Author Archives
Lammas: Harvesting Your Soul Lessons
Posted on: Jul 24, 2022 @ 10:00 Posted in: Featured, Sabbats
Excerpt from The Path of She Book of Sabbats.
Lammas marks the end of the current cycle of your journey of soul. The wheel of the year has turned from darkness and death, through light and life, and now shines out the last of this season’s light before a new cycle begins. So too you’ve come to the end of one turning of your journey; it’s time to harvest its bounty of life lessons and personal growth, and to seek out the seeds of your next cycle.
At Lammas, the summer sunshine has baked the land a golden yellow. Fruits, berries and grains bend branches and stalks with their plump ripeness, ready to offer up their bounty to the harvest. Yet the outer look of things can be deceiving. Day by day, the light wanes and the dark waxes; cold will soon replace heat, and the powers of death overtake those of life. The balance has shifted, and the abundance that is now so evident will soon be gone.
This theme of self-chosen sacrificial death in support of life and rebirth infuses the mythic roots of Lammas. The Corn King, John Barleycorn and the Harvest King are some of the names given to the sacrificial God who gathers His energy into the crops that are cut down at Lammas to feed the living and to ensure a new harvest in Spring. In Celtic mythology, the Goddess Tailtiu cleared the land for cultivation as a gift to the people, and died from Her tremendous efforts. Lammas is also called Lughnasadh, in reference to the Celtic God Lugh. Tailtiu is Lugh’s foster mother, and legend has it that Lugh instituted a Lughnasadh harvest festival and games in Her honor.
It is Lugh — the Shining One, the many-skilled God, bearing His Sword of Light — that illuminates your Lammas harvest pathwork. Lugh meets you on a hilltop, offering you a wide-ranging viewscape that can help you see deep into the heart of your life story, and deep into the heart of the struggles of the Mother Earth, as one cycle of your journey of soul and one turning of our collective humanity end, and a new cycle and turning begin. In these profound mysteries of life, death and rebirth, Lugh is your luminescent, loving guide as you embrace the incisive, demanding, and often painful tasks that Lammas asks of you.
At its core, Lammas is a season of hope and the miracle of new beginnings. In the golden field that is your life story, you can find everything you need to heal your soul, transform your life and mend our world. Within you are the lessons, endings and seeds of a powerful new beginning that can lead you ever closer home to your Deep Self and authentic humanity.
Celebrate Lammas with the Path of She Book of Sabbats.
Artwork by Qistina Khalidah
The Call of the Goddess
Posted on: Jul 11, 2022 @ 10:00 Posted in: Goddess
Our bodies and souls know the Goddess — from our first yowl of breath as our hunger instinctively reaches for the softness of breast and nourishment of milk — to the last emptying of our lungs when we surrender to Her gaping maw of death — She holds, witnesses and loves us. For we are Her sacred children.
After the harshness of winter, the blossom of chartreuse bud and wild flower return. The gentle dawn light follows the ebony velvet of darkest night. These things we know, can count on. Life cycles continually, miraculously from life to death to rebirth. Out of the vast potential of energy comes form, form inevitably decays and dissolves, only to be born again in new shapes and functions. These are the primal ways of the Goddess held in the dance of energy and matter.
In our ancient past, we knew these things and held the Goddess and Her life-giving ways as holy and central to our ways of living and dreaming. Though we have stepped off of Her path and onto another, always She calls us to return to our true nature and beauty, and our best, life-serving instincts.
On the Path of She, we turn our hearts and knowing back to the Goddess. We rediscover and reclaim Her presence and powers that lie in wait for us — within the most secret, silent places of our inner landscape — among the wild, wide wonders of the natural world — and in the mystery teachings preserved in Goddess traditions.
As we open to our hunger for our own hidden beauty and power, we naturally unleash our more primal hunger to be one with the powers of life and the ways of the Goddess. We heed Her call, and begin to live and dream our life anew.
Check out Path of She book offerings in the Path Store.
