Hello Still Tender Ones,

Again, Big deep loving breaths. Here. Now. And later.

This might be the most potent, powerful and profound pod in this series…my whole body is still ringing from Carter’s audio offering. Wow…and if the story I shared on the last full moon stirred and touched you in some way, this deeper dive through Carter’s art and voice is a feast. If you are reading this before you listen to this episode a few things to know; these notes will refer to two previous post. The first is the story of the Cailleach at the End/Edge of the World which I told at the last full moon.

The second is a short episode just before this one you might want to listen to as an Introduction to Carter and this pod.

Thank you for your patience as I navigate the audio editing obstacles. My desire is to continue to offer the emergent collaboration podcasts on A year & a Day, and I just don’t know how that will work out. Until it does I shall be pivoting and making lemonade and swearing, maybe crying and for sure employing all my creative resourcefulness to find a way through. And the recording quality might suck…that will change.

And…starting with this post I’m asking now for dedicated patrons for upcoming episodes. If you would like to sponsor any of these episodes taking us through the end of this 13 month cycle. Suggested donation is $250/episode.

Upcoming pods in need of sponsorship, email me to arrange this [email protected]

* 2/1 - full moon in Leo

* 2/17 * new moon in Pisces

* 3/3 - full moon in Virgo

* 3/18 * new moon in Aries

* 4/1 - full moon in Libra

* 4/17 * new moon in Taurus

Thank you, thank you! And if you are a paid subscriber here on Substack, thank you! This experimental, experiential project is way under funded, and it’s still fully free to anyone who’s keen…and your support is wildly meaningful and helpful.

The transcript of Carter’s recording is below.

Thank you for your bright listening,

Love,

Tracy

Carter McKenzie (she/her) is a poet and activist, whose most recent collection of poems, The Book of Fire, published by above / ground press. Through imagined voices, often based on specific court cases, this chapbook is a remembrance and exoneration of the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563-1736. Of the nearly 4000 accused under that law, 84% were women and girls. These poems are a bridge between the living and the dead. They serve as a way to grieve and understand our connection to those whom the forces of the Reformation attempted to erase, as if they never were.

To order Carter’s extraordinary book, The Book of Fire, please email her directly at [email protected].

***

Carter McKenzie, speaking about the Cailleach, the Crone….

“I’m so glad to be joining Tracy for this focus on the Cailleach for A Year and a Day. Thank you so much for having me, Tracy. I’m going to begin by reading a poem that I wrote in response to Tracy’s telling of the traditional tale of the Cailleach in her cave at the end of the world.

I Am Not Alone Here

What stirs beneath my closed eyes

but a desire to attend to this

passage of dark and light.

Patience.

The moon’s face waning again, the soft shadow

erasure shaping light, my 62 years

in this field of earth and sky.

***

I believe in the possibility of a return of self

like the Cailleach at the End of the World in her black cave,

after the descent of the raven

while she was not looking, while she was stirring the elixir over the fire, the broth

the essence of every living thing,

What makes the grain, the deer, the stones,

she had almost let burn, so bound had she been in her weaving,

Her back now turned away from the loom,

the raven waiting for just this moment, bringing

ruin heaped

on the cold floor, a tearing. A tearing of her weave holding the world together,

the warp and weft

remembering the harvests, the birds and stags, the many grasses,

the green, golds, and earth red before the gray of winter, the mountains she had made,

and lichens and blossoms, heather tops,

breath of the tangible born upon the loom,

ravaged, no longer visible.

***

Yet the thread

she found through grief,

the crimson light of it. She held

the loss in her hands, the thread

reflecting fire. She held it up in the light among the shadows,

a way of making

a way within her, she didn’t know she had.

*** from The Book of Fire by Carter McKenzie (order directly via her at [email protected])

This poem about the Cailleach, the goddess of winter, who must remake that which has been torn to pieces when she looked away, is placed at the end of my collection of poems in the chapbook of poetry, The Book of Fire, published by Above Ground Press in 2024. It is a collection of poems dedicated to the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act that was passed in a reformation parliament in 1563 and finally repealed in 1736. During that time, nearly 4,000 people were found to be accused of witchcraft. 84% of those people, at least, were women and girls. This is just in Scotland. There were hunts going on as well in other parts of Europe. And the percentage of women was similar there too. In this case, Scotland had the highest number of people accused during that time of anywhere in Europe and the British Isles. And so this was a female crime, this crime of witchcraft. And two-thirds, it’s estimated, were found guilty. And since it was a capital offense, those found guilty were mostly executed. Their bodies burned after the people had been strangled, or sometimes people burned alive. So mostly there are no graves.

I wanted to bring attention to this history, which I had not known anything about until I found about the story of Lilias Adie, who died while imprisoned under accusations of witchcraft in Fife in 1704. That story became known because a forensic artist had created an image of her face based on a photograph of her skull that was on exhibit at a university in Scotland before it was stolen, the last of her bones disappearing. It was that story that became the portal for me to write these poems for these people, mostly women, for those whose lives were considered to be worthless and expendable, and it seemed right to close the book with the Cailleach, seeing her weaving torn to pieces and then finding a way to begin again, to close the book with her energies. Because though she is known as the Queen of the Dark months of Winter, she does also have the qualities of protection. And it’s that duality that really draws me to her.

