Sept 03 24: Spirals Rising
i em, acending, rising, fire snake kundalini dragon awakening.
Hello!
As I walk the ascending spiral path of our Great Earth Mother, I am reminded that this journey is never truly finished. In the human experience there is always something to heal.
Our journey down into the belly of the underworld before rising up again above crusty earthy layers of ground and soil is cyclical, much like the spirals on seashells and prehistoric creatures.
Today's letter is a reflection of my journey since my last missive and is broken up into what I read as inspiration and study, along with how I processed it. I've included photos from this journey and paintings from past journeys. I hope you enjoy!
The Call to Live Deeply
Sweetest Grass Roots Devotionals is about making a promise to devote time and give sacred space to our healing, our internal processes. I share my practice with you in hopes it inspires you to create your own. To show the way with words and images steeped within my subconscious tea brought to life on canvas, in songs, stories and spirit journeys. How to live more deeply within your awareness and connection of the microcosmic world, and in turn our macrocosmic universe.
I wish I could promise you that every letter I write will contain perfectly organized subjects with perfect grammar and punctuation that obviously connect the dots for you. This is a promise that I simply cannot make.
What I can hope for… is to bring you along on my adventure into spirit, to show you how simple it can be, and to share in the beauty of my liminal spaces while you learn how to find your own… to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions.
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Because I will not pretend to know your journey more than I know my own, I write within my experience as woman. Please change as needed for your experience on this journey… for such teachings apply to us all.
Grab a cup of tea, plate of scones and sit by the window listening to the wind in the trees while you read… for we are going on an adventure!
Love, Light & Shadows…
Isabella, Pups & Family
My Weaving
Reading from: The Great Between by Molly Remer
“In Inanna's Ascent in the essay Inanna: Pregnant with Soul Voice, auther Iyana Rashil writes:
It is said that the underworld’s journey produces shamans, great magicians and messengers of a new worldview in those who return from it. Yet, no tale tells us of the wisdom of the in-between and how it impregnates new consciousness, not barren wholeness…”
From My Writings, August 2024
Once upon a time I did not talk about this part of the process because I was taught not to.
I started out studying the secrets of male spiritual disciplines, which focused on keeping wisdoms so close to the heart it felt like stealing from the world.
When I moved into female spiritual journeys I was told to also keep silence, but this time it was out of fear for being labeled as ‘Witches’ and the threat of death this label conveys.
Women's disciplines justified the silence by stating that healing takes place in the silence of the Earth Mother's womb. Which makes sense when we talk about the gestation of life seeds.
But also, I believe, there is another possibility.
Perhaps it wasn’t spoken of because the ancient cultures from which these teachings descended, especially women's cultures, already had a wide and deep knowledge of the healing journey that occurs in the underworld. These communities already had the necessary inherent support structures set up for each member undergoing the journey.
Healing took place in the darkness, silence, understanding and support from an entire community, so speaking of it was unnecessary and may even had impeded the journey process during that time.
But this just isn't true anymore, especially for women. Our communities are no longer structured to support individuals on such journeys, and those who attempt it are labeled, shamed and shunned by the masses.
So many have lost the wisdom and understanding of how seeds grow in the ground, in the darkness, in the silence of the Earth Mother's womb.
How the soil here is now barren and the silence poison in both spirit and physical manifest.
How silence has become a way to keep women shamed and un-empowered while abusers walk free of accountability.
How Women's Wisdom, our Earth Mother's Wisdom has been subjugated, chained, raped, and subdued.
My Journal Entry dated Aug 25 24
When we look at the diseases of women that doctors don't know what to do with, can't properly diagnose or treat; root causes either aren't looked for or can't be found…
Maybe we need to start looking for the root cause in the violence that women experience from childhood forward.
How much physical abuse was silenced that still isn’t talked about today because of its source?
How much of that is causing current problems from decades of physically damaged spines, bones, nerves, muscles and internal organs, especially the pelvis and the brain?
How much psychological abuse was received while nervous systems were still developing causing chronic and complex PTSD?
Where abusive behaviors of the surrounding community were so ‘normalized’ that nothing was ever said? Or done?
And the ‘behavioral problems’ that arose in women and young girls from this were addressed as “she's crazy,” “she's on the rag,” etc? Only causing more duress and deeper wounds.
How about abuses that combine the physical and psychological? And still no one is talking about it.
This continues during a woman's entire lifespan so when she hits perimenopause and menopause her body and mind collapse completely.
And still she is called crazy, making it up, attention seeking and STILL no support is given.
We are continually told we just need a “chill pill” which is so reminiscent of when I accused my first husband of cheating and that was his response to stop making me so “paranoid” (which I was not and his affair led to our divorce).
Women cannot be healed by a medical system or relationships designed by an abusive culture that refuses to take accountability for its abuse.
If we truly want to heal women, then first we need to fix the systems and culture that keep women broken and separated from each other.
The health of a community's women and children IS the health of our world.
We are the ‘canaries’ in our society's ‘gold mine.’
And given the state of the world today, change and healing are sorely needed.
Reading From Maiden to Mother (bold and italics are mine):
“Inanna knew this day would come and she would be reborn. As she was a priestess of Earth, she was aligned with the cycles of nature deeply and intimately. She knew that after the death of winter comes the bloom of spring. This is how she had the courage to say yes to the call of the underworld, even though everybody told her not to go. On her ascent back up from the underworld, Inanna healed one chakra at every gate she passed through, starting with her root chakra.”
My Journal Entry dated Aug 31 24:
I've washed the mercurial dust of retrograde off the house's main floor. My left leg is wrapped in bindings to move my bones back into place as a result.
But also the floors have been washed in rosemary oil, hot water and mom's dish soap.