Artist Unknown
Claiming Your Inner Goddess in the Summer Season
Posted on: Jun 25, 2022 @ 10:00 Posted in: Featured, Sabbats
I’m deep in ritual at California Witchcamp in the redwoods on the northern coast. The night is dark, cold, yet a bright hearth fire illuminates the center of our magic circle of warmth and power. A woman approaches me, takes my face between her hands and says: “Thou art Goddess.” Then she kisses me gently on my brow and moves on.
Photo Credit: Vero Photoart on Unsplash
I, in turn, take the faces of others in my palms and repeat: “Thou art Goddess,” and then kiss their brows.
Even as I write this many years later, still I feel my heart swell in response to this simple voice of recognition that applies to each and every one of us: We are Goddess. We are Divine. We are beautiful, powerful, worthy beyond our wildest imagination.
I didn’t grow up with these words. No one talked about the Goddess or Inner Divinity. The only beauty, power and worth that came my way were meted out by outer voices, according to standards I had no say in and could never measure up to.
Once I reached adulthood, I inhabited a strange, disconnected zone of business woman in my work world and sex kitten in my social life. I had two wardrobes, each with their own set of rules of conduct and outer masks. I did this unconsciously, seeking power and value from the meager, soulless options from the culture I’d been entrained to.
My stomach clenches as I write these words. Because that’s how I lived in those days, with my guts seized up and pushing down the true power and beauty inside of me.
The outer voice is all-pervading. From the moment we’re born, this voice kicks in, speaking through our family, friends, school, community, the books we read, and the media we watch, varying its message depending on the color of our skin, sexual orientation, body type, gender, gender identity, ethnic background, economic status and countless other variables. With its many tongues, this voice tells us over and over who we are, how we should live, and whether we’re worthy or not.
This outer voice works its way inside of us and rewires our self-concept and self-love. By the time we reach our adult years, we’re entangled in its trap, and the outer voice is what we hear inside our head, and use to chart our life course and determine our beauty and value.
Yet the other voice, that connects us with our Inner Goddess, is also all-pervading. We just need to know where to seek this alternative voice and then choose to listen and learn in new, empowering ways. Nature speaks in this other, alternative voice and is especially clear in Summer when the powers of light and life are at their strongest.
When I step outside my door into the forest landscape that surrounds my home, Nature grants me direct access to the ways of the Goddess. With the sun shining bright and a sweet, forest-scented breeze warming my skin, my belly relaxes as I breathe slow and deep.
Viscerally, sensually, I sense the Goddess in all things: the dance of the wind in the new-green leaves, the jewel-bright dragonfly that flits by, the hot pink foxgloves as tall as me, the whooshing shadow of a passing raven, and the secret, musky world of microbes and crawling creatures hidden from view.
Step outside your own door. Let your belly relax. Breathe deep and slow. Feel the hot sun on your skin. Savor the sweet, warm air that smells of flowers and green growth. Notice the wild things that come into view: insects, birds and other creatures, each going about the business of flourishing according to its inner essence and purpose. Sense the Goddess’s living presence in your wild kin and the truth that everything around you is equally beautiful, worthy and essential for the wellness of the whole.
Now close your eyes and turn your awareness inward. Connect with the part of you that senses and knows these truths. This is your Inner Goddess. She is your personal, alternative voice that remembers your unique beauty and purpose, and knows that you’re infinitely worthy, simply because you are you.
Your Inner Goddess is with you from the moment you’re born and through all the days of your life. She’s always just a breath away, ready to remind you of your Inner Divinity and innate worthiness whenever the outer voice becomes too loud. With Her guidance, She can help disentangle you from the ways in which you’ve internalized the outer voice, and claim the self-loving voice of your Inner Divinity and Goddess nature.
I take your face between my palms, kiss your brow and whisper in your ear, “Thou art Goddess.” Claim this truth as your own and then pass it on. We are Goddess. We are Divine. We are beautiful, powerful, worthy beyond our wildest imagination.
Claim your Inner Goddess with the Path of She’s Guided Summer Journey.
