As you may have seen from previous blog posts, I run an online workshop series called ‘Fairy Meditation’ which is based on the Oracle card deck ‘Faeries Oracle’ with artwork by Brian Froud and words by Jessica Macbeth in the companion book.
I am pretty sure that this deck was the first oracle deck I ever had (I have quite a collection now)! many moons ago. I have loved them for a long time. The artwork is gorgeous, and shows the many facets of faery, rather than just all the sparkly ones. The messages they provide are grounding and not all ‘love and light’ which I personally find can be common in other decks.
In addition I have also got a strong magical bond with them! Some cases in point- I gave my original deck away in a giveaway ceremony (and it was just the deck at that point, I’d lost the book and box by then) and then years later in a women’s circle I was running, I held a giveaway and guess what I got? The Faeries Oracle deck, in a box with the book! The second thing was a about five years ago when I discovered fairy healing was a thing, the faeries that would come to me in my shamanic healing journeys were the faeries from this deck!
Fast forward all this time later, and I’m running a fortnightly online course where we got on a guided meditation journey to meet each faery!
You don’t need the deck to take part, and you don’t need to have attended any other of the classes to take part either! You don’t even have to join every session either as each class stands alone. The session takes place on ZOOM for around 1 hour. The next one is this coming Sunday 29th November 7.30pm UK time. It costs £5 to take part (if paid by Saturday 28th 10pm) that can be paid via Paypal moonlight.phoenix@gmail.com – a Video Link will be sent to you on receipt of payment. You can also buy a recording if you can’t make the live session 🙂
You may or may not have seen that there are two different ways of spelling ‘Fairies’, and if you hadn’t, well you have now!
Why the two different spellings?
‘Fairies’ is the most common spelling. This is mainly used to refer to fairies from fairy stories, children’s often pink fairy toys, the pretty, female, sparkly, glittery type of fairy.
‘Faeries’ is the old traditional way of spelling Fairies…this is more often used to refer to fairies that are very much real, nature spirits, some that are not so pretty. These ‘faeries’ don’t always look like what we expect fairies to look like. Some are pretty, some are dark and menacing. You can get an idea by looking at faery artist Brian Froud’s work.
I personally interchange a bit, I am always refering to ALL fairy/faery beings ! I want people to find out about ‘faeries’ who love ‘fairies’ so they can meet/see the diversity there truly is!
If you didn’t know I run an online Fairy Meditation course every 2 weeks on Zoom, which is open to all belief systems!
My next one is Sunday 29th November 7.30pm, here is a link to the Facebook event with all the details https://fb.me/e/3WgZuEHBv
Wednesday 23rd September- Wheel of the Year Autumn Equinox Women’s Gathering 7.30pm (up to 2 hours) This session is on a sliding scale depending what price suits you best- you can pay £10, £15 or £20. We will get together in sisterhood to celebrate the cycle of the year and the cycle of ourselves. I will help you connect with the season and the female archetype of the Crone. Through learning to live with the cycles of the Earth and our own menstrual cycles we become more of ourselves. Please book your space by Tuesday 22nd at the latest.
Saturday 25th September- Sisters do it! Workshop Part One: Empower yourself through womb work. 11-3pm £20. It’s time for sisters to rise and no longer suppress their sacred feminine wisdom. These workshops will help you to begin the process of empowerment through cleansing/healing work, deep sisterhood sharing and useful tools that will help you to work with your cycle in the most effective way. We will also be sharing knowledge to help us make informed decisions about our bodies. You can come to just one of the workshops or both.
In Part One we will be doing some intensive womb work and give you the tools to start working with your cycle.
The Workshop includes:
A Womb Cleansing Meditation
“Cauldron Energisers”- a mini womb/heart healing
Learn about cycle tracking including how to make a ‘moon dial’, the archetypes/seasons of the menstrual cycle and how to work with your cycle. Please book your space by Monday 21st September- spaces are limited to 4.
Sunday 27th September- Goddess Introduction workshop: Tara (1 hour) £5 if booked by Saturday 26th or £7 if booked on the day by 2pm. In this session we will be learning all about the Buddhist Goddess Tara. You will gain an understanding of what she’s about, and then we will go connect with her through a guided meditation.