I wanted to think about that and share those thoughts with you today because it is about, what is expressed in a Scots word, smeddum, smeddum, S-M-E-D-D-U-M, which is resilience and resourcefulness, and a lot of the women who were accused of witchcraft had smeddum. Smeddum was not a good thing in a patriarchy for women to have. It caused them to be troublemakers, perceived troublemakers. And the Cailleach certainly is connected to that energy.

Also, I want to say that most of those accused in Scotland were in their 60s, late 50s. Most of them were not young. Most of them were not very, very old, but they were in the age of an older woman, an older woman’s tendency to say what she thinks. So the Cailleach, again, is representing that time of life for a woman that is not respected in a patriarchy, that is disdained in a patriarchy. All you have to do is look up the word hag and find out just how much hostility there is to an older woman, as we know our society to be, because patriarchy continues. So I wanted the Cailleach, the idea of what had been torn apart, to come to her own strength and hold these stories for a renewal, a remaking.

As I look at the word Cailleach, I think it’s important to think about the root meaning. And Cailleach in Old Irish means the veiled one, the hooded one. And if you go back further, there’s a relation to the Latin word for cloak. So she is the cloaked one. She is the veiled one. And I feel that veil is connected to her duality. She is clearly a fearsome goddess, an old, old goddess, a queen of the winter, a queen of the departure of the greenness and lushness, a departure of the flowers for the stark outlines of things. But she is not just old, she is of a lineage that has witnessed the beginnings and endings of world after world. She holds both the terrible weather, and protectiveness of the wild, because she is a protector of the wild. She’s a protector of deer in particular. She is also in the final sheaf of corn at harvest time. Her powers are there, assuring fertility for the following harvest while marking the winter that is approaching. She is a warning of that winter. And as I envision her through the stories, I see her ferocity.

In Scotland she is described as having one eye, long white hair, teeth the color of copper, skin that is blue or stone-colored. And she comes for Samhain, November 1st, the beginning of the Celtic winter, and rules the land until Imbolc, which may have its root meeting as in the belly, which is about regeneration, and new life in the belly, which happens on February 1st on St. Bridget’s Day.

She is a giantess. She’s a witch. She is a hag. She is the creator of Alba, of Scotland. She sits on Ben Nevis, throughout the winter, keeping an eye out for Brigid, the arrival of Brigid, the Queen of Summer. And some think of her as the other face of Brigid, but certainly Brigid cannot exist without the Cailleach.

And in the summer months, she washes her plaid in the sea, creating the whirlpool of Coryvrecken, the cauldron of the plaid, a deadly whirlpool. So I think of this presence as anything but reductive, anything but little old lady, and I am drawn to her unapologetic strength that is unapologetically paradoxical.

And I think that even after decades and decades of courageous feminist work, we’re still stuck with patriarchy. And we are still, I believe, I will speak for myself, I still struggle with being unapologetic in my strength. I’ll just speak for myself. And it troubles me that we cannot talk about anger as a valid energy. It has been talked about that way. It has been expressed that way. And there have been different ideas of how anger is alchemized. And I’m not talking about destructive reactionary behavior. I’m just talking about true feeling. I think anger in women has bothered the patriarchy more than anything.

So I believe, I realize as I think about this, that the recovery that the Cailleach experiences in her cave at the end of the world comes from the strength of her duality, which is, you might say, a kind of love, as well as fierce anger, that is in that grief to see what raven did for no other reason than it could. All that she had created shredded to bits. I think that her duality enables her to hold the grief and to find that bright thread that she extracts from the ruin to make again. And it comes from herself, from her smeddum.

I believe this is a phase of life that I am in, being 65, coming through a year in which there was a lot of creative work, shared, and made, and also a year of rupture. For me, a rupture in terms of health. I’m grateful I’m healing, but two major injuries involving a lot of broken bones. Okay, so when I read a tearing, a tearing, I feel my bones tearing. But I’m healing. It’s just I didn’t expect that. And who knows what grief is behind those injuries? I also have lost my father, who died in December. And I know he would not understand this conversation, which pains me to say. I don’t think my mother can understand this conversation. She would try. But there are just so many negative associations. It’s scary if you haven’t thought about it, if you don’t have an example of how those words have been reduced to pejoratives from original, great energy. Words like crone, oh, does that ever make people shudder? Words like hag, of course. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s horrible. No example for how this came to be. Just like the word witch. How things became demonized, not in the dark ages, but during the early part of the Renaissance. In fact, misogyny is a word rooted. It became a term in the Renaissance, used by women who were furiously fighting, being defamed. That was in mid-17th century. It’s not a contemporary term or idea. It’s just been watered down. It’s been made apolitical, but in fact, it is political. I recommend the book, Down Girl, the Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne, M-A-N-N-E, who argues that sexism, is a branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order. And misogyny is distinct as the system that polices and enforces its governing norms and expectations. That’s on page 20. Watch out if you don’t follow those governing norms and expectations. That’s still true. We know this. We know the system of misogyny is quite active, as it was during the times of the witch hunts. Manifested differently, but active. We can thank our Supreme Court for ensuring that continuation of misogyny when it voted, when the Senate voted in a 50-48 vote to accept Brett Kavanaugh as a member of the Supreme Court in 2018, despite sexual assault allegations by Christine Blasey Ford and others. She herself was persecuted for telling the truth of her experience while he was rewarded. And in her persecution, she had to hide. She had to take her children and go into hiding. And as of 2024, she still needed security.

