Rituals of Returning

May we draw inward to reflect.

May we confront our lives as they are.

May we treat ourselves with softness

and gentleness.

May we know peace.

I'm bringing Goddess Works out of retirement to share our weekly audio newsletters!

Print edition with accompanying links is here.

You can also find me:

• Creating goddess magic and community practice: ⁠Goddess Magic community⁠


• Offering free support for building devotional practices: ⁠#30DaysofGoddess⁠


• Writing weekly for my (free) newsletter: ⁠Creative Spirit Circle

We all deserve some of our own best.

This brief audio is a musing about daily practice and the best of ourselves. I have shared before that, for me, daily practice creates a reserve that you can draw upon to fuel the rest of your day. Daily practice also helps us acknowledge the wholeness and fullness of life in its realness and imperfection. Life doesn't always feel perfectly smooth and engaged and inspired and connected and creative and all those kinds of things, but creating a space every single day where you can feel your best and you can be your best is so life-renewing and so fulfilling. And, this sensation then filters into the rest of the day. I find that the more wholeheartedly I walk a path of devotion, the more all of those good aspects of practice filters into and extends into and expands into the rest of my life. At the very least, we all deserve at least some moments of our own best every day.

We all deserve some contact with the fullest expression of our own beingness in every single day, if at all possible. For me, that is what #30DaysofGoddess brings into priority/center. It has made it possible for me to experience some of my own best in every day.

Practice homepage: #30DaysofGoddess

NOTE: this is my last podcast episode here as I'm retiring this podcast effort to make room for new work in 2024.

You can find me:

• Creating goddess magic and community practice: Goddess Magic community


• Offering free support for building devotional practices: #30DaysofGoddess


• Writing weekly for my (free) newsletter: Creative Spirit Circle

“We live on a steady diet of the illusion that when we get everything done, then—and
only then—we will be able to relax and do some of those things we’ve
always wanted to do, both for ourselves and with those we love...”
—Anne Wilson Schaef, Meditations for Living in Balance

Do you feel fuzzy or uncertain? Sometimes it is important to sit with
those feelings and sometimes it is important to slice through them, to get clear and focused and to be assertive with your own powers of choice, action, and reasoned decision-making. Where are you having trouble making decisions or taking action? What needs your attention and focus?

This audio was originally created for a class called Everyday Magic and was later used in Living the Questions. I offer it to you now, during this season of going and doing, as an invitation to focus...or...to expand your vision, to let it go a bit fuzzy and uncertain as you pause.

NOTE: this audio was originally recorded in 2020 for our Goddess Magic community.

“It was excruciatingly easy to lose touch with the inner life of the soul. There was such a profusion of demand and complexity, so many to-do lists, the unceasing compulsion to accomplish something. When I read that the Chinese pictograph for busyness is ‘heart-killing,’ I felt the truth of that in my bones. In the midst of this struggle to care for my soul, I read Wordsworth’s poem, ‘The Prelude,’ in which he writes about ‘spots of time’ that nourish and repair the soul. I believe he was referring to brief, concentrated moments—little epiphanies—that inflame us with a sense of the holy. I began to search for spots of time here and there in my day. I found them by stopping. Just stopping....I began to ‘come away’ to a nook somewhere in the house or the yard where I would spend five minutes or less sitting still and receding into the quiet core of myself...caring for my soul turned out to be simply that—spots of time in which to be.”

—Sue Monk Kidd, Firstlight

This brief audio is about simple magic. I hope you find it interesting and supportive! (Note: I accidentally say "summer equinox" at one point instead of "summer solstice.")
I also wanted to share this quote from Yoga for Witches, which I reviewed here. 

 “In yoga class, I often remind my students that we can be peaceful and powerful, calm yet strong—all in the same breath. I think there is a peace to be found in the acceptance of all of these contradictory powers within us. Finding a way to stand within this unknown and unknowable. We are gloriously complex and contradictory in a world that loves boxes, snap judgments and 100% certainty. People may find this inability to define you uncomfortable, but this is a reminder that you do not owe anyone an explanation. Your rich inner world needn’t mean anything to anyone but yourself. A person can be called a witch for merely knowing, and for owning her knowledge. And to some, for strange reasons that may include fear, power, jealousy, a woman who ‘knows’ is dangerous indeed...Communicating *I am knowledgeable, powerful, and I can make choices about how I use these strengths...can be a real challenge to the status quo!”  

—Sarah Robinson, Yoga for Witches (p. 93)

May you feel centered
in your place of power.
May you know you
have this wholeness
to draw upon when needed.
May you remember that sometimes
the taste of tea
is truly what you need.
Much love,

Molly 

NOTE: this audio was made in 2021, so still touches on the pandemic experience.

How are you tending to your soul’s garden? 

This audio is 26 minutes and is multi-thematic. The first part is a brief check in opportunity about the impact of the pandemic on our lives. Feel free to drop a note below letting me know how you are--how are you feeling, how are you doing, what is your life like? The second part is about tending to your "soul's garden" (additional notes about this below)--kind of a mini-meditation moment. After this meditation is a good stopping point (about 12 minutes in), or you can go on and listen to me muse about current books I'm reading and current things I've been listening to. 