My level still needs to be done.
As I work on finding joy within my second chakra, my inner Maiden's rage and frustration surfaces for me to cry out.
Still she grieves the function lost because of doctors who didn't take us seriously and all these years later we are still paying the price.
More of me is returning- more memories from a painfully messy life to re-integrate. Streaming in like a movie without the time gaps that existed in the original living of it.
Making connections that otherwise would not have been made. Patterns of behavior so crystal clear and illusions broken like shattered glass littering the floor, and me without a proper pair of shoes to navigate it all.
There is so much to rage at, to doubt and fear and grieve but without any distractions to hide behind now.
I am still struggling because everything looks so different than what I expected this part of my life to be.
I now see through the illusions I had so carefully woven into a cocoon to surround myself with for healing, metamorphosis and transformation.
What was so necessary at the time is now peeling away in layers and chunks as I molt into something new. Something raw. Something born of butterflies.
So how do I reconcile the loss of that illusion for the truth that stands before me now?
I am resurfacing from the underworld to find the soil rich in nutrients and insects but swollen and waterlogged. Trees are growing here - a cottonwood grove - but ground cover just can't seem to manage thriving and there is erosion every time we have a hard rain, which runs off into the yard and kills the grass.
Maybe in connecting with the land, figuring out what ground cover grows best in these circumstances, maybe that will be my own medicine.
Maybe I can use that to heal myself too.
I already have plans of a small stone mosaic to cover part of the bare earth to fight erosion, help soak up the excess water, or at the very least aid in proper drainage, and create a beautiful piece of artwork.
Reading from The Wild Remedy:
“My anticipation builds. I am about to walk on the shore. I feel childishly giddy and my mood scuds upward like a kite…
I walk onto the beach and discover a sort of pavement of beautiful flattish pink and grey pebbles. They have been rounded by waves and pressed into the sand by the passage of thousands of feet walking towards the shore…
When I spend time on the beach, I experience a covetous feeling and want to possess the pebbles, shells, sand and small creatures that live here. Beaches cause such a dramatic shift in my brain chemistry that I long to take scraps of them home as talismans against the difficult days that are bound to come.”
My Writings, September 01 2024:
I thought I had worked enough with the second chakra and learning how to find my version of joy as contented sadness.
My inner Maiden work shows me there is still much to be done and a version of grief to process that will be contained within each chakra, as I have made the choice to heal and be reborn.
Many years ago I worked with the Kabbalah and learned about the void, Da'ath; how easy it is to get stuck there as we transcend to Kether… Joy.
So I am hoping that as I move upward into the third chakra, the Solar Plexus, that its sunlight will help to illuminate what needs to be healed on my next descent into the underworld.
The story of Innana shows us the work that needs to be done, if we make the choice to heal ourselves, and in turn our communities.
The story of Persephone shows us that this work is cyclical like a spiral shell and cannot be completed all at once.
But here we start, ever walking the labyrinth of the spiral path of our Earth Mother.
I would like to end today’s letter with a combination of readings from Prayers of the Wildwood by Katherine Genet that I've merged together for my own spiritual work:
“I hold myself in honour to you,
Earth, sky, sea.
I walk in balance between you,
World to world to world…
By sky and stream and root, through all worlds.
From each birth to each death, my life dedicated…
I am blessed. To walk and see, and spin.
I am a spoke of the great wheel of the world,
And I am blessed.”
See Today’s Resources below for details on the books from today's readings, which are available for purchase online.
You can always check with your public library too!
Just enter the title and author in your search engine and begin your newest adventure! ❤️
Your Weaving
As you read this work, what percolated up from your subconscious? Emotions? Thoughts? Images? Does my work inspire you to create one of your own?
Journal Prompt for Secret Messages: Choose an idea, word line, or entire phrasing from what I’ve written here and write down everything that comes up for you in a free-flow without censorship. Go back through and circle key words and phrases from your own writing. Is there a secret message hidden within your subconscious? Within your Soul?
Take it one step further, and continue to journal about how that secret message makes you feel. Do you agree with it? Disagree? Why? Do you have a friend who will welcome bouncing the ideas around so you may see a deeper well within your Self?
Accessing Spirit through Creation… Words, Artwork, Jewelry, DIY Rosary or Prayer Beads. Create a more physical practice through Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Nature Walks and more! Pick one or two for your practice today and see what happens! Don’t forget to journal about it so your future self will have a road map on challenging days.
Today’s Resources
Line “…to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions.” : Refers to all the different sign posts and trail markers that you might find in fairy tales and wisdom stories. Bread crumbs famously found in Hansel and Gretel, and following the pin cushion comes from my family’s deep dark forest roots across the ocean.
Poetry/Quotes: Unless otherwise stated, I wrote it :) IEM 2024
My Journal Entries: August 2024 Series.
My Artwork: photos are all mine copyright IEM 2024. Paintings are all mine and copyright dates range between 2019 and 2024.
Books Referenced & Actively Reading:
Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith -
I'm just about to start the reading for the 3rd Chakra… the Solar Plexus… the Sun as I arise from the Earth Mother's Womb above the earthy crust and stepping into daylight, sunrise, a new beginning.
The Great Between by Molly Remer (kindle pages 14-15)
Maiden to Mother by Sarah Durham Wilson (Chapters 3-6)
The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell (pages 167 - 168)
Prayers of the Wildwood by Katherine Genet (pages 71-73)
What We’ve been up to
Watching:
A Discovery of Witches
Locke & Key
Supernatural
General Life:
Keeping our heads and hearts on straight through the cascade of it all. There feels to be so much right now. A continuous stream of processing to swim through while remembering how to breathe properly.
Love, Light & Shadows,
Isabella, Pups & Family
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