Friday, October 31, 2014

We are the ancestors of the future.


At this Hallowed time, many of us are moved to honor the ancestors of blood and spirit who have lived and died.  They are closer now and communion with them can be very healing and insightful.

Someday we too will die and become the ancestors of the future.  
What is the legacy you would like to leave with your precious life?
What world would you like them to inherit?

These are the questions i am asking.

What if we are able to heal our ancestral wounds so that future generations have a chance to live in peace, respect and love for all beings.
What if we lived with the land today with them in mind?

The health of the land is perhaps the greatest legacy we can leave for the future generations.  

i do not have my own children yet i see all life as my kin, past, present and future.
We all have been made by what has been and we are making what will be.
We can do this unconsciously or consciously.
We can step into the role of Sacred Guardian.

What is a guardian? It can be defined as a defender, protector or keeper; one who watches over a person or place.

To me a Guardian of the land is one who takes stewardry to a deeper level of spiritual understanding, co-creation, healing and protection.  The scale could be a small plot of ground or the whole planet.  

I am a Guardian of my home and the Sacred Earth.  What this means is evolving as are the needs of the earth.  i never saw myself as an activist but climate change has changed that.  When facing global crisis, there comes a point when signing online petitions and praying just isn't enough.  In the past i did not want to engage in activism because it seemed so negative. It seemed to be all about being anti this or that.  As a magical person i know that fighting against can be counter productive.


We are creators!  Actually, we are even better co-creators.  When we come out of isolation and partner with life, we can do so much good.

Recently i attended the Times Up, Rise Up Rally and Sit In for Climate Justice.  It was a fantastic, well planned, inspiring and empowering event!  We called for Shumlin to agree to no more fossil fuel infrastructure, including the proposed VT pipeline for natural gas.  I loved being in a crowd of deeply committed caring people.  I sang and cheered and laughed, and i called on the ancestors of this land to support the best possible outcome of the event…

What do you love so deeply that you are willing to rise up and protect it for the good of all beings? 

May we stay strong and true together
and always remember we are ONE with the Earth.  


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

2016 Fearn Essence Calendar



  Elemental Magick Series
 

6-7:30pm at the HM Coop!   $7members/10 non-members
Thursdays, Jan 21, Jan 28, Feb.18, Feb 25

Transform your relationship with Nature.  Learn lore, tools and techniques to connect, co-create and heal with the Elements; including songs, rituals, herbs, nature spirits, and embodiment practices.

Air- Learn to breathe with the trees, repair the climate, find your wings, speak from your heart, sing, pray, and make herbal incense!

Fire- Meet your Dragon, find your power, light Brighid’s Flame, kindle your passions, become a creator! 

Water- Meet the Serpent, dive deep into the underworld, release and let go, healing the waters, flower essences, moon magic.

Earth- Root work, journey to the heart of Gaia, meet the gnomes, sacred soil, bones, stones and marrow.

Save the Dates! Register at the HMCoop. 

Thursdays, Jan 21, Jan 28, Feb.18, Feb 25


The Quickening; Kindling the Sacred Flame of Imbolc

With Carolyn Hooper and Fearn Lickfield
Feb. 6th 10am-6pm  at the Worcester Town Hall
Join us for a day of deep connection, warmth, transformation and hope as the light returns.  Imbolc is sacred to the Goddess Brigid who is the embodiment of the Eternal Flame, the healing waters, and the Light within the Earth. We will experience, engage and explore Her many gifts; activating the light within, and sharing her healing waters with the world.  
$75-100 (20% GMDruid discount)
Includes gourmet lunch. To register contact Fearnessence@gmail.com

  
Dreaming into Essence 


with Mary Kay Kasper, Laura Smith and Fearn Lickfield
Feb. 27th  9-5pm at the Worcester Town Hall
An intimate day-long healing retreat bringing together the alchemical power of your Dreams and the Essences of plants.
$75 - $100 includes snacks, beverages and lunch and a custom essence blend to take home with you! Advance registration required, limited space available.
Pay using Paypal or send us a check! Checks made payable to Mary Kay Kasper and mailed to 22 Foster Street, Montpelier, VT 05601.

starting in April of 2016….

