Hello to you at this full moon in Capricorn. Thank you for taking the time to subscribe to our monthly Moon Letter. Let's put the kettle on and see what's brewing in Sherbrooke Forest.
Witching for Water
Searching for the Ghosted Sister
Two nights ago on the eve of the full moon, I took this photo as Tony and I drove up to the spring to gather water at dusk. This was the point where the road disappeared and we drove into a veil of mist. We remembered coming to draw water on a night when the mist was so thick we could see nothing of the road ahead and had to trust our instincts completely to finish the journey. Finding and uncovering ancestral stories can feel a lot like this.
'Witching for water' is a old name for divining or dowsing for water, minerals and as I recently discovered for hidden and forgotten graves. Water Witch is a name I would probably answer to as well. I have been drawn to water holes, springs, waterfalls ever since I was child and these places are where I've had the most magical experiences.
So this term has been whispered to me now more than once as I search physically for ancestors too, some of them so hidden in history that there are no actual physical records. But I have my own intuition and deep feelings about these ancestors - I have no paperwork to confirm them but I know what is true. At first I was confused at being told to witch for water because I felt like I was looking for blood - tracking a bloodline through my lineage but I kept being shown veins as rivers and springs. And then I thought about the actual makeup of our blood and that our plasma is 85% water. Even the marrow of our bones contains 60% water when healthy. So the old term of 'feeling it in my waters' or 'in my bones' is really very accurate. When the ancestral paper trail ends we have our bodies as a record. A deep well of information made up of DNA and ancestral memory.
‘Going Home’ by sculptor, Pauline Clayton outside the Abbotsford Convent gates site of the Magdalene Laundry in Melbourne. “A tribute to the young women and children who have made epic journeys to return to home and country.”
At the moment I feel like I am in preparation for many journeys. I have always in my heart the journey that I will make back England, Scotland and Ireland in October to the lands of many of my ancestors. And on this trip I will also make offerings of medicine dolls for the women of Cross Bones graveyard, for the women persecuted as witches and in the Magdalene Laundries and you can read more thisin a piece I wrote called Singing Over the Bones of the Outcast Dead. In 2 weeks I gather with sisters in Sydney to hold a medicine doll circle to honour the spirit of the wild artist and share memories of my time with Vali Myers at the same time as the exhibition of Frida Kahlo visits - both women knew so much pain and suffering in their lives and transformed it into golden art. And in a month's time we will hold an ancestral keening circle in Melbourne to Sing Home the Ghosted Sister. This circle will mark a 3 year anniversary of our ceremony held at the site of the Magdalene Laundries. On that day we will bring our focus and love to the outcast women in our families, to let these ancestors know that we do not hold the same beliefs or rules they were judged under in the past and that they are welcomed into the branches of the family tree again. We will welcome them home.
So there is a lot going on and it's like swimming in deep water - it looks still on the surface but there's a lot going on below. As I have been preparing and reseaching into my own family tree I have been contacted by women who wish to attend Singing Home the Ghosted Sister but feel they cannot because so much is unknown in their families and there are no records to follow or find. This is sadly very common in Australia where lots of records have gone missing, were never made or were made to go away - particularly in the case of indigenous family members. So some women are feeling like outcasts themselves for not having the 'full story' and some of us don't have much information beyond our own parents.
We don't need to feel like outcasts when we don't have all of our family records or 'proof'. It makes me sad and angry that we don't feel like we are allowed to access ancestral wisdom without these documents. I believe that coming to ancestral work with an intention to mend and heal family stories even if they are not known to you and coming to welcome home any ancestor who still feels like they are an outcast or forgotten is a powerful way to cleanse the waters of lineage. Through many sessions I have journeyed with women and men whose intention has been to bring ancestral healing to their families. I've seen that this is enough to create real and lasting healing for ourselves, the ones who came before us and the children who come after us. Like a ripple in a pool this work subtly extends out and touches all members of the family tree.
Using Our Bodies as the Diviner's Rod Being Both the Witch and the Water
What if we don't need a birth certificate or special visa to cross the threshold into ancestral vision? The only passport needed for this journey is your own body.
