Episodit
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The Celts did not fear the dead. It is said they held these days and this time in great reverence; reverence for the departed, healthy fear for the sidhe or the fae, reverence for prophecy and looking towards the new year, seen at the end of the cold dark cycle of winter. Reverence for the crone, the dark mothers, the underworld. From womb to tomb and tomb to womb, we greet and move through this ending and beginning. Welcome, dear ones, to summer’s death and winter's birth, welcome to Samhain.
The final episode of Season 2 offers three things:
1) A reflection on your own ancestral inheritance.
2) An honoring of the sacred trees and plants at Samhain: Elder, Blackthorn and Croneswort. These three are also known by other names; Tree of Witches, Dark Crone of the Woods and Wormwood.
3) A sharing of my recent pilgrimage to my maternal ancestral home - Scotland - where I visited magical islands, an ancient fairy flag in a remote castle and spent some time honoring the magnificent creatrix, winter crone and hag of the North - the Cailleach.
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A time of abundance,
A time of preparation,
A time of balance,
A time of release,
The edge of the bright leaning into the darkness.
A time of celebration for the harvests of fruit and root.
The second harvest, completing the cycle.
The second harvest, calling the animals home.
Let us welcome the in and the out breath, the double spiral, the balance of day and night.
This is the autumnal equinox.
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Puuttuva jakso?
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Hoof and horn, hoof and horn
All that dies shall be reborn
Corn and grain, corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise againDear Hazel, sacred tree of the ancients, the druids, holy tree of wisdom, knowing and intuition we honor you.
We pray that your blessing of sight and vision is bestowed upon us, that we might see beyond ourselves and undertake a transformation as you do, in service of all that is highest, best, and most in its wellness.
We pray your nuts of inspiration and wisdom fill our lives and hearts such that we can walk in true honor and grace, unburdened by the pains of our pasts or the fears of unknown futures.
May inner wisdom be ours to tend and nurture as we tend and nurture your groves and forests. Blessed be this sacred tree.Transformation, strength, accomplishment, pride, celebration of the first harvest, the grain harvest - Lughnasadh is a time for honoring all that has been achieved in the warmth of the summer sun, while starting our gentle walk away from the light towards the darker half of the year.
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This is a day of great abundance, wonder and celebration of achievements! And, as with all celebrations on this blessed and beloved wheel of the year, as we celebrate the strength of the light we now turn our sight softly towards the darkening half of the year that will begin shortly after this resplendent day. Celtic stone circles, ancient gathering places, monuments and tombs, are lit by the dawn light on this day - sacred, special, solstice.
The summer solstice offers us a space for connection and prayer, to walk through the trees at the height of their color, to connect deeply with their wisdom and wonder. The summer solstice also offers us the opportunity to see the sun within ourselves, our own shining heartlight, radiant, powerful, magnanimous, divine and true.
Beech, Vervain, Oak and Rose are celebrated today, among many other gorgeous trees and plants of the solstice.
On this day of power may you be blessed with shining light, removing all that no longer serves such that you may live authentically a life of service; may you radiate with divinity, your own holiness, walking on the shining paths of the solstice. May you lovingly welcome the darker half of the wheel, that also begins at this time, claiming radiant power and surrendering again to the endless turning of the wheel of the year. May you partner with fire, allowing it to bless you and burn away all of your dead branches and leaves. May you be refreshed and revitalized this summer solstice!
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Beltane is the celebration of the Fire of Bel, the ancient god of the Sun who at this time marries Danu, great mother Goddess of the Earth. This is the time on the wheel of the year when the Sun and the Earth become one - when fertility peaks, when union abounds, and when celebrations of the warming Earth take place. This is a celebration of skin and physicality, senses and sensations.
