A Card Spread for the Winter Solstice

The winter solstice, or Yule, is the shortest day and longest night of the year. Yule is a sabbat on the Wheel of the Year that marks midwinter, and even though it’s the darkest time of the whole year, it represents a sacred portal of death and rebirth. If you're new to The Wheel of the Year, you can find more about it here.

After Yule, each day begins to get a little more light and a little less dark. It’s a time to celebrate the return of the light. 

Yule is associated with evergreen, holly, ivy, mistletoe, red, white, green, gold, and fire. Sounds a little bit like Christmas, right? The pagan holiday of Yule predates Christmas, and when Christianity swept through Europe, Yule's traditions were woven into the Christian holiday of Christmas. 

Like many of us witches, pagans, and/or spiritual folks, you may honor both Yule and Christmas. 

Keep scrolling to find a tarot or oracle card spread for this Winter Solstice and Yule and other ways you might like to honor this sabbat.

A CARD SPREAD FOR YULE 

Take some time to create a ritual space before you pull your cards. Gather a few candles, light some incense or other herbs, and ground yourself before dropping in with your cards. Set an intention for your intuition, your highest self, and/or your spirit guides to communicate with you through the cards.

When you feel ready, shuffle your cards and pull one card for each of the following questions:

• What themes are surfacing most prevalently, within and outside of me?

• How can I tend to and grieve what wants to surface?

• What's ready to pour into the cauldron of the earth this Solstice?

• How can I care for myself during this tender time of shedding?

• What wants to be reborn, within and outside of me?

Image copyright Cassie Uhl 2023.

Consider sitting with your cards, journaling, and meditating for a while to help you process their medicine and really move the messages through your body.

Some other sweet ways to honor the Winter Solstice and Yule:

• Light candles

• Gather around a fire with loved ones 

• Connect with local evergreen trees

• Burn pine incense

• Meditate on a candle flame or fire

• Honor the wisdom of darkness by spending time inside or outside with the darkness of the season.

• Create a Yule altar with holly sprigs, pinecones, evergreen branches, and red, green, or white candles and crystals

• Winter Solstice & Yule Spell Jar

• Find more ideas here

How will you be honoring Yule this year? Let me know on Instagram.

Weaving Wisdom Past, Present & Future

The Magnolia tree is the oldest flowering tree that we humans know of. Fossils of Magnolia have been found dating back 58 million years. Some botanists think the Magnolia flower, or something resembling it, may have been the first flower on Earth from which all other flowers descended. Magnolia lived amongst the dinosaurs and continues to flourish today in various species. Magnolia is so old that these ancient examples pollinated with the help of beetles rather than bees because bees did not exist. It has witnessed many of Earth’s phases, expansive, destructive, regenerative, and everything in between. 

A beautiful Magnolia tree, Magnolia X soulangeana, often called Tulip or Saucer Magnolia, lives next to our house. It was quick to get my attention upon moving here last year. When Spring came, it flowered early, as many Magnolias do, and let me know it was time to weave some magic. The early bloom of Magnolia is something else I find interesting about these trees: they often flower early, losing blooms to inevitable cold snaps, yet, Magnolia continues to thrive. 

Magnolia X soulangeana bloom.

How Magnolia and I would work together was still unclear in the early Spring. I’ve learned to allow these things to unfold in their own time. As I continued to connect with Magnolia, both in person and in journey, guidance and direction began to take shape. Others were invited in, Grandmother Cedar and Lilac Tree, so, I began connecting with them too. I’m increasingly taken by the force at which some magical workings move me into actions I do not always fully understand. I now know this to be where the most potent magical workings happen. When I release control around what magic I think is needed, I open myself to the energy currents around me and the wisdom of other beings and spirits I’ve come to trust. I can be an instrument for needed magic to take shape without my human influence, inserting myself as a more communal part of both the physical and non-physical realms. I am simultaneously an integral and insignificant part of the magical workings, as I trust another would bring it to life if I did not. 

Throughout this process, I learned how to weave a cord from the inner bark of Cedar and crafted a beautiful three-strand rope as part of this collaboration. I am quite proud of it! Further guidance suggested combining these tree energies in a vibrational or flower essence. However, the water worked with in this process holds more than the flowers placed atop it as there was quite a bit unfolding around it at its inception.

Grandmother Cedar tree and her inner bark used for the rope.

As my practice deepens, I’ve become more aware of collective energy shifts and often feel a need to help midwife energies in or out of the collective. Sometimes, I sense these shifts in small groups of people, the country, or humanity. This was one of those times and felt like the latter. Though Magnolia tipped me off to this project months earlier, these workings culminated during an eclipse season. Which, if you know, you know. Right? Most of this last eclipse season felt like a trance-like blur. Perhaps, for you too? 

This collaborative creation was a midwifing in situation, a remembering. Magnolia’s easeful wisdom reminded me that we have access to the same timelines they do. Like Magnolia, we can weave back into the past by connecting with the parts of ourselves that lived in various parts of the world hundreds and thousands of years ago. It’s all there in our blood, bones, and the dirt beneath us that grows our food. As is the future. Magnolia showed me time as an accordion-like shape that can fold in on itself and expand, as though time is simultaneously linear and singular. A feature that enables us to access different points at will, inviting us to lean on the perseverance and wisdom from our past well and healed ancestors and the strength and desires of our future well and healed descendants. Beyond different timelines, I was also invited to explore different parts of my personal timeline for healing, strength, wisdom, and hope. For example, accessing the healed and whole maiden bursting with playful curiosity and desire when needed, knowing I can also access the wise crone who may or may not be fully realized physically yet lives within me now.

The invitation I found in this experience was to become more comfortable navigating and seeking support and guidance from these different timelines, both within myself and the collective. Working in this way felt more like a remembrance than a new practice. It also helped expand the depth of my otherworld support network in ways I didn’t know I needed, which helped me navigate the unfolding present. I think most of us, especially magical and spiritual folk, sense significant changes on the horizon. Our desires as a collective, alongside our plant and animal kin, feel like they’re culminating. Albeit outwardly and by design, it may not appear that most of us have the same overall desires, I believe our desires are more similar than we’re led to believe. Seeds are planted, and it seems all timelines seek to support a bountiful harvest that supports all life beyond humans. 

But these transitional times can be messy, confusing, and scary. Our metaphorical growing season may bring pests, drought, or uncertain situations. Messy isn’t bad, but it often requires additional resources to navigate the frequent reorientations needed to move through it. Magnolia impressed upon me some solutions, a remembrance of our ability to weave together the wise and healed ones of the past, present, and future. We need to expand our perspective far beyond the perceived challenges of these times by leaning on the wisdom of the past and future well and healed ones. Well-rooted strength, hope, and love are waiting for you in different timelines, and they are excitedly watching, ready to assist, as are the different versions of yourself. 

If you’re reading this, I doubt this is surprising. I suspect it’s information that will feel like a confirmation because it’s energy you’ve also picked up on. We’re in for significant changes here on Earth, but I feel well-resourced and equipped for whatever comes. And, when I don’t, which is also often, I remember that I have the support of the wise ones in all timelines guiding me. 

Chanting and weaving the Cedar rope as the essence steeped.

I chanted as I wove the cedar cord over the steeping essence of Magnolia and Lilac flowers, “Wise ones, maidens, mothers, and crones—healed and whole. Past, present, future, weaving together the here and now.” or some variation of it. The essence is bottled, with a portion of the Cedar cord around each bottle, and titled the Wisdom Weaver Elixir. It feels important, but it also feels like the waves of the work are rippling out regardless of who consumes the essence. I do like it, though, and it feels like some of the most meaningful magic I’ve been a part of. 

The essence with Lilac & Magnolia flowers & the finished Cedar rope around the glass.

A personal result of accessing these timelines is that I’ve been connecting with a second-generation successor of my children. It’s been inspiring and exciting as most of my spiritual connections have revolved around ancestors and otherworld beings. Connecting with this related being from the future grants me a hopeful and beautiful perspective. Your ancestors have walked through much, as have you and the lineages beyond you who will inhabit this realm, or are already.  I’ve certainly enjoyed expanding my community beyond the present by allowing it to weave through different timelines within myself and beyond. Perhaps we’ll need more than ourselves to dance through this phase.

The Magic of Grief & Grief Tending

Every rite of passage and rebirth you experience, whether on a spiritual, emotional, physical, personal, or collective level, includes opportunities to grieve. Yet, talk of grief is often reserved for death and dying alone. While in truth, grief relates to any deep sorrow, and sorrow accompanies many of the rites of passage we walk through. Some of the rites of passage, rebirths, and deaths that come to mind that so often lack our grief are the onset of menstruation, puberty, childbirth, monetary changes, loss of friendships, moving, changes in important relationships, career or work changes, deaths, and collective changes like climate change and the pandemic, just to name a few. 

Listen to this post on my podcast, Rooting into Wholeness, here.

Grief lives within every death and rebirth cycle, waiting for us like a wise teacher ready to help us alchemize through another right-of-passage portal. Unfortunately, for many of us, rights of passage are sorely lacking in our personal lives and collectively, leaving our ability to properly grieve important changes neglected. How might our view of grief and grieving change if we could hold these words with more reverence? How would life's rights of passage, death, and rebirth processes look and feel if you had more time and space to grieve them properly? How might we as a collective find more peace if we made more space for the magic of grief? 

In the book Death Nesting by Anne-Marie Keppel, she shares this about grief, "Rather than seeing it as something to "get through” and "move on" from, learn how these new feelings incorporate into your life. Death changes life–that's what it does. Be gentle with yourself and others as you learn this new being you are becoming." When I grieve, I'm often reminded that I need far more time and space than I think to be with my grief. What would happen if you allowed more time to tend to your grief or, as Anne-Marie put it, “to learn this new being you are becoming”? Would you turn into a pile of tears, incapable of moving forward? Maybe for a little while, but not forever. I suspect your grief, like mine, has wisdom, healing, and even inspiration to offer you as you navigate this physical world. Perhaps focusing on our grief is the transformative and paradoxical magic we need to emerge from personal and collective rites of passage more healed and whole.

This isn't to say grief tending is easy, and of course, there are barriers to regular grief tending embedded in the systems in which we live, so each person's ability to grieve will vary. The natural cycles of nature and the moon show us ways to grieve even when it may be difficult. I've found in my own grief tending that my ability to grieve directly correlates to my capacity to love myself and others and experience deep joy. Like most things, the more time you spend cozying up to grief, the more natural it will feel over time.

Like so many areas of life, perhaps the best place to better learn how to grieve is by turning to our closest teachers in the natural cycles surrounding us, like the moon and the seasons. In this share, I'll explore grief through the seasons, moon phases, and the tarot, gleaning ways to honor and learn from our grief to help us become whole and more firmly rooted in our humanness. I'll offer energetic insights into how I see grief show up in the energy body as an energy worker, how I approach it on an energetic level, and other grief rituals. This share is an invitation to examine your grief, and the magic, healing, and joy found within the grieving process. 

As a human who grieves, a death doula, and an energy worker, I'm no stranger to grief, but I'm also not the authority on grief. As a cis white woman, I carry internal biases that skew my perspective, which undoubtedly pertain to my experiences around grief. As always, take what you like and leave the rest. Furthermore, if you've recently lost someone or are experiencing deep grief, I invite you to be gentle with yourself as you listen and take breaks if you need. Therapy can be a wonderful ally to grieving. You don't need to do this alone. 

Grief and the season of slowness, winter

Wintertime is our dark moon of the year and a palpable reminder of the need for slowness, darkness, death, and the need to retreat inward. The hibernating flora and fauna remind us not to extend our energy outward year-round. Inward and descending energy has a vital and nourishing role in our existence. My son wisely described this season as the time that "the sun takes a rest." As I write this, here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are a week away from the Spring Equinox, positioned on the cusp of the season of rebirth. For me, the grief is palpable. 

As my first year back in a cloudy, cold climate for winter, it dawned on me that the seasonal depression I felt creeping in was another metaphorical red flashing sign inviting me to "slow down!". Leaving me wondering, would the effects of SAD be as bad if I could rest and retreat inward even more throughout the winter months? The amount of sunlight we have access to throughout winter may be fixed, but the reality is that slowing down, regardless of the season, is simply not an option for most. Depression is real, and lack of sunlight can certainly play a role, but would SAD be as severe if people could slow down and grieve more amidst these natural seasons of less light?

A view from one of my many midwestern winter season walks.

When I lost my grandmother and father within a couple of months of each other, I entered what I like to call a "grief portal." Time seemed to slow down, everything felt hard, and through my patriarchalized and capitalized lens, I just wanted to return to "normal." The biggest lesson I took away from that experience was how much slowness my grief required. I needed loads of time to do nothing to allow things to process. Of course, the way each person processes their grief will be unique, but for me, getting to a place where my grief can come out to be processed requires tremendous slowness. 

Of course, rest and slowness may sound lovely, but there are very real barriers to this kind of big rest, grief tending, and inner transformations. I was privileged to have the space to slow down amidst my grief amidst deep loss. Having time for big slowdowns to process grief may not always be doable. Add to these barriers the fact that many of us have endured various levels of conditioning to place more value on our ability to produce over our ability to simply be. Slowing down can feel like a life-and-death situation. Yet, for many of us, this is what grief needs. 

It is within this season of slowing down and integrating that our grief wants to be witnessed and held close the most. The world outside is in a literal death phase, reminding us daily to honor our personal need to grieve. Yet, our attempts to make space for grief can, understandably, feel too difficult to make space for or thwarted due to the demands of living in a capitalist society, stretching us ever thinner in a time when we should have the space to be with our grief and let parts of ourselves die away. 

Returning to the midwest and communing with the winter landscape has left me pondering how to rewrite this season to make more space for my need to grieve, integrate, and transform. I'm learning that being with my grief at this time is the most potent spell and healing gift I can offer myself this season. When the inevitable happens, and my grief bubbles up, or someone else's grief begins to overflow in my presence, I try witnessing it without judging it or trying to fix it and instead, asking myself how to lovingly hold the space for it, allowing it to be witnessed just like the death of nature all around me. What a powerful gift for myself and others when I can approach grief from this tender and vulnerable space. 

When I look at grieving as something I need to thrive and become whole, it feels less like something I need to get over and more like something I need to hold dear. When I move further into being present with my grief, its magic shines even more. My ability to be present with more grief and the grief of others expands, and my grief transforms into the gift of being present for someone else in their grief. I found myself sitting with the starkness of the winter landscape, witnessing the grief of nature on full display, and wondered if, rather than tucking grief neatly away for an "appropriate" time, perhaps we could be like the winter landscape and allow our grief to simply be. 

Of course, wintertime is not our only season of grief, death, and rebirth. Mother moon shows us how to die, grieve, and be reborn every lunar cycle. Let's explore the wisdom of the dark moon phase in relation to grief.

Honoring the dark moon 

The dark moon phase is mother moon's death, rest, and integration season. Unlike the full moon's magic, the dark moon is not a time for manifesting and materializing but for returning to the inner cauldron, shadow work, and connecting with unseen realms. It is a monthly opportunity to honor death and grief. 

Dark Moon card featured from The Ritual Deck (discontinued)

In Sarah Faith Gottesdeiner's book The Moon Book, she describes the dark moon as "a site of liberation," and I couldn't agree more. It is within the darkness of this phase that we are granted the space to excavate from our depths the parts of us that need to be witnessed and loved the most. By loving these parts of ourselves and witnessing our grief, they can be fully integrated into our inner soil, cultivating a necessary richness for new seeds to be sown. 

When I neglect this phase of the moon's cycles, my inner earth remains parched, thirsty for my grief to be witnessed and tended. Liberation comes when I can hold my sorrow close, rock it, and tell it it's okay to be. Giving my grief permission to integrate into my inner landscape gives rise to the fertile soil needed for new life. I get free. 

The beauty of honoring grief through the dark moon phase is that it comes every month. You don't have to grieve everything at once. The moon reminds us daily that we're not fixed beings and that change is our true nature. We are not meant to be radiant and positive every day; we are also not meant to grieve every day. Every lunation is an invitation to honor where you're at and how you feel, not how society tells you to feel. The dark moon is often the reminder I need to honor my grief and the little day-to-day deaths we all experience. Sometimes, we're intended to crumble and be held by the earth, and the dark moon phase can be a monthly ally to assist in this kind of grief tending. 

Grief as paradox and the chariot

Beyond my personal grief tending this season, I’ve noticed the topic of grief surfacing more on a collective level as well. Have you noticed this, too? Being in a chariot year (2+0+2+3=7, which corresponds to the chariot), I found myself called to think about grief in relation to this card and was excited to see so many overlapping themes and invitations around grief and grieving. Even though the chariot is not usually correlated with grief, I think it has some wisdom for us in this collective season.  

