Trees as Companions, Elders of Magic

Remembering the Living Magic of the Forest

The Elders Who Were Already Here

Before cities rose from the earth and before roads cut through forests, trees already stood in quiet patience. They greeted the sun each morning, listened to the wind moving across the land, and watched seasons pass like slow breaths of the planet.

When you begin to look at trees as elders, everything changes.

• An elder carries time.

• An elder holds memory.

• An elder understands cycles.

Trees embody all three qualities. Their trunks carry the story of storms, droughts, rain, and sunlight. Their branches have welcomed birds, insects, and animals for decades, sometimes centuries. They have watched generations of humans walk beneath them without ever needing to move from their place. When you stand beside a tree, you stand beside a witness of life.

Hugging Trees and the Return to Ground

Across the world, people instinctively lean against trees when they need calm. Some wrap their arms around the trunk, while others sit quietly with their back resting against the bark.

This practice, often called tree hugging, creates a powerful grounding effect.

The body begins to settle, breathing becomes slower, and the nervous system shifts into a state of calm awareness. The rough texture of bark, the scent of wood and soil, and the steady presence of the tree invite the body to release tension. When you hug a tree, you connect with something that has stood through storms without losing its center, and that stability communicates itself quietly through the body.

Many people feel emotional relief in these moments, as worries soften, thoughts become clearer, and the mind opens space for reflection. A tree becomes a place where your energy returns to balance.

Talking to Trees

For centuries, people have spoken to trees as if they were companions. They share hopes, whisper wishes, and release worries. Speaking to a tree creates a moment of honesty, and the natural world receives whatever you bring without judgment. Your words move into an environment that is already part of a vast living network. Beneath the soil, roots and fungal systems connect trees into communities that share nutrients and signals, allowing a forest to function as a living conversation beneath the ground.

When you speak to a tree, your intention enters that living web.

Many people describe a quiet sense of support after these moments, as clarity appears, new ideas form, and decisions become easier. Life begins to move in subtle ways that reflect the intention that was expressed. The tree becomes a witness to your journey.

Celebrating Trees

In many parts of the world, people continue to celebrate trees as sacred beings. In Japan, ancient trees are wrapped with sacred rope to honor their spirit. In India, banyan and peepal trees serve as places of prayer where people bring offerings and light candles. Celtic traditions honored sacred groves where druids gathered beneath oaks to listen for wisdom in the forest.

In parts of West Africa, including regions of Gambia, certain trees are revered by local communities. Villagers visit these trees to pray, ask for protection, and bring offerings, while these trees stand as spiritual guardians of the land, holding the presence of ancestors and the memory of the community. The act of honoring a tree creates a relationship, as people approach with respect, gratitude, and openness. The tree becomes a meeting point between the visible world and the unseen. Once you begin to see trees as living presences, the landscape changes. A park becomes a gathering of elders, a forest becomes a community of witnesses, and a single tree becomes a place of conversation.

You begin to greet them when you pass, and you pause for a moment longer beneath their branches. The wind moving through leaves begins to feel like a message carried across the air. The world becomes richer and more alive.

The Magic Is Still Here

The magical world people speak about has never disappeared, and it continues to live quietly in forests, in parks, and in the single tree growing beside a street. It waits for attention. The moment you acknowledge a tree as a living being, something opens, and awareness expands beyond the human world into the wider intelligence of the earth.

Connection returns.

When you stand beneath the branches of an old tree, feeling the wind move through its leaves and the ground steady beneath your feet, a simple truth becomes clear. Trees are our elders. They hold patience, resilience, generosity, and memory, and as long as there are trees, the magic of the living earth remains present.

Love, Mara

MEET HER: Oshun, The River Goddess of Beauty, Desire & Divine Authority

‘Meet HER’: An Introduction to the World of Goddesses, Archetypes, and Our Matriarchal Memory

Long before spirituality became something abstract or symbolic, goddesses were living frameworks. They were not distant figures placed on pedestals, but active forces woven into daily life, community, land, body, emotion, and decision-making. Goddess traditions are matriarchal memory systems. They teach us how life flows, how power moves, how creation survives, and how imbalance reveals itself.

To meet a goddess is not to escape reality. It is to recognize a truth that has always been operating beneath it.

In modern language, we often call these forces archetypes. Not because they are imaginary, but because they are recurring patterns of energy that surface across cultures and centuries. You do not need belief to encounter them. You meet a goddess when a certain phase of life demands her wisdom.

This is what Meet HER is about. Not worship as performance, but recognition. Not mythology as nostalgia, but mythology as lived experience.

And few goddesses reveal this more clearly than Oshun.

Goddess Oshun

The River Goddess Who Refused to Be Ignored

Oshun is often mistaken for what glimmers first.
Gold. Honey. Sensuality. Soft laughter. The aesthetics of sweetness.

Many stop there.

But Oshun has never lived on the surface. What appears gentle is only the visible layer of something far more commanding. She is depth that moves with ease. Power that does not announce itself. Authority that does not need permission.

To truly know Oshun, you have to move past the image and into the current.

Because Oshun does not merely represent beauty. She governs attraction itself. Not only the kind that plays out between lovers, but the deeper magnetism that shapes a life. The pull that draws in clarity, opportunity, resources, love, fertility, creativity. Not through effort. Not through pursuit. But through alignment.

Her power lies in this knowing. In the quiet certainty that when she flows, life responds. And when she withdraws, everything that depended on her sweetness is forced to reckon with its absence.

Oshun teaches a truth the world repeatedly forgets:

• that attraction is a law, not a performance.

• that softness can be sovereign.

• that the river shapes the land not by force, but by persistence.

She was never meant to be ignored. And she never disappears quietly.The goddess before the trend

One of the most enduring stories tells how the male Orisha attempted to create the world without her. They believed strength, logic, and structure would be enough. Oshun, associated with sweetness and beauty, was dismissed as ornamental.

What followed was failure.

The rivers dried up. Crops withered. Rituals lost their power. The world had form, but no vitality. Creation stalled.

Only when they humbled themselves and acknowledged Oshun’s absence did they understand the truth. Creation cannot exist without feminine energy. Logic without intuition, strength without softness, order without pleasure leads to imbalance.

When Oshun returned, bringing her waters, the world breathed again.

