Awaken Your Inner Wisdom with Cissi Williams

I always love connecting with Asha, so it was such a joy to meet up with her again and talk about her new book, The Inner Winter: Indigenous Wisdom for Slow Medicine, Rest and Renewal in Every Season.

Asha shares her journey of living with lupus, and how this chronic illness has pushed her into a long inner winter. Rather than trying to biohack or affirm her way out of it, she came to honour winter as sacred medicine, an initiation into rest, boundaries, and the wisdom of the wintering soul. 

She speaks of curing versus healing, and of embracing the wisdom of the crone, and she guides us on a gentle, and very healing, journey through the medicine wheel.

Asha Frost is an indigenous healer, oracle deck creator, mentor, mama and author of the bestselling book You Are the Medicine, and her latest book The Inner Winter: Indigenous Wisdom for Slow Medicine, Rest and Renewal in Every Season

She grew up on and currently live on Anishinaabe, Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee land. Her maternal and paternal lineage and relatives originate from many First Nations across Ontario, Canada (Turtle Island). She’s from the Crane Clan (Aji-jaak Dodem) and hold membership at Neyaashiinigmiig (Cape Croker) First Nation.

She believes that if you are drawn to Indigenous Medicine ways, that you too, have power and beauty in your own lineage waiting to be discovered.  

You can find out more about Asha on ashafrost.com

In this episode, I share one of my absolute favourite goddess myths: Inanna’s descent into the underworld. It is the oldest written story that exists, over 4,000 years old, and I absolutely love it, because it gives us a sacred map for how we can set off on our own underworld journey, so we can move through a deep soul transformation.

I go through:

• How Inanna’s story is mirrored in the sky by Venus, descending as the morning star and rising again, reborn, as the evening star.
• Why we must be willing to let go of our old ego identifications to enter the sacred darkness, as this is a journey of the soul, and not of the mind.
• How our ancient goddess myths act as keys that unlock the wisdom found deep within the mythical landscape of our soul. 
• Why it is our willingness to RECEIVE the light that allows us to move through our rebirth. 

I then guide you on a shamanic journey, where you descend through the seven gates (representing our seven chakras) into the underworld so you can move through a deep soul transformation. 

This journey is around 1hr long, and it starts at 18.17 (but do make sure you have listened to the talk beforehand, as it gives you the MAP of the journey, allowing you to heal more deeply).

The material in this episode is a mix of lectures from some of my online courses and shamanic trainings (on nordiclight.academy), and also from my book Your Heart Knows How to Heal You.

I absolutely love Colette, and have known her for close to twenty years now, so it was such a joy to hear the deeply shamanic journey behind her latest album My Dark Church.

In this conversation, Colette shares how a wild shamanic vision led her to meet a shark-toothed sea goddess, a goddess she later discovered was Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea. This meeting became a doorway into Colette's own healing, and, at sixty-eight, she has now reclaimed her inner artist.

This is a conversation about daring to step through the door before you feel ready, and trusting that courage will meet you there.

Colette Baron-Reid is a bestselling author, internationally acclaimed Oracle expert, spiritual intuitive, personal transformation thought leader, business strategist, artist, and educator, and the founder of The Oracle School Experience®, OraclePalooza® and the DreamQuest Platinum Mastermind.

Author of 19 best-selling Oracle card decks, with over two million sold worldwide and 7 books, Colette's greatest joy is teaching people they can have a direct and personal dialogue with the Universe to help them create their most fulfilling lives.

You can find out more about Colette on colettebaronreid.com. 

I love Sam Hadadi's writing on Substack, so I was delighted to connect with her more and talk about her book Hormone Goddess.

Sam shares how she journeyed to the depths of hell and back with her own hormones and health, and how that descent became the medicine she now offers other women. 

She speaks of how the luteal phase is like the rise of the Wild Woman, and how perimenopause and menopause are not a decline or a deficiency, but sacred initiations.

And throughout this conversation, Sam invites you to trust what you feel in your bones, rather than all you have been taught.

Sam Hadadi is an author, womb healer, somatic practitioner and women's health coach. Her greatest love lies in helping women to reclaim and remember their magic and power. You can find her on Instagram @the_hormone_goddess.

I have adored Denise for a very long time, so it is always such a blessing to be in her presence again.

This time we spoke about her latest oracle deck, The Mystical Garden, born from a near-death experience she had at seventeen, when she glimpsed a realm so real it made this world feel like the dream. She speaks so beautifully about how oracle cards are keys, where each one opens a door into a place where your deepest knowing already lives.

Denise also guides us on a magical journey into the Mystical Garden (starts at 19.06. The journey is around 9 minutes long).

Denise Linn’s spiritual journey began as a 17-year-old when she had a dramatic near-death, after being shot by an unknown gunman. Her life-changing experiences and remarkable recovery set her on a spiritual quest that led her to explore the healing traditions of many cultures, including those of her own Cherokee ancestors, the Aborigines in the Australian bush, and the Zulus in Bophuthatswana. She trained with a Hawaiian kahuna (shaman), and Reiki Master Hawayo Takata. She was also adopted into a New Zealand Maori tribe. In addition, Denise lived in a Zen Buddhist monastery for more than two years.

Denise is an internationally renowned teacher in the field of self-development. She’s the author of the bestseller ‘Sacred Space’ and the award-winning ‘Feng Shui for the Soul,’ and has written 19 books, which are available in 29 languages. Denise has appeared in numerous documentaries and television shows worldwide. She has taught in 25 countries and has been a featured guest on Oprah, Lifetime, Discovery Channel, BBC TV, NBC and CBS.

You can find out more about Denise on deniselinnseminars.com and Mystic Cafe Community here. 