The first clue to the chariot card being an invitation to help us grieve is its placement, and I’ll be honest, the placement of this card did not dawn on me immediately. It wasn’t until I was in the final editing process of this share that I received a little nudge reminding me that the chariot card is the last card of the first line in the major arcana. Wow. Talk about an opportunity to invite grief in. The placement alone sets this card apart as a point of death and rebirth. The fact that the chariot card is the card associated with 2023 indicates that this is indeed a year to, among other things, honor our grief individually and collectively. 

Left: The Chariot Card from Journey Tarot by Cassie Uhl, Right: The Chariot Card from the Waite/Coleman deck

This isn’t the only invitation to grieve that I’ve found in the chariot. The chariot card is one of those cards in the major arcana that I find has many layers, paradoxes, and can mean different things at different times of life. Let’s dive into the paradox of this card and how it shines a light on the paradox in grief. 

The name of the chariot indicates movement and action, yet, on the Waite/Coleman deck, there is no movement shown. It is often touted as a card of willpower yet corresponds with the soft and intuitive energy of Cancer in the zodiac. The paradox continues with the duality of symbology, which can be seen in the black-and-white sphinx looking in different directions. I captured this in my deck with the black and white birds heading in different directions. The medicine of this card is potent and not one that I will be able to fully expand upon here, but I think it has some powerful invitations for us as we examine our grief on a collective level.

There’s a certain amount of resiliency building that accompanies regular grief tending. This is where the chariot comes in. Within the chariot's many layers, there are elements of softness, which we can see with the Cancerian energy tied to this card. There is an invitation to allow what is, to sink into it, and to try to be in a state of flow with what is, even when it’s uncomfortable. 

I see the willpower part of this card come in with how we engage with emotions and grief. The chariot asks us to allow a steady stream of emotions to flow, all while staying on course or perhaps being open to flowing in a new direction. With the gates of grief open, your emotions may indeed put you on a new course entirely or direct your life in new ways. The chariot can be an invitation to get more comfortable in the ups and downs of grief tending. It shares possible avenues to explore around building resiliency while pendulating between grief and joy. Asking, “how can we be with the joy and the grief without being knocked off course so far that we can’t come back?” or, “how can we allow the pendulation between grief and joy to carve a new pathway?”

There’s a certain tension held within the chariot card—a tension between the world of our subconscious emotions and the logical world. In Rachel Pollack’s book Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, she expresses the tension found in the chariot through our relationship with speech and language in this excerpt. “However, just as the ego is limited, so is speech. First of all, speech restricts our experience of reality. By forming a description of the world, by giving everything a label, we erect a barrier between ourselves and the experience. When we look at a tree, we do not feel the impact of a living organism; rather we think ‘tree’ and move on. The label has replaced the thing itself. Also, by relying too much on this rational quality of language we ignore experiences that cannot be expressed in words.” 

In what ways do we limit our ability to feel our grief fully and all of the magic it has to offer? Cancer, the astrological sign connected to this card, epitomizes feeling and being in our emotions. When paired with the strength and willpower of this card, how are we being asked to use those emotions to direct our movement forward? There is an over-arching theme of being in flow with the discomfort of not knowing where our emotions will take us, which may be another reason some fear sinking deeply into grief. I know I’ve certainly held this fear. What would it look like if the tension between your emotional and logical worlds were in harmony? How might inviting more grief into your daily life inform your daily actions or larger goals? 

This plays out in so many ways societally as well. I find myself constantly faced with the paradox of seeing and experiencing deep pain and injustices in the world, yet, I’m asked to forge ahead like everything is okay, or worse, that it’s completely normal to shove these grievances under the rug and carry on. I think intuitively, even humanely, many of us see how problematic this is. This is certainly one side of the chariot, the idea of forcing and forging ahead at all costs by leaning deeply into our willpower. But, if I invite in more of the nuance this card offers, I can see the need to bring my emotional and subconscious world into my decision-making and how I use my energy. Through this lens, I can see the chariot as an invitation to lean into my willpower to find ways to dance between and betwixt my emotions and the logical world. 

How might our trajectory as a collective change if more of us were forging new paths by flowing between our emotional/subconscious and logical/physical worlds? I sense this shift coming as many of us tire of binary thinking, especially in political spaces. These shifts could be slow and painful, but I don’t think they have to be. There’s so much space for deep joy and pleasure in these in-between spaces around our grief, joy, and the real demands of day-to-day life. I hope 2023 will be a year of flowing more intentionally between our grief, emotions, and the logical steps needed to build a more just and equitable world. 

Grief and the heart space

I don't often share experiences from my energy healing practice, but this specific topic felt like the right time to do so. Tending to grief within the heart space is one of the most common themes in my healing work with clients. Grief often presents to me as heavy weights or boulders in the energy body settled around the heart space. Sometimes these energetic weights are buried deep under several layers. Sometimes it takes multiple sessions for these pockets of grief to be revealed to me as a person becomes more comfortable working with me and my guides. 

How I approach untended grief in the energy body is quite different from how I approach a general imbalance in energy. I'm not the type of energy worker that removes everything from the person I'm working with. So, I certainly don't go in clearing away layers of grief when I come across it. I've found that clearing everything away is not only non-productive and ineffective but can potentially have negative side effects. Over the years, spirit and my guides have become exceedingly clear that grief needs to be witnessed, held, and danced with by the person I'm working with to be fully integrated and processed. There are things I can do to help bring awareness and help the grief surface or to give tools to tend to the grief, but it is not a healing path I can walk for someone else. 

This isn't the answer most folks want to hear. Of course, it would be much easier to remove people's grief, never to be seen again. However, as I shared, I feel there's deep wisdom in our grief and what a tragedy it would be to be severed from our humanness in this way. This isn't to say I won't remove energy from a person's field that isn't serving them, but my guides are always very clear about what needs to go and what needs to stay when I work with others. 

Unsurprisingly, most of the grief I see as an energy worker is settled in the heart space. Like the chariot card, the heart space is an extremely nuanced, layered, and paradoxical part of the energy body. The bridge area holds a unique duality between the physical and spirit realms, where these two qualities seek a sense of harmony. When I see untended grief in the energy body, it often affects one's overall ability to give and receive love, which has been my experience with grief, too. Love, on all fronts, is undeniably a bedrock of our human experience. Again, pointing to grief's important role in our ability to love, be loved, and experience deep joy. 

When I encounter untended grief in the heart space while working with someone, I usually sense a deep desire to witness, feel, and hold the grief. What I offer this kind of grief when I come across it is that deep witnessing. I give it space to tell me what it's been holding onto for so long. I hold it and rock it. After sessions like this, clients often report a sense of openness in the heart space. I do this to help bring it to the surface, not to clear it away. Instead, it's an invitation to embark on a personal grieving and healing journey if the client wants to, with or without me.

The rituals I offer after this kind of work are similar to what I do when I'm energetically engaged in someone's heart space. I invite folks to sit with their heart space, see what arises, and give it space to be witnessed and held. What our grief wants of us is rarely difficult, but the structures in which we live can make it feel like they are. If you're feeling pulled to tend to your grief in this way, you can find a by-donation grief-tending guided meditation I created here. I'll explore this meditation in greater detail below as well, as well as some other grief-tending tools.

Touching into the magic of grief through ritual

The ways we approach our grief will be as varied as the ways we approach life. Let these offerings serve as a place to play and create your own rituals around grief. As I shared earlier, what I offer here is based on my experience as a human who grieves, an energy worker, and an end-of-life doula. I am not an expert or a therapist. If my experiences of grief and grieving do not relate to you or your experiences, that is okay. As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

It's also important to note that working with a trained therapist can be incredibly helpful for grief work. I am a huge proponent of therapy, and many of my deepest underworld journeys have included the aid of a therapist or spiritual counselor. You do not need to go this alone.

Grief work can look like a lot of things. It can look like inner child healing, shadow work, or grieving the loss of someone or something. Remember, grief is paradoxical, so it might take you on surprising journeys and not look how you thought it would. For example, when I was seeing a therapist to help me navigate the grief of losing my father and grandmother, much of the work that transpired between us revolved around healing grief within my childhood. I invite you to be open-minded and curious as you explore your grief. 

Grief Witnessing Meditation

In my practice, some of my most powerful grief work is quite passive. I have learned a lot about slowness through my grief tending and working with those at the end of life. Grief works on its own time, which can be challenging in and of itself. Especially those of us who like to have a checklist! I've shared this before and will continue to. During one of my grief journeys, my therapist reminded me often that in grief, "doing nothing is doing something." It took me a long time to hear her, but I finally did, and it's something I remind myself of regularly today. Grief requires us to slow way down, and there's no shortage of barriers trying to prevent many of us from doing that. 

Vintage illustration of a Young woman bathing by moonlight, Victorian art print, 19th Century

This meditation practice is the most common practice I share with my clients who are carrying grief. It is very passive and may even seem overly simple, try not to let the simplicity of this grief-tending exercise keep you from trying it. 

Find a guided audio version of this meditation here.

Grief tending heart space meditation 

• Carve out 10-40 minutes, whatever you feel you have the capacity for, as I'll encourage you to return to it often.  

• Settle into the present moment by noticing your breath and body. Add in any practices that help you root into the moment. 

• When you feel ready, settle yourself energetically in the heart space. This might look like visualizing traveling into the body and the heart space, visualizing a green or pink field of light around the heart space and focusing your energy there, or something else. There's no wrong or right way to do this. Your goal is to focus your attention on your heart space.

• As you settle into this space, simply notice what comes up, any physical sensations, emotions, visuals, or where you feel called to move within the heart space.  

• If you feel stuck at any time, you can consider asking your heart space questions like, "Are there any parts of myself that need tending to?", "Are there any versions of myself that need to be witnessed?" or "Are there any griefs that need to be held or honored?" I usually find an area of focus that my heart leads me to. 

• Go where you're led as far as you feel safe to continue. You could come in contact with any number of feelings or past experiences that feel they need your attention. Remember, you do not need to feel them all simultaneously. Spend as much time with each layer in your heart as you want, knowing you can always return. 

• You may find it helpful to ask your grief or any younger versions of yourself that you come in contact with if there's anything it would like for you to do to better tend to it. You may find that your grief simply wants you to play or laugh more to honor parts of your childhood that were taken away. 

• Come out of this when you're ready, and take your time returning to your physical space. Consider reintegrating by eating some food or having some tea to root into the physical body. 

If you'd like some support with a meditation like this, find my guided meditation for grief here. 

Play, expression, and ritual

Play, ritual, and various forms of expression have held and continue to hold key roles in grieving that is often forgotten in modern times. In Ireland, there's been a resurgence around the art of keening, which is the intentional wailing, singing, and crying for the dead—a practice initiated by Goddess Brigid after the death of her beloved son. In Ireland, a woman is sometimes hired to keen or wale at a ceremony. The keener holds multiple roles, one to give permission for others to wale or yell, but also to help usher the dead to their next phase. Did you know there are also past practices of game-playing and storytelling amidst the grieving process in Ireland? They were called "wake games." Similar to keening, they were suppressed as Christianity dominated. 

In Monica Sjöö's important book, The Great Cosmic Mother, she speaks of the importance of group ritual and expression in rites of passage, "Rites of transition from one life stage to another required group participation in ritualized expression, all designed to keep the individual's psyche united and in balance while passing through crises." I see this passage as another reminder of how many have forgotten the importance of grieving together. Of course, this "forgetting," was quite intentional. Grieving takes time, and many systems we abide by now, like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, do not allow the time it takes to grieve properly. This isn't true for everyone, and there are certainly many cultures that have maintained beautiful and powerful grief practices, and, as I mentioned, some are seeing a resurgence like keening. However, for the most part, what I see, as someone who works with folks at the end of life is that many of us have a beautiful opportunity to learn how to grieve better, especially together.

Preparing and conducting rituals around grief throughout the dying process was a big part of my end-of-life doula training. There was also huge importance placed on guiding folks to create rituals independently or as a family. As someone who lives and breathes ritual in my personal practice, I understand the personal nature of ritual. The way you need to grieve, or your family needs to grieve, isn't something I can tell you. I can encourage you to explore your ancestry, if it's accessible to you, and learn about ways your ancestors grieved together. I can also offer you some questions to ponder or journal on when thinking about ways to express or ritualize your grief. 

1. What story does your grief have to tell, and how might that story want to be told? 

2. What parts of your life have died or will die amidst this grief? How might you honor those parts and their ending?

3. How will your grief and loss create openings in your life, whether painful, sad, or happy? Can you think of any ways this openness may want to be honored or acknowledged while simultaneously holding space for your loss?

4. While sitting in your grief, what does it feel like your body wants to do or not do? How might you honor this?

5. While tuning into your grief, can you ask how it would like to be expressed? What does it have to tell you? 

Beyond these reflections, I will offer you one tool that has served me well throughout my life and my grief, and that's through working with altars. 

Grief altars

Different cultures have used altars since the beginning, and grief and loss are powerful ways to work with them. When I was fresh in my grief after the death of my father and grandmother, it caused me deep pain to see pictures of them. Each image served as a reminder of their absence. One of my earliest grief-tending methods was through creating a grief altar. This altar had no images. Instead, I used stones, flowers, and other found objects to represent them. My altar for them held space for all the indescribable feelings I was experiencing around their deaths. It gave me a physical space to put all my big feelings when I needed a break from carrying them. Over the years, I eventually added images of my loved ones to this altar. It is still up in my house today and continues to transform in appearance and purpose. What started as a container for my grief that I could dip in and out of has morphed into a physical representation of my reverence and connection to these loved ones. 

I created a similar altar for my grief around my difficulty having children. There is no grief too small for an altar. Every grief you carry deserves your love. Altars can be small and simple or large and intricate. There is, in my opinion, no wrong or right way to create an altar as they are extremely personal. One purpose of an altar is to bring physicality to something you're working with or an experience. In grief, an altar can be a place to hold, honor, or work with your grief. If this feels like something you'd benefit from, I invite you to approach your grief altar with curiosity and a playful spirit. You might even find it helpful to try the grief-honoring meditation earlier and ask for insight into what creating a grief altar might look like for you.  

Grief offers us a bridge between our deaths and our inevitable rebirths. Whether we honor the grief within them or not, the death and birth cycles will always continue within our own lives and the collective. The invitation of grief is to be a present participant within the many processes of death and rebirth we will all experience. When I become an active participant in my losses, when I decide to feel them fully and dance in the grief, I am simultaneously allowed the presence to rebuild myself or my life in meaningful ways. We can extend these sentiments to the collective as well. When I seek moments to be present in the grief of the mass extinctions happening all around us, to feel it and dance alongside it, I also create avenues to become an active participant in our rebirthing process as a collective. That is the magic that grief offers us. May you be with the grief fully, dance with it, let it wale through your body and out your mouth, and let it stream down your face and stomp through your feet into the great mother earth who holds us all until it is fully witnessed and held. 

Accessing Your Inner Healer with the Element of Water

Situated in the cardinal direction of the west, water is our winding and healing teacher that spirals us into the underworld in the Autumn months. Water connects deeply with the archetype of the Goddess calling us down and in to clear and heal in preparation for our descent into the colder months of stillness, integration, and regeneration. Also related to the moon, intuition, and mysticism, water is our wise teacher helping us move into the current of intuitive wisdom all around us. Within the current of water lies your inner healer and the wise one within you, who holds the key to your interconnectedness and wholeness.

Unlike Spring and Summer, when we face the west on our seasonal wheel, we are asked to begin channeling our energy inward to explore our internal worlds. It's a time to connect with the parts of ourselves that need tending and healing. The direction west and the element of water help us do this. 

While exploring the element of water, we often focus solely on her intuitive nature, which is true, but water is so much more! In this share, you'll learn more about the placement of west and water on our seasonal wheel and how it relates to the corresponding zodiac seasons, explore wisdom from water, common correspondences for water and west, and a few rituals to connect with, protect, and honor water.   

Listen on the podcast here.

Let's start with the placement of this direction and element on our seasonal wheel of the year. 

Seasonal Placement of Water on our Wheel

The element of water begins to spiral into our cyclical year at Lughnasadh as we face southwest. At this point on the wheel, we have a playful and intense time where water and fire mix and play. What happens with we introduce fire to water? It moves, becomes agitated, and may even turn into steam. This sense of activity is mirrored in the energy associated with the harvest season, busily preparing for the cold months ahead. 

When we shift fully westward at the time of the Autumn Equinox, we also move into Libra season. It's telling that our season of water begins with Libra and then moves into Scorpio. Libra, ruled by the planet of venus, our watery and sensual planet of love and beauty, seeks to find pleasure and nourishment from the beauty all around. As the earth begins to get colder in the Northern Hemisphere, water slows down, and we shift into Scorpio season, where we're invited to slow down and descend into the watery depths of our internal worlds for deeper healing and wisdom from within. 

Water Element card featured from The Ritual Deck by Cassie Uhl

For many who are in tune with the seasonal changes, the shift from Libra to Scorpio and Lughnasadh to Samhain feels palpable. The earth also mirrors this shift, with leaves falling from the trees and animals beginning to retreat. A slow spiraling dance inward that prepares us to shift north towards the element of earth and the time of composting and regeneration. 