The Summer Journey: Thou Art Goddess immerses you in the mysteries and magic of your Inner Goddess and Nature, inviting you to claim and blossom into your best, most beautiful Self.
The Summer Journey includes: a Guidebook (pdf ebook), Journal (pdf ebook), and Guided Meditation (mp3 audio) that offer an integrated, seven lesson program with wisdom teachings, awareness practice and journaling exercises, and a guided meditation. The cost of the Summer Journey is $16.99.
Click here to go to learn more.
Celebrating the Summer Solstice
Posted on: Jun 12, 2022 @ 10:00 Posted in: Featured, Sabbats
Excerpt from Path of She Book of Sabbats.
At the Summer Solstice, your journey of soul invites you to blossom, shining forth the true essence and beauty of your Deep Self into the sunlit world of your everyday life. Emulate Nature in this summer season of generosity and abundance by cultivating your soul-sourced authenticity and sharing your best gifts and qualities with others.
The Solstice marks the first day of Summer and a peak in the powers of light before the scales tip once more toward the dark. Nature grants us a heady display of its fully unfurled beauty and overflowing munificence. From the mighty oak tree with its vast, green canopy to the fledgling robin casting itself from the nest, what is inside, the unique, luminescent spark of Creation within each living being, seeks its destined place in the sunlit world.
Midsummer festivities are part of our ancestral heritage and are still celebrated around the world. Bonfires are lit, honoring the brilliance and fertility of the summer sun. Merriment, music, dancing and feasting abound, reminding us to take pleasure in the good things in life while the days are long and hot, and the natural realm shares its plentitude.
The life-centered ways of the Goddess and the sacred feminine are revealed in this plentitude. The Mother Earth holds us in Her loving, generous embrace, showering us with beauty and nourishment for our hungry bellies and souls.
The robin cannot help but embrace its powers of flight, navigating the air space on its outstretched wings. The oak cannot help but burst forth from the acorn, sending its brown roots earthward and its green arms skyward. We cannot help but reach for our place in the greater world, drawing on the essence and gifts of our Deep Self. We may repress and truncate this primal soul imperative, yet our innate, unquenchable desire to flourish in our own unique way remains, ready to bloom outward, in all its brilliance, into a waiting world.
At the Summer Solstice, the Divine power that waits for you is your own Goddess Self who holds your remembrance of the ways and mysteries of the sacred feminine. She resides within the core of your being, connecting you with your inherent, indisputable beauty, worthiness and sacred purpose. She will show you the parts of your beauty and purpose that are ready to blossom, and will guide your journey of soul as you cultivate this blossoming in your everyday life.
When you offer your very best to the communal table of humanity, in a spirit of grace, goodness and generosity, you are making abundance a real, substantive part of your life and the greater environment of your family, workplace and community, and encouraging others to do the same. From these small and big changes, an ethos of abundance can take root and flourish in our human society where there is enough love and nourishment to feed, mend and transform our lives and our world.
Summer Solstice excerpt from The Path of She Book of Sabbats. Available in paperback and e-book at Amazon. Click here to purchase.
Make your own transformative magic for the summer season with the Summer Journey: Thou Art Goddess. The Summer Journey guides you through seven, integrated lessons that take you into the depths of summer’s teachings about abundance, goodness, self-love and blossoming.
Your Summer Journey includes: two pdf ebooks: the Summer Journey Guidebook and Summer Journey Journal, and the Summer Journey Guided Meditation (mp3 audio).
The cost of this integrated Summer Journey package is available at the Path Store for $16.99. Click here to purchase.
A Beltane Meditation: Making Life with the Green Man
Posted on: Apr 28, 2022 @ 10:00 Posted in: Sabbats
For everything there is a season, and Beltane is the time to embrace your life-making instincts for the new and beautiful to take root and flourish in your world. Whatever you seek, the Green Man will give to you, for He is the lover-God whose ardor can spark new life and possibilities.