Her lesson was never subtle. Without sweetness, nothing grows.

The river as archetype

Oshun governs rivers, not oceans, and this distinction matters. Rivers move through land with intelligence. They curve, adapt, and persist. They nourish everything around them while following their own path.

Oshun teaches that power does not always move in straight lines. Softness offers flexibility. Grace becomes strategy. What bends does not break.

She is associated with gold, honey, mirrors, copper, flowers, music, dance, fertility symbols, and sacred water. Her laughter is intoxicating. Her anger can flood lands. Oshun gives life, and when disrespected, she can withdraw it.

This is why she is adored and feared. She is not fragile. She is discerning.

Beauty, magnetism, and self-worth

In Oshun’s mythology, beauty is not decoration. It is authority. Beauty attracts, reveals, negotiates, and exposes truth. Sweetness draws out what force never could.

Oshun governs magnetism because she understands value. She does not try to be desirable. She is. Her presence elevates or exposes everything around her.

This is why working with Oshun often initiates clarity before comfort. She will not simply help you attract love or abundance. She will show you why you are drawn to what you seek. She reflects wounds, fantasies, and patterns without cruelty, but without illusion.

Her initiation can be confronting.
She breaks fantasy.
She checks ego.
She restores self-worth.

Her blade may be dipped in honey, but it is a blade nonetheless.

Why so many are drawn to her now

Many people arrive at Oshun after battle. After exhaustion. After religious trauma. After years of being strong, nurturing, fighting, surviving.

Oshun represents receiving. She represents pleasure without guilt. Desire without apology. Being cared for instead of always carrying.

In a world that glorifies struggle, her energy feels like relief.

But Oshun is not an escape. She is a mirror. She teaches that sweetness without self-respect leads to depletion. That giving without receiving dries the river. That softness requires boundaries to remain sacred.

She does not disappear to punish. She withdraws to teach.

Working with Oshun

Within Yoruba traditions and Santería (Lucumí), there are sacred initiations through which someone may be recognized as a child of Oshun. These are not symbolic gestures or aesthetic choices. They are lineage-based rites, guided by elders, divination, and ancestral law. To belong to Oshun in this way is a lived commitment, one that comes with responsibility, discipline, protection, and service.

This path is not chosen out of admiration. It unfolds through initiation.

At the same time, Oshun is not only encountered through formal rites. Many women meet her through life itself. Through moments of exhaustion, longing, self-reclamation, and emotional awakening. Through seasons where force no longer works and something softer, truer is required.

To work with Oshun on this level is not about claiming her, but about aligning with what she represents. It is practicing gratitude before desire. Treating yourself with the care you expect from others. Slowing down. Beautifying your life with intention. Listening to your emotional body. Knowing when to stay, and when to walk away.

Oshun often arrives through dreams, intuition, synchronicities, and heightened awareness. In Yoruba cosmology, she is known as a messenger and intermediary, appearing to deliver insight rather than demand devotion. In these encounters, the message matters more than the image. The shift matters more than the ritual.

Oshun teaches that attraction follows alignment. That worth does not need to be proven. That the river flows best when it is respected.

Whether through sacred initiation or lived archetypal encounter, Oshun remains what she has always been: a force that does not ask to be possessed, only recognized.

Why goddesses still matter

Goddesses return when societies harden. When productivity replaces pleasure. When control overshadows connection. When femininity is reduced to performance instead of recognized as power.

They are not relics of the past. They are frameworks of remembering. To meet a goddess is to remember yourself in a deeper way.

And Oshun reminds us of this truth above all: You do not chase the river. You approach it with respect, or you remain thirsty.

When she is honored, life flows. When she is ignored, absence speaks. And when she returns, creation remembers how to breathe again.

Love, Mara

Uncovering Hidden Herstory

Barbara G. Walker

The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

More than a decade ago, I encountered a monumental reference work by Barbara G. Walker, an American feminist scholar and cultural researcher, who created an encyclopedic archive of women’s spiritual, symbolic, and historical presence across global cultures.

Organized alphabetically, the book documents:

• goddesses and female deities

• sacred symbols and archetypes

• rituals led by priestesses

• women-centered spiritual practices

• linguistic roots revealing feminine origins

• religious concepts later absorbed by male-dominated traditions

Walker draws from archaeology, mythology, linguistics, anthropology, and religious history across Africa, the Near East, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania. Her work makes one thing unmistakably clear: women were not peripheral to early culture and religion, they were central.

Opening this book triggered a familiar recognition. Decades ago, I had experienced the same sensation while reading What They Never Told You in History Class by Indus Khamit-Kush: the realization that black history had been deliberately buried.

Now Walker showed me that women’s history had suffered the same fate. Despite women making up half of humanity, history overwhelmingly centered male experience.

Walker’s encyclopedia functions as a recovery of collective memory, evidence that this absence is not accidental.

Merlin Stone

When God Was a Woman

Soon after, I encountered When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. This book provided the missing historical narrative behind Walker’s symbolic archive.

Stone demonstrates, using archaeological records, ancient texts, and comparative mythology, that early human societies across the globe worshipped a Great Goddess associated with creation, fertility, sexuality, death, rebirth, and cosmic order.

She shows that:

• goddess-centered religions predate patriarchal religions

• women held spiritual, social, and ritual authority

• patriarchy emerged through conquest, religious rewriting, and institutional control, not natural evolution

Goddesses such as Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Hathor (Het-Heru), Isis (Aset), and others appear in cultures thousands of years before monotheistic male gods.

How Patriarchy Was Installed

Stone documents a recurring historical pattern between roughly 4000 BCE and 500 CE:

• Indo-European and Semitic invasions dismantled goddess temples

• priestesses were removed or demonized

• female sexuality was reframed as dangerous

• myths were rewritten to subordinate or vilify goddesses

TIAMAT

Mesopotamia (c. 1800 BCE): Tiamat, once a creator goddess, rewritten as chaos so the male god Marduk could rule. Originally she represented the cosmic womb, the source of all life and the waters from which creation emerged. In early mythic layers all gods were born from her.

ASHERAH

Hebrew tradition (1200–700 BCE): Asherah removed to enforce male monotheism. Asherah (also called Athirat) was revered as the Mother of the gods, the goddess of fertility, birth, nourishment, and protection, the embodiment of the Tree of Life, and a divine presence connected to Earth, womb, and continuity. She was present in homes, land, trees, and bodies. Archaeological evidence shows that in early Israelite worship, Asherah was honored alongside Yahweh, not in opposition to him. So there used to be a balance there.

