The Morrigan – Faery Queen of Samhain

Prior to my trip to Ireland in 2018, I had an encounter with the Morrigan during a Shamanic Journey Workshop I was leading on Shamanic Chakra Journeys. A popular workshop I lead, where we journey through each of the portals of the Seven Chakras. It often occurs that while I drum for the group, I experience my own journey concurrently, as I keep my attention focused on the energy of the group. The Morrigan, which means phantom queen or great queen, has made her presence known to me even stronger since my return from Ireland in 2018, by visiting in dreams. One in which she even showed me how she wants her altar to be prepared and placed. She had me promise to visit her sacred site in Ireland in 2019. I continue to learn how to work with her energy and allies. She shows up in many forms, including as a black wolf, crow, raven, white horse, cow or river eel. I find it interesting how much of her energy showed up for me in the chakra journeys. The Morrigan encompasses ancient Celtic Goddess(es) energy associated with at least three Sacred Sisters of Sidhe. I am still getting to know the multiplicity of the Morrigan, and feel honored to carry her energy within me.

If you would like to discover the natural paths of your energy, together with your animal spirits, ancestral guides, ancestral lands, and spiritual connections you carry, this workshop may be a place to find out! Below I offer a personal sharing of the kinds of journeys that can come through, when you attend a workshop I offer.

In the 1st Chakra located at the base of the spine, and connects us to the Sacred Tree of Life. It gives a place in life, to where and who we are rooted, such as ancestors, family, community, career, vocation. In it, I find a beautiful Black Wolf with Golden Eyes looking back at me.

Traveling up toward the 2nd Chakra into the creative energy center, connecting with sensuality, partnership, emotional body, the flexibility of going with the flow. I am standing on a beach, drumming as a guide, during a Shamanic Journey, for a soul friend I am collaborating with to work on a big international project. We are consciously envisioning the project together.

In the 3rd Chakra of the solar plexus, connecting with intellect, will power, personal empowerment and agency, I find a Black Cloaked Crone, with a pile of ancient books, set on a table, with a human skull nearby, guarded by crow.

In the 4rd Chakra of the Heart, a place of loving kindness, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, clarity and understanding, I see the Moon close up, like I am standing on the Moon. A ruby throat humming bird hovers over my heart, it begins to circle the Moon many times, as in many moons ago. I suddenly see a White Buffalo running on the prairie. A Native Indian holding a long staff, now stands next to the buffalo. He approaches me alongside the buffalo, and hands me a sacred pipe.

In the 5th Chakra of the Throat, a place of speaking truth and listening, decision making, and self expression. I see a speckled fawn running through a forested meadow, taking me to a red buck with huge red antlers.  I then see a dark Cloaked Crone with a red face, her red arms stretching out around the fawn. She holds the energy of fawn, with its gentleness, vulnerability and innocence, with her protective anger and wisdom of death. The energy of balance with gentleness is present when speaking truth. The undeniable truth of death and fierce wisdom of crone. Death has a way of making the truth known. The Morrigan has colors of red and black, and she has the Crone as one of her shapes. She protects the innocent and vulnerable, the stag is a trusted ally who shows up often when I teach.

The 6th Chakra is also known as the 3rd eye, and is located at the point between both eyes, it holds the energy of psychic premonitions, dreams, imagination, spiritual awareness and intellect. In this chakra, a previous dream opens up with a red haired Sidhe, she carries me in a small boat, guiding us into a mysterious sea cave lagoon. We come upon a vortex in the water, where magical mermaids swim in circles. I dive into the vortex as a portal and transform into a mermaid. In another circle swirling below, entry to the faery realm is possible. I join in swimming with another mermaid, who takes me to an island near a light house, which shines across from another shore. On the island, the Crone is there with a number of priestesses, who are dancing and singing in a sacred ceremony of initiation. I am taken to a stone wall, made of many colors, and step through it as a portal. I am now in the realm of the Shining Ones, on the Isle of the Blessed. I can see many light beings here.

Finally in our journeys through the Chakras, we arrive at the 7th Chakra, a place of spiritual light, cosmic consciousness, trust and grace. Here I find myself in an ancient Stone Temple bathed in Sunlight, where my dream warrior, from a prior dream, comes to meet me at a tomb city carved into the side of a mountain. Inside a dream temple and dreaming school, He shows me 8 Golden portals of light to travel through, and while I do a Lion lays next to me guarding my sleeping body. I later researched this place and discovered it was Telmessos, Anatolia, a center of dream divination known as the City of the Sun, where dream diviners were taught in a dream school in this tomb city, interwoven with the living.

I am so grateful for the Morrigan visiting me in dreaming. She demanded I come and honor her at her sacred site, which at the time, I knew nothing of, and I did not know when or how I would be able to go to Ireland, but it all came together magically, when I was invited in 2019 to teach a retreat in County Claire on the Wild Atlantic Way, on Dreaming with the Otherworld. May dreams continue to guide the ways between the worlds. Samhain Blessings!

Womb Dreaming

The amniotic sac that surrounds the fetus is a protective boundary that holds the amniotic fluid. A watery dream realm within the uterus. When the fetus is born through the birth canal and has a face covered by the veil of the amniotic sac, it is considered to be a child protected and connected to the otherworld. One who sees with second sight beyond the veil, destined to be a healer, oracle, and seer.

When we dream from the womb, we are able to see into our matrifocal lineages, and reclaim the powers of the deep feminine. Dreaming from the womb is a portal into the past, the present, and the future, like the wisdom of the three fates who guard the cauldron at the roots of the tree of life. The womb is the cauldron of life, and when we are born, the first thread is cut from the umbilical cord between mother and child. We go from being a watery creature who breathes under water, to an Earth-side creature who breaths the air. In some traditions the umbilical cord is buried under a tree, so we remember our true mother, the Earth, and are connected always with ancestors at the roots of the tree of life.

The Selkie

The story of a Selkie Woman is known in Ireland and Scotland, and it talks of a female Seal, able to shift from a Seal under the sea, to a Woman on land. She does this by removing her seal skin, or cowl, and she becomes land bound. If someone steals her seal skin, she cannot return to her watery home below the waves.

As the story goes, a man finds her seal skin and uses this power to demand she marry him. He hides away her powers and she loses a part of herself to become his wife. She bares children with him who have webbed toes and fingers. She cannot lose who she is completely, a part of her remains in her children. After staying with him for 7 years, she discovers the hiding place of her Seal skin. She immediately kisses her children goodbye, and takes her leave. Her soul longing takes her back to the sea, where she puts on her true skin. She dives under the waves once again and is gone. She has returned to her natural state, and no longer a hostage to the ways of Man who would try to own her. She morns the loss of her Earthbound children, but is reunited with her own soul, and her Seal family under the sea.

The gift of the Selkie is the ability to live in multiple worlds, and to see beyond what others may see or accept. The lesson of the Selkie is not to allow anyone to hold you hostage for their own selfish benefit, and hiding your power away in order to do so.

Reclaiming the wisdom of the womb powers and returning to our soul gifts is the longing of the soul heard in the sounds of the waves, and call of the sea. She Dreams inside the Womb of the Mother, held by the Earth Mother. This ocean of dreams is a watery womb, and her true home.

“Seven Tears” by Amanda Clark