Hello dear friends!

Today I’m sending out an epic and beautiful conversation I shared with tarot teacher Lindsay Mack on my podcast Fair Folk. If you enjoy the episode, please consider subscribing to Fair Folk on your podcast app (Eg. Spotify, Apple Podcasts) as I don’t often repost episodes here.

Some words of mine from the episode, inspired by a story Lindsay told about a moment with her daughter:

“When I think about going into “holding space” or waiting for something to happen, the fear in my body is that there will be an absence there, that I'll be lonely, that it'll be an abyss, that that nothingness will happen.

And that's never what happens.

But I think that's the scarcity, or fear of death that we all come into the world with, and is a part of human nature, but doesn't drive human nature. The story we've been told that everyone's just trying to win and it's human nature to be shitty and —I don't believe that at all. It's a terrible, confusing lie.

And I could give many examples from history, and I love to do that. We can talk about enclosure, we can talk about the Roman Empire. We can talk about the Bronze Age, the rise of hill forts, the Indo-European invasion, and mass migrations, displacement, resource scarcity, etc. All of those things are just occasions where this kind of logic comes through, the belief that scarcity is the organizing principle of life and that it's right to be in competition, or that there's some sort of necessity to win, to control.

The beautiful thing about actual radical empathy for the self and for the other, of real presence, is just that — it's always available. No one event, no culture can breed that out of the world. We're built for love more than anything else. We're standing on a ground that's built of the love of all of our human and non-human ancestors. The entire world is made of that drive to connect. And not just drive, but like longing and, and joy to connect. And that's where we live. So if spiritual empowerment is to happen, it can happen right now and always will and can.

It's just a matter of reminding one another, and showing up for one another, and in ways that are ever renewable. It might be a completely different shape in a different culture, or we could have another Ice Age and lose almost everything that we know and we would still invent a way of connecting, and it's glorious.”

Please enjoy this conversation, and if it inspires you, please share!

Love,

Danica

PS: Lindsay and I are co-hosting a three-hour workshop this Sunday to hold space for reclaiming the magic we all have access to, which arises from our embeddedness in the world. We would be delighted if you join us there. Click here to sign up!

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Hello and happy Easter!

Today I find myself serendipitously sharing a dawn-themed offering on the holiday named for the Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess Ēostre.

Last week I was in Northumberland at the Land of Singing Waters residential, at an stunning 11th century fortified manor house called Dunstan Hall. In a moment of group sharing on the first day of the gathering, a fellow with long flowing locks and a gentle voice who I now know as Marc Block (aka Blossom) piped up with this wildly moving singalong anthem, which he wrote for sharing at protests. Soon the whole room was vibrating with voices and a tangible sense of solidarity, and I immediately thought wow — more people need to have this song at their fingertips.

Not only is the tune incredibly catchy, but the lyrics resonate with a sentiment I’ve been meditating on lately, which I think is good medicine for this moment. That medicine is the reminder that time is not linear, and though our human and non-human ancestors have been through many, many hardships, and we face still more, their love is still here with us. Indeed it is the material that makes up this whole world. And we may suffer and we will die, but the story does not end there. We are still here. And our hearts are still ready with love to share. When we remember that love, we can remember that the dawn that always comes again.

I asked Marc if I could take a recording of the song and share it here. And he agreed! Thank you so much for your beautiful generous spirit, Marc!

The lyrics are below. I hope this song serves you well, whether you simply listen once, or take it in your pocket to stoke some love wherever your path may take you.

Dawn Till Dawn by Marc Block

Chorus (with chords):

D A D

From dawn till dawn, we survive

G D A

From dawn till dawn, we survive

G A D G

With hearts full of love, we care for each other

D A D

And from dawn till dawn, we survive

Verses:

In light and dark we survive…

In wind and rain…

In the heat of the sun…

Through freeze and fire…

From dawn till dawn…

Through drought and flood…

Through famine and flight…

From father to son / mother to daughter / brother to brother / sister to sister…

With grief and rage…

From dawn till dawn…

A note from Marc: Other verses can of course be added as anyone wishes to add them – there are many possibilities!

You can check out more of Marc’s beautiful work at his website.

Sincerely,

Danica

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Hello friends,

Today I’m looking back at how our human ancestors dealt with the problem of evil, asking, if there is an unconditionally loving divinity in the world, and “all things work out in the end,” then how is it that bad things happen to good people? And how is evil permitted to exist? I can’t personally offer a definitive answer (probably nobody …

Hello!

Today I wish to share with you a charm of protection, an excerpt from an Old Irish prayer attributed to Saint Patrick, whose feast day is coming up on March 17th. This prayer is said to have saved Patrick and his fellow travellers from ambush by making them appear to be a herd of wild deer followed by a fawn. This style of incantation is pre-Christian in origin, and called a “lorica,” which is Latin for “breastplate.” The idea is that by saying or singing the prayer one armours oneself with the powers of nature and divinity for protection from harm. The full song is called St. Patrick’s Breastplate and is a relatively well-known Christian hymn in English.

Here I’ve replaced the word “Christ” in the English translation of the prayer with “love” to make it more broadly accessible. You may like to listen more than once to this wee video to fully receive the transmission. If you want to sing the section I share here, it goes like this:

Love be with me, Love with­in me,

Love be­hind me, Love be­fore me,

Love be­side me, Love to win me,

Love to com­fort and re­store me.