CYBELE

Neolithic Anatolia (modern-day Turkey): Cybele was originally one of the oldest and most powerful Mother Goddesses of the ancient world. She was worshipped as Magna Mater (The Great Mother), Source of all life, embodiment of earth itself, ruler of wild nature, mountains, caves and animals. She was not a wife or consort. She was sovereign.

Why Mother Goddesses were especially targeted

Mother Goddesses embodied creation without male mediation. Mother Goddesses represented:

• birth and creation arising from the female body

• life cycles (birth–death–rebirth)

• nourishment, blood, water, and Earth

• authority rooted in biology and nature, not hierarchy

This was deeply destabilizing to systems that depended on:

• male lineage

• inheritance through fathers

• control of women’s reproductive capacity

A creator who did not require a male counterpart challenged patriarchal logic at its root.

Control of the Female Body

A key mechanism of patriarchy was the regulation of women’s bodies:

• menstrual and birth blood, once sacred, became taboo

• women’s cycles were restricted and hidden

• reproductive capacity became property

Lunar calendars aligned with women’s cycles were replaced by rigid solar systems. Spiritual authority was separated from the female body.

Midwives and female healers were put on trial as witches and men took their place in the fields of gynecology and obstetrics. As women were pushed out of formal medicine, centuries of embodied, female-centered knowledge were discredited, criminalized, or reframed as superstition.

The midwives and healers themselves never disappeared, but much of their wisdom was distorted. Practices that had been refined over thousands of years were replaced by methods designed for control and convenience rather than for women’s bodies.

One clear example is childbirth. For most of human history, women gave birth upright—squatting, kneeling, or supported by other women. These positions work with gravity, open the pelvis, and support the natural rhythm of labor.

Lying flat on the back was never a natural birthing position; it was introduced to serve medical intervention and observation, not physiology. Pushing while lying on the back actually works against the body. It narrows the pelvic outlet, reduces the effectiveness of contractions, and places unnecessary strain on both mother and baby.

What was once intuitive, body-led knowledge was replaced by a system that prioritized authority over anatomy.

Neolithic female figurine (around 5500 BE, Anatolia)

Cycladic figurine (Mother Goddess / Female figurine with incised spirals) - approx. 3000-2500 BCE, Bronze Age, Cyclades (Aegean Islands, Greece)

How Midwives and Female Healers Became “Witches”

For most of human history, women were the primary medical authorities. They were midwives, herbalists, healers and caretakers of birth, death, fertility, and contraception.

This knowledge was passed from woman to woman and rooted in plants, cycles, and lived experience. No universities. No licenses. No male oversight. That was the problem.

Between 1300–1700 CE, several forces converged:

• The Church claimed authority over life, death, and morality and viewed women’s bodily knowledge as suspicious, so it became the works of the devil.

• The State wanted population growth and control over reproduction, so it criminalized contraception and abortion, and it needed scapegoats during famine, plague, and social unrest.

• Universities barred women, medicine became text-based, Latin, and male-only. And experiential knowledge was dismissed as “superstition”.

Witch Hunts as a Power Strategy

The European witch hunts (approx. 1450–1750 CE) were not random hysteria. They were systematic. Around 75–85% of those executed were women. A disproportionate number were midwives, healers, older women and poor or unmarried women.

The infamous Malleus Maleficarum also known as “The Hammer of Witches” (1487) explicitly accused midwives of killing infants, causing infertility and interfering with male authority. The Malleus Maleficarum was a book that weaponized theology and law to turn women’s knowledge, bodies, and autonomy into crimes.

In reality, women who understood reproduction threatened institutions that wanted control over it.

Wisdom Removed from Women

Across cultures, women originally held healing knowledge, spiritual authority, and communal wisdom. Over time, the serpent (knowledge, renewal) became a symbol of danger and Eve (600-400 BCE textual redactions) embodied guilt.

In the Canonical Gospels (1st century) Mary Magdalene was portrayed as a devoted disciple; she appears to have had financial independence and supported Jesus’ movement.

In early Christianity she was referred to as “the apostle to the apostles”. Mary Magdalene’s history (1st–4th century CE) was rewritten because of one man, pope Gregory I (591 CE). He combined three different women into one figure:

• Mary Magdalene;

• the unnamed “sinful woman” in Luke 7; and

• Mary of Bethany.

There was no textual justification for this merger. From that point on, Mary Magdalene was officially portrayed as a repentant prostitute.

Gerda Lerner

The Creation of Patriarchy

Historian Gerda Lerner, in The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), explains how patriarchy became permanent.

Her central thesis:

Patriarchy is not biological or inevitable. It was created, institutionalized through law and culture, and therefore can be dismantled.

Lerner shows that:

• women’s reproductive capacity was the first form of appropriation

• marriage functioned as a system of exchange between men (daughters, land, animals)

• ancient law codes defined women as dependents

• women internalized patriarchal norms to survive

• the erasure of women from history completed the system

Without history, women lost memory, language, and models for resistance.

What Can Be Done Now

Countering patriarchy does not mean returning to the past. It means restoring balance through conscious action.

1. Reclaim Knowledge

• study women’s history, symbolism, and spiritual traditions

• teach it to children, clients, and communities

• question “neutral” historical narratives

2. Recenter the Body

• honor menstrual and cyclical rhythms

• reject productivity models that deny rest and fluctuation

• reconnect spiritual practice to embodied experience

3. Restore Feminine Authority

• support women as leaders, teachers, healers, and creators

• value relational, intuitive, and cyclical intelligence

• decentralize rigid hierarchies in favor of shared power

4. Change the Stories

• language shapes reality

• tell different origin stories

• create art, rituals, courses, and frameworks that remember women’s central role

5. Build Forward

• remembrance is not nostalgia

• it is the foundation for new systems rooted in balance, truth, and wholeness

In Closing

Barbara Walker restores memory.
Merlin Stone restores origin.
Gerda Lerner restores structure.

Together, they show that what feels “normal” today was constructed over millennia, and can therefore be reimagined.

This is not only about herstory. It is about identity, dignity, memory, and truth.