Sometimes plant medicines come into your life unexpectedly when they are needed in your life. I had no knowledge of Mugwort whatsoever, other than it sounded ever so witchy! But I had never thought to learn about it.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was posting up some of the incense sticks she had made for sale. I saw she had one made of lavender, rose and mugwort. It sounded perfect- I love lavender, and rose I work with regularly for all the women’s work I do, and then I saw she had mentioned Mugwort was specifically good for dreaming and meditation. The dreaming bit caught my attention. I have struggled to remember my dreams for quite sometime, I wil remember them now and again, but mostly not, even though I had phases when I did remember more. I mentioned this to my friend and she recommended that for the dream recall it might be better to work with the Mugwort Tincture. So I thought why not!
So it turns out to be a really amazing Plant Ally. I can’t believe we had been acquainted sooner! My friend also gave me some of the fresh leaves as well that can be smoked or drank as tea. So for the last few weeks I have been taking Mugwort everynight so I thought I would share my experiences so far.
The first night I took 5 drops before sleep, and I didn’t remember my dreams, but I did have a very deep relaxing sleep! I was really impressed that there was already some sort of strong effect, thinking I would probably need to get it into my system a bit first for it to work.
Night 2- the same dosage. I remembered fragments of a dream but not many details and I knew it was a very superficial dream about something that had happened that evening.
Night 3- same dosage, again, only fragments of a dream remembered but this time judging by the fragments, I know it was a deeper more significant dream.
Night 4- this time myself and my husband smoked some of the fresh leaves and I didn’t use the tincture. It made me feel very relaxed and I slept really deep.
Night 5- back to the tincture, slept long and deep again.
Night 6- tried drinking a tea made with the leaves- it was surprisingly tasty! We had an hour before bed but didn’t have the same effect as smoking. I took the tincture as well. It took me a while to fall asleep and I set an intention to dream and remember. I woke up at some point for the toilet, thinking still no dreams….then woke up again for a moment in the early hours of the morning and I did remember dreaming…I thought I should write it down but in my tired state I didn’t. However in the morning I did remember enough parts for it to make sense and work on interpretation. It was very focused on my past.
Night 7- slept long and deep but no dream recall.
Night 8- increased the dose of tincture- wanted to do 7 but ended up having 9! again a long, deep sleep, I dreamt a=but only remembered fragments.
Night 9- slept deep but no dreams
Night 10 – deep sleep
Night 11- slept deep and dreamt, significant dream tied in with me releasing my current job
Night 12- only took 2 drops, slept deep and dreamt.
Day 13- journeyed while holding the jar of Mugwort (not taking any)- my experiences with her so far had made me feel her energy is the energy of a supportive grandmother, and I could feel that energy emanating as it felt like she was giving me a healing. She explained to me that when I was young I had a lucid dream- it was very frightening to me as a child- that it had affected my ability to dream and be able to recall. Over the years the more I’ve opened my third eye through my spiritual work I have had phases when I could remember but the clearing is still happening and she is helping me to release this wound.
Night 13- ran out of tincture, so smoked some using a bong just before bed. I remembered two dreams- very surreal ones!
I am continuing to work with her a while longer as we still have work to do! But I must say I have fell in love with Mugwort. She is proving to be very magical.
Those who have been following my blog may already be aware when I ‘relaunched’ this blog back in October last year I also started a brand new women’s circle, and through my circle, and my social media channels I started working with the wheel of the year. We started working through a cycle of the elements with each season- we did fire at Samhain, and then worked with different elements as each season came. Then on the last season- Beltane – as we had finished with the elements we started a new cycle within the cycle- we started working with Goddess Archetypes and we started with the Maiden.
Today is the Summer Solstice- and our circle gathered online to honour the sun but also to start our season in the mother archetype. It feels like the perfect season to work with the Mother energy- the Summer Solstice represents a time when the Goddess is pregnant and is about giving and service to the Earth. It’s the longest day in the year and the first day of summer. In the female cycle, when we ovulate that is considered our ‘Mother’ archetype week and in this week we feel at our brightest just like the sun on this day.
At Beltane we set our goal intentions, today we checked in on those and discussed how we could keep on working to reach them, and then also set an extra goal more oriented towards relationships in any forms.
Happy Summer Solstice to you and wishing you a bountiful season, May the Mother bless you with her nurturing presence!
so today I am feeling tired. I am feeling exhausted with the world. After weeks feeling fairly optimistic and upbeat, I feel like I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer. All the emotions (more so from other people) that have been around me the last few months have caught up with me. But this is nothing, nothing, compared to how Black and People of Colour must feel, and this I know (but don’t claim to totally understand as I am aware very much that I am a privileged white straight female) is more than just about the horrifying murder of George Floyd. It’s about centuries of oppression that in a lot of ways are still playing out in today’s societies. It’s come to a head and it really is time we change our ways. I’ve been doing a lot of reading of social media accounts- specifically those of black and people of colour to try to understand, to try and learn, to try and get an insight in how I can possibly help.