On Beltane, in the heat of daylight hours, seek out a patch of the wild world where you can privately commune with Nature, preferably with soil at your feet and the sky overhead. Make sure this is a space where you feel safe and comfortable to go deep. If you can’t be outdoors, settle yourself in front of an open window that lets in ample natural light and fresh air.
Close your eyes and use your breath to ground yourself. Track the soft, sensual rhythms of your breath, slow, slow in, slow, slow out. Savor the tingling passage of air through your nostrils, filling your lungs and stretching your muscles and ribs outward, and the long, gentle release of breath, flattening your belly inward toward your spine. Follow this pattern over and over, emptying yourself of thoughts and concerns, until your body feels supple, enervated and relaxed.
Focus your consciousness in your solar plexus and then reach your awareness and senses outward toward the exuberant ways in which Nature is bursting forth new life in your part of the world. With your eyes still closed, immerse yourself in the smells and sounds of the burgeoning life around you, and the wild-world energies of sex and birth; draw these energies into your body and let them connect you to the erotic, sensual currents that infuse the Green Man’s Beltane magic.
Take a few minutes to check in with yourself in this exchange. Beltane energy is edgy and intense, and can sweep you off your center or dredge up any shame or wounding you may have around your body, sensuality and sexuality. Be very, very gentle and compassionate with yourself, and only take this work as deep as is good for you at this moment.
Yet do not retreat back into the shadowy places in your psyche. For everything there is a season, and now is the time for you to embrace your life-making instincts for the new and beautiful to take root and flourish in your inner and outer landscapes. No matter your personal doubts, resistance and judgments, or those of others, know that life loves you as you are and longs for you to embrace and live from your deepest beauty.
Know that it makes no difference whether you are straight or queer, man, woman or transgendered, a blade of grass, a frog in heat or a nesting eagle — the Green Man is beloved and lover to us all.
In your inner landscape, let your wild instincts paint for you a forest wilderness decked out in its glorious, Beltane display of new growth: the bright, leaf-green canopy of trees, the musky scents of mating animals, and the melodic communion of nesting birds. Feel the heat rising from the soil, from the branches and foliage, and from the creatures of this place.
Feel a mirror heat emanating from your soul’s desire. Surrender. Become the lover that says yes to life’s embrace.
Imagine the Green Man emerging from between the trees. Take in His physical appearance, His scent and the way He moves His body. Feel how your body and heart respond to Him. Sense the energy field between you, and His magnetic pull on your body and soul. Share whatever words of welcome and communion come to you.
Abandon yourself to the love- and life-making dance that arises between you. Whatever you need, in whatever form, the Green Man will give to you, for He is the lover-God whose ardor can spark new life and possibilities within you, rooted in your deepest essence and beauty.
Do not rush this embrace. Leave behind all traces of your old stories and hurts, and anything that stops you from being fully, wondrously present and sensually engaged. Luxuriate in His delicious companionship. Savor His taste of the wilderness and the delicious joining of your outer forms and inner energies. Let Him fill you, fill you, fill you, and receive His igniting, transforming magic with your whole being, making fertile your soul’s desire to live and flourish from your Deep Self.
When this magical union feels complete, seal it with a sweet, gentle kiss. Then say goodbye to the Green Man with words of love and gratitude. Let the forest landscape fade away. Use your breath to bring you back into your physical body and waking reality. Slowly open your eyes to the bright light around you.
The shadow-side of humanity runs counter to the Green Man’s magic, and you may come up against tender, wounded places inside yourself. These things may resist and block your impetus for new growth. So be gentle, take care of yourself, but do not let the old, stuck places hold sway on your journey of soul.
You must become the lover of your own life, tending your new growth, cultivating your deepest beauty, and making the most with what you have been given. It is time to dig deep, shine bright and embrace the magnificent gift that is your Self.
Artwork by Amdhuscias
Excerpt from Path of She Book of Sabbats. Available on Amazon.
Make your own journey with the Green Man into the wild, delicious, life-making powers of Beltane with the Path of She’s Beltane Guided Meditation. Available at the Path Store for $9.99.