Today, we will journey together to a sacred hawthorn grove and anoint ourselves with the most mystical and magical of waters - the Beltane morning dew. Hawthorn is a deeply important tree - the sixth tree of the sacred ogham; its berries offer human bodies profound circulation and heart medicine and its energies offer release and healing, and pathways towards love of self and love of other. It is a wild and enchanted tree under protection of the faerie realms - glennie kindred says it has the protection of the old magics and as such it must be greatly respected. Wherever it grows it brings the wildness, whether in a city or on vast lands. To know the Hawthorn is to know the heart, one cannot hide from the exceptional wisdom the Hawthorn brings.
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The Vernal Equinox is a time of sacred discernment. A time to reflect on the balance of action and contemplation and to tend to that which has been neglected during the colder months.
In a time and a world when so much is challenging, heartbreaking, confusing, and frightening, rooting into presence with the natural world can help us to strengthen our hearts and our resolve towards unyielding kindness, humility, and solidarity with our human kin and our plant kin alike.
May this Spring inspire our hearts towards ever more beautiful acts of service and compassion. Whether large or small, every kindness offers a pebble into the river of human healing.
May you and all you hold dear be showered in the blessings of the stirring energies of the season.
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Season 2 of Animisma is an offering of seasonal contemplation, offered with care, and offered in peace. It is a walk along the hidden paths, along forest floors covered in soft grass, sunlight peeking through ancient boughs, breezes quietly moving across our faces as we walk with permission through mist and shadow. It is a walk in the presence of giants, of plants as portals, mystical herbs, and magical flowers.
Episode 2: Fàilte a charaidean (welcome friends). Today, we will create a tree spirit altar together, in honor of Imbolc. If you cannot access all of these beautiful trees and plants in our human realm, this episode offers you space to gently still yourself and witness through your mind's eye the building of a beautiful and sacred offering to the traditional start of Spring.
Imbolc is the beautiful cross-quarter fire festival and celebration of awakening, fertility, birthing, and beginning. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, of the earth slowly awakening and of life-force stirring. We welcome the growth of the returning light and witness life's rebirth at this time. Imbolc is translated from ancient Irish and means ‘in the belly’ or ‘around the belly’ and refers to both the pregnancy of sheep and to the fertility of the Earth, that is the swelling belly of the earth goddess. Imbolc was the traditional celebration of Spring, as opposed to the modern interpretation of Spring beginning on the Spring Equinox.
Today, we create a sacred altar for Imbolc - requesting blessings from Brighid, the Goddess honored on this day while partnering with the sacred tree, Rowan (Witchwood), and sacred plant Heather (Fraoch) and snowdrop, a messenger of hope. -
Season 2 of Animisma is an offering of seasonal contemplation, offered with care, and offered in peace. It is a walk along the hidden paths, along forest floors covered in soft grass, sunlight peeking through ancient boughs, breezes quietly moving across our faces as we walk with permission through mist and shadow. It is a walk in the presence of giants, of plants as portals, mystical herbs, and magical flowers.
Episode 1: Fàilte a charaidean to the deep dark heart of winter. A time of stillness. A time of depth. A time of darkness peppered with light and the green reminders of life everlasting. A time for introspection, a time for dreaming. A time for death and deep contemplation. A time for silence and a time for the decaying of the old and used energies and dreams to go to Earth, creating space for possibility and potentiality.
Together today, let’s take a walk through a sacred, mythical forest in the Celtic otherworld to celebrate the Winter Solstice and connect with the beautiful trees that are venerated at this time.
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Welcome to Samhain, beloveds. Welcome to the ending and beginning of The Wheel Of The Year, the end of summer and the beginning of winter celebrated at this sacred threshold.
At Samhain, the veil between the seen and unseen worlds becomes thin. A time to celebrate ancestors, a time for divination, and a time to seek out the mysteries and magic found in the Otherworld. It is the time of the Crone, the Wise Woman, the time of the Death Gods, and the time to reclaim magical traditions and our reverence for the underworld.
May the spirits of transformation and rebirth guide you as we descend into the liminal, release the past, and prepare for the inward turn of the wheel. We offer prayers to the Gods and Goddesses of Death and to our ancestors to guide us along the way.