I saw as many friends and social media influencers yesterday posted the Black Out Tuesday Black square as an image or changed their profile photos. I debated whether to do it as well but I got lost wondering whether it was helpful especially when I saw differing opinions and I just got overwhelmed. The day passed and I didn’t do it. I totally supported the idea, and it was a good idea to raise awareness (as long as you were aware not to use the Black Lives Matter hashtag as it was hiding important information from those who needed it) but I did feel it needed to be more. Some of the posts I saw did include links and useful information so I did spend time reading those.
I am very aware that although I claim to be not racist, that is not enough and I pledge to do my best to change this. I’ve made a donation this morning to the George Floyd Memorial fund and I am planning to go to the protest in London on Saturday (taking safety measures seriously because of the virus- social distancing, face mask etc) I wanted to share here some links I have found that you might find useful too:
My second brand new course I am starting up this coming Sunday 31st May. This course will also take place bi weekly (so will be on the Sundays that the Goddess course is not on for those taking part in that)
This online workshop is based on The Faery Oracle card deck by Brian Froud and Jessica Macbeth. You don’t need the deck to take part but it would enhance and help your experience.
Each lesson will go deep into each card of the deck. You don’t need to do the whole course- you can dip in and out if you choose.
Each lesson focuses on a specific card/faery energy in the deck, we will discuss how the card makes us feel, journey to the different faeries on the card and look at the intended meaning of the card. We will work with faery energy to guide us, so I will encourage and help you to create your own relationship with the fairies through homework and guidance. You can have no knowledge of the cards or be very familiar, as you will be able to learn, feel your own meanings as well as exploring the intended meaning.
Each lesson is £5 that can be paid by Paypal address mysticus.22@gmail.com or bank details available on request. If you wish to buy multiple lessons in advance, discounts are available, contact me for details. On your Paypal payment please put in the note it’s for the Faery Oracle Course and what email address you will want to use- the video call is done using Microsoft Teams. Teams can be used on the Web or you can download the app to your computer or phone (although does work better on a computer). Once payment is recieved I will send you an invitation to join the Faery Oracle Team, and you just sign up through the link sent to your email, then log in on Sunday to join the group call.
Goddess Introduction course online! Every other week we will be learning about a Goddess starting with Kali. Investment £5 per lesson. There will be 35 lessons in total with discounts available for purchasing either the whole course or multiple lessons.
You do not need to attend all the lessons, you can attend as many or as little as you like.
When payment received you will be sent the link to join the video call. You can pay using paypal mysticus.22@gmail.com and put a note to say it’s for the Goddess Course. Bank details are available on request. If you wish to purchase multiple lessons please message for details on prices.
What to expect: Learn about a different Goddess each lesson- learning the stories behind who they are, their symbols and significance, and also look at how each one influences our own lives. We will do guided journeys to each Goddess, receiving her guidance. There will be complementary exercises and homework given to help you connect introduce her energy into your daily life.
I look forward to guiding you on your Journey to the Goddess!
Inner wisdom engaged
Beam me up to the inner world
Energise!
Seize the moment
Be in the now
Energise!
Dance with the moon and play with the stars
Energise!
Do the cha cha slide
hop, skip and jump
Energise!
Open your heart
let it sing
Energise!
Awaken the child within
Look at the world with curious eyes
Energise!
Keep your feet on the ground
but let your head meet the clouds
connection stimulation
follow the soul connection
Energise!
Hold onto life
See the beauty of nature unfolding
Energise!
Journey to yourself
and you will find your inner wealth.
Tonight in the UK we have the final supermoon (where the moon is closer to the earth so looks bigger) of 2020 and it is the sexy, mysterious sign of Scorpio.
The energies of this full moon are intense as frustration mounts as people are getting tired of being indoors, or real fears about money and how people are going to cope long term come to the surface.
However the card I picked from the Faery Oracle is Geeeooo the Slow.
Geeooo is encouraging us to slow down and have patience.
He reminds us good things come to those who wait, and this full moon is a real test of that theory.
Hayley Heals 