Notes about Soul Gardens!

I found a little book at a thrift shop last week called “The Woman’s Book of Soul” which is a page a  day meditation book. In one of the early pages I loved this quote/concept and it inspired this month's audio:
“Taking little soul  seconds—one small prayer, a few-minute meditation, a short burst of  gratitude—helps immeasurably to revive our thirsty spirits. We don’t  have to join a convent or live in a cave to attend to our souls,  although I admit that it sounds appealing sometimes. Luckily, our souls  flower and grow when nurtured with consistent rays of attention  interspersed among the busy hours of our days.”
--Sue Patton Thoele, The Woman’s Book of Soul

Affirmation: “I pay attention to the needs of my spirit. I make time to quench my soul’s thirst.”

Note: Good Ancestor podcast mentioned is here.

NOTE: this episode was originally recorded in 2018, so not everything I say is current!

There are deer to your left,
the sun is to your right,
spring is singing to the sky,
it is possible to make good friends with a rock.
There are truths about living
written in the patterns
of leaf shadow upon stone.

Please take a few moments to breathe and pause and call yourself in, into this time and into this space. Into your body and your breath and the beat of your heart. In this recording, I share some thoughts about stillness, about daily  practices, about the freedom found in finding your own center, and about white space or the process of creating margin in your days.

“I  fear our modern world does not honor our need for stillness in the  midst of nonstop busyness. Can we learn to be still enough to embrace the inner self and all it contains? The inner self is calling for  balance. Can we practice a wholeness that allows for silence, nature and  breath? My hope is yes."
—Genevieve Mitchell (@goddess.ink)

Hungering for your own wisdom and naming it as worthy is a radical and revolutionary act. 

Our card of the week from Womanrunes is The Winged Circle. Do you feel free? What color are your wings? Can you expand yourself,  stretch your wings, take chances, leap into the unknown? What are you  liberating, shaking loose, unfurling?
Where do you need revolution? What IS your revolution?
This  rune may emerge in affirmation or encouragement of your own freedom of  spirit or it may emerge when you are feeling bound or trapped and  desperate to break free, to shake everything off and fly. It may show up  when you need to free body, mind, or spirit from something that  constricts you. Or, it may show up in celebration of the freedom you  have claimed.

May you spread your wings, may you have the courage to be soft and tender, and may you be new in your bones.

And, now the rattle passes to you...

Do you feel free? What is your revolution?

Where do you have white space?

NOTE: additional companion resources for Margin/White Space may be found in this older Goddess Magic post.

This audio was originally created for our Goddess Magic community.

May you know a place that holds you,
a place that weaves you whole,
a place that cradles your body,
a place that restores your soul.

Created as a driveway musings, this audio is about listening to what your body is saying:

• What is your body saying to you right now?


• What does your body say to you at this time every year?

These questions were inspired by Tree Newby (@mamatree17)

May you rest well and wisely
and rise into your work
renewed and restored.

Note: This audio was originally recorded in the fall of 2020 for our Goddess Magic community on Patreon.

“Yoga (and indeed witchcraft) invites us to peel away the layers of life and discover: Who are we when we are not afraid? When we are not stressed? When we are not distracted by concerns of emails, schedules, timetables...? Of course, these layers build up and that’s okay, this is part of being human. But take some time as often as you can to peel away, step out of your layers and reconnect to your essence, energy, magic: your body, breath, and heart.”  

—Sarah Robinson, Yoga for Witches (p. 77) 

This audio explores the theme of JOY and also rest. I did want to note that I see the irony in how as I was discussing rest, I started to undermine my own self by explaining that I'm not just sitting on the deck "doing nothing," I'm still doing XYZ. I realized it as soon as I stopped the recording and wanted to make sure to acknowledge that! This resistance to rest instead of rest as resistance is very baked in!

Resources mentioned:

The Nap Ministry 

Tracee Stanley, Radiant Rest

Karen Brody, Daring to Rest

One Commune online class platform (Tracee's Deep Relaxation class link)

Inner Field Trip (Leesa Renee Hall)

I also made set of 24 different Joy and Rest cards to accompany the audio. The full set is available on our Patreon and a sample set is available for free to all.

Feel free to use these to create a deck for yourself or to glue into journals or onto other projects. :) 

May you grant yourself
endless moments of joy
and may you delight
in the revolutionary act
of noticing.

Much love,

Molly

This is an audio edition of our weekly newsletter. For the text and all of the links to resources mentioned herein, the print newsletter is here.

For daily practices and monthly circles, come join us at #30DaysofGoddess and for devotional community at Goddess Magic. And, our upcoming Claiming Your Magic retreat is free! Sign up here.

This is an experimental concept--an audio edition of our weekly newsletter, intended to increase its accessibility while "on the road" or doing other tasks. The written version with all of the relevant links mentioned herein is available for you here: https://mailchi.mp/brigidsgrove/cscmay52023