Everything about this liminal space calls us inward to notice what within us needs to die so seeds can be planted for a new cycle to begin. Rebirth cannot happen without death. When we sink deeper into our internal oceans, we can find clues to what is ready to surface, what needs tending to, and what is ready to be returned to the earth for renewal. This need to retreat inward is where your inner healer comes in. Connecting with your inner healer and wisdom keepers resources you to love, heal, and excavate what needs tending and what needs midwifing out. 

Wisdom from Water and West

Water is the keeper and teacher of our emotional and intuitive world. Acting as a conduit between the physical/mundane world and the mystical/otherworld, she is a magical bridgebuilder calling you to swim in her waters to meet parts of yourself below the surface. We all have inner healers, wisdom keepers, and ancestral knowledge.

Seeking answers and wisdom from outside of ourselves oftentimes feels like the easier route, especially when the dominant culture inspires extraction at every turn. We've been taught not to trust ourselves and not to go within for answers and healing. Going within for our own healing and answers can feel incredibly uncomfortable. In this same thread, it's also important to state that sometimes we must seek outside of ourselves for help! Water asks us to discern when to seek healing and wisdom from the outside and when to go within. 

My most impactful mentors have always inspired me to seek my answers from within rather than supplying me with their formulas or answers. I've learned that this is a mark of a good mentor, and I am hesitant of mentors and teachers who appear to have all the right answers. As I continue to deepen my relationship with my inner wise woman, I've learned to discern better when I need to go within and when I need to ask for help. I've come to recognize that if I have a sense of urgency when searching externally for an answer or comfort, I need to pause, slow down, and look within first. I aim to no longer use mild discomfort as an excuse to seek external validation or answers. Sometimes, discomfort is simply an invitation to go deeper, not a problem. 

We can turn to the wisdom of Scorpio to better understand this desire to sink deeper into our depths. As I already shared about the timing of this season, it's no wonder we find Scorpio here aligned with the west and water. Scorpio energy always aims to go deeper. It encourages us to be with and learn from our emotional worlds, especially the often neglected and ignored parts. This requires us to begin flowing between our pain and pleasure so we can go deeper still, unafraid of our depths and where they may take us. Scorpio energy understands that the most beautiful gems and potent medicine are hidden within our deepest fractures. Learning from our pain doesn't mean we stay with it, but it does mean that we learn how to be with it and how to alchemize it into potent healing for ourselves and others. 

I love this excerpt from Bewitching the Elements by Gabby Herstik on the element of water that illustrates its healing powers so well. 

"Through this element you learn about your innermost world, about how you love, about your fears, about your shadow. Water is your connection to your intuition to the all-knowing consciousness that's bigger than just you. When you embrace the fluidity and majesty of this element, when you recognize your own ability to flow and ebb, you are able to come back to your magick, to your mysticism, to your truth: unconditional love. A mystical being in a human suit. Through water you feel, and through water you heal."

The innate healing gifts you harbor within are unique to you, which is why it's so important for each of us to travel to our sacred depths and explore hidden parts of ourselves. When we return to the surface, we are imbued with new tools to heal ourselves and others. We also come back with more empathy. When we lean deeply into our emotional world and understand why we feel the way we do, we can see these same patterns in others and have more compassion for them. 

Water is the mysterious shapeshifter of the elements, flowing from solid to liquid to vapor. Her shapeshifting abilities speak to her enigmatic nature. Water speaks through emotion and deep feeling. Her communication may present as contradictory and illogical due to her shapeshifting and interconnected nature, calling us to be at peace with simultaneous truths. So much of being present is learning to hold multiple truths and realities simultaneously. I encourage you not to abandon the wisdom water offers when you find it contradictory, it may still be true.  

Water is the great uniter and connecter, not only to each other but to all life and our ancestors. Water reminds us that we are all connected. When we move into her current, we have access to the past, present, and future. She is the divine wisdom keeper and healer residing within every living creature. My water teacher, Jen Isabel Friend, shares more about this idea in this quote from a longer article she shared on my blog in 2019.

"For the Kogi people of Colombia, for example, water is the origin of reality. For them, the structure of the world is sustained by water – every river, runoff, and raindrop maintains the world. Kogi know that within water is the metaphysical blueprint of existence, it holds the map of reality. All "worlds" of reality, from dreams to the structures of daily life, to psychic visions in medicine journeys, all are maintained by water.

This makes a lot of sense when you consider that water is actually holographic in nature. The internal arrangement of her molecules can imprint, store, and transmit information faster than the speed of light. Encoded in every cluster of water molecules is a record of everything that water has experienced. In fact, water is like a sensory organ of Mother Earth – she feels and remembers everything."

I'll dive deeper into how science is starting to catch up with some of these claims later in this share.

Water asks us to slow ourselves. It's the only way we'll feel her magic. It's how we can tune into and remember our unique gifts. If water knows all, connecting with it to learn more about ourselves, our inner healer, is less about acquiring something new and more about remembering who we are. Water asks us to sink into our depths and explore our wounds to remember who we really are and why we're here. When we shift into the element of earth and the direction of the north, we can better integrate these gifts and tools for the cycle to begin again. 

Water and West Correspondences

Correspondences are ways to connect with a particular energy. These are common correspondences for water and west, but it should always be noted that they can vary from practitioner to practitioner. Correspondences can be unique and personal. If there are specific items outside this list that help you feel connected to the element of water, honor that.

The Moon and High Priestess cards from Journey Tarot by Cassie Uhl

• Moon Phase: waning moon

• Phase of life: the priestess, wise woman, and the crone

• Themes: releasing, healing, letting go, slowing down, intuition, magic, the wise woman

• Color: Blue, 

• Element: Water

• Time of Year: Autumn

• Time of day: Sunset

• Energy center: Pelvic bowl and reproductive organs

• Items and tools: water, cauldron, chalice, symbols of the moon and the Goddess, shells and other items from water

• Crystals: Moonstone, aquamarine, carnelian, lepidolite, sodalite, opal

• Plants: Mugwort, ivy, aster, rose, lemon balm, poppy, valerian

• Tarot: Suit of cups, the Moon, hanged one, and death

• Ogham: Vine, ivy, reed 

• Runes: Laguz

• Planets: Moon, Neptune, Pluto

• Zodiac: Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio

Rituals to Connect with West and Water

Let's explore ways to deepen your relationship with water through ritual and magick. As always, take what you like and leave the rest. These are all examples of ways I've personally found to connect with and honor water and the west.

1. Connect with water through meditation, trance, or dance

Meditating on the elements is always a go-to for me. If you'd like guided support, you can sign up for or purchase Journey to Your Inner Healer meditation and workbook here. Otherwise, you can carve out some time to connect with water on your own through meditation. Here are a few thoughts I'd like to share if you want to connect with water through meditation or journeying. 

Because water is a shapeshifter, everyone will experience this element uniquely. My experience working with water in a meditative state is that water is deliciously subtle, requiring us to sink deeper, quiet the outer world, and attune deeply to our inner worlds. In a physical world where so much of what we come into contact with is quite loud, tuning into the subtleness of water can take some fine-tuning. At least, this has been my experience. Once I learned how to tune myself to the subtleness of water better, I was better able to experience the fullness of her wisdom. 

More than any other element, I'd encourage you to give connecting with water a few tries to experience it fully. There are many ways to do this. Here are a few suggestions. 

- State at the beginning of a meditation that you'd like to connect with the element of water and simply allow your mind to take you on a journey. 

- Visualize yourself traveling to a body of water. This could be a body of water you know and love or a fictional body of water. 

- Consider exploring the element of water in different states, like rain or fog, by visualizing it in your mind's eye. 

- While showering, bathing, or swimming, give yourself quiet time to connect with the feeling of the water. 

- For a more embodied experience, consider intuitively dancing or moving as if you're water and notice where this takes you and how it feels. 

- If you connect with a specific deity related to water, you could call on them to guide you into a water trance or meditation.

As you become comfortable connecting with water in one or more of these ways, you may want to begin working with water more collaboratively. This could mean calling upon water for assistance in ritual, healing, or spell crafting. It could look like asking water to guide you to your inner healer, which is what I lead you through in the guided journey meditation here. It could also mean listening to and asking for ways to protect and advocate it. Water is life. Upholding a reciprocal relationship with water will serve everyone. I'll share more on this later. 

Remember, water is the connection to your emotional world. Don't be surprised if exploring water this way brings up emotions or parts of yourself that have been dormant. Consider building in time after meditation to orient yourself to your surroundings and connect with the physical body by eating or drinking. 

2. Understanding and caring for water

I became wholly obsessed with the magic of water in 2019 when I stumbled across my water teacher, Jen Isabel Friend. You can learn more about her and her offerings here. Since my personal exploration into water through Jen's teachings, I've completely transformed my relationship with water physically and spiritually. I now understand water to be fully alive and conscious, especially when given the right environment to thrive and express herself. 

This is a huge topic and one that I will only be able to expand upon in this post partially. Furthermore, even though I've spent a few years learning and reading about these properties of water, I am not an expert. If your interest is piqued, I encourage you to check out Isabel's work here. Here are the cliff notes if you don't have time to dive in right now. 

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A post shared by Isabel Friend . Water Is Life (@jenisabelfriend)

Even though water is a common part of our everyday lives, we don't know very much about it or fully understand it. Much like the spiritual properties of water, even her physical properties are quite mysterious! There's a growing body of evidence from scientists worldwide showing that water has a fourth phase beyond liquid, solid, and vapor between a solid and a liquid called H302, EZ, structured, or gel water. This fourth phase of water is more hydrating and can, among other things, store memory. Though not directly related to the fourth phase of water, some of these ideas become popular through the work of Masaru Emoto in, The Hidden Messages in Water. Books like The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock begin to break this down and explain some of the science behind these claims. 

What I find most interesting is that so much of what we're learning about water today has been talked about by indigenous wisdom keepers since the beginning. Healers, mystics, and wisdom keepers worldwide already know and understand the magic and importance of water. 

When water can spiral, flow, and move as it naturally wants to in a spring, river, or waterfall, it can mature into its fourth phase. The fourth phase of water is structured much like a crystal with coherent and patterned molecules. Unlike a crystal, it can also flow and move. In this structured state, like a crystal, water can retain information and imprints of energy, including human emotions. It may sound fringe, but the more water is studied, the more these claims are backed up. 

When water is inundated with chemicals, forced to flow through our human-made waterways and pipes in unnatural ways, and enclosed in bottles, it loses its full capacity to heal, transmit, and store information. As I said, this is a big topic, so if you want to learn more, I encourage you to explore some of the resources I've shared, but what I will leave you within this section is a call to action because water needs our help, and we need water.

There's an opportunity to be better stewards of water and her wisdom in our spiritual practices. So many of us do a beautiful job of listening to and protecting the earth; water needs this same attention. Beyond the environmental issues related to water, when we craft our magic in extractive ways that aren't aligned with the true needs of water, our magic won't be as potent. So if you're a fan of moon water or water essences, read on. 

You can do many things to protect and restore water, even from your home. If you're using tap water or even special bottled water for your moon water or any other ritual water, the water is essentially dead. Yes, it may be able to hold some of the intentions you infuse into it temporarily, but it likely will not stay. Here are four ways to start caring for water and restoring it to its full vibrancy.  

- If it is accessible and safe, stop buying bottled water. Bottled water companies do not make water. They make plastic bottles and often use tap water or stolen water. There are situations where bottled water cannot be avoided, like the racist water crises in Flint, MI, and Jackson, MS, in the US. If you need clean water and the only accessible and safe water is bottled water, buy it without shame.

- Collect your drinking water from living springs when safe and accessible. Go to findaspring.com to learn where your closest spring is. Sadly, many areas are not close to an accessible spring. If you are, that's great! Use it, share about it, and protect it. Most fresh spring water is ideal for drinking water and great for your water magic. 

- Revive your tap water with simple or complex tools. If you're immersed in the world of water, it seems like more and more water tools are available on the market daily. You can spend A LOT of money on this, but many things that restore water can be done with simple and inexpensive tools. The best way to bring water back to life is to let it swirl and spiral like it does in nature and remineralize it, which can be done with a handheld frother and some sea salt. If you want to get fancy with it, I love my Mayu Swirl and Hi-Lyte drops. You can also find loads of water tools in Isabel's shop here. 

- Listen to water, love water, and protect water. Your water is alive! Commune with her, spend time with her, talk to her, and give her love. You are a body of water yourself, so extend this to yourself as well. When we commune with water, we'll know how to better care for her and ourselves. I learned from Isabel that the words that uplift water the most are "Thank you. I love you. I respect you." Every time I pour a glass of water for myself or my kids, I try to do so with intention and repeat to the water, "Thank you. I love you. I respect you." I do this as an offering to the water and my own body of water. 

3. Imprinting water rituals

Now that you know more about co-collaborating with water working with water in your magic and ritual will be even more special. There are so many magical uses for water in ritual. I invite you to be like water in your exploration of using water in ritual–playful and creative. Try to use living water whenever possible for imprinting water and using it for ritual. This can be water from a spring, a natural body of water (if you're not drinking it or know it is safe to drink), or water you've revitalized yourself. The care you take to collect and prepare your water is part of the ritual.

As mentioned above, imprinting your water can be as simple as sending it loving words as you pour, hold, and drink it. Here are other ways to imprint or work with water in ritual. 

- Create a water altar or water offering. Creating a special place in your home to honor your water is a beautiful way to deepen your relationship with water. You can have a permanent water alter, create a temporary one as a water offering, or both! Explore this more deeply in a past post I shared for the Autumn Equinox here. 

- Intentional drinking water. Write words you'd like to infuse into your water on the paper and place it on, under, or near your water. I also suggest focusing on your words of intention as you hold and drink the water. Here's an example of some of my ritual drinking water. 

- Moon water. Place a vessel of water under the moon for a night. It's common to see folks place their water out for the full moon, but I encourage you to be intentional about placing your water under the moon. You may find that the waxing or waning energy of a specific moon phase in a specific sign may serve your needs better. Learn more about the energy of each moon phase here. 

- Floral water and water essences. Water can pick up the energy of anything, not just the moon and your words of affirmation. If you practice working with trees, flowers, and herbs, these can also imprint water with its energy creating an essence. There are many different kinds of water essence and imprint practices. Some use the plant's energy solely to imprint the water, while others use this and pieces or extract from the plant. 

I love the work of Annwyn Avalon for even more in-depth ritual practices for water. She has a couple of wonderful books available as well.  

We have much to learn from water in both the mundane and otherworldly realms. I hope this share has inspired you to deepen your relationship with water spiritually and in your daily use of water. You are water, and water is life. 

Protection Magic with DIY Witch Bells

There are so many ways to celebrate the season of Samhain, and protection magic is a common theme. With the veil between the spirit and physical realm at its thinnest, it offers us a time to connect with loved ones in spirit, but it can also give rise to unwanted energies and spirits. Taking time to bring in additional energetic protection for yourself and your home is an easy way to address this and honor the season. 

I love to do a full house cleansing and blessing for Samhain, which you can learn more about in this past post. After performing a house cleansing and blessings is a great time to introduce additional protection magic like witch bells. 

Bells have been and still are used by many cultures for various spiritual practices, and they’re a standard tool for most witches and folk magic practitioners. Bells are a common cleansing tool, and the loud sound is said to scare off malevolent spirits. 

My favorite thing about witch bells is that you can be so creative with them and customize them, both in appearance and in intention, in so many ways. I’m going to share general steps to craft your witch bells so that you can create protective witch bells that work for you and your space. Here are some general considerations for all magic making. 

The efficacy of your spellwork and magic will consistently increase when you co-create with items with which you have an established relationship. If you’re wondering how to have a relationship with a tree or a stone, here are some simple options. 

• Meditate to connect with the energy of the plant or item.

• Spend more time with the plant or object. 

• Give offerings to the plant or item.   

• Always ask permission before taking things from a living plant or tree. 

You don’t need to use the same items I use for my witch bells. I encourage you to use items unique to your environment and needs. If there are plants, stones, or things that represent safety, protection, and clearing to you, that is great. Use those. 

DIY Witch Bells

You’ll need the following: 

• 30-90 minutes

• String, yarn, or ribbon of choice

• 5-10 bells 

• Optional: incense or herbs to energetically cleanse your items

• Optional: Something to hang your bells from, like a wooden circle, a pentacle, or something else that fits your needs. 

• Optional: Any additional items (crystals, beads, stones, plant items, etc.) that correspond with your intention.

Watch the steps in action here.

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A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

Steps: 

1. Take some time to plan your specific intentions for your witch bells and prepare all of your items. Consider energetically cleansing your items before you begin with smoke, incense, or something else in your practice. 

2. If you’re crafting something to hang your string from, do that now. I used fallen apple tree twigs to make a circle and a pentacle. This was the most time-consuming part for me! I am pleased with how it turned out, but wood circles or mini wreaths can be purchased at most craft stores if you want to go an easier route. You can also opt to make a loop out of your string and skip the circle. 