Remembering is not passive. It is the first act of change.

Love, Gloria

Cats and the Spiritual Realm: Why These Mystical Beings Walk Between Worlds

Some beings are not of this world, yet choose to live among us. Cats are one of them. Their presence carries mystery, the kind you don’t explain but feel. They move like smoke and silence, slipping through shadows and slipping back with secrets. One second you look at a cat across the room, you blink once and the cat is on the other side of the room. From ancient temples to modern living rooms, cats have always been more than pets.

The Sacred History of Cats

Cats were never just animals. Long before Christianity demonized them and medieval Europe feared them, the ancient world revered them.

Across cultures - from Celtic priestesses to Norse seers to Japanese folklore - cats held important roles. In Norse culture they meant fertility, magic and feminine power and for the Celtic and the Irish they guarded otherworld portals.

In the Islamic world they meant purity and blessing, in China they meant wealth and spiritual guardianship and in Greece and Rome they meant independence and intuition.

In African traditions they were magic and had shape-shifting wisdom, in Turkish & Middle Eastern folklore they were the protectors of sleeping souls, in Native American tribes they were shadow walkers and mystics.

They were believed to guard thresholds, watch over dreams, and sense spiritual forces before they entered a space. That belief was not superstition, it was energetic truth.

In Kemet (ancient Egypt), cats were honored as sacred protectors. The goddess Bastet - half woman, half feline - was the guardian of the home, intuition, sensuality, and feminine power. Even though the goddess Bastet is the well-known feline goddess, Het-Heru is the original feline energy in Kemet.

The goddess Het-Heru and the Lioness lineage

Het-Heru means “House of Heru (Horus)”. She is the cosmic womb that births stars, souls, and reality itself. She is the embodiment of divine feminine power, beauty, sensuality and sacred sexuality, music, joy, dance, pleasure, cosmic love, magnetic attraction, abundance and high-frequency creation. She is the celestial cow goddess of the Milky Way, meaning her body is the sky itself.

The goddess Het-Heru (Hathor to the Greeks) is not a passive love goddess. She is fierce, she is creative power. She births dimensions and teaches that pleasure is a spiritual path.

Bastet is actually a later and localized form of the goddess Het-Heru, meaning Bastet carries forward aspects of Het-Heru in gentler, domestic, and protective feline form. Cats were the messengers of Het-Heru, carrying soft but fierce protective energy. To harm a cat was considered a crime against the divine.

Het-Heru was also worshipped in her fierce form as the goddess Sekhmet, the lioness goddess of destruction, healing, and righteous fire. Het-Heru and Sekhmet are two expressions of the same divine feminine power. They are creation and destruction in sacred balance.

Bastet is the bridge between Het-Heru and Sekhmet. She is their earth expression or their balanced form, and the guardian of their power in daily life. Together, these three goddesses form a Feline Trinity of Feminine Ascension.

A cat’s Sense

Science now confirms what mystics always knew: cats are deeply sensitive beings.

• They hear frequencies beyond human perception, detecting sound vibrations from the unseen.

• They sense electromagnetic fields and energy shifts in an environment.

• Through their vomeronasal organ, they detect invisible emotional signals: fear, grief, tension, peace, etc.

• Their purring vibrates between 25–150 Hz, a healing frequency known to aid bone regeneration, emotional regulation, and nervous system repair.

• Vomiting can sometimes be a way for them to purge negative or stagnant energy they’ve absorbed. If the energy in the house is controlling, chaotic, or emotionally suppressed, your cat may physically release that build-up.

In spiritual language: cats are frequency readers. They know what is real, long before it becomes visible.

Guardians of Energy and Soul

Have you ever seen a cat stare at something you can’t see? Or suddenly follow invisible movement across a room? Cats observe more than physical space; they scan energy fiels.

Signs your cat is interacting with the unseen:

They "protect" a doorway or stare into hallways or staircases.

They choose one specific spot to guard daily

They meow at night as if "speaking" to something

They position themselves near your head as you sleep

They refuse to enter a certain room for no obvious reason

Spiritually, cats are threshold guardians. They keep unwanted energy from entering your home and absorb low vibrational emotions like grief, anxiety, despair, stress, etc. especially from those they love.

Telepathic Bonding and Soul Contracts

If you feel your cat "understands" you, you’re right. Cats communicate in telepathic exchange. They don’t waste energy on performance or emotional noise. They tune directly into intention and vibration.

Many spiritual traditions believe cats choose their humans, not the other way around. They enter your life through soul contracts; agreements made before incarnation.

Some arrive to, support your healing journey, some teach you boundaries and sovereignty, some cats activate your intuition or guide you through shadow work and emotional release, or they protect you during spiritual awakening.

They choose powerful souls, especially those walking a spiritual path.

Cats and the Astral Realms

Night awakens their true nature. While the world sleeps, cats become guardians of the dream world. In many mystical traditions, cats are astral travelers, moving between dimensions to retrieve messages, guide souls, and guard against psychic intrusion. Have you ever had dreams and suddenly your cat is in the dream as well, but minding their business like they are in the same dream to do their own work there.

Your cat also protects you when you sleep. For instance if your energy dropped too low (depressive or heavy emotional energy), if you were in a psychically unsafe dream space or if they sense a presence near you during sleep. While you rest they are clearing your energy.

If you’re sleeping too long, they try to wake you, because cats are wired to check if members of their “group” are responsive, especially if you lie still too long. In nature, unresponsive group members means danger. When you're unusually still, they may nudge, knead, sniff, or paw you to confirm you’re okay. They monitor your breathing rhythm and body energy. If it's off, they investigate.

If your cat sleeps near your crown chakra, wakes you at 3 AM (the psychic gateway hour) or acts restless at night or "chases nothing", then they’re working. Protecting. Watching. Clearing.

Cats don’t just sense your emotions; they transmute them. They absorb emotional density and release it through grounding behaviors like sleeping, stretching, grooming, or purring.

If you’ve ever cried and your cat came to lay on your chest—it wasn’t comfort alone. It was energy work.

Feline Protection Gate Ritual (Home Guardian)

Purpose: Activate psychic protection in your home.