Love be­neath me, Love above me,

Love in qui­et, Love in dan­ger,

Love in hearts of all that love me,

Love in mouth of friend and stran­ger.

Another verse of this song that really inspires me personally invokes the powers of nature explicitly and with some poetic heft. I didn’t change anything about this verse, as it’s already bursting with pagan sentiments:

I bind un­to my­self to­day

The vir­tues of the star lit heav­en,

The glo­ri­ous sun’s life giv­ing ray,

The white­ness of the moon at ev­en,

The flash­ing of the lightn­ing free,

The whir­ling wind’s tem­pes­tu­ous shocks,

The sta­ble earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eter­nal rocks.

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This is one of the songs that will be shared in its entirety (and recorded with a proper setup) in my upcoming saints course, Wonder Club. My partner Sam will accompany me musically in some of these recordings — and if you have heard any of Sam’s work with the Brothers Gillespie or elsewhere, you’ll be as pleased as I am about this special collaboration.

In other happy news, in case you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, I have recently released two new podcast episodes on Fair Folk, the first an interview with the Highland storyteller Dougie Mackay who shares a beautiful and moving story and prayer about wolf-human connection and rewilding, and the most recent a conversation with Polish Folk Witch Joanna Tarnawska, all about how saints can richly inhabit the spiritual lives of non- and post-Christians (like the two of us heretics.) I admit, I get pretty giddy about the subject matter in that episode! Joanna is such a treasure, and I just can’t buzz enough about wayside shrines.

It’s been such a pleasure to get back into sharing to Fair Folk more regularly again, though I admit it means I have been a few days behind in sharing my paid subscriber Q&A session for this month. But that means there is still time for one more question this month — what do you want to hear me speak about?

Wishing you safe and warm this early spring day,

Danica

PS: Wonder Club starts on St. Patrick’s day, this March 17th. Are you thinking of joining us in diving into the wonderful world of magic, miracle and devotion? Click here to learn more or sign up!

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Hello friends!

Today I’m sharing a little clip from last week’s Cave of Dreams workshop session, the Gates of Winter. It’s a guided visualization based on supernatural ballads and stories in which human beings enter the otherworld and interact with the beings there, such as fairies or elves. For context, at the start of the clip you’ll see that before this visualization we were singing the ballad Tam Lin together.

In many fairy and elf narratives, it’s clear that poetry and music and other creations are gifts from (and to!) the otherworld. Since Samhain is a time that the gates to the otherworld are said to be especially open, I thought I would invite folks to visualize entering a fairy mound, to find one of their own artistic creations already complete in that place, outside of ordinary reality.

All you need for this visualization is a picture in your mind of your achetypal cozy and comforting coat or cloak, since it will come up in the journey.

Please enjoy.

If you want to join us at the next workshop on November 10th, please get your ticket here!

An inspired Samhain to you.

Love,

Danica

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This week I had the pleasure of catching up with my friend Daniel Allison in a podcast episode that will appear both on my podcast, Fair Folk (check it out if you haven’t!) and Daniel’s, House of Legends. You can also listen right here.

The episode opens with Daniel telling the story of the god Lugh (after whom Lughnasadh is named) at the hall of the king Nuada, leading us into a discussion of how we might approach Lughnasadh folklore and mythology now.

Next, we share what each of us has been up to lately, especially emphasizing the role of pagan devotion in each of our work, and diving into the role of “permission” to embody sacred traditional culture. You can always find a gatekeeper somewhere out there, but you won’t find one in here. 💖

Daniel Allison and I will be offering a series of four monthly workshops together between September and December called Cave of Dreams. In these sessions we will share seasonal story, song, folklore and meditations, and hold space for participants to use these materials to generate creative work and reflection.

We are inspired by the gathering-in that occurs in the darkening months as a catalyst for deep and intuitive visioning, hence the title Cave of Dreams.

To get the details as soon as they are available, join the waiting list here!

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Hello friend,

I'm here today to wish you a beautiful solstice time, whenever it is you celebrate that in this week or so of ultimate daylight and shortest night.

I'm about to present at a festival called Cascadian Midsummer that's held outside of Olympia, and as I was reading the booklet for the festival that was created by my friend's publishing house called Hyldr, I came across a goosebumps-inducing piece inside written by Ilana Hamilton, a storyteller who lives in Portland, Oregon. Ilana does a lot of work with mythic and traditional material, sometimes texts from Old Norse.

This piece, Summer Solstice, was written to be read aloud at a midsummer or solstice bonfire. It isn’t published anywhere else, but she gave me permission to share it with you here. And I want you to have it simply so that you can read it and hear it for pleasure, but also so that, if you feel inspired to, you could take this to your own Midsummer ritual or celebration and share it with others.

I have attached the text below.

May the radiance of the sun fortify our human hearts these days of its ultimate power. May it awaken the burning in us to repair and defend all that is beautiful and valuable and sacred in this world.

Sweet solstice to you and yours,

Love Danica

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Welcome to my Substack, immigration makes me feel like a mammal, & where to find me this summer.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit enthusiastica.substack.com