Awaken Your Inner Wisdom with Cissi Williams

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.

Your womb is far more than a physical organ – it is a sacred portal, a gateway between worlds, a cauldron of magic, transformation, creation, life and rebirth.

This is your seat of feminine magic, and in this sacred cauldron you find the gifts and medicine of the four feminine archetypes – Maiden, Mother, Queen and Crone.

Just as spring, summer, autumn, and winter each offer their own gifts and medicine to the land, our inner feminine archetypes bring their own gifts and medicine to us too.

These feminine archetypal presences live within every woman as inner wisdom keepers, guiding us to tune into the whispers of our heart and soul, so we can move through life in sync with the cosmic heartbeat of the Great Mother. 

The Maiden awakens and says YES to what lights her up. The Mother creates and births her dreams into being. The Queen claims the throne of her sovereignty and chooses with discernment what she gives her time, energy and focus to, and the Crone is the sacred elder who walks between worlds, holding the ancient codes of life, death and rebirth.

In this episode, which is from my new online course Awaken Your Shamanic Witch Priestess, I share a short lecture on these four archetypes, and then I guide you on a shamanic journey to meet your inner Maiden, Mother, Queen and Crone (journey begins at 12.05).

You can find out more about this new online course Awaken Your Shamanic-Witch-Priestess here.

Freya’s name means Our Lady, and the deepest root of her name means to love. 

She carries the golden light of our soul – the magical fire of love that is the essence of all creation.

She is the witch in the Völuspá who was burned and reborn three times; and as she rose from the fire, she became the First Völva, the one who embodies the power of Seidr Magic. She then travelled the world, teaching the women Seidr, so they could awaken their inner feminine magic too.

In this episode, which is from my new online course Awaken Your Shamanic Witch Priestess, I share a short lecture on Freya, and then you go on a shamanic journey with Freya, igniting the Fire of Love in your heart (journey begins at 6.12).

It is this Fire of Love that is the compass the Shamanic-Witch-Priestess follows, so it becomes her guide, showing her where to go, what to do, what to say and to whom.

You can find out more about this new online course Awaken Your Shamanic-Witch-Priestess here.

Did you know that there is an ancient feminine wisdom wired into your DNA, held in your mitochondria, which has been passed down from mother to daughter, generation after generation, for thousands of years? A living, golden thread that connects you, right now, to the Ancient Mothers of your maternal bloodline.

In this episode, drawn from the introduction to my new online course Awaken Your Shamanic Witch Priestess, we journey into the sacred science behind this magic: how your mitochondria nourish, guide and protect you – like a Wise Mother from deep within – how your body is wired to receive the healing medicine from both the darkness and the light, and how our ancient shamanic traditions honoured this same feminine wisdom long before we had words for it.

We also follow the golden thread of feminine magic through time, past the distortion and silencing of the feminine, all the way back to the truth that was never truly lost – a truth that has kept flowing, like a Golden River of Feminine Wisdom, deep within the mythical landscape of our soul.

A truth that helps us remember that our ancient source of feminine magic is GOOD, and through this remembering our inner shamanic-witch-priestess awakens.

You can find out more about this new online course Awaken Your Shamanic-Witch-Priestess here.

In this shamanic journey you’ll release the fears that block you from being the light that you are. You’ll also move through a deep initiation, being burnt three times to the ground. Each time rising, reborn into the truth of who you are.

At the end of the journey, you’ll be meet the ancestral witch in your lineage, the Wise One, who will share her medicine and wisdom with you. 

This is a very powerful journey, which is around 50 minutes long.

This journey is from the book Your Heart Knows How to Heal You  (and to make the most of this journey, I recommend you read Chapter 7 in the book, so you get the MAP for this journey, and you also get to meet Gullveigr, the witch who was three times burnt, three times born – and how she is the Norse goddess Freya. 

You can find out more about the book on Amazon here, and also on my website here.