3. It’s time to attach your strings or ribbons. I made simple loops to secure mine, but you could also tie them onto your circle. As you begin knotting and tying, it’s an excellent time to start focusing on your intention for your bells. You could visualize an auric energy field growing around your house, offering greater protection and peace. You could also envision inviting any healed and well ancestors into your home and blocking any who are not. 

Tip: Consider your color choice for your string and ribbon. Each color carries a different energy. I used black and a deep red for grounding and protection. 

4. Now, you can attach your bells. Use any bells you prefer. You may need to tie them on or use pliers. Add as many as you like, and keep your intentions in your mind. You could even repeat a chant to increase the energy. 

5. If you’ve opted to add extra items like stones, beads, or plant items, do that now. I tied Rowan tree berries and Hawthorne tree thorns into my ribbon and strings for additional protection and grounding. 

6. When your witch bells feel complete, hold them in your hand, focus on your intention, and consider reciting a particular phrase like, “Protect and bless this house, so it is,” or anything else that feels good to you. 

7. You’re all done! Hang your bells on your front door knob. Consider charging it under full moons or giving it a good energetic cleanse every once in a while to keep them happy. 

Wishing you a magical Samhain! Check out more posts about Samhain here.

What are Death Doulas and Why we Need Them

It's time to call in our demons around death and dying. They need healing and nourishment. As we continue to walk through a world steeped in an ebb and flow of grief and death, we have an opportunity to address our relationship with death and dying. Not only do we need to address these wounds to better equip us to care for our dying, but I believe there's also a well of healing to be found within nourishing our wounds around death. Addressing our relationship to death and dying is one way to do this. Addressing how we care for the dying is another way to do this. 

In this share, I'll offer some personal thoughts on why so many of us have a difficult relationship with death, especially in the West, opportunities and ways to heal our connection with death and the benefits of doing so. You'll also learn what a death doula or end-of-life doula is and their role in the dying process. 

Listen to this post on my podcast here.

If you think this doesn't seem like a very spiritual topic, that's precisely why I'm talking about it. We're all going to die, even you, and if our spiritual practices only encompass life, then we're missing a huge portion of wisdom by avoiding talking and thinking about death. If you have anxiety about your mortality, and the mere mention of discussing death stirs internal fear and anxiety, you are not alone. I encourage you to stick around. I, too, used to have intense fear and anxiety about dying. 

I spent a large part of my adolescence and young adulthood holding onto an intense fear and anxiety around dying. It caused me sleepless nights and even altered my plans from time to time. The worst part was that I didn't feel like there was anyone I could talk to about these fears. I knew they were deeply irrational and therefore spent most of my time trying to block these feelings, making them even more debilitating. 

It wasn't until I was faced with death through the loss of my beloved grandmother and father within two months of each other that my thoughts and feelings about death slowly began to shift and change. I witnessed firsthand how dysfunctional our relationship with death is as I watched much of my family spiral into chaos with little support. Within the depths of my grief, something in me was cracked open. The tears from my sadness slowly eroded away my long-held fears about dying. The deep grief I experienced from these losses opened a pathway for healing my relationship with death and dying, and it also showed me the need for better death care. 

This theme is reflected in the wise quote by Rumi, "The wound is the place where the light enters you." The wounds we face at different points in life can have the potential to grow and heal parts of ourselves when we have the time and space to do so. Of course, it also needs to be noted that having the time and space to heal our wounds when they arise is a privilege in and of itself and one that not all have access to. 

The healing I experienced around death was not immediate. It slowly unraveled as I rode the waves of grief over several years, leaned into therapy, and explored death through my spiritual practice. My healing around death is still ongoing today. Like all healing, there's no finish line but a continuous spiral of growth and learning. Though I no longer experience the fear and anxiety of my inevitable death, I continue to find ways to challenge and heal my relationship with death and dying. Which, today looks like talking about death more and uprooting and untangling patriarchy and white and human supremacy from how I see and experience death. I've learned that the wise woman within me knows that death is a natural and even beautiful part of the cycle, not a failure as patriarchy would have us see it, which brings me to some thoughts on how we got here. 

How did we get here, and why we need death doulas so badly right now?

In my personal experience with death and dying, combined with my spiritual practice and end-of-life doula training, I've realized that many of us carry a wound around death, and why wouldn't we? We rarely talk about it, our society, by and large, aims to remove death from sight, and many view it as a failure rather than a natural part of life. For example, phrases like "so and so lost their battle to cancer" imply that certain kinds of deaths are a failure instead of normal and natural parts of being human.

It goes much deeper than our simple avoidance of the topic. Wounds around death are yet another side effect of patriarchy, white supremacy, human supremacy, colonization, capitalism, and the suppression of earth-based, often Goddess-based, spiritual practices. Patriarchy and all of the supremacies live in a linear framework that always aims for more growth, creating a path that only leads up to more, more, more. Linearity leaves no room for death, individually or as a society. When our systems are set up to sidestep death and dying, it can feel challenging to embrace or even discuss death and dying because the systems in which we live do not allow space for it. 

Our linear-focused society has been detrimental to ourselves, the planet, and all of its inhabitants. It reminds me of something I hear echoed by many of my anti-racism and decolonial teachers like Thérèse Cator and Dr. Rocio Rosalez Meza, which is the idea that due to white supremacy, white folks, especially, are cut off from our humanity. This couldn't be more clear than our relationship with death. Death is a natural part of being alive. Yet, our focus on supremacy and linearity strips us of our connection to death and its inherent wisdom. Though I don't think wounds around death are exclusive to white folks, I do think it's more prevalent. Our severed relationship with death and dying is yet another way we’ve been cut off from our humanity. 

These ideas are a very condensed explanation of a much larger issue in which I am not an expert. In my study of anti-oppression work, death, and my spiritual practice, I've come to these conclusions. I encourage you to explore your ideas and learn from teachers who speak on the topic, especially those in the BIPOC community doing this kind of work. 

Healing death wounds

So, where do we go from here? Here's a quote from one of my favorite books titled Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George, which is where I found the inspiration for the opening of this share, and I find she illustrates perfectly our need to heal our wounds around death. 

"We must call our demons in from the backyard where they've been starved and banished into the leaking doghouse. We must welcome them in the warmth of our kitchens and feed them the foods that will heal their wounds of rejection. As we cleanse our inner images of the Dark Goddess through loving and accepting her, we will notice a corresponding decrease in the fear, anger, rejections, failure, disappointment, deceptions and hatred that we experience as part of our outer reality. In this way we reach the original true essence of the dark feminine that exists within us, an essence that is unclouded by layers of distortion." 

Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George

I think this is a beautiful and powerful starting point. We must begin to call in death and invite death into our hearts and homes to heal our wounds around it. In doing so, we can become more whole. Furthermore, I find that addressing our relationship with death and dying in relation to where we are now as a collective is imperative and can give us the tools needed to remain grounded and useful in uncertain times. None of us are immune to the effects of climate collapse, and even if you've yet to be affected by it, it will affect all of us at some point, and grief and death will no doubt be a natural outcome. 

Like our more than human plant and animal kin, death is an integral part of our cycle. It's easy to see the value of death in the natural cycles of plants and animals. Death is a needed part of the cycle that offers rest, decomposition, nourishment, and, eventually, rebirth. Though we've tried, we are not separate from this web, death will come for each of us, and it can have meaning too. Healing our relationship with death can have as much value for us today as the day we take our last breath. The sooner we each face our demons around death and dying, the more fully we can live in a world inundated with death. 

This isn't to say that all deaths are fair and just. Absolutely not. The devastation we've already seen due to climate change disproportionately affects people of color and historically marginalized communities who have contributed the least to climate change. We should continue to fight against it. Changing our relationship with death can give us the tools to navigate these times and enable us to continue striving toward a more just and livable world rather than resulting to fight, flight, or freeze.

When we see ourselves as part of the web and cycles inherent in the earth, we can learn from the wisdom death has to offer. Healing our wounds around death can give us the resources and words we need so badly right now, resources like understanding living cyclically, being able to take ownership over our role in the current death cult of white supremacy, human supremacy, and patriarchy, the ability to be fully present with our human kin in their death phase, and understanding the need for contraction and death in our day to day lives and work. Healing our wounds around death gives us the language we need when we know we must step back from work, relationships, and the grind of living in a capitalist society. 

We need to learn how to live in a world where excess death seems impossible to avoid. We must learn to be in a world that asks us to walk alongside death. And that is a big ask. 

Death card from Journey Tarot by Cassie Uhl

Let's talk solutions and explore how death doulas can be one part of helping us heal our wounds around death and dying. 

Death doulas, death midwives, and death walkers

An obvious place to begin healing our relationship with death is to offer better care to those dying. Anytime I bring up the term "death doula," people are immediately curious. This curiosity shows me how eager many are to have a better relationship with death. People are starting to see the benefits of discussing death more, planning for it, and offering more emotional and spiritual support for those at the end of life. Physical care from hospice and spiritual care offered by organized religion is no longer enough for most of us. In 2021 only 29% of people in the US identified as religious. We need more when it comes to facing our own deaths and the deaths of our loved ones. 

I had the unique back-to-back experience of being with my grandmother during her death due to terminal cancer and my father's sudden and unexpected death due to a heart attack. I experienced firsthand how each kind of death, known and sudden, affected our family and me. While walking through these experiences, I learned a lot of things, but what stood out to me the most was the extreme lack of emotional and spiritual support for the dying and their loved ones. I also learned that death tends to bring out the worst in caregivers (likely due to lack of support) and that, due to my spiritual practices, I was able to remain relatively grounded in these environments.

After these experiences and other family deaths in the subsequent years, I knew I was supposed to be working with those on their death journey and talking about it more. When I heard the term "death doula" in 2019, I knew it would be part of my path, and I completed my end-of-life doula training with INELDA in 2021 and am currently in the process of completing my certification. Let's dive into what a death doula is and how they can offer support. 

What is a death doula? 

Before I share more about what a death doula is and does, there are three important things I'd like you to keep in mind. 

1. First, though the phrase "death doula" may be relatively new, it's important to mention that the role a death doula offers is not new at all. In many indigenous communities, there have been and still are many acting as "death doulas" far earlier than the term was coined. 

2. Second, there's currently no standardization or regulation over the death doula field, so the scope and quality of training vary. I urge anyone curious about hiring a death doula to research where they were trained. This isn't to say that formal training and certification are a must, as mentioned above, but be sure to do your research before hiring someone. 

3. Hospice does an incredible job of ensuring that those at the end of life are physically comfortable. Whether or not someone wants medication to aid their comfort as they die is a personal choice and not something in which a death doula should have any say. The death doula's role is to support the dying person's wishes, whatever they are, which includes any other support team that is part of that person's team. 

The simple explanation of a death doula is someone who offers non-medical, emotional, and spiritual support to the dying person and loved ones. But this usually leaves people with even more questions, so let's dig deeper. 

In my training, the role of the death doula was broken up into three tiers with several subcategories, which I'll share a bit about here. 

1. Summing up and planning

I see this as one of the most important areas of the death doula model. It gives those dying time to explore meaning in their life, address unfinished business, create legacy projects, and plan for their death. These are many of the areas that hospice teams simply do not have time for and areas that may be too difficult for families and loved ones to address on their own. Summing up and planning requires time and the ability to listen deeply and non-judgmentally. 

The death doula offers deep active listening to their clients, giving them the time and space to think and share about some of the most important moments in their lives. Summing up in this way can uncover parts of their lives that they wish to address before they die, allowing time for addressing regrets, healing, or making amends. It's also a way to determine what legacy projects may benefit the client and their loved ones. 

Legacy projects can range from scrapbooks and video recordings of special stories to collaborative art projects that preserve important parts of the dying person's life or personality that can live on for the family. A study conducted in 2008 by a group of palliative doctors showed that those who were dying and their caregivers who participated in legacy projects showed a decrease in stress and an increase in physical well-being. A tremendous amount of focus is given to the physical comfort of those dying. While comfort is certainly important, implementing a legacy project gives those dying and their families something else to focus on that can have a long-lasting and meaningful effect on all involved. 

Finally, the death doula gives clients time and space to explore how they want their death to look and feel. They may discuss what sites, sounds, and scents they'd like present while they're dying. Who they want to be there or not for their death and if they'd like any special rituals to take place before and after their transition. Not only does this give those facing the end of life comfort that their death will look and feel how they want it to, but it gives them back a valuable sense of control. This kind of care and attention has become common practice with birth and the role of the birth doula. Why wouldn't we extend this same time and planning into our deaths? 

2. Vigil Support

When death is imminent, it's time for the vigil or death labor. The vigil is the time when the dying person is on their final journey toward death, which can last one to several days. At this point, the death doula will help ensure that the dying person's wishes for their death are implemented. This doesn't necessarily mean that the death doula will be "in charge" or doing everything. It means they will help support the other caregivers in implementing the dying person's wishes. 

Support could be through offering respite for the family, planning, creating schedules, facilitating rituals, or simply holding calm and grounded space for the dying person and their family. It's also quite possible that the family won't need the help of a doula to do this. Some families may feel able to implement things on their own. The amount of support each person receives will be unique. 

A death doula can also help offer non-medical comfort care to the dying person by facilitating guided visualization meditations and, for those trained, energy healing, a service I include for those who want it. Finally, the death doula can also offer the family the important service of respite. 

3. Early Grief Reprocessing

The final portion of care that the death doula extends is early grief reprocessing for any loved ones or caregivers who want it. Early grief reprocessing is also a wonderful option for those who've experienced the sudden death of someone they love. Similar to the first stage of summing up and planning, the primary role of the death doula is to offer non-judgmental, deep active listening to loved ones. 

Early grief reprocessing allows time for family and caregivers to recount some of the most meaningful and difficult experiences they had during the death of their loved one. This time may even uncover a desire to create legacy projects or rituals of their own based on the experience of their loved one dying. For those who experienced the sudden death of a loved one, this can allow time to recount and explore the feelings associated with the death and open up pathways to bring meaning and ritual into the experience. 

Grief reprocessing usually lasts 2-3 sessions and is not intended to replace a grief therapist but may be a stepping stone to traditional therapy for some. A primary benefit of the death doula offering this service is that, at this point, families will have been working with the same death doula for an extended time already. This report allows them to recount important moments during the death of their loved one with someone they already know and went through some of the same experiences with. 

Death doulas outside of active dying

As I mentioned earlier, you will see a lot of variety in how death doulas serve their communities. This variety is for a couple of reasons. First is the lack of standardization and regulation in the field. Second, each death doula brings unique skills. Some end-of-life doulas may focus more on a specific area. For example, I offer energy healing and energetic assistance in transitioning for clients who want it. That is certainly not a requirement or something all death doulas will offer! Some death doulas only work with pets and pet owners, while others may only focus on the summing up and planning area. Each doula is unique.

There are also many roles that a death doula can fill outside of assisting those who are actively dying. This is a big reason why this work called to me. I see a huge need for more discussion and space holding around death for the living, so I've created a separate offering called the "Death Exploration Container." In this offering, I assist and hold space for folks who want to contemplate and plan for their inevitable death. Not in a legal way but in emotional and spiritual ways by providing proper nervous system tending while approaching topics around mortality.

This experience will look different for each person, which is why I include a free consultation call before you book. This service could explore any of the following themes: exploring the meaning in your life, embarking on guided meditations to reflect upon how it might feel to be faced with a terminal illness, identifying and addressing regrets, thinking about and planning for how you'd ideally like your death to look and feel if allowed to do so, frameworks for beginning legacy projects for yourself, and exploring what rituals you might like to be a part of your death. 

You don't have to wait until you're dying to start planning for your death. Many of us won't have the luxury of knowing when and how we will die. Planning for death is not only one of the best gifts you can give to your loved ones, but it's also a huge gift you can give yourself. If you've sat down to think about your own death, you probably already know this, but for many, this feels like a huge and scary task! I used to think I would die if I planned my death. I know I'm not the only one who's thought this! Let me be the one to tell you that planning for your death will not make you die, at least not right away. I mean, we're all going to die eventually. But, thinking about and planning for your death can give you peace and begin building a foundation to call in and heal our wounds around death and dying. 

This share has already become much longer than I anticipated, so I think I need to stop at this but know I have more to share! I look forward to talking more about finding and honoring all of the mini-deaths that happen within our lives and celebrating them as a right of passage. Let me leave you with some resources if you feel compelled to explore this topic more. 

Of course, if you are interested in working with me in either of these ways, click here to learn more or to schedule a free consultation call. I went through the program with INELDA, the International End of Life Doula Association. I highly recommend it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is also very affordable. The founder of INELDA, Henry Fersko-Weiss, also has a book that dives deeper into many of the topics shared here, Finding Peace at the End of Life. I've just started the book Death Nesting by Anne-Marie Keppel and am loving it. From a spiritual standpoint, I highly recommend the book Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George. Finally, here are some of my favorite death accounts to follow on Instagram @the.death.empath, @cait.deatheducation, @going_with_grace, and @deatwives. This is a short list, and there are sooooo many more great accounts.

