetic and intuitive healing here in Melbourne. She offers such beauty and grace to all especially those recovering from grief and loss after death as she is a beautiful 'midwife of the soul' and has such a deep understanding of the journey of the soul from this life to the next. After experiencing Bec's healing work personally, I can not recommend her transformative sessions highly enough - so needed in this Wave of Change.