And I’m also thinking of the overturning of Roe versus Wade by the Supreme Court. June 24, 2022. And I’m also thinking about the just-released posthumous memoir by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, which is about how she was targeted by Epstein and Epstein’s accomplice, Maxwell ( Ghislaine ). A woman who used her gender to lure girls and to trick girls into thinking that they were safe with Epstein, which is repellent. It is to me. This book has sold already. It came out in September of this year, and it sold over a million copies. And though Virginia did not survive, She committed suicide this past spring. She wanted this book to be in the world, and her voice is strong in the book. And it was written for the future, for our future daughters, and for anyone of any gender who is targeted by the patriarchy that relies on a rigid, hierarchical, bi-gender rule for its power. So if you haven’t read that book, I encourage you to find it and read it. It’s difficult, but it’s important.

And as I talk about all these things, I feel a rage. I feel a rage that so much has been permitted that so many people have looked away, that so many have said nothing when they’ve seen conditions and situations in which girls were being targeted. Where did all those girls come from? So, I feel that rage is very connected to love. It is, in fact, what enabled me to write the poems about the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act, whom I read about in court cases that were organized and researched by a very important research program in Scotland, the Scottish Witchcraft Survey. It’s based at the University of Edinburgh. And I remember after giving a reading in Portland from this book, someone asking me, how could you stand the pain? How could you be with these stories that are so difficult? How could you sustain that attention? And my answer was my anger. My anger that they had been treated this way, that they had been forgotten, or at least that It was presumed that they would be forgotten. That was how I got through. That was how I took the tearing and the tearing, and that was the bright thread. That was a way of transforming the fire that is a fire of destruction and terror into a fire of medicine. I see that as duality connected to the Cailleach.

When I was 28 years old, I came across a book by Adrienne Rich called A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Thus Far. I was in Midtown Manhattan, I had just moved to that area with my then husband. And I’ve never heard of Adrienne Rich. I don’t know how that happened, but I hadn’t. I was 28 years old. But I picked this book up from a dusty bookshelf, just a slender book, and read it from beginning to end. And then again and again, and came upon a poem that is one of my favorite poems from that book. It’s called Integrity. And in that poem, there is a stanza about anger and tenderness. not as polarities-- and I’m paraphrasing here from memory-- not as polarities, but as angels, both part of the speaker, who in the poem is in her 49th year of life. And that spider is teaching like the spider. She is learning, I should say, to both weave and spin at the same time. She’s learning her capacity through this duality to both weave and spin from her own body. And that includes taking care of the burning of her own skin with salve from her own hands. And I just wanted to remember those words, that poem. Again, it’s called Integrity, and you can look it up. And it is in the book, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. And I think that is the cardiac for me, in a sense, a wild patience.

Finally, I want to close with remembrance of a woman whom I wrote about, and for whom there is a poem in my book, Book of Fire. Her name I brought up before Lilias Adie. She was accused by her neighbors in her small village in Fife of witchcraft. And the officials were eager to follow through on these accusations by drunken neighbors. So she was imprisoned. And as was the practice, she was interrogated by the men of the Kirk, the men of authority. And she was tortured. One of the ways that they would extract answers from the people they imprisoned to quote unquote prove the guilt of witchcraft was to keep people awake. They didn’t consider that. The law didn’t consider keeping people awake torture, but of course it was. And that was one of the ways she was likely suffering. But what they wanted from her were new names. They wanted new names of people who were allegedly witches. And according to the records, she did not give new names. She gave names, but not new names. She refused. And I wanted to remember her for her courage in the midst of her loneliness, that she had an agency that allowed her to be true to her own integrity. And I wanted to encourage us, may we never face such a situation, but that we can bear witness, we can have integrity, we can use our rage for love. And I think she did that too. Blessings on you all. this new year. And thank you for listening.”

Thanks for reading A YEAR and A DAY! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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Big deep loving breaths. Here. Now.

As I drop a few words here this cold, cold northern morning, holding my body and my heart, i am acknowledging the terrible-terrible and the tender-tender in deep play in me, and in the collective of us. i am tending to my human and remembering i am also part of the larger, unfathomable something…

Everywhere there are words spilling as everything comes undone. Words as pleas, as poems, as calls to action, as prayers and as accusations. Words as sepulchral spin, and words dug from stars’ poetry and clay’s prose speaking to the what is, and what might be, in these unpresented and tangled times.