If you received something from this share, please share it with someone who may enjoy it too.

Water Offering for The Autumn Equinox

The Autumn Equinox, which usually falls between September 20-23 in the Northern Hemisphere, shifts us westward on our seasonal wheel. The west corresponds to the element of water in most mystical and earth-based spiritual practices. It signals a time to start moving inward after the busyness and activity of the spring and summer months. 

Wheel of the Year from Understanding the Wheel of the Year by Cassie Uhl

In this short share, I’m offering you a simple ritual to honor water with an offering to the water spirits and a message from water that I received. This ritual is one way to mark the shift in seasons, welcome the element of water into your home, and give thanks for its healing gifts and life. 

Water Offering Ritual

I encourage you to make this water offering ritual your own as much as possible and use these steps as a framework. The more personal you make this ritual, the more meaningful it will be. Watch my water offering ritual here. 

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A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

You’ll need: 

• A vessel or bowl to hold some water

• Enough water to fill your vessel (spring water, water from a moving creek or river, or water that you’ve structured is ideal)

• Plant items from outside that have either fallen naturally or that you’ve asked permission to gather from your environment

• Optional: a few drops of special water you have on hand like moon water or water from a special location

• Optional: any corresponding decorations or crystals to add in or around your water vessel. For crystals, moonstone, quartz, smoky quartz, and rutilated quartz are all great options. 

Steps: 

1. Collect your items with care and intention, and have them ready and organized nearby before you begin. 

2. Spend 3-5 minutes centering yourself, grounding, and connecting with your breath and body in a way that feels good to you. 

3. Cleanse the space, yourself, and your items using a cleansing method of choice. Mugwort smoke is a great option for this particular ritual as it corresponds with water, but any cleansing herb will do. 

4. Set up your water vessel and any accompanying crystals or items intuitively. You could place some crystals in your vessel if there is space. 

5. It is time to pour your water into your vessel. Before you do so, hold your water, feel connected to your earth and your body, and infuse the water with love, respect, or anything else you feel called to add. Feel the energy flowing from your body into the water. Pour your water into your vessel, continuing to infuse it with an energy of love and respect. 

6. Add any items on top of your water, like leaves, herbs, or flowers, with the intention of each item being a gift to water. 

7. Now it is time to invite in the water spirits and thank them. Do this in a way that feels meaningful to you. You could keep it short and sweet by saying, “I invite in the water of the west for the Autumn Equinox and thank you for your healing,” or you could share a poem, a longer statement, or even a dance with the water. The point of this is to invite in, connect with, and thank the water spirits for this change of season. 

8. Consider spending some time here with your water to notice any shifts or changes in your energy or environment. You could also spend some time meditating, journaling, or creating. When you feel ready to end the ritual, thank the water spirits for joining you. 

9. You can keep your water vessel up for as long as you’d like, filling it anytime it becomes low and connecting with it often. Keep it up for a full lunar cycle or until the next full moon is a great option. 

10. When you feel ready to deconstruct your water offering, pour it outside back into the earth while giving it thanks. 

Message from Water

I dissolve, swirl, and heal. I am both forceful and passive. Feel my soft spirals erode and bring what is ready to heal to the surface. Feel my wild and raging storms returning you to the womb of the earth. I am mystery. I am healer. I am life, and I am the harbinger of death. Respect me and honor my sovereignty. In doing so, you will honor yourself.

Water element card from The Ritual Deck.

If you’d like to learn more about the Autumn Equinox and ways to celebrate the season, click here for past blog posts.

Learn more about the magic of water in this past post by Jen Isabel Friend. 

Equinox blessings! Xoxo Cassie

Exploring Thresholds for the Pisces Full Moon

Pisces often brings up themes of liminal spaces and dreamscapes. As the last sign of the zodiac, Pisces is a sign that defines a threshold, or a simultaneous point of arrival and departure, an invitation to detach from the physical world.

Thresholds are liminal spaces, but liminal spaces are not always thresholds. Thresholds are unique because we can physically see and engage with them in the physical world. Thresholds mark the ending of one area and the beginning of another. Doorways and windows are examples of these kinds of spaces. There can, of course, be internal or otherworldly thresholds too. 

Listen to this post on the podcast, Awen, here.

In this share, we'll explore the position of the Pisces full moon in relation to our seasonal year, ways to work with thresholds and why you may want to, and corresponding tarot cards for Pisces that invite the exploration of thresholds. 

A quick note about timing: in 2022 (when this post was written), the Pisces Harvest Moon is nearly upon us and will take place on September 10th. If you happen to be reading this in the future, these thoughts and offerings can all be applied to any future Pisces full moon, which often occurs during September. 

Pisces Full Moon Timing

As a zodiac sign, Pisces marks the end of the zodiac calendar before it begins anew with Aries. Pisces's unique placement and energy amidst the zodiac calendar are not coincidental. It aligns beautifully with the energetics of ending a cycle. Pisces energy inspires liminality and encourages engaging with thresholds. 

Pisces energy combined with a full moon, which often aligns around the same time as the Autumn Equinox, is also well timed. The coming Autumn Equinox is also a liminal time of its own, marking a point of equal balance between daytime and nighttime. It is the threshold of the Equinox that we shift towards nighttime, increasing over daylight. The Neptunian energy from this upcoming full moon also feels like an invitation to begin wading into the element of water before we shift fully westward on our seasonal wheel.

The Pisces full moon coming around the same each year seems like a well-timed embrace pulling us in to dance in the watery liminal spaces associated with this time before fully moving into the darker half of the year.

Cards from the Ritual Deck

The full moon itself can be seen as a threshold between the waxing and the waning moon. As I've mentioned in previous shares, like this one, the moon is only full for about one minute. For the rest of the "full moon," the moon is either waxing or waning, which makes working with thresholds even more potent during any full moon. 

What are thresholds, and why are they important? 

Before we explore ways to work with this energy, let's discuss what thresholds are and why they're important. Thresholds are endings and starting points simultaneously. Much like a coin, two different sides, inextricably linked as one. The doorway of your living space offers a perfect example. You can observe a door to your home outside or within the home, it is an entrance and an exit, and it can be protective or permissive. The doorway itself carries all of these opposing and differing energies. Your front door can serve as a powerful symbol of protection, locking out those you don't want while also giving you the option to invite in those you do.

There are energetic layers to explore within physical thresholds, as well. You can even pause and think about how it feels to walk from the outside into your living space after a long day or into your bedroom from a busy kitchen space. Each threshold carries unique energies and purposes.

Exploring thresholds more deeply moves us out of binary thinking. They are the "both-and's" all around us, reminding us that grey areas are available and needed. Thinking outside of a binary is important for many reasons, especially if engaging with the spirit realm. The spirit world is full of mystery and confusing contradictions that can be hard for our binary-seeking brains to be present with. Working with and learning from liminal spaces and thresholds is one way to open ourselves to being with the complexity of not knowing and mystery. Thresholds are magically complex!

Exploring doorways and windows may seem quite mundane, but they are powerful places ripe for making magic and exploring different contrasting energies. Especially in this current time, living amidst mass extinction and climate collapse within failing systems, all while seeking pockets of rest and joy. In many ways, we're living in a threshold. What better way to honor this moment than to confront the mystery of thresholds intentionally?

Let's take the idea of thresholds beyond physical windows and doors and explore internal or otherworldly thresholds.

The Hanged One as a Threshold

When we explore Pisces energy in the tarot, one of the corresponding cards is the hanged one. This card is an invitation to explore your internal thresholds. The hanged one hovers in a liminal space between worlds, able to look backward, forwards, and side to side. 

Hanged One card from Journey Tarot

One way to approach this full moon is to allow yourself the time and space to explore the internal thresholds in which you're currently living. Perhaps taking time to look back into your past few months or this year, ahead at the next, and maybe even side to side toying with different paths and timelines. It's a card that invites spending time at the threshold of the present moment, all while noticing how it feels to hang between different realms simultaneously. 

Giving yourself time to sit in different internal or energetic thresholds allows you to feel into different possibilities and solutions that have yet to be acted upon. It allows you to explore spaces of limitless possibilities and notice how they feel. What would it feel like if you were to "step through" an internal threshold of perhaps putting a new boundary in place or expressing yourself in a new way?

Let's explore how to practice some of these ideas for the full moon in Pisces. 

Working with Thresholds this Pisces Full Moon 

Here are a few invitations to explore thresholds in honor of the full moon in Pisces. For best results, practice any or all of these offerings within the three days leading up to or after a full moon in Pisces. However, these are great practices to try for any full moon if you don't have the time and space to practice them this week. 

1. Explore the energetics of physical thresholds in your living space. This simple activity can help you tune into the present moment and subtle shifts in energy within your living space. It's also a great exercise to try before the following suggestions. Though this one might seem overly simple, I encourage you to take some time with it. You might be surprised! 

This will work best with doorways because windows can be a little tricky to stand or sit in! Before you begin:

1. Spend some time tuning into your breath and body.

2. Select one or more thresholds to explore.

3. Start by standing on one side of the threshold, in the actual threshold (within the doorway), and on the other side of the threshold. As you step into each area, pause, breathe, and notice how you feel.

The differences may be subtle, and that's okay. 

I encourage you to try this with a few different thresholds, as you'll likely find some may have more noticeable shifts than others. For example, the threshold doorway between my basement hallway, my home office/sacred space, and my bathroom door feel quite different! The energy of my office/sacred space threshold holds a noticeable palpable energy. You could also take this exercise into public spaces, noticing the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in energy that occur when entering and exiting public spaces. If you feel called, consider writing down your experiences in a journal. 

2. Like the Hanged One in the tarot, suspend yourself in an internal threshold. Approach this as a meditation or as a journaling exercise. Whatever method resonates with you most is great. If you're unfamiliar with the Hanged One tarot card, you may also find support in reading more about it. 

Consider a specific situation where you feel like you're at a crossroads, or think about your life generally. Spend some time slowing down to connect with the breath and body. Imagine yourself suspended in time; you can even visualize yourself standing in a doorway. Reflect on everything that's happened this year, and visualize looking behind you in the doorway. Notice what arises. Then, look forward and notice what arises. Take this further by looking side to side to see if any different narratives or ideas come to you from this unique perspective. Stay in this space for as long as you'd like. When you feel ready to end this exercise, consider writing about your experience. 

3. Lastly, here's a little card spread you can lean into during a Pisces full moon. Use this card spread with any oracle or tarot card deck. 

• Card 1: When I look back on this year, what wants to be seen?

• Card 2: What is this Pisces full moon threshold holding for me?

• Card 3: What possibilities are on the other side of this threshold? 

• Card 4: What alternative outcomes are available to me?

Many of the usual suggestions for Pisces season and moons certainly still apply, like exploring dreamwork and the subconscious mind. Explore tuning into dreamwork in this previous post that contains a Pisces-inspired dreamwork ritual or a ritual to explore the subconscious mind here. 

Of course, threshold magic is an entire area of study that this post doesn't fully explore. If your interest is piqued by discussing thresholds in this post, I encourage you to spiral deeper into exploring threshold magic. You can find some tips here in this past post for a Samhain house blessing. 

This share is just the tip of the iceberg when exploring thresholds! I hope you're feeling empowered and intrigued to start investigating both internal and external thresholds this Pisces full moon. 

Befriending Discomfort & Transforming with Fire of the South

Summertime shifts us towards the south and the element of fire on our sacred seasonal wheel. The fire of the south offers a time of passion, growth, culmination, action, transformation, and, less frequently talked about, discomfort.

In this share, you'll learn more about the element of fire, some of the wisdom it has to offer, its connection to discomfort, common correspondences for south and fire, and three ways to engage in ritual and magic alongside fire. Before we dive in, let's explore the position of the south and fire on our seasonal wheel, and what it means.

Listen to this post on the podcast, here.

The South and Summer Solstice is the full moon of the year on our wheel of seasons, and the neighboring celebrations, Beltane and Lughnasadh, are the peek of the waxing and waning energy of the seasonal year. We live amidst fiery energy until we reach the Autumn Equinox and shift fully towards the West and the element of water.

campfire, bonfire by the sea, sunset

Astrologically, the Summer Solstice moves us into Cancer season and then later into Leo. The Summer Solstice and Cancer season alignment is one that confused me for a long time. I had difficulty seeing the connection between the water sign of Cancer, the south, and the element of fire. I recently listened to the Summer Solstice episode on Tarot for the Wild Soul by Lindsay Mack. She did a good job of breaking down these overlaps, especially in relation to the Chariot card, which is the card that corresponds with Cancer. 

The Chariot card offers a side of water that encourages action, movement, and being in the flow. The fire connected with this season inspires this Cancerian energy to come out of its safe and cozy crab shell and begin taking action, and tap into any wells of emotional energy you may be harboring as fuel. You can visualize the stagnant pond vs. the flowing stream as an example. It's like a marriage of water and fire. This season's fire forces us out of our comfort zone, and the water of Cancer season encourages us to be in a state of flow with all that arises and the discomfort of it all. It's a call to feel and act, act, and feel, and to not get stuck and stagnant amidst it all. 

The Chariot card featured from Journey Tarot . Water card featured from The Ritual Deck.

It makes me think of the famous quote by Anais Nin quote "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." These south-facing seasons are asking us to notice where we must come out of our shells and blossom in new ways. I don't know about you, but I have never gone through an easy or painless transformation. 

Every transformation has been uncomfortable in my spirituality, business, and relationships, but they've also been necessary, inspired growth, and made me a better person. And it will be like this on a collective level, which can feel scary and uncomfortable. The deep transformations we're facing require many of us to face and look at parts of ourselves we'd rather not look at and that, in many ways, we've been trained not to look at, especially folks in white bodies like myself. 

It may feel enticing to sink back into those still waters or the cozy crab shell, but the gifts of growth are calling each of us in unique ways needed to create the changes we need on an individual and collective level to create a more equitable and sustainable world. The element of fire is waiting to be called upon to assist. Because if we do not, the wildness of fire will, eventually, create the transformations that need to happen whether you're ready or not. Here’s a sweet message about the need for fire from the book, The Great Work by Tiffany Lazic.

Passion is the energy of fire that propels us toward that which activates our Spirit. In 

order to create any new thing, there needs to be a spark—something that leaps across 

the gap between the material and the ethereal, bringing the two together and 

transforming them both in the process. Fire is the motivator, both the soft flame that 

gently guides and the blinding conflagration that changes all in an instant.

The Great Work by Tiffany Lazic

How can what's dear to your heart be used as a spark to bring about transformation or change? This is a time to notice what's arising for you, your family, and your community. What is calling out for attention to be more closely examined with the light of a fire or burned up and transformed? Let's explore some of the wisdom fire has to offer us.

Wisdom of South and Fire

To understand the scope of fire, we must honor all of its faces and abilities. Like all of the elements, fire can nourish and destroy. It's easy to see the nourishment and the destruction of fire, especially in the summertime. The nourishing warmth of the sun inspires plants to grow and thrive. Fire is also the seat of the hearth and home because it offers us warmth and nourishment. Yet, we can also see the capacity for fast-acting destruction that fire holds, 

The multifaceted nature of fire is reflected in its corresponding colors, red and green. Red holds the energy of passion, intensity, and the ability to destroy and transform, while green holds the energy of nourishment and growth. Like all the elements, fire offers a spectrum of wisdom. It offers both destruction and sustenance.

Having been embedded in various spiritual spaces for over two decades, especially in white spaces, I can confidently say that there's a focus on the more "positive" aspects of fire like passion, growth, and action and far less on themes like destruction and discomfort. I'll be focusing on the latter for this section. Though destruction is often lumped into the "negative" side of the spectrum, it also has a lot of important gifts to offer. Destroying or burning up is a necessary part of the transformational process. We cannot transform without letting something fall away or die. Wrapped up in this process, for some of us, is a need to be with discomfort and build a greater capacity to hold discomfort. Fire can be the spark that inspires us to continue facing our discomfort and bolsters our ability to act alongside it. 

Transforming and Expanding Our Capacity for Discomfort 

As we move deeper into this conversation around expanding our capacity for discomfort, I want to share a quote from a little book I often reference, "The Sacred Wheel of Our Ancestors" by Roberta Lee. She is one of my mentor's mentors. 

Noon. The Summer Solstice. Heat all about us. The sun beating down upon our heads.  

Thirst. Fire. This is the place to come face to face with ourselves for sure. Modern 

society seems to be obsessed with comfort. And sacred suffering is feared and frowned 

upon. We all suffer. Let us not waste it by trying to avoid it… Let us not resist the heat, the hard 

times; let us embrace them and this time of year, this part of the Wheel, this part 

of Life and in doing so, we notice that the pain is abated and becomes our history and 

joins the other drops of water in our well of experience.

Roberta Lee, Sacred Wheel of 

our Ancestors

The fire of the south does not lie. It is truth at its core. It burns away and exposes us. It makes us naked and vulnerable and brings us face to face with our truths. It can be painful when you approach fire with a desire to transform. Like the frame of a house revealed after its exterior has been burned away, fire shows you what's on the inside. Each layer that is burned away offers different stories and wisdom. Stories and wisdom that beckon you to look at and feel everything on a soul level, the good, the ugly, and everything in between. Each layer gives more wisdom and fuel to transform. 