You need a candle and a small bowl of salt

1. Sit at your main entrance. Place candle and salt.
2. Let your cat sit or roam freely.
3. Light candle: “I call in light. Only love may enter here.”
4. Watch your cat: they will choose a doorway or corner; that’s the energy breach point.
5. Sprinkle a line of salt or place black tourmaline at that spot. Seal it.

You can strengthen this ritual with your words or sounds.

For instance: "This home is cleansed. This sanctuary is sealed. By love, by will, by light, so it is."

Negative or stagnant energy settles and gets “stuck” in corners, walls, objects, even the emotional field of a house. Sound breaks that density and forces energy to move by ringing a bell or clapping in doorways to break stagnant pockets.

Perform during Waning Moon to remove heavy energy.

Cats understand intention; they feel devotion. They are not here to be owned. They are sovereign beings; healers, protectors, and multidimensional guides disguised in fur. Treat them as sacred, and they will open portals of energy and wisdom within you.

The Bible: The Living Book of Magic

I used to think the Bible was a book of rules.

Something written to control, not to free. But the more I read, the more it began to move, as if the words were alive.

One night, I opened it just to listen. And the words didn’t speak to my mind, they spoke to my soul.

They reminded me of something ancient and powerful: The Bible was never meant to cage you. It was meant to awaken you.

The Hidden Codes

Even the Bible itself admits it hides mysteries.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out.” Proverbs 25:2

Those who seek, find. And the deeper you go, the more you realize it was never just stories. It was energy. It was instruction. It was a book of magic disguised as a book of morals.

When you read it with your spirit instead of your eyes, you feel that every verse carries a frequency: to heal, to protect, to manifest, to restore faith.

The Power of the Psalms

The first time I read Psalm 112 out loud, something shifted in the room.

“Blessed is the one who fears the Lord, who delights in His word. Wealth and riches are in their house, and their heart is steadfast and will not fear.”

The air changed. It wasn’t about fear, it was about alignment. It wasn’t about waiting for blessings, it was about calling them in. Psalm 112 teaches you how to live in divine order, to walk in peace, to attract what belongs to you.

When you speak the Psalms, you raise your frequency.
You don’t just read words, you release power.

The Magic in the Stories

The Bible is full of hidden lessons about energy and transformation.

Turning water into wine isn’t only a miracle, it’s a symbol. Water is the old you. Wine is your higher self, transformed through wisdom.

Healing the blind isn’t just about eyes, it’s about opening your spiritual sight.

Walking on water means learning to rise above emotions,
to find peace in the middle of chaos.

Every story is a metaphor about you: your power to create, to heal, to rise again.

Words as Spells

In the beginning, there was no temple, no doctrine, only a voice. “Let there be light.”

That line isn’t history. It’s a formula. Every word you speak carries the same creative force. You can use it to build or to destroy, to bless or to curse. The secret is simple: speak life.

When you declare peace, peace finds you. When you speak love, love starts to bloom around you. The Bible teaches you that your tongue is a wand, and your faith is the fire behind it.

Remembering the Real Power

Millions of people call on the same divine name every day. That shared faith creates an enormous current of light.

When you read scripture, you’re not alone, you connect to generations who prayed before you. That’s why the Bible still works. It’s not religion. It’s resonance.

And yes, it was once used as a weapon, to control minds and silence spirits. So we would fear its power instead of use its power.

But our ancestors carried ancient knowledge; they were the ones who knew how to speak to the magic within. The truth survived in whispers, in song, in prayer. Our ancestors kept the magic alive.

Now it’s our turn to remember what they knew: that the Bible is a living book. A manual for energy, manifestation, and protection. A conversation with the Divine written in code.

The Living Word

When you surrender to the Word, you don’t lose control,
you step into divine flow and prosperity will follow your steps.

You learn to multiply what you have, to heal with your hands and your voice, to cast out fear, and to call back your dreams.

Read the Proverbs to stay in balance. Read the Psalms to raise your vibration. Speak blessings out loud, they will find you faster that way.

The Bible isn’t asking you to believe in magic. It’s asking you to remember you are magic.

I love you, you are loved.

Love,

Mara

The Goddess Needs to Be Worshipped

The Erasure of the Goddess

In my work, I see so many women in pain, not because they lack strength, but because they have forgotten the goddess within. Generations of women before them carried the same wound. Culture, religion, and society confused them about their true role. They were taught to shrink, to submit, to be silent. They were told their worth was only in serving others, never in embodying their divinity.

But blood remembers what history tried to erase. Heal a woman, and you heal a nation. When one woman reclaims her goddesshood, she heals the women before her, and she changes the inheritance of those who will come after her.

For millennia, the feminine was revered: Isis, Hathor, Inanna, Maat, Oshun, Kali, Pachamama.

The goddess was the pulse of life, the protector of balance, the giver of intuition, the ruler of creation.

Women led temples, sat on thrones, and carried divine authority.

Then patriarchy rose. Temples were destroyed, priestesses demonized, wisdom rewritten.

• Mary Magdalene was reduced from spiritual equal to sinner.

• Wise women were branded witches and burned.

• Cleopatra, Wu Zetian, and Queen Nzinga were recast as seductresses or tyrants.

• Hollywood flattened the goddess into tropes: the temptress, the witch, the damsel.

This was not random. It was intentional, to sever women from their bloodlines of power.

Because when a woman forgets she is divine, she becomes easier to control.

Yet, those who remember change the world. Harriet Tubman followed visions as a Warrior-Priestess and freed her people. Frida Kahlo embodied the Healer-Magician, turning her pain into medicine through art. Maya Angelou gave voice to truth as a Queen-Priestess. Beyoncé reclaims Oshun and Hathor on global stages as a Lover-Queen. Oprahbuilt an empire as the Businesswoman-Queen, uplifting millions by embodying abundance and alignment.

The goddess cannot be erased, she rises again in every woman who remembers.

Master the Goddess – Radical Responsibility

The goddess is not one face — she is many. She is healer, magician, lover, warrior, queen, nurturer, priestess, and businesswoman. Each is a sacred frequency within your DNA, waiting for activation. To master them is to raise your vibration, strengthen your aura, and embody sovereignty.

But before you awaken the archetypes, you must accept a deeper truth: the goddess begins with responsibility. No partner, no culture, no system can give you what you refuse to claim. You are the first altar you must honor.