I am mostly speechless, except to coo with my sweet black tabby, Lady Fern. Speechless except for the sounds of sobs, that i am allowing to gush and spill, and radiating permission for you, for us all to do the same. i am mostly speechless like the silence that only the frozen northern lands know. Is this too the Crone’s voice?

This short pod post serves to untangle and bring present a few threads.

* Acknowledging us, together and alone at this time in the ongoing, in the deep dark of not knowing and in the colossal ruptures near & far.

* a reminder to give yourself and others space for feelings to come, and feel what you are ready to feel and that we can (awkwardly, unwillingly & messily) practice sitting in the discomfort of what is present. This I know from my own awkward attempts for many, many decades…and the acknowledgment that when i can feel and lean into the intense discomfort of being human, there is almost always, eventually, a clearer space and path on the other side toward action (even if it’s a nap) and an easing of discomfort. Those of you that have worked with me know the energies of alchemy; downward, inward, upward & outward.

* to share a short Cailleach story from the Isle of Harris, Scotland,** and

* to introduce my dear friend Carter McKenzie who’s deep emergent collaboration will be shared on the new moon episode. Due to tech stuff I will not introduce Carter in the podcast and the recording quality may be extra raw…I am exploring options to do better with this - thank you for your patience and please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Thank you for your listening, for your tears, rage (etc) and your presence. If you’ve read & listened this far, here’s a potent song ally to sing today, a song by Minneapolis song leader, Sarina Partridge, This is a Wave.

May we feel what we are ready to feel.

Loving us,

Tracy

Here are a few verified ways you can help folx now in Minnesota, feel free to drop more in the comments!

CAIR Minnesota

UNIDOS MN

ISUROON

Carter McKenzie (she/her) is a poet and activist, whose most recent collection of poems, The Book of Fire, published by above / ground press. Through imagined voices, often based on specific court cases, this chapbook is a remembrance and exoneration of the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563-1736. Of the nearly 4000 accused under that law, 84% were women and girls. These poems are a bridge between the living and the dead. They serve as a way to grieve and understand our connection to those whom the forces of the Reformation attempted to erase, as if they never were.

To order Carter’s extraordinary book, The Book of Fire, please email her directly at [email protected]

** The story of the Cailleach Sqair was shared by Norman MacLeod and retold with his permission. More about The Hebridean Folklore Project here.

Get full access to A YEAR and A DAY at allheredwellfree.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, hello! Welcome here to this full wolf moon episode of A Year & a Day. Wishing you and your loves all the blessings possible as we move into a new year.

To ease and peace.

To fire in the belly and birch syrup in the heart.

May the World Tree, Yggdrasil root in your pelvic bowl, rise through your heart and flower 10,000 blossoms in your mind. May we feel, see, hear & know what we are ready to feel, see, hear & know and may we each dig deep for courage as an antidote, a balm to all the fear, sorrow and grief. May our grief be clean.

Thank you for your bright listening!

Tracy

** image by Elena Ray

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Welcome, at long last to Crone Season on a A Year & A Day! To the new moon in Sagittarius and the threshold of the Winter Solstice… or Summer Solstice for you in the southern hemisphere.

If you’ve been journeying with us these many months exploring the seasons of women’s lives through storytelling & emergent collaborations honoring the Maiden, Mother and the Magah phases - thank you for your precious attention here. Thank you for your bright listening!

If you are new here, welcome and looking back since last spring (2025) here’s where we’ve been.

As we move into full-on winter here in the north & middle of America, the cold bite and dynamic silence of Crone is alive. She is the foundational weaver of life and cultures throughout time have bowed to her power and her unapologetic truths. In some culture she IS the land. Her names are many, including; the Morrigan, the Cailleach, Skuld, Baba Yaga, Dhumavati, Kali, Yamauba, Hecate, Nyx and Baubo.

She embodies lived wisdom born of the tender culmination of one’s life experience and the robust maturation of the magic of the Mage/Magah phase. The Crone’s initiating experience is death, in the way that menarche/first blood is to the Maiden, birth is to the Mother, and Menopause is to the Magah.

Her season offers us rest, contemplation and if we are willing sweet releasing of the material and the worldly. The Crone can open us into greater connection with spirit and the delicious dreaming of winter. The veil between this world and the next thins for the Crone, and for us in Crone season, if you are willing to soften and slow down. She is Mighty, Mighty!

Wherever you are in your cyclical journey, what might leaning into the gifts of the Crone feel and look like for you now?

Joining me on this new moon in yummy, big vibe Sagittarius is my dear friend, and healing guide Cielle Backstrom. I listened back to our recording I’m blown open in awe of the richness that rises up from this emergent collaboration. Cielle’s wise gifts truly opened the field of her Crone’s unwavering presence..

More below about Cielle, and also a link to Jackie Singer’s gorgeous new musical offering, Songhold, which launched earlier this month. Jackie joined me at last month’s new moon pod!

Thank you for your bright listening and every blessing to you in this Solstice season.

Please help spread the word and work of A Year & A Day and consider becoming a paid subscriber!