Herein lies much of the discomfort associated with fire, which is two-fold. First, we have the discomfort of being with, witnessing, and feeling the pain and the truth of what is no longer working or that you can no longer view as acceptable. The second, I'd argue, more illusive part of the discomfort brought about by fire is the discomfort of not knowing what's on the other side of a transformation. When we decide to return to ash from the fire, what happens next? What's on the other side?

I think collectively, we are sitting in a time of transformative fire, on the precipice of something new, but still unsure what it will look like and how exactly we will get there. So many of us, myself included, are feeling the intense discomfort of this time. Knowing deep down that more needs to happen, much faster to save ourselves, our more than human brothers and sisters, and the planet. 

It is uncomfortable to witness the suffering and to suffer right now. It is also uncomfortable not to know what's on the other side. We are in the throws of a significant and profound transformation. However, the not knowing, the mystery of where we're headed does bring one gift—a gift of unlimited possibilities. These limitless potentialities are part of this collective transformation bringing me a sense of peace and the fire to keep going. There are so many solutions, and outcomes are yet to be discovered. The unknown is uncomfortable, yes, but there's also hope there. 

Most transformations we embark upon are sparked by an unwillingness to allow a certain action or feeling to persist. As we collectively sit in the heat and discomfort of this time, I invite you to continue to sit with the discomfort while reserving space for all the unknown solutions and outcomes yet to unfold. I'd further invite you to continue working towards a more equitable and sustainable planet as that's where those unknown solutions and outcomes live. We won't know what's on the other side of this current transformation until we walk through it together. 

Fire element card featured from The Ritual Deck.

It's important to note here that the discomfort of this time has not been evenly dispersed. Large groups of people have been sitting in the discomfort of this transformational time since the onset of spreading patriarchy, imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. White-bodied folks, like myself, have been taught to avoid this discomfort, separate ourselves from it, and seek comfort at all costs, even at the expense of other's lives and our planet. In contrast, many BIPOC communities around the world have been forced to become comfortable living in discomfort. 

I want to take a moment to give credit to one of my teachers, Thérèse Cator, whom I had recently completed her course, Embodied Allyship. Comfort, discomfort, and nervous system regulation were big themes in the course. I want to credit her for how I've made many of these parallels between the element of fire and this time. 

What if the constant seeking of comfort is what's keeping you small, keeping you from growing, and keeping you disconnected from your power? I want to offer that it is. Sitting in discomfort builds resiliency, a kind of resiliency that many folks with black and brown bodies have been forced to build and that myself and fellow white-bodied kin have been lulled into avoiding. I'd argue that for many of us, our proximity to comfort is what's keeping so many silent and complacent. The transformation we're in is going to happen one way or another. We can sit back and let it happen, or we can work together to ensure that when we come out the other side, we'll be more equitable and sustainable. 

I'm not advocating that you should be a masochist. I'm advocating that we're in an opportunity calling us in, especially white-bodied folks, to build our capacity to hold more discomfort and bolster our resiliency. With that also comes a greater need to make space for joy and pleasure. We must become more comfortable being in discomfort and simultaneously recognize when we need to pause and step into joy and pleasure. We need to become the pendulum moving from side to side, not remaining stuck only in the comfort that keeps us small and tame. 

Some questions to consider and that I've also been sitting with.

• What's making you uncomfortable right now?

• What areas of discomfort have you been avoiding?

• What might that discomfort have to teach you?

• In what ways could you lean into play and pleasure more deeply to build your resiliency and explore your discomfort more deeply?

I will share some of the fire rituals I've been leaning on to help with this in the ritual section later in this share. Let's take some time exploring common correspondences for south and fire.

South Correspondences

Correspondences are ways to honor and invite in specific energy. They're also a way to layer in specific energies to spellwork and magical practices. Understanding common correspondences, or similar energy, gives you the tools to craft your own magic and rituals with fire and the cardinal direction south.

• Moon Phase: Full moon

• Phase of life: Motherhood / Adulthood

• Themes: Fulfillment, action, transformation, magic, confidence, strength, passion, discomfort

• Color: Red, green

• Element: Fire

• Time of Year: Summertime

• Time of day: Midday

• Energy center: Solar plexus

• Items and tools: fire, candles, wand, brass items, anything that personally represents fire or summertime for you

• Crystals: Sunstone, yellow jasper, red jasper, rutilated quartz, sodalite

• Plants: Rosemary, cinnamon, clove, ginger, sunflower, anything in bloom near you during summertime

• Tarot: Suit of Wands, the Sun card, Strength card

• Ogham: Hazel, Apple, Vine

• Runes: Sowilo, Wunjo

• Planets: Sun, Mars, Jupiter

• Zodiac: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius

Artwork featured from Zenned Out Guide Series by Cassie Uhl with Quarto Knows.

Rituals to Connect with South

Here are some ways to work with and honor fire in your spiritual practice. These are all tools and rituals that I've personally used or plan to and have found helpful. As always, take what you like and leave the rest. I'd also like to read an important reminder from the book The Path of Druidry by Penny Billington before we embark on this section. 

Each element can harm, but fire is the most mercurial of the elements; it is lightning-fast 

and operates to its own rules. Treat any naked light with respect and never leave it 

unattended. Fire is living. Think carefully about an appropriate way to extinguish a flame 

and stick to it. Many Druids pinch out a candle flame rather than use the breath of life to 

extinguish it. Choose a method, and make it a mindful action each time. 

When you light fire, you are connecting to an action shared by our ancestors, often with 

prayer and gratitude. Some of these ritual customs still survive in the old prayers from 

the highlands and islands. Devise your own simple ritual words or phrases to be part of a 

living chain of devotion.

Penny Billington, The Path of Druidry

I think that respect is something I've not discussed enough in the previous episodes on the cardinal directions and elements. It is essential for all of the elements. All of them have the power to nourish or destroy, especially fire. 

Dance Meditation to Connect with Fire 

When I think of the energy of fire, I think of dance. Like creating visual artworks, many of us have an idea of what "good" dance or movement is intended to look like. Allowing our bodies to move in ways that don't match what we've seen as "good" dance or movement can be uncomfortable. I love to dance, but I am not a professional or trained by any stretch of the imagination. Becoming more comfortable with my body's organic and natural movements has taken time. I say this to remind you that wherever you're at with your relationship to dance or whatever accessibility you have to move your body, there's wisdom and magic to be found. 

Anytime I write these episodes for the directions and elements and hold space for guided journeys to them, I spend a long time journeying to the direction and element. When I journeyed to the south to connect with fire, it asked me to move and shake my body. I was overtaken by the energy of the fire working through my body. I let go entirely and gave myself over to the process of connecting with its power. Having a private sacred space or being surrounded by folks you love and trust to do this work can be helpful. 

Something important to remember when engaging with elemental energies is that, more often than not, insight and wisdom are offered to us not through oral dictation but through states of being fully embodied and in communion with different energies. Why would fire speak to you in words? That is not the language of fire; fire flickers, dances, and moves. This is the medicine fire offers. This goes back, again, to get uncomfortable. Held in the discomfort and vulnerability of giving your body over to being with fire, you open yourself to embodying and holding new truths. If dance and movement feel like they're going to push you out of your comfort zone, I think the medicine will be even more potent!

If you feel called to connect with fire in this way, here are some simple suggestions to get started. 

1. Carve out 20-60 minutes for yourself. 

2. Spend about five minutes connecting with your breath and body (or any other rituals that help you root into your body) to soothe your nervous system.

3. Create sacred space in a way that feels good to you. This could be casting a circle or calling on guides, Gods, or Goddesses you work with. 

4. Optional: light a candle to honor fire and assist you in connecting with it. 

5. Go within or stare at your candle flame and state your intent to connect with fire. 

6. Imagine yourself meeting the fire element. What does it look like, and how does it make you feel?

7. Take this time to connect with the fire and learn from it. Perhaps it will inspire you to move. Maybe it will not. Trust what comes through and stay with it for as long as you'd like. Your experience may be different than mine, which is normal and okay. 

8. When you feel complete, be sure to thank the fire before leaving and ask if there's anything you can do to reciprocate your time with it and any wisdom you received. 

9. Close your space and consider journaling about your experience. Spend some time reconnecting with the world around you and perhaps have some food and drink. 

If this is something you feel you'd like support with, click here to join me in a guided journey to the south to connect with the element of fire. 

Candle Magic for Transformation 

If you've been hanging out around me for much time, you probably already know that I'm a big fan of using candles in my practice. Candles are a simple but powerful tool, especially when wanting to connect with the element of fire. I also think they're a great introductory tool to spellwork. You can make your candle magick as simple or complex as you want; all you need is a candle, matches, and some time. 

This is a topic I've covered extensively on my blog and in previous episodes, so I'm not going to go into much detail here. Check out the show notes for direct links to previous blog posts on candle magick. 

If you're new to working with candles or would like a simple ritual to start. I'd invite you to select a candle color in line with your intentions, hold it while infusing it with your intention, and sit with it as it burns. As you sit with it, notice the movement of the fire and how it dances and moves. Working with candles can be helpful while practicing dance or meditating on fire. 

I've been using paraffin wax chime candles for about six years, as long as I've been practicing candle magick. I usually recommend these, but after further research, I plan to switch to beeswax candles. Unfortunately, paraffin candles are a by-product of fossil fuels and are therefore harmful to the environment and unsustainable. I have quite a stockpile of paraffin candles from my store, so it's going to take me a while to work through them before I switch to beeswax. 

If you are starting out, I'd recommend rolling your beeswax candles or finding a supplier for premade beeswax spell candles. I found a few lovely and affordable beeswax spell candle options on Etsy with a quick search and bought some for Lugnasadh while writing this post, haha! Beeswax candles are more expensive, but they are lovely and a sustainable and less harmful choice. 

If you'd like step-by-step instructions for a candle spell, click here to check out a previous post. 

Building Fire and Fire offerings 

I'm wrapping two up into this section because they can be used in tandem or separately. Another obvious way to build relationship with this season and the element of fire is to spend time building fires, especially in ways our ancestors did. I have built fires in the past while camping but do not have experience building fires in ancestral ways. This is something I look forward to exploring this fall. There's a lovely article by Dana O'Driscoll of Druids Garden that you can check out here where she discusses the power of learning how to build fires in ancestral ways to connect with fire and our ancestors more deeply. Dana writes in her article, 

In every way, fire reconnects us to our roots, to those ancient ancestors who gave us 

such an important gift. When I look at the fire from this perspective, I realize that fire is 

my most important ancestral gift, and thus, one of the best ways to honor my ancestors 

is to learn and understand fire, to work with fire as they might have, to learn to start and 

build fires, and honor them through this practice.

Dana O'Driscoll

If building fires isn't accessible to you, it certainly wasn't for me in my Arizona home. I'd encourage you to build this kind of ritual relationship by lighting candles or incense to connect with fire in this way. One thing I've learned from one of my teachers, Danu Forest, is to treat each flame as a unique fire spirit. Each candle I light invites in the presence of a unique fire elemental that I can learn from and connect with. Seeing each fire as an individual, living entity helps me take more time and care in engaging with fire. 

Our new house has space for a fire pit, and we plan to build one before the Autumn so we can enjoy it this fall and winter. I'm looking forward to connecting with fire more deeply in this traditional way. My fire magic is about to get a serious upgrade! 

Finally, and this goes for any interaction with elemental energies or spirits, finding ways to be reciprocal and give offerings is a powerful way to build relationship. Song, dance, art, chant, poems, and herbs can all be beautiful offerings to the fire. Consider asking your fire what it would like as an offering. The article I mentioned above by Dana O'Driscoll also gives some wonderful suggestions for fire offerings. 

For example, my recent fire interactions prompted me to write a poem for the fire. I placed it on my altar and have read it aloud daily as a further offering and a form of connection. Building a relationship with fire through reciprocity is yet another tool for learning from fire and building our capacity for the discomfort associated with transformation. 

I hope these offerings have stirred your internal embers and perhaps even sparked a fire of powerful resiliency within you! If you'd like to explore the element of fire more deeply, I encourage you to join me or purchase the replay, "Journey to the Fires of Transformation." 

New Moon in Gemini Ritual

The new moon in Gemini is an invitation to get curious about becoming more active in your community to spark needed change. Ruled by Mercury and a mutable air sign, Gemini is curious, communicative, and desires connection to work towards a more equitable future. Combined with the new moon, this energy encourages openness to new ways of connecting with your community to inspire change. 

This ritual offers you a format to ask important questions and explore how you might open yourself to cultivating connections to bring about positive change in your community. Big change requires collaboration, communication, and connection. If you feel nervous or unsure about where to start, this ritual will create a supportive container for curiosity. 

If you enjoy this ritual, I invite you to share it with someone else who might benefit from it. 

Themes for this new moon: Community, communication, connecting, reciprocity, curiosity

Element: Air

The ideal time to perform this ritual is the day before the new moon, on the new moon, or the day after the new moon. 

You’ll need: 

• 10-20 minutes of quiet and uninterrupted time

• Pen and paper

• Optional: cleansing smoke of choice

• Optional: apatite, turquoise, fluorite, chrysocolla, or quartz

1. Create sacred space by grounding yourself and connecting with your breath and body. If casting a circle or calling in the quarters is in your practice, you could do this too.

2. Sit, close your eyes, and begin to connect with your breath and body. If you’re working with a suggested crystal, you can hold it or place it near you to help you tune in.

3. In this space, allow yourself to feel into the realm of your heart space and vision the world in which you’d like to live. Get specific. How does this world feel, how are historically marginalized people treated, how are plants and animals treated, and how do we care for one another in this world? Notice what surfaces and allow yourself to feel. Stay here for as long as you want to or are able.

4. After spending some time visualizing this version of the world, ask, “What is my role in my community to bring about this world?” or “How can I begin aligning myself with this new world within my community?” Breathe and allow your mind to take you where it wants to go. Be open to visualizations, messages, or feelings that may arise. 

5. When you feel ready to come out of your meditation, pick up your pen and paper and write down any ideas that came to your mind. 

6. Take a moment to think about any resistance or blocks you may have in taking these actions. If using cleansing smoke, use your cleansing smoke here. If you’re not, simply visualize. Imagine these blocks or resistance being blown away by a gust of wind with your smoke or through visualization. 

7. Holding your paper in your hand and your crystal if using one, visualize yourself taking these actions in your community to help bring about the world you desire. Stay in this space for as long as you like. Place your paper on an altar or somewhere you’ll see it regularly (if using a crystal, place your crystal on top of the paper.) Allow it to stay there until the full moon. 

8. Before the full moon, schedule time to be taking steps towards the actions you listed out to get involved in your community. 

This new moon ritual can be adapted or used for any new moon or new moon in Gemini. As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

How to Work With the Scorpio Full Moon Eclipse

The super full moon eclipse in the sign of Scorpio happens either this Sunday or this early Monday depending on where you’re at in the world. The pique of eclipse will occur around 9:11 PST or 12:11 Monday ET. Eclipses usually come in pairs, sometimes sets of three, and this lunar eclipse rounds out our eclipse season that started with a lunar eclipse in Taurus on the New moon. This is a big one, friends! Lunar eclipses and the sign of Scorpio carry an energy of transformation, death, and rebirth. Oh, and we also entered Mercury Retrograde. Pair all of these up with a super full moon, and we've got a powerhouse of a celestial event. 

In this post, you'll learn a bit about eclipses in general, how they can affect us and how to work with them. I’m also going to share about the influence of Scorpio on this full moon. 

Give it listen on my podcast, Awen here.

I love astrology but don't identify myself as an astrologer. I love to examine how the zodiacal seasons influence and relate to the wheel of the year and how they relate to the moon phases. I prefer focusing on the big picture themes of astrology and try not to get too detailed with it as I think it can have a tendency to overshadow or overly influence our unique experiences, which is why you'll always hear me take a broad view with topics like this. 

I also don't usually offer rituals for eclipse season, but I want to dive into eclipses and the power of this particular lunation. In this share, you'll learn more about the energy eclipses offer, how they can affect us, how the energy of Scorpio will affect this full moon eclipse, and ways to work with its energy. 

Eclipses can be fast-acting and unpredictable, so generally speaking, it's a good idea not to do any deep spiritual work or rituals during an eclipse. But, there's a lot you can do, which is one thing I want to talk about here. I also want to say that every practitioner, astrology, witch, etc., will have a different approach to eclipses, which is great! If what I share doesn't match what you heard elsewhere, that's fine. As always, take what you like and leave the rest. First, let's start with how eclipses can affect us. 

The super blood moon of September 27th, 2015 is silhouetted by the ridgeline near Ontario Peak, California.