Mastering the goddess means mastering yourself, choosing discipline over distraction, clarity over confusion, devotion over depletion. It means respecting your body as temple, your mind as throne, your aura as shield, and your soul as compass.

Every act of self-respect is a key. With each choice, you activate an archetype: the healer when you tend to your wounds, the warrior when you protect your boundaries, the queen when you step into sovereignty. When you commit to this inner work, your frequency rises — and your outer world is forced to respond.

Honoring the Goddess within-The Archetypes

The Healer (Isis) – Transmuting Pain into Medicine

She restores and transforms. She knows wounds carry wisdom.

• Essence: Isis, the great mother and healer, who pieced Osiris back together and birthed new life.

• Practice: Self-healing rituals, journaling, breathwork, and tending to your body as your first altar.

The Magician (Hecate) – Creating Reality with Intention

She bends timelines with focus and faith. Thought is her spellwork.

• Essence: Hecate, goddess of magic, crossroads, and hidden knowledge.

• Practice: Work with candles, affirmations, symbols, and rituals of intention — every choice becomes spellwork.

The Lover (Hathor / Oshun) – Pleasure as Sacred Devotion

She embodies beauty, sensuality, magnetism. Pleasure is her prayer.

• Essence: Hathor, Egyptian goddess of joy and love; Oshun, Yoruba goddess of sweetness, rivers, and attraction.

• Practice: Adorn your body, honor your sensuality, dance, eat and love as rituals of devotion.

The Nurturer (Nut) – Cosmic Motherhood

She embodies nourishment, protection, and the vast embrace of the heavens.

• Essence: Nut, the sky mother who arches over the earth, swallowing the sun each night and birthing it each morning.

• Practice: Nurture yourself first, then others. Create safe spaces, cook or care with intention, and practice compassion without depletion.

The Warrior (Sekhmet / Kali) – Protecting the Temple

She defends what is sacred and commands respect.

• Essence: Sekhmet, the lioness of Egypt, goddess of war and healing; Kali, fierce mother who destroys illusion and liberates souls.

• Practice: Speak your truth, set boundaries, train your body, and energetically shield your aura.

The Queen (Maat / Isis) – Sovereignty and Legacy

She rules with grace, builds empires, and creates order.

• Essence: Maat, goddess of balance, truth, and divine order; Isis as the sovereign throne.

• Practice: Organize your finances, lead your life as though crowned, and align your daily choices with long-term legacy.

The Priestess (Persephone / Yemaya) – Walking Between Worlds

She channels divine wisdom and trusts the unseen.

• Essence: Persephone, queen of the underworld and cycles of rebirth; Yemaya, mother of oceans, dreams, and intuition.

• Practice: Meditate, work with dreams, read tarot, pray, and commune with your ancestors and guides.

The Businesswoman (Oya) – Transformation and Empire

She is the storm that clears the path, the strategist of wealth, the guardian of trade and expansion.

• Essence: Oya, Yoruba goddess of storms, marketplace, death, and rebirth — fierce force of change and commerce.

• Practice: Build your business with strategy and intuition, align work with soul mission, and invest with vision for seven generations ahead.

Love and Worship

When you embody the goddess, your partner must recognize it. He must know who is the divine force in your union. His role is not to dominate but to worship and co-create with you.

Worship is not empty flattery — it is action. It is flowers, perfume, gifts, dinners, financial investments, protection, quality time, sacred listening. His world upgrades the moment he honors yours.

But the initiation begins with you.

• When you activate Maat — balance, order, divine truth — you build a life that reflects your sacred worth.

• When you anchor Isis — intuition and magic — you live guided by the unseen.

• When you call forth Sekhmet — fire and power — you protect your boundaries.

• When you embrace Hathor — beauty and love — you embody pleasure as prayer.

This is not submission. This is ascension. True love is not about shrinking but multiplying: expanding wealth, creativity, family, and legacy through the union of two aligned souls.

The Return of the Goddess

When the archetypes are alive in you, your frequency rises. Your aura becomes radiant and untouchable. Gossip, disrespect, and toxic patterns cannot penetrate your orb. You become a living altar, magnetic, sovereign, whole.

Despite centuries of erasure, women are remembering. The goddess rises again in every woman who reclaims her archetypes, guards her aura, and demands worship as alignment, not ego.

You are not meant to be small. You are not meant to erase yourself. You are not meant to submit to what dishonors you.

You are the goddess.
You are the throne.
You are the altar.
You are the offering.

And the time has come to remember.

Love, Mara

5 Black Female Mystics Who Shaped the Spiritual World

In every era, you have women that do not wait for permission.

Their wisdom does not come from institutions, but from the invisible, from Spirit, from ancestral breath. In the history of mysticism, too many of these women have been left unnamed. Yet their presence is everywhere: in the tarot decks we read, in the healing circles we hold, in the rituals we reclaim.

This is the story of Black Female Mysticism and how five women opened the ways for us, carving portals into the spiritual landscape through resistance, intuition, and divine trust.

Mysticism as Survival, Power, and Legacy

Mysticism, offered Black women something that society refused to give: Voice, power, authority, and space.

While mainstream religion confined them, mysticism allowed them to:

• Receive visions without permission

• Channel wisdom without education

• Build communities without titles

• Heal others without medicine

• And most importantly: lead from within

Mysticism was never a soft escape. It was a radical act of spiritual autonomy.

1. Sojourner Truth — The Voice That Moved God and Governments

Birthdate: Unknown (1797, est.)

No exact birthdate is confirmed, so her numbers remain a mystery. But her spiritual signature reflects the energy of a Life Path 9, the compassionate warrior, the truth-teller, the soul who walks through suffering to free others.

Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth lived her early life in violence and silence. But her spirit refused to remain bound.

After escaping slavery, she changed her name, not to start over, but to step into her assignment.

“Sojourner” because she was a traveler. “Truth” because that was all she came to deliver.

She said that Spirit spoke to her directly, guiding her to speak, walk, and confront. Her speeches were channeled.

““Ain’t I a woman?” ”

— Sojourner Truth

In her most famous words — “Ain’t I a woman?” — she challenged the spiritual and political systems that tried to exclude Black women from the definition of womanhood, of worth, of the sacred.