Deep bowing to our winter dreaming,

Tracy

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Cielle Backstrom lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and supports folks on the path of embodied awakening. Her awakening in 2003 opened multiple inner doorways revealing just how “whole” life is and the huge range that it includes. This led her to study several tools which she uses as aids to assist her students on their path of awakening. These tools include compassionate listening, Focusing, Breathwork and energy healing.

https://www.ciellebackstrom.com/

And, for more deep wisdom about this new moon portal connect with Dr. Mindy Nettifee’s new moon post.

Image by Elena Ray. _/\_

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Dear Ones Who Cycle with their Womb, with the Moon, with the Sun, with the Earth,

Welcome here to A Year & A Day - a 13 month journey into the cycles and seasons of women’s lives through storytelling & emergent collaboration!

This morning at -9 F the north beaming full cold moon was magnificent, tangled and hanging in the branches of a maple tree. Go deeper into this last full cold Gemini moon of the year, with Mia Hetenyi’s offering at Dreaming Awake.

Since last spring here at A Year & A Day we have been cycling through the wheel of the year with the archetypal & energetic seasons of women’s lives; Maiden, Mother, Magah/Mage, which we are just cycling out of and moving into Crone! To learn more about the mysterious and shapeshifting phase of the Magah, listen here.

Usually full moon posts feature a retelling of a traditional story, connected in some way with the archetypal phase we are in. We are mixing it up here for this full moon post with a powerful harvest of stories from women in my life. Women who are in their perimenopausal or post menopausal phase. Take your time here, lean in to the precious wisdom, vulnerability and strength here…

Below are a few nuggets of wisdom and inquiry.

Warmest wishes and thank you for your bright listening.

Tracy

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Word offerings:

Cielle: “ I am now in my Crone years and it has been important to listen to other women share their experiences of the phases we go through, as well as for me to reflect on my own. Often I think the phases of maiden, mother and Mage in my life don’t make a good story because the phases for me have been simple. Yes , I have experienced each phase as unique but each has been easy compared to many others. I am grateful for the relative ease.

Here is an example. A menopausal friend has had hot flashes for about a decade. They frequently cause her to change her clothes 3 times a day. Her temperature swings are so extreme. I used to think she was really into fashion and changed clothes frequently in the day to match the mood of what she was doing. But really it is mostly about extreme bodily temperature fluctuations.

For me, menopause only brought occasional “ warm waves”. I think I had a total of 3-4 what I called “Oh my God” hot flashes. I know women who have “Oh my God” hot flashes several times a day for years. I have menopausal friends who experienced rather extreme vaginal thinning and drying. I have had that but only very minimally. At one point i wondered if i might need hormone replacement therapy because I felt my energy levels were low. I discovered that the best wat to increase my energy was to get more hours of sleep.

I think in many ways my relative ease in the adjustment to menopause is less common . So many woman are thrown off by this phase of life. I realize it is important for me to share my experiences even if they are not remarkable. “

Anna Lisa: “ Nothing about my life is the same. I can’t even wear the same jewelry. I stopped putting up with b******t as I entered perimenopause and God just everything is different. As a young woman, I remember being judgmental about older postmenopausal women who had changed their names. But now I get it, nothing is the same, they felt like a totally different person, and so they needed a new name for the transformed identity. “

Julie: “ One thing I’m sitting with and am challenged by as I move further into perimenopause is what I call my “Virginia Woolf complex” — this want for room/space/solitude/rest of my own amidst the tensions and demands of mothering/partnership/family/modern life… it can feel maddening at times. I am wondering how do we bring our husbands/partners/children/families along on this cyclical journey in a healthy way?”

MAGE BIOS:

Elizabeth Jane Lovely is an artist whose experimentation encompasses the written form, oral storytelling, ceremonial chant, and spell speaking, through ritual interaction. She is a Creative Arts Doctoral Researcher at Loughborough University and an English Cunning Woman of sorts. Her specialisms within and without the academy are centred around how we can cause kindly disruption through enchantment, the story as the activist, the essentiality of our bodily state as gateway to sacred creativity, and everyday imagination as change maker. She currently lives in the United Kingdom in a tiny county that does not always exist, regularly having to negotiate with the brambles and briars to access the rest of the human world. More at Elizabeth Jane Lovely and https://www.elizabethjanelovely.com

Anna Lisa Clifford Gold lives in Fairfield, Iowa.

Jackie Singer is a shamanic artist. She uses her singing voice for healing in one-to-one sessions and through songs and chants. ‘Songhold’, her forthcoming album of original sacred music is out on 4th December. As a storyteller, she has performed in many settings, and recently toured “Rhiannon Unbridled”, a one-woman show funded by Arts Council England. Originally trained as a Drama and Movement Therapist, Jackie is a celebrant and author of the book ‘Birthrites – Rituals and Celebrations for the Child-Bearing Years’. Now in her 50s, Jackie lives in Oxford, UK, with her husband, two teenage daughters and two cats. More here: www.jackiesinger.co.uk and also https://jackiesinger.bandcamp.com

Nina Smock lives in the Iowa Driftless Region

Kerri Kirnan - is an herbalist living in Eau Claire Wisconsin https://www.etsy.com/shop/RiverPrairieHerbs

