Yes, Mother's Day, and a happy one, with best wishes, for traditional mothers everywhere. There is another tribe of mothers, though ... ... probably several ... that go unseen and unsung in our culture. It's this tribe -- my tribe... Continue Reading →
"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not HOME. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use... Continue Reading →
The 'wild bees of spirit' have spiraled back around, so it's timely to share anew this "Thresholds and the Wild Bees of Spirit" musing from the Sophia's Children treasure vault. 'Tis the season, too, in the Northern Hemisphere, with Spring... Continue Reading →
It's always something of a wonder to me the things that spiral back around to be seen, engaged, and expressed anew, fertilized by the richness of experience and 'rigorous initiations' between one arising and the next. Back in 2005, in... Continue Reading →
This recent musing on the "Walkers Between the Worlds," the "thresholders" and boundary-tenders of the in-between places, from the An Elegant Mystery blog: "I think that every culture worthy of the name recognizes the need for such folks. These persons... Continue Reading →
July 22 is the historical feast day of Mary Magdalene, so it's very fitting to share this updated post from the early days of Sophia's Children. Not that we need confine such celebrations and honorings to one day. After all,... Continue Reading →
To hallow is "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate". (Wikipedia) It's a fine time for drawing up insight and guidance from the depths, and sustenance from our very roots. Yesterday, I had the privilege and... Continue Reading →
“I swear by Apollo The Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the Gods and Goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.” The... Continue Reading →
Are you feeling an growing call towards greater harmony, beauty, and social artistry? Or are you noticing, or even mired in, their opposites -- disharmony, conflict, relational dysfunction -- which are seemingly over-abundant in the world right about now? I'll... Continue Reading →
"Tell a wise person, or else keep silent; for the mass-man will mock it right away." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Holy Longing Many of us are conditioned to reach outward for confirmation, affirmation, approval, validation, and/or understanding from... Continue Reading →
"The New Venus, New Woman, is Venus become one with Persephone her deeper nature. She emerges as the Woman of Revelation "clothed with the Sun" who brings new feminine consciousness, an artful mindfulness and imminent being that is here and... Continue Reading →
"Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory aptitudes. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other side he is an impersonal, creative process." "The archetypal image of... Continue Reading →
"Just as there is physical pollution, so there is a type of psychic pollution in the world. And that is the psychic soup in which we live." "The more open and the more sensitive and the more evolved you are,... Continue Reading →
I originally wrote this musing in April 2016, when the Taurus Mysteries were rising on the wheel of the year. Then I revisited the Venus-Rising theme, when the Libra Mysteries -- the other zodiac archetype ruled by Venus - were... Continue Reading →
When we think of grief ... or well, when we think of much of anything ... we might not consider the grief that we inherit along our ancestral lines, that's in our cells and bones. Nor might we consider what... Continue Reading →
Update 9-20-16 and 1-15-18: I wrote this original post in early January 2016, yet it's drawn recent attention thanks to reblogs from my kindred spirit and friend Leeby Geeby @ Shamagaia and a few others (thank you!). Uncanny timing. As... Continue Reading →
July 22 is the historical feast day of Mary Magdalene, so it's very fitting to share this updated post from the early days of Sophia's Children. Not that we need confine such celebrations and honorings to one day. After all,... Continue Reading →
Due to a wee bit of a Uranian or Mercury Trickster formatting issue with the original Mary Magdalene post, I've just created it anew. You'll find it here: Magdalene's Feast Day - The Inner Way of Mary Magdalene.
Persephone, like Inanna, is such an important mythic and archetypal story about the epic Underworld Journey and initiation into our deep-Feminine wisdom. Some of us experience a real-deal Dark Night of the Soul, a true Underworld Journey, as we're shaken... Continue Reading →
Wild violets. Public domain photo courtesy of pd4pics.
Having just picked ‘wild greens’ — dandelion, violet, and plantain — and eaten them in a lovely lunch salad, I came across this post, quite synchronistically.
Perfect timing, and a gorgeous photo of just one of the many healthy meals you can make from … you got it … wild plants that grow around you.
This is one of several ‘reclaimed arts’ of the Wise Woman path, and a lovely way to connect with the spirit of and place where we live, as well as with the deep roots of our ancestors, who did just this very thing.
Thanks to Charlie for sharing this great intel on the humble and yet incredibly nutrient-rich dandelion and violet.
My eyes have been opened to the wild, edible greens growing right in my own yard, after attending Let Food Be Thy Medicine: Using Herbs in the Kitchen at Saturday’s Spring Herb and Garden Conference. Herbalist Darcey Blue French of Brighid’s Well Herbs inspired us all by mixing up several delicious recipes for tasting, including an herbal pesto and a weed salad.
I haven’t looked at my “weeds” the same way since, especially those white violets I was cursing a few weeks ago. In fact, I snipped both dandelion greens and violet leaves this evening, along with sorrel, spinach, mizuna and black-seeded Simpson lettuce from my garden. I topped off the greens with chive and viola flowers for a beautiful and delicious spring salad.
Violet leaves are a tonic for the body’s lymph system and are rich in vitamin C. They are a powerful blood purifier. They taste very green…
One of the most popular series of posts, along with the Empaths & Sensitive Series, are my posts on the Black Madonna, Sophia, and the Mysteries of the deep, re-emerging Feminine. Many of the posts at Sophia's Children arise out... Continue Reading →
Yesterday we dove into flowing Piscean waters and the great sea (or Great She?) of being. So how about today we balance those elements and dry off a bit with some flame-tending and earth magic? I'm appreciating two beautiful musings... Continue Reading →
In this short video talk, Aleutian Elder, Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff speaks about the vital re-emergence of the Sacred Feminine, the long-ago prophecies and the ultimate effects of the cycle of "masculine imbalance," and the roles of women and men in... Continue Reading →
“Architects and planners use the term “desire paths” to describe the shortcuts taken by people for whom the laid-out pattern doesn’t fit their lives. But, in one sense, all paths are desire paths, the marks of human longing or need.”... Continue Reading →
"In a dark time, the eye begins to see." ~ Theodore Roethke In the pitch-black nadir of my own journey through the Underworld -- the dark night, the forest I knew not -- 0ne of the many sparks of light... Continue Reading →
In her excellent book, The Woman in the Shaman's Body*, Barbara Tedlock, Ph.D., shares this about the origin and meaning of the word shaman: "The term shaman itself comes from the Evenki language in Siberia, and means "the one who... Continue Reading →
We learn and hear a lot of cliches about home - what it means, where it is, how we find it, when do we feel at home and when do we feel displaced, unmoored; what we do if our sense... Continue Reading →
"The women who have reconnected with their instinctual power have gone beyond the limits of ordinary-world success, whether they have been taken there through loss and suffering into the depths of their being and reborn through touching into their creative... Continue Reading →
“When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guide, suggest... Continue Reading →
"We humans have so much more creative juice than we realize. Our intentions create our lives and so the more conscious we become in making our choices, the more we can shape our individual lives and attend to the reclaiming... Continue Reading →
“There is an ability, or the need, here to read spiritual understandings into concrete, everyday objects. Several different aspects can be combined to result in a truly wise outcome, piercing through appearances to see the inherent truth of a situation... Continue Reading →
There is a reason that those of European ancestry might be inspired or called to Native American or other indigenous spiritual and healing traditions. In them, they feel the ancestral memory being stirred in remembrance of their own pre-conquest ancestral... Continue Reading →
"We believe, however, that we may not need something new, but need to reawaken something very old, to reawaken our understanding of Earth wisdom." ~ George Sessions and Bill Deval, Deep Ecology