The Celtic Morrigan, Slavic Morana, and Hindu Dhumavati are entwined through the dark wings of the raven. Their aerial point of view gifts them with wisdom to see the whole. Witch and winged-one in sacred kinship, they remind us that even in collapse, something wild and wise takes root. Their black feathers stitching together life and death, winged and earthbound, mortal and divine, seen and unseen. . .
Read MoreSacred Hare Divine Feminine: Where Moon, Sacred Hare & Womb Dance as One
What weaves its way like an underground warren beneath the borders of conquest and control, preserving our collective wild sisterhood with the earth across time, cultures and landscapes? The ancient link between hares, the divine feminine, and the moon journeyed from Asia to the Americas—carried by storytellers, pilgrims, healers, and wanderers. What might we reclaim if we traced their sacred steps?
Read MoreCarving Memory, Gathering Bones, Singing Her
La Huesera, the ancient folktale of the mythical Bone Woman of the desert southwest, wanders the arroyos gathering scattered bones of wolves, singing over them until they reassemble and return to life. Bone Woman’s song is sung the world over, it is the mythic medicine we can heal from if we dare to gather what’s been forgotten and scattered together into the same circle of honoring. This is Old Story Medicine, the elixir She offers from her sacred cauldron when the world seems starved of connection, and in need of healing and repair.
Read MoreThe Sky Goddess: Generously Weaving Together Worlds
Bridging continents and cultures, the Eswatini folktale of Cloud Princess from Africa and the Haudenosaunee folktale of Sky Woman from North America, offer us their shared and relevant wisdom enriching, deepening and expanding our understanding of the meaning of “generosity” in unexpected ways. We learn generosity is the vital and sacred choice that can weave us back into relationship with each other, draw us into closer kinship with the wild, and open ourselves up to belonging to a larger whole.
Read MorePlants, Magic and Power: Folklore's Storied Plants Wield Their Quiet Power
Whether it is a giant beanstalk, benevolent flowers, wise herbs, sacred birch goddesses or mossy coats, many ancient folktales remind us how our ancestors lived in harmony with plants, relying on them not only for sustenance but also for healing, protection, wisdom, empowerment and inspiration. Ancient plant folktales encapsulate wisdom and teachings passed down through generations, reflecting the roles that flora and fauna have played for our survival, cultural identity and in the mythic imagination, often intersecting all three.
Read MoreThe Goddess Isis: Shedding and Becoming
In the beloved Egyptian myth of Isis, Isis searches for the scattered parts of her murdered husband’s body, resembles him, and breathes life back into him, and makes love to him, which then gives birth to Horus who becomes the next Pharaoh of Egypt. Isis shows us that taking the aerial point of view, or birds-eye-view, gives us the power to hold the tension between what is dissolving and what is emerging, to see the whole instead of only the parts, and to recognize our own agency in the potential for transformation.
Read MoreReassembling Rites: Piecing Together the Ancestral Bones
There is an archetype that weaves its way through many ancient myths and folktales that centers around the sacred work of recovering and reassembling what has been disassembled. This ritual of singing over the ancestral bones, honoring, mourning over, and reclaiming what has been buried or lost, is a devotional act. In these stories, grieving takes center stage and plays a transformative role allowing the folk-heroine or mythological heroine to reach a place of wholeness, aliveness, and joy again.
Read More