Tracy Chipman (she/they) is a generator & connector, weaver of language & healing. She is a poet and an author, who feels most alive in the wilds, discovering through emergence & intuition and when gathering with womyn folx. She resides in the traditional territories of the Ojibwe peoples, near Lake Superior in Northern Wisconsin. www.tracychipman.net

Written offerings by:

Cielle Backstrom lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and supports folks on the path of embodied awakening. Her awakening in 2003 opened multiple inner doorways revealing just how “whole” life is and the huge range that it includes. This led her to study several tools which she uses as aids to assist her students on their path of awakening. These tools include compassionate listening, Focusing, Breathwork and energy healing.

https://www.ciellebackstrom.com/

Anna Lisa Clifford Gold - see above

Julie Hill is an educator, artist, and writer who lives in South Minneapolis.

**image by Elena Ray & sound support by Tim Britton.

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Big Blessings of this soulful, sea changing, new moon in Scorpio. Are you feeling it my dears?

Greetings and hello! Welcome to A Year + A Day, a salty/sweet 13 month journey illuminating the cyclicity of women’s lives through storytelling & emergent collaborations.

This gorgeous watery new moon in Scorpio (with a kiss from Mercury) IS a soul soaking, delicious hot mess for mystical transformation and an opportuning for some serious shedding of the gnarly, glomming s**t (i.e. deep wounds!) that just isn’t yours/ours anymore! Whoop! It’s time.

If you want to intentionally get down and tango with this chthonic new moon for collective and personal transformation lean in to a few of my favorite Oregon based astrologers: Marina Ormes and Dr. Mindy Nettifee for a deeper dig. Now is the star-aligned time to dig deep!

For this new moon episode my dear friend and colleague Jackie Singer and I sat down for virtual tea and a chin wag about the messy, mystical middle of the Magah/Mage phase.

Jackie and I met in 2018, in The Red Alachigh ( Red Tent ) with an ancient stone relief of Sheela Na Gig at the very first Oxford Storytelling Festival. Over the years we have played, collaborated and helped to midwife each others’ creative projects in the world. Tis a beautiful thing feeling the solid net of support from fellow creative women folx at any stage in life, and for me, particularly so when birthing creative work into the world in the middle of my life. Deep thanks for Jackie’s support over the years!

Just a few weeks back, for the second year in a row, Jackie and I offered Open Your Ear to the Great Below, a women’s retreat diving deep into the Sumerian myth of Inanna through mythic embodiment, somatic experiencing and community connections. If you are curious about this potent epic myth, have a listen.

Here, in this episode are going deeper into Magah/Mage/Matriarch season. She is the mystical, composting, shape shifting terrain in between (and sometimes including) The Mother and The Crone archetypes. We reference the story I told at the last full moon, The Cauldron of Inspiration. In a number of languages the word Maga(h), NOT MAGA, means sorceress, witch, and the feminine aspect of the magician….

Some of the juicy breadcrumbs Jackie and I followed in our emergent collaboration, where we truly had no idea where the conversation might go, are:

* How language and words hold new meaning as we move into post menopause.

* A deeper fertility -the womb as cauldron, as power beyond a vessel of procreation.

* The creative distinction & power through lived experience of being in the Magah phase.

* The gifts of renewing our not knowing.

* The messy middle of trusting inner guidence, intuition & wider, deeper cycles.

* Living into less rules and more permission!

And if you’ve read all the way down here, thank you!!! Your attention here is what pulls me back month after month saying, yes, let’s..

As you know, for now, this Substack is a free offering…this is sooo so important to me, and wow, sometimes it just caves my head in to navigate all the logistics, tech and the energetic integrity of pulling this off cycling with the moon, each month.

Having a another two handfuls of paid subscribers would truly make such a difference in keeping this accessible and relatively sane. Please consider support this creative, intuitive, women centered, transformation focused endeavor. Mo amount is too small. Thank you for being here, being human in the whole glittering mess of life!

Please read on to learn more about Jackie and her work in the world and an upcoming virtual workshop with cultural architect Adriana Forte in early December.

About Jackie:

Jackie is a shamanic artist, musician & storyteller. She uses her singing voice for healing in one-to-one sessions and through songs and chants. ‘Songhold’, her forthcoming album of original sacred music is out on 4th December. As a storyteller, she has performed in many settings, and recently toured “Rhiannon Unbridled”, a one-woman show funded by Arts Council England. Originally trained as a Drama and Movement Therapist, Jackie is a celebrant and author of the book ‘Birthrites – Rituals and Celebrations for the Child-Bearing Years’. Now in her 50s, Jackie lives in Oxford, UK, with her husband, two teenage daughters and two cats.

Check out Jackie work through these online portals:

www.jackiesinger.co.uk

www.thehummingbirdlodge.com

https://www.facebook.com

https://jackiesinger.bandcamp.com

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Join us and go deeper into the gifts of the Magah…

MYTH, MAGIC & THE MAGAH

– An Emergent Virtual Workshop for Women of peri-menopause/menopause age or beyond.

