Gate Two: Morgan Le Fay

THE SHADOW

In the 1150 text 'Vita Merlini' Morgan le Fay is named as the ruler of Avalon. She is the part-fairy, healer, enchantress and priestess-witch of the mythic isle. Morgan reveals a particularly powerful strain of dark feminine embodiment – the unapologetic and often misunderstood feminine. She represents the one who holds her centre so fiercely that the earth around her shakes. 

Our Week Two embodiment practice is shadow work. Shadow work asks us to consciously look at what cannot be seen by our everyday sight. It asks us to inquire deeply into that which we have siloed out into exile in the shadowlands. Part of reclaiming our power with the dark feminine requires us to welcome home the parts of ourselves we abandoned in the shadow.

Gate Three: Cerridwen

EARTH MAGICK

Cerridwen is the Welsh goddess of sorcery and witchcraft. At Gate Three, we call on her to support us in uncovering our inner Witch – the one whose magick and mystical gifts we were taught to hide, but no longer can. Her power supports us to come out of the mystical closet and own our feminine magick. This week we'll be exploring the ways in which the Witch Wounds may be showing up in our lives and preventing us from living fully and sharing our creative and healing powers with the world. 

Embodiment Practice: Nighttime Potion Ritual. This week you'll be working with a special herb or plant with non-stimulating and dream-enhancing properties. You'll be co-creating a sleep potion with your plant ally to drink and add to a bath or foot bath before bedtime. 

Gate Four: Cailleach

THE SACRED DARK

The Scottish crone goddess of winter and weather is as old as time. She predates even the Celtic mythology she now sits at the heart of. We can translate her name as 'veiled one'. She often wears a grey cloak and carries a staff. You may find her accompanied by her wolf familiar. She is said to turn the weather and bring the winter. At Gate 3, the Cailleach reminds us of the more-than-human dark feminine, especially the chaos of wild weather patterns. We imbibe her wisdom as turn inward to tend to our own internal world during the dark season.

Embodiment Practice: Wild & Wise. This week we take our practice out into the cold and explore the world around us as the organic extension of our own bodily form.

Gate Five: Hekate

WILD CREATIVITY

Hekate is an ancient goddess, predating the Greek Olympian pantheon. Known as goddess of the crossroads, protector of birth and mothers and guardian of dogs and wolves, she is a witchcraft goddess loved around the world. She is a triple goddess. Each aspect representing the three forms of the feminine life cycle: maiden, mother and crone. At Gate Six we look to Hekate to support us in birthing our creative gifts into the world. Women are the channel. We bring the formless into form and this extends way beyond the birthing of babies. How is your relationship to your creative channel? Hekate shows us that, in order for us to bring our magick through, we have to be in deep relationship to our bodies and the beyond.

Embodiment Practice: The Sacred Gates. An exploration of three sacred gates of womanhood: Throat (voice); Womb (cauldron); and Cervix (dark goddess).

Gate Six: Lilith

EROS

Cast out of Eden for refusing sexual submission, Lillith is the embodiment of unadulterated wild sexual energy. Here we examine our own relationship to our sexuality and ask how Lillith can illuminate repression and free us from shame we've inherited from cultural conditioning. Learn to reclaim your sacred sexuality by developing your own self-pleasure practice through sensual ritual.

Embodiment Practice: Sacred Breast Massage & Pleasure Ritual. We indulge our senses with a luxurious pleasure ritual including breast massage, sensual breathwork and gentle movement.

Gate Seven: Black Madonna

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

The Black Madonna can be found at sites all over Europe and the Middle East. There are many stories about how a Black-skinned Mother Mary came to be a European icon. In these stories we can trace the ways the Black Madonna is both the archetype of Mother Mary and the primordial ancient original mother known as Mitochondrial Eve. She leads us back to the ancient earth mother goddesses, back to our hearts. She holds the grief and loss and love of a broken world in her breast. She calls us back to our humanity & tenderises us in the crucible of her broken-heartedness. She is the patron of all who dwell at the edges. 

Embodiment Practice: Mother Mysticism. An exploration of the heart as the gateway into the mystery.