Category: Spiritual Practice

  • Tree of Life Meditation

    Tree of Life Meditation

    This is a lovely, well-known meditation that has dozens of variations and can last for as long or as short a session as needed. This is the version I’ve developed to help clients ground and center themselves before or during a healing session or reading, and which I use in my Wholistic Wellness Classes.  Below…

  • Developing My Spirit Family – Working with Rat Spirit

    Developing My Spirit Family – Working with Rat Spirit

    Shamans work with a host of spirits – physical ancestors, shamanic ancestors, spirits of animals, plants, land, and others – that become their family. Which type of spirits become the most called on or worked with depends on each shaman’s shamanic tradition and personal practice. In some traditions, spirit animals can be one of the…

  • Shamanic Visions – My First Journeys

    Shamanic Visions – My First Journeys

    About a month after the session with my healer when I experienced my past life in the Arctic with my Grandfather, I went out to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health for a week-long professional development workshop. While there, I had my first two shamanic journeys despite not having any intention of doing so.…

  • Samhain Story – Journey to the Shining Isle

    Samhain Story – Journey to the Shining Isle

    The UU church I work for had our Samhain service this past Sunday (about 1/3 of our population are Pagan, which is why we do it every year), and I read this story, written by Starhawk, as the Story for All Ages. It focuses on our connection to our ancestors – I edited it slightly…

  • Ritual for the Loss of An Animal Companion

    Ritual for the Loss of An Animal Companion

    It’s inevitable that, for those of us who chose to share our lives with animal companions, we will have to face losing them far before we’re ready. I wrote this ritual on request, but my own beloved familiar, Thorin, is aging, and so I also wrote this ritual in mind for my future self to…

  • Meditation for Renewal

    Meditation for Renewal

    2020 has been a challenging year, and I’m sure most of us have taken on lots of additional stress, or fear, or anger as the year has gone on. All those feelings are valid and an important part of being human and part of a larger society. But negative feelings can accumulate like anything else…

  • Threshold Blessing

    Threshold Blessing

    As we linger at home in our semi-quarantined state, turning our focus inward to our surroundings can help up reconnect with this place we find ourselves restricted to. Seeing it with fresh eyes can help us re-imagine our space and make it what we need in these strange, unprecedented times. One exercise that is relatively…

  • Lectio Divina, the Practice of Sacred Reading

    Lectio Divina, the Practice of Sacred Reading

    It’s funny how things enter your life. Or at least, how they enter mine. All of a sudden patterns start to develop and in short order, they point to something that needs to be part of my life. Lectio Divina came to me that way. It sort of gently nudged its way in, and seemed…

  • Dowsing with Pendulums – a Lesson

    Dowsing with Pendulums – a Lesson

    Part of my work at my UU church is determining the youth Sunday curricula for the year. This year we’re doing a Harry Potter-themed curriculum that I’m creating from two sources, and weaving with my own Pagan knowledge and resources. Our weekly classes often are subjects that Harry might have taken, and this week’s Divination…

  • How to Build an Altar for Any Occasion

    How to Build an Altar for Any Occasion

    I led a short workshop on altar creation for one of our UU church’s monthly small group ministry meetings earlier this month and thought I’d share my write-up here for anyone looking for more info on altar building. Up until leading this workshop, all the altars I had created were Pagan, but I really wanted…