Grief, Lammas and Blessings

Happy Magnificent, Magickal, Moody, Melancholy, Manifesting Monday!  How are you feeling with the energy of the Aquarius Full Moon swirling around? 

This is a longer post as we have  a couple of things to explore this week, two sides of the coin so to speak.   Thus, if you aren’t willing to come and play in the messiness of human life, which can be real and raw, I highly suggest you skip this section.  We are melding Grief and Lughnasadh (aka as Lammas) – which is about abundance and harvest.  

Yup I did say Grief and and often classified as “taboo” in our Western Culture.  As most people don’t know how to deal with it.  Let’s be honest, over the last year and a half with the lovely pandemic many people have experienced loss on so many levels including people transitioning and not being able to be there when it happened.  

Which got me thinking a lot about how we’re all just muddling through life.  Honestly, it’s a wonder that any of us have the energy to reach out to others when we all have such complicated dramas playing out in our own lives.  Add in the overwhelming stress of losing someone we love, and the volume gets turned all the way up.

The trouble, of course, is that as humans we’re not meant to be isolated.  We are built for community, so even though it would be easier to wrap ourselves in cotton wool (or perhaps a duvet) and hide when we’re hurting, the real healing happens in relation to other people.  This has been a huge challenge in the pandemic and this was something that I struggled with for a long time two years ago.  

Two years ago I spent the month of July in the UK helping my big sister and best friend Fi to die.  It was the toughest thing I have ever had to do so far in my life, she was one of my touchstones and I didn’t want her to leave at all, but she did.  It was transformative, painful and powerful all at the same time.  And fucking sucked!!!

When I returned back to Canada, numb and empty I struggled as all I wanted was to be alone.  It felt primal.  I wanted to wear soft clothing that felt cosy against my skin, I didn’t want to talk.  I wanted to sleep and curl up, eat comforting food and drink hot tea.  As after all it is difficult to be our most raw, broken selves in public.  Grief, to me, felt like having a limb chopped off.  How was it possible that my sister – my best friend – was gone from the world in such an irreversible way?  The shock of her absence followed me around for months, like an empty space where my shadow should have been.  And dealing with other people!  Oh my Goddess – I had to remind myself that other people were trying their best.   Even when they seemed to say or do precisely the wrong thing.  

So last year when July came around I didn’t realise how it would gut me.  To remember that on her birthday, July 28th, she started leaving us and died 3 days later.  Staying with her 24×7, the candles, the music, the stories that I would tell her in the hopes that she would open her eyes and would be totally fine.  It knocked me for seven to be honest.

Two years later I am a bit wiser and made sure to clear space and time to feel the feels.  Yes, grief does lessen – in other words it doesn’t walk with you every day, but when it floods up it is as intense as it ever was.  Thus, on Wednesday I am going to fully celebrate Fi’s birthday and do all the things she loved to do and make glorious lemon lavender loaves (as she liked a nice piece of cake and a cuppa).  Then on Saturday – her death day (still not too sure what to call it) – I’m going to go sit and chat with her and be alone as to be honest – it feels raw and if another daft person says “It’s been two years”, I can’t guarantee that I will be pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.  

And as a gift to all you wonderful beasties, on Wednesday (if you are part of our email community) and in honour of my most magickal, wise, amazing sister there will be a glorious Lughnasadh bundle available for free.  Why?

On August 1st (Sunday) Lughnasadh or Lammas happens, it is the first of three harvest festivals.  A time of appreciation, gratitude, abundance and  it is a time of awareness that the strength of the Sun (Lugh) is beginning to wane and there is a shift and change afoot.  Active growth is slowing down and the darker days of winter and reflection are gently and slowly raising their heads. 

I love Lammas as it’s such a glorious celebration of food, first harvest and gathering.  All things that Fi loved and understood.  

You may not think you have anything you are harvesting in your life. You may not be able to name what, exactly, you’ve been growing & tending this year. BUT I PROMISE YOU, simply being a human being living through the uncertainties & upheaval has caused you to stretch & grow in ways you may not realize yet. And that growth is GOING TO bear fruit in some way.

One of the most beautiful lessons Lughnasa teaches us is to TRUST.

So make sure you snag the Lammas bundle when it’s released this coming week.  It is filled with lore, stories, rituals and glorious things to make and do to honour YOU.  (Yes You!)  And how wonderful you are and all the ups and downs, the hiccups and the accomplishments you have experienced.  There is also going to be a delicious guided visualisation for you for this time.  

Now enough chuntering from me, let’s crack on with the reading.   When I went to the cards to ask who would like to be present this week it made my heart smile to see who showed up.  The amazing Faery Blessing guides were most adamant.  As after all, who doesn’t need a Blessing?

Now if these guides are new to you, please let me introduce them as it would be rude not to.

Faeries are present in every droplet of water, every blade of grass – they are everywhere there is a trace of nature – thus every field, flower, and forest is theirs.  They inhabit the wild rainforests and the old castles; they dance within standing stones and burial mounds; they are on the top of mountains and within the grove deep in the valley; and they appear in the cracks in the pavement and beneath the cities in the old, tangled tree roots.  Faeries are part of this world, and they were here before we were born into this world, and they know us better than we know ourselves.  