  Guardians
      of the
Sacred Earth
Person, Place, Plant and Planet
             
    7 month Immersion

o   7 full day intensives at Dreamland packed with teachings and practices to help you connect and co-create healing  with the Earth, 
o   Monthly conference calls with Fearn for Q & A and addition support,
o   Membership in an active and growing community of Guardians of the Sacred Earth with private FB page
o   A custom healing essence blend for your land.
o   Activation of your healing essence, spirit helpers and the Grove to empower your work as a Guardian.

For more info see the Training tab on this blog or  contact Fearnessence@gmail.com
Pre-registration required.  $969



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

How on Earth did i get here? and another tip for healing our separation wound...

How on Earth did i get here?
Do you ever stop and ask yourself this question?  i have been reflecting a fair bit on this one lately.
I am almost half way thru my fourth decade and finally i feel like i know why I'm here and what to do about it.  What a relief and what a wild and wonderful journey it has been to get here!

Don't worry! I will not be telling you my life story.  Only the parts that relate to how i came to this place with my current work; offering classes in Druidry, Spiritual Stewardry, Earth Acupuncture, Tree Medicine, Dowsing and connecting with the spirits of Nature.

For many years i have held as my guiding mission to facilitate the healing and connection of people and the heart of Nature.  Everything i have learned and offered has been true to this, but sometimes it has felt sort of piece meal.

After getting a bachelors degree in Natural Resources and realizing there was nothing in this field i wanted to do, i apprenticed on an organic farm in Boulder, CO.  My first farm mentor was a witch.  She invited me to participate in a few rituals and i was awed by her power and wisdom.  I farmed and managed CSA's for the next 6 years in Arkansas, Ma. and Maine.  It was farming and being deeply tuned to the seasons, soil and plants that brought me to my pagan path.  Pagan simply means, "of the country".  Folks who live close to nature and her cycles.  I began leading seasonal celebrations on the farms as well as learning about herbs; growing them and making medicine.

After a particularly hard summer on one farm, i felt burnt out and decided to delve more fully into my herbal explorations which landed me as the gardener at Avena Botanicals in Maine.  I reveled in the curvaceous beds, perennial plantings and attention to beauty.  That summer i learned loads.  The highlight for me was being introduced to pendulum dowsing and flower essences by a very special visiting teacher named Kate Gilday.  I was hooked!   Larken Bunce who was my fellow garden faery at Avena invited me to return to VT with her and we landed in a lovely old farm house on a big plot of land in central VT which we called Habondia Farm.  This was a place of community living and more great learning.  I studied dowsing with the American Society of Dowsers which has its annual conference in VT every summer.  I apprenticed with world renowned geomancer Patrick McManaway for two years.  I trained and was certified as a flower essence practitioner, and i staffed and facilitated regular women's initiation weekends in NJ.  I also offered an apprenticeship called Earth Spirit Healing and continued to co-create seasonal rituals for the community on the land.  I began to consult as a Flower Essence practitioner and geomancer.

And then came Ivan.  We met several times that first summer doing geomantic consults and workshops.  It was this shared path, and the intervention of Patrick who hosted Ivan in VT, that brought us together.  Ivan saw in me a natural organizer and asked if i would help him put together a Shamanic Healing Training in VT the next summer.  Thus began our personal and professional relationship.  It has always been both with us.

We started the Green Mt Druid Training in 2006 and i was a student in the first class while also administrating and organizing logistics for the program.  Sometime in this period i also apprenticed with Susan Grimaldi a gifted local shamanic healer.  Once i completed my training, I slid gradually into teaching and directing along side Ivan.  The Druid School is now going into its 9th year.  Ivan and i have developed an extensive, transformative curriculum and we have learned and grown so much thru our professional partnership.  

The most recent study i have taken up is Faery Seership with Orion Foxwood and RJ Stewart.  This work has deeply inspired and resonated for me and brings a deeper understanding and reverence for the Sacred Earth and her denizens.