2. Jarena Lee — The Preacher Who Didn’t Wait to Be Asked

Born: February 11, 1783

Life Path 5 → The Freedom Seeker, Spiritual Pioneer, and Voice of Change. Life Path 5s are here to break boundaries, ignite movement, and bring truth into places where silence once ruled.

Day Number 11 → The Visionary Messenger
A Master Number — those born on the 11th often carry heightened intuition, visionary insight, and a sacred calling to speak what others fear to say.

Her life became a walking sermon. She traveled alone, on foot, across states, delivering messages she had never rehearsed. Jarena Lee knew she was called. She didn’t need a bishop to confirm it.

In a time when women, especially Black women, were barred from the pulpit, Jarena received a direct command from God: Preach.

And so she did. Even after the church told her no. She stood up in the middle of a faltering sermon and finished it with such spiritual force that people wept. The bishop, stunned, granted her rare permission.

She went into trance states, received visions, and documented her experiences in a groundbreaking autobiography.

Jarena showed that spiritual authority can’t be revoked because it was never given by people in the first place.
It was a gift from Spirit, and she treated it as such.

Jarena refused to be silent. She was preaching, traveling, and sharing divine visions despite social, racial, and gender barriers. She didn’t wait for permission. She followed Spirit.

3. Rebecca Cox Jackson — The Mystic Architect of Sacred Sisterhood

Born: February 15, 1795

Life Path 3 → The Creative Communicator and Spiritual Architect
This number carries the gift of expression — not always loud, but always intentional. A builder of sacred structure through writing, rhythm, and inner vision.

Day Number 15 → The Teacher-Guide
A number that blends nurturing energy (1 + 5 = 6) with wisdom and responsibility. These are souls who gently create space for others to heal and grow.

Rebecca’s mysticism was interior, disciplined, and deeply feminine.

Her awakening came during a storm, when she was overtaken by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

After that, her life transformed: she healed without training, wrote without being taught, and began living in spiritual celibacy, believing her body was to be a vessel of divine service.

Disillusioned by patriarchal churches, she found temporary refuge in the Shaker movement, which emphasized equality and ecstatic worship. But even there, racial and gender tensions ran deep. So she built her own community, a circle of Black women who lived, prayed, healed, and dreamed together.

Rebecca created one of the first all-Black Shaker communities in history, not as a rebellion, but as a quiet, holy refusal to live outside her truth.

She reminds us that creating spiritual containers for others to grow in is one of the deepest forms of mystical leadership.

“The Shaker Church, officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, was a radical Christian movement founded in the 18th century. Known for celibacy, gender equality, communal living, and ecstatic worship, Shakers believed in creating heaven on earth through purity, simplicity, and discipline. For women like Rebecca Cox Jackson, the Shaker path offered a sacred structure for mystical devotion and spiritual leadership outside the bounds of patriarchy.”

Rebecca didn’t speak loudly, but she designed sacred community. Her mysticism was structured, her leadership subtle shaped by vision and daily devotion.

4. Marie Laveau — The Vodou Queen and Spiritual Strategist

Born: September 10, 1801

Life Path 11 → The Spiritual Illuminator, Master Intuitive, and Empowered Channel. 11s are portals. They carry an otherworldly presence, both magnetic and mysterious. Their mission is to awaken others, often through symbolic, energetic, or deeply intuitive work. Day Number 10 → The Independent Leader
People born on the 10th carry natural leadership and confidence. They walk their own path and hold power with quiet authority. It made Marie both commanding and unshakably respected.

If Sojourner was the prophet, Jarena the preacher, and Rebecca the builder — Marie Laveau was the strategist.
through Vodou a powerful, spirit-based tradition rooted in West Africa, shaped by Haitian resistance, and reborn in New Orleans through music, ritual, nature, and ancestral reverence.

In the 1800s, while the Church warned against “black magic,” enslaved and free Black communities were preserving sacred knowledge through Vodou. Marie Laveau stood at the heart of that movement elevating it into public, protective, and political power.

Where Her Power Came From

Marie Laveau was born into a Creole family with deep ties to both African spiritual traditions and Catholic ritual.
Her knowledge of Vodou came from:

• Her mother and grandmother, both known healers and midwives

• Community elders and Haitian Vodouisants who had carried their traditions through the trauma of slavery

• Her own deep spiritual intuition, sharpened through years of listening, praying, and practicing

She didn’t read about magic, she lived it. Her rituals blended African deities (lwa), Christian saints, herbal medicine, ancestor work, and candle magic.

Spiritual Services with Strategic Outcomes

Marie wasn’t just a healer, she was a community protector and power broker.

People came to her for:

• Healing illnesses

• Legal interventions

• Business success

• Justice, love, fertility, and protection

She created gris-gris bags (charmed pouches), drew spiritual veves (a sacred symbol or drawing used in Vodou to call in specific spirits), and performed public rituals in Congo Square.

She also gained information and influence through her work as a hairdresser, where wealthy women shared their troubles and often returned later for help.

Love, Secrets, and Control

One of the lesser-known reasons Marie gained so much power? She helped women take it back.

When husbands cheated or lovers betrayed, upper-class women turned to her in desperation. Marie offered:

• Spells to bring men home

• Charms to keep other women away

• Baths and blessings to restore confidence and energy

And in return, Marie gained something deeper than money:
Loyalty. Access. Protection. Power.

She created a quiet network of influence that extended from the streets to the courtrooms, all while using that leverage to safeguard her people.

The Legacy of a Vodou Queen

Even now, her name is spoken in whispers, prayers, and candlelight. Because her power didn’t end with her, it activated something that still moves through the bones of every woman who dares to protect, command, and conjure.

5. Pamela Colman Smith — The seer Behind the Tarot

Born: February 16, 1878

Life Path 6 → The Sacred Artist, Healer of the Heart, and Guardian of Beauty

The 6 is here to serve through love, harmony, and beauty. These are the caretakers of emotion, the protectors of what’s tender and true. For Pamela, this came through visual healing, she gave emotion a symbolic language.

Day Number 16 → The Spiritual Watcher
16s are introspective and attuned to the hidden. People born on the 16th often experience deep inner awakenings and carry wisdom gained through solitude or subtle observation.