Blessed be the season! Blessed be the final harvest! Blessed be the ancestors, human and non-human alike! I wish you a safe, sacred, and sensational Samhain!
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Welcome dear ones, dear hearts, welcome to the seventh festival - the Autumnal equinox. In this episode, I offer you a little respite from the world. A moment just for yourself where you can reflect upon and honor this most beautiful of festivals. This is the second of the three harvest festivals, preceded by Lughnasadh and followed by Samhain. This is the festival of the horn of plenty, the cornucopia, where we are invited to gather and connect and enjoy the fruits of our labor.
We explore the lore and spirit behind this festival's modern name, Mabon, the balance and maturing of the energies we find this time of year, and the equal breath we enjoy in this threshold moment on the Wheel of the Year. We celebrate in this episode with a water offering and words adapted from Akasha Ap Emrys, along with a rattling, to welcome in this new season. Blessed Autumn Equinox to you all!
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Welcome dear ones to the Sixth Festival of the year that is Lughnasadh - the first of the three harvest festivals. It is high summer. Fields, crops, and orchards have been drinking in the summer rains, hosting the blessed bees, bats, and butterflies, and growing fruits, grains, nuts, and berries. This first harvest festival is also referred to as Lammas, the Loaf Mas, and marks the harvest of the grains.
This time of heat and light is a celebration of all that has been seeded and grown. In the face of our human awakening and the clearing of old wounds and old ways making space for the growth of the new, we can take pause at this time to reflect on all that has grown, all that is beautiful, all that is true.
Sacrifice is also a common theme here at Lughnasadh - that we too must now sacrifice the warm part of the year, the light-filled energetics of the growing half of the year, and welcome the cooling, deepening, and going within. The invitation here is to celebrate life and the harvest with great intention, in preparation for the darkening and cooling ahead. Take stock and assessment of the harvest of your year - what was planted and has now flourished? What blessings can we be thankful for? While the days are long and warm, while the flowers blossom and the trees bear their fruit, let’s unite in our deepest appreciation for all that we have on this resplendent, green, beautiful Earth and fill our hearts and our cups to the brim.
In this offering, we explore the story of Lugh, the Great Goddess Tailtu, and the festival celebrating their myth at this time of year. We pause through poetry and reflection to honor our divinity, wounds, and healing journeys. And we close with a rattling to honor the Sun Gods and the well Divine Masculine energy in our world. May you and all you hold dear be blessed by the radiance of the Sun, the Season, of the Ancient Ones honored by this festival, Lugh and Tailtiu. I wish you a beautiful, sacred, and health-filled high summer festival of Lughnasadh!
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Welcome, dear ones, welcome to the beloved, ancient fire festival of Beltane! This sun-fire festival is a full half-year turn of the wheel from Samhain when the ancestral veil is thinnest. At Beltane, the veils are also thinned, but they are the curtains that protect the realms of the fae, our etheric kin. We offer them sweetness and play at this time of the year, and offer them our truest thanks for tending the budding shoots and unfurling tendrils, bringing green life back into our lives.
At the time of this podcast recording, the world is being awoken. An emergence is upon us; we are facing the delicate fragility of our human walk and meeting the sheer force of reckoning that is the natural world. We are also being offered exceptional beauty. The air is clearing. The mountains are being revealed. The animals are returning. The Earth is stilling.
I dedicate this Beltane podcast to celebrating on your own. There are so many ways to lovingly celebrate at this time and the Earth in all her ripening splendor is so very deserving of our attention! She continues, unphased and unstopped by the cultural movements of human people so even though we may not be able to gather together in large numbers, dancing around a maypole, feasting with friends, or frolicking under the moonlight, there are so many ways we can bring the richness, fecundity, and celebration of Beltane into our lives.