With Adriana Forte & Tracy Chipman

December 2 | 6 – 8:30pm CST

December 3 | 11- 1:30 pm Sydney Time

Come with us and go deeper into the wisdom of The Magah/Mage/Matriarch archetype with Cultural Architect, Adriana Forte and Storyteller & Somatics Practitioner, Tracy Chipman for Myth, Magic & The Magah. Together in community we will explore this transformational, liminal and often inexplicable archetypal phase.

This women’s emergent workshop will be a weaving of your presence with Adriana and Tracy’s shared passions & gifts around the mysteries of The Magah through women’s cyclical wisdom, storytelling, self inquiry, ritual and somatic practice.

Join us live and/or receive the recording. Space is limited to keep things intimate. More info and to register here

Last words:

from time to time, I need to call in the audio editing skills of sound master Tim Britton. So big thanks for Tim skill and also his conscious bright witnessing of the raw material of these post. This is too is a gift!

Thank you for your bright listening,

Love & gratitude in all directions,

Tracy

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Full Beaver Moon Greetings Dear Listeners….

The faded rose, the deadheads of zinnias, the browning, descending, dissolving of what was once full bloom and vibrant with life. The Wheel of Life is turning, the Magah/ Mage reigns, cycling with the moon, the sun and the rhymicity of mystery itself.

In these times there are unthinkable ruptures to witness, old, old, wounds - personal & collective to tend to. The Mage can remind us to heal, feel & know what we are ready to heal, feel & know.

Welcome here to A Year & A Day, a 13 month journey through storytelling and emergent collaborations exploring the cycles of women’s lives.

This full moon story - The Cauldron of Inspiration has us roving through the ancient lands of Wales with Cerridwen - a mythic Goddess, Sorceress/Witch and in some retellings a historical person from the north of Wales.

Some sources say the story is connected to the Mabonogi - a collection of Welsh prose stories, compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12-13th centuries from oral tradition. Some sources say the myth is not part of the Mabinogi. For now, let’s stay in the mystery of it, for how Mage is that?

In the story, Cerridwen holds both Mage and Mother roles creating some delicious contradictions which is again so very Mage.

Here are a few prompts/reflections to explore after listening, once, or twice or more times as a portal to deepen into your life through the deep time magic of this retelling.

Where are you witnessing, tending to what might need healing within you and beyond?

Imagine into how your way of being in the world would change might change if you tasted 3 drops of Cerridwen’s transforming elxir.

In what areas of your life are you, or are you not, practicing your arts of transformation?

Where are you in the story - which images charm and/or trouble you? That is a doorway….

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Thank you for your Bright Listening!

Gratitude in all directions,

Tracy

COMING UP at the next New Moon - an emergent collaboration with dear friend & colleague Jackie Singer.

post graphic by Elena Ray.

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Get full access to A YEAR and A DAY at allheredwellfree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings and welcome to A Year & a Day - a 13 month journey through the cyclicity of women’s lives through storytelling & emergent collaboration. With this New Moon in Libra post we are going deeper into the cookpot of the Mage, the Magah ( not MAGA!), the Matriarch.

Joining us again on A Year & A Day is Cultural Architect, Adriana Forte as we continue soaking in the gifts of this powerful, subtle & liminal archetypal phase.

If you are new to the phase of the Mage/Magah have a listen to Adriana’s post last month on A Year & A Day, and also the emergent collaboration with Judith Tamarah. Also here are the stories we’ve been weaving with in praise of the Magah: The Descent of Inanna & Fox Woman Becomes.

My whole body is still responding and integrating all the gold Adriana and i tapped into in our unscripted, non linear & lush dialog. Gratitude in all directions for Adriana’s offering here and her voice in the world!

Here are just a few of many, many the treasure spots we soaked in:

* The Matriarch is highly attuned to the realms, to the mysteries, to the portal of life and death, and all that kind of stuff that modernity has tripped us from.

* Part of the potency of Adriana’s work/passion is to help give some language to the inexplicable, subtle and changing qualities of this extraordinary (and disregarded for centuries) phase in women’s lives.

* How the phase of the Magah relates to the luteal phase of women’s menstrual cycle (though without the bleeding bit) and how this phase has been vilified and othered by modernity… Not really new info folx, just super validating to name it and allow it to be a portal for any grief that needs to come through and be felt.

* Being newly arrived into the Matriarch phase is the beginning of Elder Hood.

* The gravitational pull of the Mage’s energy, is lower in her body. Her intuition is really sharp, she’s in in the magic phase of reality and is more present to the veil’s thinning.

* This is the phase to tend to the brokenness within ourselves, our lives, our families, ancestors & communities (whew!) and Kintsugi ** it with compassion, healing and deep loving acceptance. The Mage can offer deep healing in the whole mess, in all directions. Hell yes!

If you feel called to lean deeper still into this soak with the Matriarch, Adriana and I are offering a delicious virtual offering in December with a 2.5 hour virtual workshop: Myth, Magic and The Magah.

Some of the details are still coming together. Here’s what we know now.