Pamela Colman Smith was the seer who translated the unseen into image, color, and symbolic language. Her gift moved quietly, through creative channels, through sacred detail, through intuition. Her work became the foundation for modern tarot.

the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Pamela, often called “Pixie,” was born in 1878 to a Jamaican-Creole mother and a white American father. She spent her early life between Jamaica, New York, and London, absorbing folklore, rhythm, and story across cultures. She was raised within the spiritual and artistic circles of her time, later joining the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group devoted to esoteric studies and ceremonial magic.

In 1909, occult scholar A.E. Waite commissioned her to illustrate a new tarot deck.

The Sacred Process

Pamela had a rare form of perception known as synesthesia, an ability to see images while listening to music or spoken word. She described her creative flow as scenes appearing in her mind.

When she began drawing the tarot cards, she created not just pictures, but living archetypes. She filled the Minor Arcana with full visual scenes for the first time in tarot history — allowing readers to interpret meaning through posture, color, gesture, and surrounding elements.

Ridder Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Her illustrations drew from Christian mysticism, folklore, theater, Kabbalah, and symbolism in ways that felt timeless.

In just a few months, she created 78 cards that continue to guide spiritual seekers, artists, and mystics around the world.

Her Name Was Left Behind, But Her Work Stayed

Although her art brought tarot to life, Pamela’s name was not included in the original publication. For decades, the deck was known only as the Rider-Waite Tarot — named after the publisher and the scholar who directed the project.

Pamela was a woman, an artist of color, and financially unstable, all factors that contributed to her being overlooked in her own time.
She died in near poverty in 1951 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Yet her cards never disappeared.
Her images continued to speak — across cultures, generations, and spiritual traditions.

Today, the deck is rightfully known as the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, honoring the woman who channeled its vision.

A Mystic in Image and Gesture

Pamela Colman Smith carried a form of mysticism rooted in symbol, storytelling, and spiritual art.
She may not have led public ceremonies or founded religious communities, but she left behind a complete visual language for personal transformation.

Pamela shows us that spiritual authority also lives in creativity. She reminds us that vision, when anchored in Spirit, becomes medicine.

Her tarot cards still guide people through heartbreak, transition, and transformation with striking warmth and humanity.

What This Research Taught Me

Their lives may have looked different, a preacher, a healer, a builder, an artist but each woman followed the blueprint written into her soul.

So follow your intuition, is the message, even when no one else sees it. Messages do not come to you by accident. What you feel, what you see, is not random. You were chosen to receive it, to carry it, and to pass it on.

Final Thought

Black female mysticism is not a chapter in history. It lives within all of us. When we reclaim our power, our voices and our visions. We’re continuing a legacy that was always meant to rise.

Love, mara

True Black Power Is Black Spirituality

Black Spirituality Was Demonized Because It Was Dangerous

They feared our rituals.
Feared our songs.
Feared our dreams.
Feared our gods.

So they called it evil.
Vodou. Winti. Obeah. Hoodoo. Santería.
Not because it was dark — but because it was untamed.
Because it didn’t need a false religion to save us.
Because it set us free from the inside out.

They feared that our magic could not be colonized.
That our prayers didn’t beg — they commanded.
That our drums weren’t noise — they were technology.
Sacred codes. Direct calls to the divine.

And when the world speaks of slavery, it speaks of wounds, shackles, ships, and whips.
But rarely does it speak of what could not be whipped away:
Spirit. Will. Fire. Memory.
The unseen weapons of the Black soul.

Because while the chains rusted, something eternal was rising.
And no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t own it, kill it, or convert it.
That’s why slavery didn’t end from compassion.
It ended from fear.

Fear of the gods that wouldn’t die.
Fear of the women who whispered spells in the night.
Fear of uprisings born not just of pain — but of prophecy.
Fear of warriors who walked with ancestors at their backs.

Take Haiti.

1791. In the forest of Bwa Kayiman.
A Vodou ceremony sparks the most legendary rebellion the world has ever seen.
Blood was offered. Spirits were summoned. The enslaved rose like flame.
And they didn’t stop until they were free.

That wasn’t luck. That was spiritual warfare.

They called on Ogou, the loa of iron and war.
Ezili Dantò, fierce mother and protector.
Papa Legba, gatekeeper between worlds.
They didn’t just fight with weapons — they fought with possession, prophecy, and pact.

And the French empire?
They were overthrown. Not out of mercy. But because they were outnumbered — not by soldiers, but by spirit.

Look at Harriet Tubman.

She didn’t lead people to freedom with maps.
She led with visions. With divine instruction.
She saw the route in her dreams.
She moved in silence. She trusted the whispers.
She was more than a conductor — she was a seer. A spiritual warrior. A living altar.

Or the Black Panthers.
Yes, they carried weapons. But they also carried strategy, rituals, discipline.
They fed children. Taught astrology. Used sacred symbols.
They understood that you don’t just fight systems — you build sovereign ones.
They were warriors guided by spirit, legacy, and soul strategy.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

Two different voices, same deeper current.
Malcolm reconnected us with divine identity and ancestral truth.
Martin preached love — but it was radical love, weaponized by faith.
They both prophesied. Both paid with their lives.
Both awakened something too powerful to contain.

Even in Suriname, we had Bonnie.
In Curaçao, Tula.
Brothers who rose up not only out of anger, but out of memory.
They remembered who they were.
They remembered the spirits of their land.
They remembered freedom — not as a dream, but as a birthright.

And that’s what was truly dangerous.

The Black soul that refuses to forget.
The Black woman who prays in a language older than empire.
The Black child who dances to rhythms that call the ancestors home.
The Black man who dreams revolution with his whole body.

That’s why our spirituality was demonized.
Because it’s the only thing that kept us alive.
Because it could not be broken.
Because it reminded us that even if the body is chained, the soul is not.

And now, as we approach Keti Koti, the Day of Broken Chains,
we must not only remember our pain.
We must remember our power.

Because slavery didn’t stop from morality.
It stopped because they knew we would rise.
Because our spirits would not stay silent.
Because we would speak in tongues, light candles, call names, and return to ourselves.

So this year, let Keti Koti be more than a memorial.
Let it be a summoning.

Call back the warrior spirits.
Feed the ancestors.
Pour libation on the soil.
Drum. Pray. Rise.
Not as victims, but as keepers of the code.

Because we were never meant to survive —
and yet we did.
And not just survive.
We remembered.
We conjured.
We reclaimed.

And now,
we return.

Love you,

Mara Michels