How eclipses can affect us

Eclipses bring an amplified and more intense energy that's often palpable. If you're like me and feel a little ungrounded or shaken up from full moons, you'll likely feel that even more from a lunar eclipse. Sleeplessness, exhaustion, extra emotions, and overwhelm can be especially present during eclipse season. I amp up my grounding practices during an eclipse season, especially for lunar eclipses, because I know they shake things up for me. I also expect sleep disturbances and take extra steps to help myself get a good night of rest, or if I can't sleep during these times, I just stay up and roll with it! 

Eclipses are a cosmic wild card in a lot of ways. I see them as an opportunity to allow whatever needs to bubble to the surface to arise and be transformed, especially when it comes to lunar eclipses. I often find that some theme emerges amidst eclipse season. The themes that arise will be unique to each of us. Although the sign the eclipses are occurring can certainly color what comes up. Any themes that arise are your opportunity to examine, learn, and possibly transform.

The flavor of how transformations occur will likely feel different during eclipse season. Unlike most lunations, in my experience, when we can be present with the energy of eclipse seasons, they work on us very passively, without much action on your part. For most new or full moons, there's an emphasis on taking specific steps and actions for the desired outcome. I see eclipse season as a road trip where I don't know the destination. But if I decide to take the ride, it will undoubtedly be transformative. You may be less in control of the experience with eclipses, which can no doubt be scary, but the outcome can also be more impactful. 

The effects of eclipse season can be long-lasting, as long as six months or even years. Which honestly makes sense. If eclipses are intended to bring big things to the surface to be transformed, they will potentially affect our lives in significant ways. That said, and I'll stress this often, these celestial events aren't something to fear. Like Mercury Retrograde, they're opportunities to witness things that need to arise and allow new themes to arise that can potentially be long-lasting. These are some of the reasons why eclipses are touted as cosmic wildcards!

How will Scorpio affect this lunar eclipse?

Scorpio gets a bad reputation sometimes, but it's honestly one of my favorite signs! That said, I have three planets in Scorpio, if you don't, it might feel like scary energy to work with. Scorpio rules over themes relating to all things taboo like death and sex. Scorpio energy encourages us to go deep and face our shadows. It calls us to examine our fears so we can learn from them and work with them in more liberating ways. 

In tarot, Scorpio relates to Death and the King of Cups. The death card in the tarot, unlike the tower, is often a call to willingly embark on a transformation. Unlike the tower card, the death card often surfaces when it's time for us to begin a journey to examine parts of ourselves, often ignored so we can learn from them and transform anew. The King of Cups is a master of their emotions, even the scary ones. This is another theme for watery and emotional Scorpio; they're not afraid to go there, to face their emotions and bring them to the surface so they can be witnessed and allowed to flow. 

Death and King of Cups card from Journey Tarot

Scorpio season governs over the season of Samhain. Another nod to its connection with shedding, death, and embarking on transformations. I'm sure you're starting to see a theme arise with all of these corresponding deep energies associated with Scorpio. Perhaps you can also see why these themes paired with a lunar eclipse have such potential. 

So, where does this leave you for a full moon eclipse in Scorpio? 

Here's how I see it. Full moons are already a time to release, let go, and transform. Bringing Scorpio in is a call to be fully present with EVERYTHING that's coming up, not to look away, and to sit with what's arising even if it feels ick. Scorpio is asking you to allow your emotions to surface so they can be felt and seen. The eclipse is calling them up to be transformed. I see the eclipse as a real gem, a guide of sorts, here to show us what needs to be transformed and help to potentially begin the transformation.

What to do for eclipse moons?

Eclipses can be amazing because if you decide to go for the eclipse ride, they can do a lot of the heavy lifting. I look forward to eclipses. For this reason, it's not the time to be doing a lot of spellwork, ritual, or deep meditative work. It's a time to sit back, allow, and observe—especially an eclipse in Scorpio. There's also a lot you CAN do during an eclipse that can be super supportive. Here are some simple ways to honor this lunar eclipse or any lunar eclipse. 

• Notice what's coming up

• Journal about your emotional state and what's coming up

• Meditate with openness and curiosity

• Pull some cards, not for divination, but as a mirror to what's going on for you. Find an excellent card spread for eclipse season here!

• Engage in activities that make you happy, safe, grounded, and supported

• Take a salt bath

• Smoke cleanse

Not Generally Recommended Activities for an Eclipse

• Manifesting

• Releasing or cord-cutting rituals

• Candle spells

• Making moon water

• Spellwork 

• Deep journey work

Just like Mercury Retrograde, eclipses aren't something to fear. They're an opportunity to be more reflective, inward-focused, and passive. I also see them as a sort of cosmic reset. I often notice that whatever arises for me during eclipse season arises for a reason. It's usually something I've been avoiding. If I answer the call to face it, I often find myself leaving eclipse season with a fresh outlook and renewed energy to approach whatever it is that's surfacing. 

I hope these offerings have given you some peace around this lunar eclipse and perhaps a deeper acceptance of the emotional waves often associated with them. If not, it's also a great excuse for a yummy salt bath. Happy full moon! 

Tending to Your Inner Fire for Beltane

The warmth of fiery Beltane is nearly upon us, and this year (2022), with the addition of a new moon in Taurus with a solar eclipse! It's sure to be an intense and exciting Sabbat. Beltane has always been one of my favorite seasonal celebrations. I always find that its energy is palpable in the air. There's such celebratory energy to this season, which I feel like we could all use a bit more of right now. I know I certainly can! 

Beltane, also called May Day, is one of our cross-quarter celebrations between the solar celebrations of the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. For those living in the Northern Hemisphere, Beltane falls on April 30 and May 1 and on October 31 and November 1 in the Southern Hemisphere. In contrast, others may observe more traditional practices of honoring Beltane after the local Hawthorn trees flower.

Listen to this episode on my podcast, Rooting into Wholeness here.

You'll learn more about Beltane, its history, common correspondences, tips for connecting with Bel, a God associated with this season, and rituals to honor this season and tend to your inner fire. 

What is Beltane

For many, Beltane is one of the most important celebrations on the Wheel of the Year. It is our crescendo of energy before the Summer Solstice. Beltane is opposite of Samhain on our seasonal wheel and therefore carries similar but unique energy. Much like Samhain, the veil between the physical and spirit worlds is thin at this time, making it an ideal time for magical workings, connecting with other realms, and energetic protection. In Celtic beliefs, Beltane welcomes the onset of Summer and the light half of the year, where the sun reigns supreme. 

From an earthly perspective, Beltane ushers in a surge of growth and energy to plant life as the warmth and length of sunlight grow each day. For our ancestors, there was a special focus on pastoral animals like cattle at this time. Fire is a central theme for this season, and it was common practice to pass cattle through two large bonfires. The sacred smoke from these bonfires was thought to ensure a successful growing season for livestock. Fire and the ashes from these fires were used in various ways, both historically and to this day. 

Amidst all this season has to offer, there's also a thread of pleasure, sensuality, and union that weaves throughout. Within the lore associated with Beltane, it is at this time that the Solar or Horned God, in his prime energy, unites with the Goddess of the land in her maiden phase. Together they reign over the growing season. Beyond the myths associated with this season, it's easy to see these themes of union and sexuality within the reproduction amidst wildlife and explosion of growth. 

Honoring Fire and Bel

Much of this season is about honoring and cultivating energy and vitality, themes very much associated with fire. The sun and the earth are in their peak growth phase leading up to the Summer Solstice. Like all of the Sabbats, Beltane is an invitation to notice what's happening in the earth and the cosmos and to observe how those themes are showing up in our own lives and communities. 

With little written history to go off of, the use of bonfires around this season is something we know has happened for a very long time. Here's an excerpt from Llewellyn's Sabbat Essentials Beltane by Melanie Marquis that illustrates this. 

The Beltaine fires were believed to have magical properties. Their flames, glowing embers, ashes, and smoke were all believed capable of granting health and protection. In the Isle of Man, the people invited the smoke of the bonfires to blow over themselves and their cattle, believing that this would ensure their mutual vitality. Once the fires died down, the ashes were sprinkled over the crops to increase the earth's fertility.

Llewellyn's Sabbat Essentials Beltane by Melanie Marquis

The use of fire and smoke for ritual practice is something we can lean into today, and many do. 

Most attribute the name Beltane to the Celtic God named Bel, Belinus, or Belenos and suggest that the name Beltane means "fires of Bel." Bel is a well-known God in the Celtic pantheon, honored throughout the British Isles and even in France and Italy. Stories and even the spelling of Bel's name vary widely, likely because he was so widespread. However, he's become synonymous with this season, and many associated him with fire and the sun. 

Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite books about the Wheel of The Year, The Magical Year, by one of my teachers, Danu Forest, expressing the power of connecting with the power of fire or the God Bel during this season. 

In honoring the festival of Beltane, we draw this fresh virile energy into our lives, a time when, according to Irish myth, the gods arrived in the mortal world, literally infusing physical matter with divinity. At Beltane, we can reinvigorate our lives with this divine current. We can also tune into this time of duality and sacred union to honor our hearts and the romantic and sexual energies in our lives. 

The Magical Year by Danu Forest

I'll share rituals later in this post with suggestions for connecting with fire and Bel and ways to expand your vitality through pleasure, another common theme for this season. 

I also want to share something I've struggled with because I suspect some of you may have struggled with this too. I don't often share about Gods here, which is something I've personally grappled with within my practice. As someone who grew up in a Christian household and has had negative experiences with Christianity and the idea of a "father God," I've struggled with connecting with different Gods in my practice. 

I've started to dip my toe into this by invoking the God and Goddess as elemental energies (air and fire for the God and water and earth for the Goddess) rather than human-like forms. As I've become more comfortable with this, I've started to learn more about some of the Gods in the Celtic pantheon and have started to journey to them.

All this to say, if you don't resonate with Gods or Goddesses, it isn't a prerequisite to having a spiritual practice in line with your heritage. If connecting with the element of fire rather than the God Belinus at this time feels better, that is great. Regardless of where you land on connecting with Gods and Goddesses, I find that understanding some of the mythology associated with each season allows a more complete understanding of the Sabbats. 

Let's explore common correspondences for the season of Beltane. 

Beltane Correspondences

Understanding the correspondences of each season brings in so many additional layers. It also empowers you to craft your own rituals each season. As always, if there are seasonal things unique to your environment, add that to your list of correspondences for the season.

Themes: Pleasure, fertility, expansion, growth, sensuality, action, magick, creativity

Colors: Red, orange, yellow, green

Moon phase: waxing gibbous

Herbs & Plants: hawthorn, rose, honeysuckle, lilac, angelica, any local flowers blooming in your area

Crystals: Carnelian, garnet, ruby, orange calcite, protective crystals like black tourmaline 

Foods: Fresh herbs, edible flowers, dairy products, cakes (especially as fairy offerings)

Tools & items: Candles, bonfire, statues or symbols of the God and Goddess, symbols of fertility, Maypole, protective tools and symbols, fairy offerings

Elements: Fire, earth

Cardinal direction: Southeast 

Runes: Berkano, Algiz, Rhaido

Ogham: Oak (Duir), Hawthorn (Huathe)

Tarot card: The Lovers, Knight of Wands, Page of Pentacles

Zodiac: Taurus

Goddess: Bel or Belinus, Green Man, Danu, any earth Goddess, any Sun God

These correspondences largely come from my book, Understanding the Wheel of the Year. If you're looking for a simple guide for each Sabbat, you can get it here. 

Rituals for Beltane

Beltane is a rich season with many associations, so there are several ways to honor this powerful season. As always, I like to remind you that rituals are not necessary for any of the Sabbats and that sometimes the best ritual is to simply be outside. I encourage you to honor your capacity and do what calls to you the most. Furthermore, each Sabbat is a season! You can weave these rituals into your practice anytime between May 1 and the Summer Solstice. Here are three ways to connect with and honor the season of Beltane. 

Fae Offering

It's hard not to talk about faeries for Beltane! With the thinning veil at this time, the fae, or faeries, are said to be more active during Beltane. I'm not talking about the Tinkerbell-type fairies here! Faeries in Celtic lore are a different race of beings living amidst humans in a different realm. Though often portrayed as cute and helpful, some think they are better left alone. The fae are often seen as tricksters who don't always have our highest good in mind, so it's important to be mindful of them around this time and possibly even leave an offering for them. You can learn more about the fae and how to connect with them in this last post that I shared in 2021.  

It's common to give offerings to the fae during this season to connect with them or keep them happy, so they don't play tricks on you. Your offering can be unique to you. Common offerings include small cakes, cheese, a glass of milk, herbs like thyme, rosemary, yarrow, or heather, anything small and cute, or perhaps you even feel compelled to craft a little faerie garden. Place your offering on your altar, outside at a special location, or both. 

Fire Ritual

As discussed, fire is an integral part of Beltane. We see this mimicked with the connection to the Celtic God, Bel, and the use of bonfires during this season. Here are some ways to work with fire for Beltane, regardless of whether or not you have access to a bonfire. You can make this as simple or ritualized as you'd like depending on the time you have to dedicate to working with this ritual suggestion. 

Fire element card from The Ritual Deck

You'll need: 

• A source of fire, which could be a bonfire, fireplace, or a burning candle

• Herbs or wood that correspond to the season or is personally significant to you

• Match, lighter, or more traditional tool to light your fire

1. Prepare your items and take some time to connect inward. Notice your breath and body. If it is in your practice to cast a circle, call the quarters, or call in any protective allies, you can do that now. You may even consider calling in the God Belinus to be a part of your ritual. 

2. Light your fire or your candle. At the same time, you may choose to recite an invocation that feels meaningful to you. Here is an example, "I light this fire to honor and connect with the healing and protective fires of the season" or "With this fire I call upon Bel for wisdom and vitality." Beltane fires are traditionally lit with friction. If this is accessible to you and you know how to do this, that's great. I encourage you to do so! If it is not, that is okay too. 

3. Spend 5-30 minutes sitting and connecting with your fire or candle flame.

4. When you're ready to move on, add your sacred wood or herbs to the fire. If you are using a candle, you can use a cauldron to assist with burning your herbs or wood. Ask the smoke to cleanse you and bring healing. 

5. Spend some more time connecting with your fire. Here are a couple of options. 

If you have questions you'd like assistance with, consider asking the fire. Notice how the fire or flame responds after you ask it questions. Does it seem to flicker and dance or remain still? Does it move towards you or away from you? Try to lean into your intuition to decipher messages from the fire. 

Alternatively or in addition, you can connect with the fire to cultivate more energy and virility. Visualize the intensity of the fire connecting with your solar plexus area. Ask the fire to aid you in bringing in more energy and virility. Imagine your solar plexus area expanding with each breath you take. Stay here for as long as you'd like. 

6. When you feel ready to end this ritual, thank the spirit of fire and any allies you called in for connecting with you and sharing their wisdom and energy. As much as is possible, allow your fire or candle to burn out on its own. If this is not possible, you can snuff it out. Never leave your fire or a candle unattended! 

7. Optional: if you burned a larger fire, consider saving these special ashes to sprinkle over your garden, in your houseplants, or for use in future rituals. 

Honoring Pleasure

There's no shortage of pleasure and sensuality amidst this season. Beltane occurs during Taurus season, which offers a potent overlap of energies. Taurus, ruled by the planet of love, Venus, revels in physical luxuries and sensuality. We can see these same themes mirrored in the growing earth at this time, with flowers blooming, animals reproducing, and plants growing. Handfasting and weddings were and still are common occurrences during this season as well. Regardless of what your love life looks like, pleasure is something that can be cultivated with others or solo, and this is a great time to do so! 

Rose oracle card from The Ritual Deck

In a world that often frowns upon sexual liberation, I view this season as one of reclamation for all things related to pleasure and sexuality. However, this isn't just about lust and sex, though it can be. Pleasure and sexuality are powerful creative energies that can be used for positive change. Cultivating pleasure can be just as much about feeling more embodied and alive.  

How often do you let yourself feel good? Furthermore, how often do you cultivate feelings of pleasure? This season is an invitation to do just that. If feelings of shame or that you're undeserving come up, I encourage you to explore that too. Like every seasonal Sabbat, they are an opportunity to explore these themes from all angles and may stir up opportunities to explore your shadow more deeply. Here are some simple ways to honor pleasure this season. Feel free to pick and choose, try several simultaneously (my preference!), or come up with your own ideas. 

• Wear clothes that make you feel good

• Pamper yourself with a luxurious bath 

• Indulge in foods that bring you joy

• Place items in your house that invoke a sense of pleasure, like flowers or candles

• Swap massages with a partner or give yourself a self-massage

• Engage in sexual activities with a partner or yourself

• Wear or use scents in your living space that invoke feelings of pleasure

• Move your body in sensual ways through dance

Bring in some magic to any suggestions listed above by lighting an orange or red spell candle or incorporating seductive scents like rose or cinnamon. Notice how you feel after engaging in pleasurable activities like those listed above. Does it give you more energy? Does it inspire more creativity? 