Date: December 2, 6-8:30 pm CST. Space is limited to 12 participants to keep things intimate and connective. Tiered pricing with 2 partial scholarships available. To learn more and/or express your interest - here.

Thank you for resting your attention here and please, please do share any experiences you have regarding this post and/or your journey in the realm of the Magah in the comments below. I love, love, love reading and bearing witness to your experiences!

And the very last bit - A Year & A Day remains a free offering, and while still very much a low budget endeavor, this project requires many, many hours of attention and energy. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. In fact as a wee incentive the first six folx who become founding members by the Winter Solstice 2025 will get a free 1:1 session of their choice (through story, embodiment practices, ayurvedic wellness, writing or a hybrid of three).

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

___

* through this exploration of the Mage, I will use multiple words to identify her; Mage, Matriarch and the especially loaded one, Maga(h) because each word carries its own subtle flavor of her shifting & mysterious nature.

** Kintsugi serves as a powerful metaphor for healing and personal growth, reminding us that our scars are part of our story. Each crack repaired with gold signifies a moment of overcoming adversity, making the object—much like ourselves—more beautiful for its imperfections.

Adriana Forte is a cultural architect, philosopher, and writer dedicated to bringing the cyclical nature of women’s minds into collective awareness. She aims to create spaces for provocative thinking, reflection and transformation through dialogue, writing, workshops, retreats, online group work, and one-on-one mentoring. Above all, she’s a mother to two amazing girls, a partner to an awesome guy, and an apprentice gardener living off-grid in a community in Australia. She is deep in process writing her first book. Stay tuned to all the details of that and to tap into some of her written work, please visit C-Lab.

Get full access to A YEAR and A DAY at allheredwellfree.substack.com/subscribe

Hey Changing Loves,

Spicy and potent full moon in Aries with chthonic Scorpio moving through Mercury. For more juicy downloads on the sky stories playing out, check out Dr. Mindy Nettifee’s page.

We are in the season of the Mage/ Matriarch here on A Year & A Day.

The world is shifting and changing in ways that confound, rupture and invite a stronger potential for liberation - whatever that might mean, in a long game non-time frame. It feels like the Void, the unknown looms larger than ever, like we are so close, the veil is so thin, the cracks are splintering, widening, and the terrible and miraculous so powerfully at play.

How is your heart? Can you lean into the Spirit beneath the tidal waves? Lean into the unseen? What action, consciously and intentionally, morally and whole (and half) heartedly can you take, speak, bloom into becoming? In this we are together - this Us-ness is more than human.

Wishing you & us ease in the dynamism of these times as we move into the composting season, into the long dark.

Enjoy this retelling of a tale i’ve been carrying for a spell, heard from a Dartmoor magician.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber and pass this story/message along.

May our eyes grow accustom to the darkness to better see. May our grief be clean.

Big thanks & bigger love,

Tracy

Thanks for reading A YEAR and A DAY! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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Welcome here to A Year & A Day and our 13 month journey into the seasons of women’s lives through story and emergent collaborations. This episode is an added wee bonus to our regular cycle of full moon/new moon posts and I’m beaming like the sun in delighted to welcome cultural architect, Adriana Forte back to A Year & A Day.

Her work, her vision and the gifts that she shares have been a huge influence on my cyclical journey, and also this 13 month exploration here on A Year & A Day!

Adriana joined me on AYAD in April sharing about the power of our cyclicity as we were moved into the Maiden phase and she has also contributed to the Gathering of Stories podcasts about Menarche and Birth Stories. Well worth checking out if you haven’t yet and revisiting if you have.

If you identify as being in the Mage/Matriarch phase - welcome!

If you will one day arrive into this phase of magic and power - welcome!

If you have a loved who is here - welcome!

And, if you are just curious, looking to go deeper in to the terrain of your life and/or are drawn to alchemy/transformation & healing - welcome!

Exploring Mage is my jam right now and it is the phase I’m in at this time of my life. And - I am just beyond excited to dig deeper here for a number of reasons (too many to list now) and…the Mage/Matriarch has a deeper mystery inherent in her and she is the season of change, of transformation, of magic, of healing and of a deeper more integrous power of the feminine. Power that once awakened is flowing to serve the collective. The Mage is no hero, or savior (in my experience) and she has the capacity, experience and alchemy within her to support deep collective shifts. Bring it on, bring her in!

Thank you for your bright listening and please consider becoming a subscriber, to keep this offering sustainable and accessible to all!

Much love,

Tracy

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

About Adriana:

Adriana Forte is a cultural architect, philosopher, and writer dedicated to bringing the cyclical nature of women’s minds into collective awareness. She aims to create spaces for provocative thinking, reflection and transformation through dialogue, writing, workshops, retreats, online group work, and one-on-one mentoring. Above all, she’s a mother to two amazing girls, a partner to an awesome guy, and an apprentice gardener living off-grid in a community in Australia. To tap into some of my written work, please visit :

To watch some of the conversations I’ve had that brought the cycle into culture, visit: https://www.youtube.com/@thec-lab/videos

Get full access to A YEAR and A DAY at allheredwellfree.substack.com/subscribe