As part of my offering, and in service of this month of May, I offer you some rituals and pathways to connect with the flame of the Belfire, the sacred waters of the Beltane morning dew and the wildness within us all. -
Blessings on this Spring Equinox, dear ones. For the Celtic wheel of the year, this celebration is sometimes referred to as Ostara. As the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, the days begin to lengthen, and the sun turns towards the North, we officially welcome the Spring and all that it represents - freshness, green shoots, birdsong, warmer days, and cleansing rains.
And in context for those that are listening from the future, we are currently experiencing a rather large tensing of the social fabric of our culture as a virus is spreading very quickly around the world. We are now, and always have been, part of a deeply connected world, and it is times like these that shine a light on how brilliantly interdependent we are.
Today, I invite you to gift yourself with some space to rest and relax during this time of challenge and change. On this day, the light and the dark, the day and the night are conceptually equal. There is a beautiful, balancing quality to the equinox and its gifts of day and night held in dynamic equality offer us an opportunity to reflect on our own sense of balance.
As part of my offering into the cauldron of change and transformation we are experiencing, and in service of this Spring Equinox where the balance of light and dark is upon us, I offer you some pathways to your own inner resiliency via some visualizations and meditations.
May the goddess of the dawn walk beside us and sit with us at our hearth, as we ground, breathe, and deepen into the understanding of what challenge truly is and the wisdom and freedom offered through change.
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May the blessings of Imbolc be upon you! I am utterly thrilled to be sharing this beautiful celebration with you. Imbolc is the beautiful festival and celebration of awakening, fertility, birthing, and beginning. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, of the earth slowly awakening and of life-force stirring.
As I explored the celebration of Imbolc, the one recurring theme that arose was that for many who have celebrated Imbolc over the years: it was either the beginning of their year or the ramp to the beginning of their year. To myself and others, it was almost as if we were living in the season of waiting and not knowing, the liminal space, the timeless time between last year and the future year and it was in fact at Imbolc that the year would really begin. So at this time of Imbolc, we welcome the growth of the returning light and witness life's rebirth.
The most prominent deity associated with Imbolc is the great fire goddess, Brighid. Myths regarding Brighid’s birth say she was born with a flame in her head and fed on the milk of a mystical or faery cow as a child. She is thought to provide ample supplies of milk to the community or village that honors her and is the patron goddess of fertility, pregnancy and midwifery, the home and all dairy and domestic-related activities.
I offer this episode as a way to explore the history and traditions of Imbolc and to connect with the fascinating, protective, loving, fierce, capable, and frankly incredible deity that is Brighid. We will end with ritual, prayer and gentle meditation to honor this magical time of year.
May Brighid offer us fierce protection, loving protection, and inspiration in this time of re-birth!
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Happy Solstice, Good Yule to you, and welcome to the first episode of Animisma - All Things In-Spirited!
During this first season, we will follow The Celtic Wheel of the Year. Eight episodes will be dedicated to the eight traditional festivals and each episode will be released on the day of each festival, offering an opportunity for you to connect with and celebrate the festival.
Season 1 of Animisma is also offered as a bridge towards reclaiming the indigenous wisdom of our Celtic ancestry. My hope for this first season of Animisma is to offer anyone who shares the bloodlines of my ancestors a pathway back to the old ways that welcomed us into the web of all existence and offered us connection to presence, each other, and to the magic of the world around us, wherever we may find ourselves. Perhaps by reclaiming our indigenous wisdom, we can heal our lines, truthfully acknowledge the past, and in doing so, claim a future of connection, respect, and reverence for the lands, waters, trees, animals, and all people. Perhaps today we can claim community as connection and no matter what our bloodline, rest into the deep knowing that we are all indigenous children of the Earth.
So, today we launch this podcast on Yule, which we will take as the 1st celebration of the year. For eons, celebrations of the returning light have taken place on the Hibernal or Winter Solstice. I offer this first episode as a way to reveal a little of its history and to connect with this beloved ancestral celebration of the returning light. We will end with a gentle meditation and a blessing to ring in the season.
May the blessings be plentiful and may grace guide you and hold you into the coming year!