For humans, many of us have lost our sense of play, our sense of relationship with nature, our courage to be ourselves – as well as our hope, creativity, and personal power.  We have looked outside of ourselves and nature and the sacred ones for answers, and in doing so, we have become quite lost.  The blessings of the faeries can bring us back into relationship with ourselves, back into relationship with the elements and the elementals, so that we can become more at home within the world, while creating a personal world which supports our dreams, our wishes, and our purpose.  

Yes!  Positively perfect!

So gorgeous one take a breath.  Just a normal breath and then as you carry on breathing allow it to slow down.  Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.  Allow in your mind’s eye a gorgeous rainbow swirl to form, this pattern is made of loss and abundance.  It holds any grief you may feel about a person, place, situation or thing and it melds with the abundance and appreciation of who you are.  As you breathe just let it swirl, you don’t have to control it.  

Then with this energy pick the card or cards that call to you.  What Blessing is for you this week?

Did you remember to pick?

Shall we go look?

A BLESSING FROM QUEEN MAB

The Faery Gift of Being the Ruler of Your Own World

With this faery gift from the formidable and enchanting faery queen, Queen Mab, comes the blessing of being the owner of your own life.  This is a powerful blessing indeed, for with this blessing comes the most precious gift of all, that of knowing that your life is yours to live.  

With this blessing, let you now take up the reins of your life, let you decide what it is you do, and who it is you are, and who you are now becoming.  It is your life, this wild and sweet thing, to be lived only once, and it is rare and priceless.  You shall no longer be owned, nor forced, nor pushed, nor pulled, for with her gift comes the solidity of determining your own fate – for you are a being who has often been pressured to give away the crown that declares that you are the sovereign.  With this blessing, it is returned to you.

Let yourself be a queen, a king, and know your world is as great as any other person’s.  Your life is a jewel, and no more shall you spend it pleasing others.  When this blessing comes to you, all who you know you will love and support you, and you will now take back the power that you gave away.  You will climb the stairs to your throne and look upon your world and know that you will be a strong leader of your own soul.  And you will inspire others to do the same.

With this gift from Queen Mab will come the sure knowledge of what is wise for you to do, and what would be foolish, and to know the difference between pleasing others and doing what is in the very best interest of the path of your soul.

You faery friend, are a magnificent being, and your life, your world, and your very being are royal.  Be most loyal to your ownself, and know now the gift of great and deep self-respect, and of choosing what is right for you.

Blessings of the great and good Queen Mab to you, friend.

BLESSED BE

A BLESSING OF A FAERY GUARDIAN

A Faery Gift of Magickal Protection and Lifelong, True Loving Care.

At your birth into this world, human child, a faery came to you and offered you the blessings of your soul.  For each of us, this blessing will be unique, created especially for the journey we are destined to take in this lifetime.  So, with this blessing, may you know again the beauty and sweetness of your own faery godmother, your faery guardian.  For she is still with you, helping to ease the way and remind you, as often as she is able to pierce the veil, that you are her charge, and she will remain with you all the days of this life.

May you now feel the presence of her love; may you feel that sense of being looked out for, that there is one being from the elemental world who works with your soul and helps you at all times.  

When this blessing comes, tune in to her presence and know that all about you there is comfort, and goodness, and a way to move through all difficulties.  Yoru faery guardian has always been with you this lifetime, and will remain until you have journeyed on.  Know you are her most precious charge, and when times become troubled, and life seems bleak, know there is a being whose duty it is to bring you back to hope, to optimism, to the sense that you are a gifted, cherished being.  Feel now the love of the faery guardian, your own faery godmother, and believe again in your own blessedness.  

BLESSED BE

A BLESSING OF CLEAR FORESIGHT

The Faery Gift of Knowing what is likely to come from the dimension we humans call the future.

A gift is given this day to you, a blessing of the faeries true.  This gift is that of the long vision, the ability to see the consequences of actions taken in the present and, indeed, the outcome of decisions of the past.  With this blessing of clear foresight, may you be blessed with the ability to see the lasting influence of what it is you choose to do – what will you be granting to the future of this world, to the children, to the ones who come after.

May you understand, therefore, what would be best for you to do, not only for your own self – though it is good and right for you to think of yourself – but of what is best for those  you love and for those who come after us all.  For the faeries love long, and see many a human unable to contemplate beyond their own needs – and, in that moment, unthinking of consequences, create a future they do not wish to inhabit fully.  With this amazing faery gift, this enchanted ability to see further into the dimension of time, you will make the best decision for yourself now and for the future and the future of others.  Time unfurls before you, a green scroll unwritten upon, but one upon which you can see what could come.  

Take this blessing and use it wisely, for the fae, for the human children, and for the betterment of your own precious self.  

Faery blessings of the long foresight to you, friend.

BLESSED BE

And so it is.  May your week be filled with Blessings galore.  If you are walking with Grief, please know that you are not alone – I see you, I hear you and you are so loved.  I won’t tell you it will pass, as it doesn’t – but the gap where your shadow would be does lessen.  To celebrate you and the fact that you are here, muddling through life and doing your best, do make sure to grab the Lammas bundle when it comes out on Wednesday.  Huge Blessings and I will see you in two weeks as it’s a long weekend coming up here in Canada.