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Robin Heart Shepperd's avatar

I immediately ordered Outlander. I'm just having a totally different take on life since taking the Take Back the Magic class. I have taken the time to learn full names of those whom I just know by Uncle This or Aunt That, who I aqcuired through a step father. When I ask one to help me, I call out their full name. I write it down, the date and my request. Then, when it is fulfilled, I put a little red heart by it.

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Perdita Finn's avatar

Oh Robin, these simple gestures are so profound and so profoundly healing not just to the dead but to all of us, who are empowered to feel held by those on the other side. Bless you.

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Susan Meeker-Lowry's avatar

“Healing the witch wound. . . .” You got me with that, as I am aware of the needed healing, not only for what I carry this time around, but for past and future generations of women ancestors.

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Perdita Finn's avatar

it is such a profound reality in the relationships of women with each other, and especially of mothers and daughters. But how do we both acknowledge it, bear witness to it, and not get stuck in it? That is the question I am grappling with in my next book.

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Susan Meeker-Lowry's avatar

Getting stuck in it seems to happen in cycles (or spirals?) for me. Having the language (witch wound language) helped me so much in understanding some of the fears, holding back, mistrust, especially that I experienced when I was a much younger woman. I knew I am "witch" (from a very young age) and the history and even that I lived through it, many times, and carry it with me. But I did not grok what that literally did/does to my spirit/soul, what I carry - the memories, the energy that is not of this body but, since I am embodied - it is in this body. I sense this process is essential for Earth, for all Beings. And that as women (still, as always), we have the innate power (with), the ability to raise the energy of "magic", to create, facilitate . . . words continually fail me.

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Robin Heart Shepperd's avatar

Well, hurry up, already! I need this information. Haha! I know what a time-guzzle writing a book can be. So eager for what you have to share. I will be buying your books as gifts to friends, also.

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Sarah Allison's avatar

Oh I love this so much! I'm really spending this year growing deeply into ancestors, and not just my immediate biological ancestors. So many have come before us and we're really missing out by not connecting with them.

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Perdita Finn's avatar

Yes, it's not about "lineage" which is really a patriarchal lie meant to enforce proprietorial ownership but the matrix of belonging between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The deer, hit by a car, who died in my yard while I prayed with her is as much my ancestor as any biological relative, as much my mother as my mother, as much my daughter as my daughter.

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Camilla Sanderson's avatar

wow, I love your language of "matrix of belonging between the world of the living and the world of the dead."

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Sarah Allison's avatar

Yes! I'm learning to call on the trees and birds and stars as my kin and ancestors. I really believe that this connection is necessary for true healing.

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Cathy C's avatar

Ah! Station 11 is one of m (recent) favourite books - perhaps a good reminder to also keep a bit of Shakespeare in our bags.

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Perdita Finn's avatar

Oh Cathy...why don't you live closer????? I've been feeling the need for Shakespeare readings and we'd have so much fun wouldn't we??????

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Cathy C's avatar

Now, there's a writer who brought the dead to life... for centuries now, and in so many weird and wonderful ways!

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Beverly Naidus's avatar

You are one of the witches we've been waiting for....

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Perdita Finn's avatar

Oh I cannot tell you what a gift this blessing was to me tonight. Thank you so much!

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Camilla Sanderson's avatar

Wow, Perdita! I am beyond delighted to have discovered your Substack. I also just listened to a wonderful conversation between the English author Katherine May and Kaitlin B. Curtice, the author of Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day. I hadn't heard of Kaitlin's work before and am relishing that too. Substack is a playground for writers. Thank you!✨🌟💖🙏🕊️

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Cheryl Shartle's avatar

Feeling the richness of this already.

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