Although I continue to consult privately when asked, my true gift and passion is in teaching and group work. It is now time for me to spread my wings and fly solo a bit.  I have gathered many tools and loads of experience and now i see how it all fits together and its amazing, actually.  You can't make this shit up!

I'm so excited to be offering a new training called Guardians of the Sacred Earth next spring.
More details to come!
My mission is the same;  To facilitate the healing and connection of people and the heart of Nature.

With gratitude for all my teachers, both human, spirit, divine and creaturely.
I pray that i continue to grow in understanding, wisdom, love and the power to co-create real change for the benefit of all beings.

Awen.

Part 2 of Healing the Wound of Separation

Building a new land based culture thru story.

Go out to your special spot in Nature and ask the land to share with you, or inspire in you, a teaching story.  A story about Her; of how to live in Her with harmony, wisdom, healing, love...  What are the archetypes and characters?  What and who do they represent?  Listen, open, and express.  Let the land flow thru you and see what story develops.  Tell this story to others who live near and far.  See if it evolves thru the oral tradition. 








Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Healing the Wound of Seperation

Hello dear readers,
This week i want to share with you some thoughts on healing the wound of separation.  This wound is a product of modern culture and has caused massive suffering and destruction.  I truly believe that if we as a race heal this central wound soon, EVERYTHING will change…for the better.  I have a personal quote at the bottom of my emails which reads; "Remembering ourselves back into the web of life is our deepest healing."  Here is what its all about!


At the root of the philosophy and practices of Earth Mysteries and Geomancy is a very primal and archetypal relationship.  It is the Mother/Child relationship.  Most traditional cultures around the world have related to earth as Mother.  We are made from her body. She provides love, guidance, support, and nourishment throughout our lives.  She is wise, powerful and generous.  She loves us unconditionally. 

Humans have forgotten this basic truth and so have become confused and wounded.  We were not kicked out of the garden.  We left.  We are like lost children running around looking for our mother, while all the time she is right here loving us, calling us home. 
Christianity speaks of original sin.  I dont buy it.  But this forgetting, this feeling of separation from that which gives us life, is a tragic, shared wound.  Our original wound. 

I find this is especially true of many “white” people.  Think about it.  What kind of nationality is that?  The title itself expresses the fact that we have lost our roots in culture and land base.  We have governments that tend to colonize lands where the indigenous people and resources are exploited and destroyed.  We live on these lands without any understanding of the herstory and mythology that wove the native people into the land in a harmonious way.  We feel guilty for what we have done but often feel powerless to make it right. 

We are privileged as whites in many modern ways, and yet we are among the most disconnected of peoples.  This wound of separation has led us to where we are today.  The damage we have inflicted on our Mother is so deep that none of our science can fix it.  We face either annihilation and extinction, or perhaps its not too late to make a radical (of the root) shift in our relationship to the land.

Emotionally and Spiritually this wound of separation shows up as a deep longing for connection.  We look for connection on Facebook, texting, internet, by worshiping a God that will forgive our sins, by consuming more and more goods to fill the hole in our hearts.  We are exhibiting many symptoms of mental illness and its getting worse.  We are more sick than ever.  Heart disease, obesity, cancer, depression, attention deficit, addiction...   What can we do?

It is time to re-member ourselves as Indigenous to Earth and to treat Her as a Goddess rather than all giving Mother.  We have taken too much.  It is time to return home with humility and respect. We were born of Earth and we belong here.  Even if we are a diverse mix of nationalities and have landed far from our ancestral homeland, we need to remember ourselves back into the land we live in now. Notice, its not about living “on” the land anymore, but “in” it.  Re-member. To bring all our pieces back together, to become whole.  We are whole when we realize (to make real) our place in the web of life, wherever we live!  

Already,a critical mass is building and love is lighting the way toward wise action and restoration.  
Add your flame to this transformative fire on this Aries Full Moon!


Steps to Re-member and Realize yourself in the Web of Life

1) Work with affirmations when you feel disconnected.  Examples are;
I belong here.  I am home. I am loved.  I am One with the Gaia.  Earth is my body. 

Remember to breath and come into the Now as your say these words.

Stay tuned for more steps to Re-Member in future posts!

with bright eclipse moon blessings,
fearn