In this episode, I speak with Gabriela Gutierrez, writer, researcher, poet, mythologist and scholar of ancient religion, to explore a theme very close to my own heart: the female shaman and the role of darkness.

Gabriela has spent years finding her way back to the old wisdom of our ancestors, through the living land, the body and the womb.

She speaks so beautifully of the darkness as a holy place of revelation, the womb of the Great Mother where new life is birthed into being.

It is a conversation that invites you to remember the deep wisdom that already lives within your own body.

Gabriela Gutierrez is a Spanish–Welsh writer, poet, mythologist, and scholar of ancient religion whose work explores the intersection of myth, ritual, and ecology. Her research is concerned with recovering the animistic worldviews that preceded institutional religion and asking how their ways of understanding the sacred might speak meaningfully to contemporary life.

You can find Gabriela on: Substack and at Instagram @honeyedways

What if the path home to the truth of who you are leads through the portal into the sacred darkness, where you set off on your own underworld journey, just like Persephone does at the Autumn Equinox?

I know Lina very well, and I have witnessed the soul transformation she’s gone through as she has walked the shamanic path, becoming a Shamanic Seidr Magic Priestess and Teacher of Shamanic Energy Medicine.

She shares so openly about her descent into the underworld, meeting her shadows, and the demons of patriarchy and the imbalanced feminine that had taken hold within her.

She speaks of the courage it took to stay in the darkness, and to finally say YES to the light within her.

She has transformed from the inside out, through having set off on her own shamanic journey into the underworld. She can now feel her soul's guidance through her body's deeper wisdom (sometimes in surprising ways 😊).

Lina invites us to be willing to be nailed by truth, because that is how we can come home to who we truly are, and to have the courage to descend into the underworld, so we can move through our own sacred soul transformation – just like Persephone does.

You can find out more about Lina on linalanestrand.se

Did you know that Persephone represents your soul, as she sets off on her underworld journey, moving through her own soul transformation, birthing a new expression of her soul's light?

In this episode, which is from a previous live webinar, I explore the sacred teachings of Demeter, Persephone and Hecate.

Our ancient goddess myths act like portals into the mythical landscape of our soul, into the domain of Spirit, as they speak to us at a deeper level.

This particular myth illustrates the importance of descending into the underworld, so we can move through a sacred soul transformation – and through doing that, we awaken an ancient feminine wisdom that has always lived deep within our bones.

In this episode I go through:

• The Wheel of the Year as a sacred map of descent and rebirth.
• The Tree of Life, and how we can heal our ancestral roots and access our deeper wisdom.
• The Medicine from the Dark Mothers and the Light Mothers and how both are needed for our wellbeing. 
• The Norse creation myth, and how it is a map for feminine awakening.
• The myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hecate, and its deeper meaning, including how Demeter represents the Mind, Persephone our Soul, and Hecate our Ancient Wisdom.

At the end, I also guide you on a shamanic journey with Persephone and Hecate, so you can awaken this ancient feminine wisdom within you. 

The journey begins at 40.53.

PS. If you would like to journey deeper with the Wheel of the Year, you are most welcome to join me on the online course Journey through the Wheel of the Year. You can find out more here.

Can you sense how there is this ancient feminine magic lying dormant within your bones, like an inner sleeping potential, just waiting for you to awaken her?

This is the topic of this episode, which is an interview Lina Lanestrand did with me, for her Goddess Summit, where I talk about the Norse Creation Myth of Fire and Ice, and how it shows us the sacred clues for how we can awaken this ancient feminine magic within us.

This is a feminine wisdom that embodies both the structural feminine, which is the power of ice, the feminine magic that holds our ancient witch consciousness that births new worlds into being – and the fiery feminine, which is the power of fire, the fire of our love. A fire that is the spark of creation that causes life to blossom and expand.

At the end of this episode I also guide you on a shamanic journey to two ancient wells: the Well of Love, which ignites the fire of our love, and the Well of Magic, which ignites the power of our structural feminine. And together, we also journey to the Cosmic Womb, so you can receive the light of something new. 

The journey begins at 43.38 (but do listen to the talk beforehand, as it gives you the MAP for the journey, allowing you to go much deeper in your own healing journey).

PS. If you want to journey even deeper into the mythical landscape of your soul, then you are most welcome to join me on one of my online courses or shamanic trainings where we dive deep into the wisdom found in shamanic energy medicine and ancient goddess myths, such as the new online course Awaken Your Shamanic Witch Priestess (read more here), and also the Shamanic Energy Medicine Practitioner and Seidr Magic Training (you can read more on nordiclight.academy).

The four elements of earth, water, air and fire are not just symbolic metaphors but living forces within our bodies and the Earth. 

Together they form a spiralling rhythm of descent, transformation and ascent, where we descend into the Earth and the Womb of the Dark Mother, held in her sacred birth Waters. We then breathe in the Air of new inspiration, which guides us into a rebirth through the sacred Fire – a fire that also gives us the energy we need so we can begin our journey of ascent.

In this episode, which is from my new online course Awaken Your Shamanic Witch Priestess, I share a short lecture on the four elements on how they live in the body, the goddess archetypes associated with each, and what we can do to be in balance with them.

And finally, I guide you on a shamanic journey where you connect with the elements of earth, water, air and fire - and as this journey is based on my osteopathic understanding of the body, it is filled with Shamanic Body Magic (journey begins at 14.10).

You can find out more about this new online course Awaken Your Shamanic-Witch-Priestess here. It starts on the Dark Moon, 10th of September, and you can benefit from the Early Bird Price until midnight on the Full Moon 26th of September.

PS. If you want to soak up even more Feminine Wisdom, then you are most welcome on our free online Feminine Wisdom Summit. Find out more here.