I hope you feel better able to honor this special time of year! Find card spread suggestions, rituals, journal prompts, and more for each Sabbat in my book Understanding the Wheel of the Year. You can also read past posts about Beltane by clicking here. Beltane blessings!   

Full Moon in Libra Ritual

The full moon in Libra is an invitation to move into more harmony. A cardinal air sign associated with Venus, the planet of love and beauty, Libra inspires you to make space in your internal and external world to find a greater sense of peace and tranquility. By honoring the full moon in Libra, you can open yourself to guidance around what needs to go, stay, and be accepted in your life. 

Listen to this post on my podcast here.

If you enjoy this ritual, I invite you to share it with someone else who might benefit from it as well. 

Themes for this full moon: Harmony, balance, beauty, peace

Element: Air

The ideal time to perform this ritual is the day before, of, or the day after the full moon. 

You’ll need: 

• 15-30 minutes of quiet and uninterrupted time

• Pen or pencil and paper

• Oracle or tarot card deck of choice

• rose quartz (or any other stone that corresponds to the heart)

• Optional: pink candle

1. Create sacred space by grounding yourself and connecting with your breath and body. If you’re using a pink candle, hold it in your hands for a couple of breaths while focusing on inviting in more harmony. If casting a circle or calling in the quarters is in your practice, you could do this too. 

2. Sit, and begin connecting with your breath. Elongate your inhales and exhales and try to make them equal in length. 

3. Close your eyes and go within. Visualize a soft pink light around your heart space. Imagine it growing with each inhale. 

4. When you feel connected to your heart space, ask aloud or within your mind, “What does my heart need to be in better harmony?” or “What does my heart want to show me right now?”. 

5. Stay in this space connecting with your heart for 5-20 minutes. When you feel ready to end this meditation, thank your heart space for anything it shared with you and open your eyes. 

6. Pick up your tarot or oracle cards, and as you shuffle, focus on the information you received from your heart space. Intuitively select two cards. Card one represents something to bring into your life, and card two represents something to release or find acceptance around. 

7. Consider displaying the cards you selected in the previous step somewhere you'll see them regularly as reminders.

8. On your paper, write down any insights you received from your meditation or your card spread about feeling more harmonious. 

9. Place your paper on a window sill or your altar with the piece of rose quartz on top for a day and night of the full moon. When complete, you can keep your paper somewhere you’ll see it often or turn it over to the earth by burying or recycling it. 

This full moon ritual can be adapted or used for any full moon or any full moon in Libra. As always, take what you like and leave the rest. Love & gratitude, Cassie

Opening to the Wisdom of East, Air, and Springtime

The Spring Equinox shifts our seasonal wheel to the East, the home of the element of air, inspiration, and new beginnings. 

In this share, you'll learn all of the delicious correspondences for this season, the significance of the season, how to deepen your connection with this season, and why you'll want to. This is a continuation of a larger series of exploring the wheel by seasons. 

If any of it sounds foreign or new, I encourage you to go back to read or listen to the episode about the North here, where I dive a little deeper into sacred wheels and their uses across cultures. 

Listen to this episode on my podcast here.

Every seasonal shift is an invitation to see the natural world as a mirror to our own lives and a call to notice how you are reflected in the natural world because you are the natural world. No matter how separate you may sometimes feel, you are nature. You are earth. Each shift is a call to remember this truth and attune yourself to these natural rhythms. 

Do you ever feel like you want a roadmap for life? Living cyclically offers a map. A map that reminds you to allow for times of expansion and growth as well as times of rest and even death and destruction. The roadmap of living cyclically with the seasons may not always be fun and exciting, but that's because life isn't always fun and exciting. Life is fucking hard sometimes, and living cyclically normalizes that truth. 

The season of Springtime, governed by the cardinal direction East, begins at the Spring Equinox and spans Beltaine until we reach Midsummer or the Summer Solstice. There are so many juicy things unfolding in this season. It's a season of action, play, and expansion! Let's explore the wisdom of the East and what this season has to offer. 

Wisdom of the East

On the sacred wheel, we shift East as we shift to the Spring Equinox. This shift also brings the beginning of a new zodiac year with Aries season. An immense burst of energy happens as we move into this season, and it's often easy to see in the natural world. It's getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and plants are starting to wake up. The earth is fertile for new life, and so are you. 

As a collective, oh, how we need some East energy! As I prepared this episode, something that stood out to me was the word humility. Being in a space of humility is very much associated with the East. There is action here, but there is also an openness and willingness to be open and allow new wisdom to permeate your being. It's a space that encourages us to be okay with not knowing. Humility seems to be something we've been missing deeply in our divided society. There's so much time and energy claiming to be the correct person with the only correct answer. I don't say this to point fingers; I certainly get caught up in it at times as well. This season reminds each of us that no one knows everything and to be open to new ideas. 

You know what I love more than anything is when someone says, "I don't know." What a breath of fresh air. This is the home of the East, the humility to continue to be open to continue to learn. We are each given this opportunity during this season to honor the not-knowingness, to sit in it, and to be open to what gifts of wisdom may want to come through.

Air Element Card from The Ritual Deck

Just as the plants begin to form buds and burst forth with life, your inner world is fertile for new growth. On a personal level, this season encourages you to open yourself up to new paths and to begin taking action. Feelings of uncertainty are a natural part of taking steps towards building something new; the East reminds us of this, that part of beginning a new path requires a certain amount of trust.

You don't wake up knowing everything that will transpire throughout your day; there are always certain unknown or out-of-control elements. The East invites you to honor this and embark on your day regardless. The tree doesn't know that it won't be struck down by lightning or some other unforeseen force as new buds and leaves grow, but it grows anyway. The tree does not sit wondering how I will grow these leaves, even amidst all the pain in the world. Rather it tends to its needs, supports life around itself, and continues to grow. We can apply this same thinking to new endeavors. Even when the path ahead is scary and unknown, you can move forward with what you do have and trust that you will know how to address situations as they arise. 

Here's a snippet from a book by one of my mentor's mentors called "Sacred Wheel of Our Ancestors" by Roberta Lee. I don't think it's in print anymore, and it's more like a pamphlet than a book, but you may be able to do some digging to find a used copy. In the chapter about the East, she says.

"It is in the East that we can call out and beg to know our paths. For this is the first step of many on this journey. However, be aware that while you search for your path, you're probably on it. If you cannot see it, it is likely that it is because you walk it. If you do see it, perhaps you are not there as yet. So take that step.

This is the place of surrender, of abandonment to the Great Mystery, of life itself. It is a commitment; certainly, a sense of risk accompanies us as we face the East. Dare to look into that sunrise, sense the warmth and healing of the sun as it begins its daily journey across our sky."

Sacred Wheel of Our Ancestors by Roberta Lee

East Correspondences

There are so many beautiful ways to connect with the energy of the east. Springtime itself is something that so many look forward to, so it's the ideal season to simply enjoy nature. If it doesn't yet feel like spring where you are, or you'd like to get in touch with the energy of the East in a different season, here are some ways to honor this season through corresponding energies or energies that match each other. 

• Moon Phase: Waxing crescent

• Phase of life: Childhood / the Maiden

• Themes: Play, joy, curiosity, fertility, growth, expansion

• Color: Yellow

• Element: Air

• Time of Year: Springtime

• Time of day: Dawn

• Items and tools: Flowers, eggs, herbal smoke, feathers, fresh herbs, rabbits, and hares

• Crystals: Kyanite, citrine, quartz

• Tarot: Suit of swords

• Ogham: Nuin/Ash and Huathe/Hawthorne

Air and East oracle cards from The Ritual Deck

Rituals to Connect with East

1. Honoring your inner child with play

Opening ourselves up to new ideas and wisdom can be hard. As we grow older, we tend to get more and more set in our ways for most of us. On a physiological level, our brains are less able to learn new things. It takes more of a conscious effort to open yourself up to learn new things. One of the secrets to being able to do this is allowing yourself to be open and receptive, and play is a powerful way to get into this receptive state of being. 

We already know that young children learn through play. Why is that? Play forces us to be in the moment, which opens us to new ideas and ways of being. It allows us to temporarily let go of all of the things we feel we need to carry as an adult—the money, job, responsibilities, and so on. Play is an opportunity to distance ourselves from all of these storylines and be present in a different way. Play is unpredictable and therefore fosters experiences of new insights. It cracks us open in a way. 

Explore "Journey to Your Inner Child" guided journey and workbook.

I'm fortunate to have two 3-year-olds in my life, so I'm frequently given opportunities to engage in play. Even with my two little busybodies, I still have to remind myself to let go of all the weights and stories I'm carrying and just be with them. Like everything, play can take some practice too. 

The way you decide to engage with play, children or not, will be unique to you. I encourage you to take some quiet moments to reflect inward and ask yourself what would feel like a playful and freeing activity to engage in. It may be on your own, with your kids, or with a partner. Consider thinking about what your favorite playful activities were when you were young. There's no wrong way to do this and no desired outcomes. Your only goal is to allow yourself to be in the energy of play, whatever that looks like for you. 

Here are some soft suggestions if you feel stuck. 

• Draw, paint, or color with no desired outcome 

• Cook or bake a new dish that excites you

• Turn on some fun music and move your body

• Make something with recycled materials

• Learn a new song and sing it to a friend or some plants

• Play a game solo, with family or friends

• Explore a new area of your city 

• Draw, paint, or color with no desired outcome 

• Cook or bake a new dish that excites you

• Turn on some fun music and move your body

• Make something with recycled materials

• Learn a new song and sing it to a friend or some plants

• Play a game solo, with family or friends

• Explore a new area of your city 

Another way to honor your inner child is to bring healing to your inner child. So many of us carry wounds related to trauma that happened to us as young children. There are several ways to approach inner child healing, one way is therapy, but there’s also a lot you can do on your own. Personally, I found a lot of healing through EMDR therapy, but I’ve also approached my inner child healing from a spiritual perspective as well by journeying to parts of my childhood that needed healing.

If this is an approach you’d like to try I held a group guided journey for this that’s now available in the shop. Of course, you can do this on your own as well, but if you’d like some support there’s a workbook and recording to help guide you through it. Click here to explore it. 

2. Connecting with the maiden of the Triple Goddess

We have the maiden, mother, and crone in our triplicity of Goddess archetypes. Each phase carries its own unique energies with both negative and positive attributes. The maiden aligns with the waxing crescent moon, steeped in exploratory and expansive energy. The maiden honors seek to expand, learn and grow in new ways. They do not shirk away from pleasure and rather lean into it. 

You do not need to be a particular age to lean into this energy; it can be called upon at any time in your life regardless of age and gender. This season is an opportunity to notice your relationship with the maiden and lean into it. How do you feel when in the presence of someone who feels safe and empowered in their sexuality and pleasure? Does it make you feel uncomfortable, angry, or do you celebrate them? The way you respond or feel when presented with the energy of the maiden can be a big indication of what your relationship is like with yourself in this area. 

Aphrodite card from The Goddess Oracle

There are many ways you can connect with the maiden energy. One way is to connect with maiden Goddesses. Every culture has maiden Goddesses, and I encourage you to explore Goddesses in line with your heritage. Here are some of my favorites that I often work with at this time. 

Eostre is a Germanic and Norse Goddess of the Springtime. The first written history of Eostre did not come about until a Christian monk named Bede wrote about her in 725 AD. This doesn't mean she wasn't around before this, but we don't have any evidence that she was. Eostre embodies the energy of fertility and growth. She's strongly associated with eggs and hares, both symbols of fertility. 

Freya and Frigg, a Norse Goddess (who some separate as two separate Goddesses) associated with pleasure, sexuality, and magic. Freya simply means lady, while Frigg comes from a root word for "beloved." We can even see Freya's connection with love and pleasure even today on our weekdays. Friday, the day of the week corresponding with love and romance, comes from the "day of Frigg."

Aphrodite and Ishtar are also associated with love and pleasure, which can be powerful to connect with or learn about at this time. Aphrodite is a Greek Goddess who many believe was modeled from the Middle Eastern Goddess of love, sexuality, and battle. 

There are so many ways to connect with and honor different Goddesses at this time. Consider meditating or journeying to connect with them. You could set up an altar to honor and celebrate them or learn about them. If you're feeling overwhelmed with which Goddess to connect with, I encourage you to go within and open yourself up to connecting with a maiden Goddess to see who and what comes through. We all have connections to different deities through our heritage, and sometimes the best way to connect is by honoring your inherent wisdom. 

If connecting with deities isn't in your practice, consider meditating during the waxing moon phase, exploring your sexuality, or working with magical tools that invoke a sense of pleasure and fertility to connect with the energy of the maiden.

3. Connecting with the element of air

The element associated with this season is air, so honoring and connecting with this element is a potent way to feel into this season. Air is such a unique element. Unlike the other elements, we can't see air. We can see its effects as it swirls about, but we cannot see air itself. This truth brings a unique energy to this element and how we connect with it. 

The air element is an active and outward-facing force that sets things in motion. It is also clearing but not the same healing way that water is. Rather, it brushes aside things so that we may be permeated more deeply. Air aims to mix and swirl about our perceived realities so we can see things from a new perspective. 

I think it's important to note that as we shift into Springtime and East on the wheel, we simultaneously move into the fire sign of Aries. We all know what happens with fire gets some extra air; it grows, it gets bigger. I see it as another beautiful expression of the power of this season. 

When out of balance, air can push us towards overthinking, anxiety, and lack of focus. Air can be overwhelming. We can see this quite easily in the suit of swords in the tarot, which corresponds with the element of air. In many ways, the suit of swords is one of the more feared suits. There's so much pain and mental anguish present on the cards. 

It's as powerful as a sword when you learn to engage with air in a more controlled way. Wielding the force of air allows you to cut through perceived realities and see new pathways. Air is the gracious idea bringer, and your job is to discern what's for you and what isn't. Air gives you the voice to say what needs to be said with truth and compassion. Air, though invisible, has the power to knock over buildings or subtle enough to blow out a candle. 

A powerful exercise to cozy up with the element of air and the tarot is to spend some time with the queen and king of swords. Notice how they appear so sovereign in their ability to control their chosen tool. This tool goes for any of the elements. The Kings and Queens of the suits show us what each element looks and feels like in its most exalted form. 

Beyond the tarot, I love experiencing the element of the air outside. Notice how the air feels against your skin, what it stirs within you, and how it makes you feel. I start so many days looking outside and noticing how the trees are moving from the air. I use it as a form of divination, a little nudge to be more still or to get busy. I've received so many messages from my "tree friends" by way of how the air moves them. I love visualizing the air clearing away blocks and stuck energy so that I may see and know more clearly. 

With spring upon us, I hope you can find time to be outside amidst the air, to feel it blow through your hair and over your body. I hope you can allow it to push aside any stories you need a break from so you can see things from new and playful perspectives. I hope you can honor your inner child and the maiden within you, calling out for play and pleasure. 

Full Moon in Virgo Ritual

The full moon in service-oriented Virgo offers an opportunity to celebrate your skills and release anything holding you back from using them. A mutable earth sign, practical and nurturing Virgo encourages you to explore how leaning into your abilities could better serve your community.

If you enjoy this ritual, I invite you to share it with someone else who might benefit from it as well. 

Themes for this full moon: Sovereignty, service, nurturing, practicality, releasing what doesn’t serve yourself and others

Element: Earth

The ideal time to perform this ritual is the day before the full moon, the day of the full moon, or the day after the full moon. 

You’ll need: 

• 15-30 minutes of quiet and uninterrupted time

• Pen or pencil and paper

• Moss agate, tree agate, or any other earthy stone you have available (a common stone from your yard or neighborhood is sufficient)

1. This ritual will encourage you to tune into the skills that make you feel independent, what you may need to release to start leaning into these skills, and how you can share them with others. Prepare your items and connect with the breath and body. If it is in your practice to cast a circle or create sacred space, do that as well.

2. Have your stone nearby, close your eyes, if you feel safe to, and go within. Ask aloud or in your mind, “What skills make me feel independent and helpful?”

3. Take some time, five minutes or more if you like, to sit in this space of celebrating your abilities and the things in your life that make you feel free, autonomous, and of service.

4. If you’re not already, hold your stone in your hands as you take some time, five minutes or more, to see what comes to you in this space. As things come to mind, visualize their energy pouring into the stone you’re holding. 

5. Now ask, aloud or in your mind, “What do I need to release to lean into these skills more fully so I can be of better service to myself and others?”

6. When you feel ready to end this meditation, take some time to write out anything that came to mind to release that may help you feel better able to lean into your skills. 

7. When you’re done, release the paper in a way that feels significant to you. You can burn, bury, compost, or flush it down the toilet.

8. After the full moon, keep the stone as a reminder of what makes you feel independent and how to use it to be of service to others. Anytime you’re feeling disempowered or like your skills don’t matter, hold your stone as a reminder of what makes you, you. 

9. Consider placing your stone out under the light of the Virgo full moon to help amplify your ability to accept and use your skills to be of service to yourself and your community. 

This full moon ritual can be adapted or used for any full moon or any full moon in Virgo. As always, take what you like and leave the rest.