Ancestral memory requires us to always go beyond the mind and written records to uncover and discover our ghosted family members. It's going to test you because you will have to trust intuition and feelings. There may be no outside source to confirm your findings. You will have to trust yourself.
To uncover hidden histories we are going to trust the witch within and let our own bodies be the living diviner's rod. We've got to step into the mystery.
"Written by a little wallaby who was told by her Mother
to catch all her tears in a matchbox and they would turn to jewels…"
Vali Myers, diary dedication 1973
Our Tears are Our Songs
The Keener's Lament
I feel like we have forgotten how to cry.
How to really cry and then let it go. How to cry without stopping prematurely. How to cry through all emotions - joy, sorrow, fury, revelation and acceptance. There is a lot of chaos in our world at the moment and perhaps we feel like we are constantly on the verge of tears or letting ourselves cry a little but then chiding our tears like a child for being weak or too vulnerable. In this last month of constant rain in the forest I was shown that a keening ceremony was needed in our circle for the Ghosted Sister and that it was needed for all of us - those in spirit and in body.
I used to cry a lot more. Now I feel like I cry more for others than I do for myself. I started to think about this and wondered why and I believe there are 2 reasons: the first is CONTROL what might happen if I let myself fall completely into my grief? My mind sees that as frightening, because it feels so out of control. The second reason is that I have learnt to channel this energy into other things or repress it. Perhaps in a way we have been so desensitised by what we see in our media that actually we have gone into some sort of shock or numbed state as a way of protecting our very sensitive hearts.
I have been speaking about this with my best friend, Bec Walker who will be helping to hold the space for our keening circle in August. Death is Bec's work and as I was describing the keening process to her she told me that it sounded like the 'five stages of loss and grief' that she has worked with to counsel her patients and their families. We began to realise that these stages are universal and apply not only to physical death but to many, many areas of our lives.
A way to create safe space to release grief and most importantly to transmute this energy so that it brings relief and peace is to create a keening circle. I was introduced to this ancient and sacred ritual by the phenomenal Karen Ward of Sli An Chroi about 7 years ago. I am so excited to finally reconnect with Karen when we hold our workshop, Circle of Swans, together in Dublin in October - this will be a ceremony for the Ancestors and a meeting of the Black and White Swans. In Karen's keening circle I was stunned to hear in the middle of the crying, my own mother's voice. Someone was keening in the circle and they sounded exactly like my mother. This was haunting and confronting and opened up a well of tears in my heart and I cried for us both. I realised in that moment that I could not hide from my pain, that it would pursue me and follow me and yes even visit me in another form until I faced and dealt with it. I could not remove my mother's grief but I could cry with her and for her. This was very powerful and when I saw my mother in person later that year there was a real energetic shift between us. I had also opened myself up to feel much more compassion for her.
I want to feel stronger and I understand that ironically the way to do that is to let myself be totally vulnerable.
And so I am journeying with the element of water further into the month as I prepare and thinking about our tears and how cleansing they are for our body. How we can use this ancient ritual of sacred crying to really empty the well of sorrow inside us so that we do not have to carry it with us constantly but can let it go and feel stronger to face ourselves, our past and most importantly to regain hope for the present and the future.
Below are some examples of keening songs from Ireland and a keening circle. If you are feeling the urge to connect and join this circle you can reach me at swanweaver@gmail.com
Bríd Iarnáin (Mrs Bridget Mullen) who was a keener from Inishmore gives an example of her craft here with no corpse present. Listen.
Keening Improvisation - Circling the Center
Singing Home the Ghosted Sister
Swan Blessing Lineage & Death Mysteries
Keening Circle & Ceremony
With Julia Inglis & Bec Walker (Death Worker)
As usual it is through the medicine dolls that I am processing and learning more about grief and death. In the last month I have created several 'death doula' dolls and very early this morning I finished the Fox Keener - with her face of tears that have crystallised. She will be helping to hold space in our circles - a doll to hold your hand as you let yourself cry.
Thank you
Let's keep weaving together through this deep water. If anything has been brought up for you and you want to work further, get in touch and we can make a time to do this together. I look forward to seeing what will be found in the mist over the next month. And I look forward to hearing your stories of how you are witching for water in your own lineage.
We look forward to meeting again at the Full Moon in August,
Love, Julia + Tony + Fox
