When I say I lived wild as a child…

I was seven years old, we were living in Ibiza, very much hand to mouth and by the grace of the land and the people… Our only shelter was canvas, tree, or flimsy structures made from whatever we could comb from the molten sands.

These are pages from my diary back then… a list of ways we might make some money. Looking back on my list, along with my father’s additions, I’m struck by several things…

I don’t know what I was thinking we’d do with the fir cones or whether they just seemed so beautiful to me that of course people would buy them.

What freedom looks like...

Before I joined Medicine, Mythical and Unio, my name was Vanessa. To some, it still is. 

Then, it was Venus: Shaman of radiant joy, queen of wild rage.

And it appears the longer you stay on the mythical path, the longer your name gets. 

You can now call me: Venus, Whirling warrior goddess, sacred phoenix heart, rose chalice of sweetness, surrender and celebration of life, criatura de fuego, daughter of the forest, hawk mother.

I am the shaman to the tortured genius superstar and a divine disruptor.

ARE YOU CALLED TO THE TABOO FEMININE..?

Six years later… ️

Six years ago, these (and three more women who couldn’t be with us but were in soul) gathered together in circle for the very first Waking The Wild Feminine that I’d ever created.

That circle lived into the quote I was following as a North Star back then…

“To discover who she is, a woman must trust the places of darkness where she can meet her own deepest nature and give it voice… sharing it with the women around her as she comes to a true and certain sense of herself.”

Judith Duerk

“We only have 18 summers with our children…” 💔

You might have seen these thought-provoking words before.

They are only partially true (because who knows how things will turn out, time with anyone is not guaranteed, we might have abundantly more, we might have heart-breakingly less, we might have soul-achingly none at all), and grasping onto or for anything is rarely a recipe for peace.

Why drink the disgusting medicine of humility?

(or how to get over yourself to grasp the unimaginable)

“Humble yourself to the sound of the water

You gotta bend down low and

Humble yourself to the sound of the water

You gotta know what it knows

And we will lift each other up

Higher and higher, we will lift each other up…”

This is a version (there are many) of the first verse of the medicine song Humble Yourself.

How your Sacred Wound can blind you to your gifts

As I weave Mythical Soul readings (from the golden strands of Kabbalah, astrology, mythical archetypes and shamanic wisdom), I’m seeing something that I’ve seen over the years in so many students… but now, writ large and clearer than ever before.

The Sacred Wound, unhealed and unalchemised, can create an immense blockage to a person knowing their gifts and walking their soul path - or even consciously setting foot on it, it can create a belief that they’re entirely different to who they really are.

Ready to go beyond 'nature connection'..? 🌳

One of the most profound shifts in my own life and then work came from going from disembodied non-dual spirituality into embodiment, rewilding, and more primal ways of living... and then finding myself falling into a wonderland beyond all of that.

That space is entered via the portal of connection with the wild that might look like forest bathing and tree-hugging but is something quite different.

Discovering our role in the village ♥️

As we’re coming to the end of this month’s quest in our soul academy, UNIO, I’m being brought present to all I’ve discovered about my role/s this month, as well as the path to self-gnosis and wholeness for all of us.

Synchronistically, I saw these words I wrote a couple of years ago…

“Returning lost soul parts, beauty, magic, power, light and gifts to the people who are ready to be united with their magnificence… what a job I have!

(And how I resisted it… which is how I know so well of the need for us to be ready, and what that takes.)”

I know now that even when I wrote those words there was *still* resistance.

NEED TO RECEIVE? ♥️

Do you need to receive “it” in order to move beyond needing it?

It could be someone’s acknowledgement or blessing.

It could be a particular kind of relationship dynamic.

It could be the confirmation that your intuition was accurate.

It could be a material resource.

It could be external evidence of an inner change.

It could be an experience of unconditional acceptance of who you are.

And yet, you also wonder if needing it is keeping you stuck and dependent.

In the latest guidance circle in our Academy of the Soul, UNIO, I responded to a student’s request for guidance.

I have lived a life of striving, of giving until I literally had no more to give. After thirty years of battling with my body, to live a life that I was conditioned to believe was a good life, to work hard and be happy, a combination of my health and the state of the world meant in 2020 I lost the life I had.

All I was left with was my curiosity and deep sense that there was something more out there, another way of being in this world. Which is when the breadcrumbs lead me to Lian and Jonathan. There was an instant knowing that this was the start of releasing the years of armour, of rediscovering my true self, but I had no idea of the depth of myself that was hidden under that armour.

“Is magic real..?” ✨

I was asking myself yesterday whether by this point, after everything I’ve experienced, I can say for certain now that magic is real.

This is a question that was so important to me and even two years ago still was an obstacle on a path that Spirit was telling me over and over, increasingly loudly, to walk down. It was a path that was filled with all of my doubts and fears, and so honestly, the obstacle was actually quite welcome.

HOW WE’RE SERVING FROM THE SOUL 🌟

(After over 10 years of doing so!)

Something that’s so dear to mine and Jonathan Wilkinson's hearts is providing ways for people to do the deepest inner work with honour and humility, to heal, individuate, alchemise their wounds into their unique medicine, and live their own soul’s truth, no matter who they are, where they live, the resources and challenges they have, or where on the path they are.

It’s for this reason that we have offerings that range from by donation or subsidised up to offerings costing tens of thousands of pounds, each meeting different needs in different ways… But what never changes is the depth of invitation and love that’s present in all that we do.

Shamanism Vs. Alchemy…

The more we bring together shamanism and alchemy (especially through an unashamedly mythopoetic lens) in the work of healing, individuation, and union (as we do at Be Mythical), the more a dichotomy can seem to arise between them.

Very simply and reductively put (overly and maybe dangerously so, if this wasn’t a post only a few rare souls would likely be interested in, let alone have an opinion on!)…

“Where have all the clients gone?”

Many change-workers are realising, in ways that have them question everything, that what used to work well, especially in terms of what brought clients to you, no longer is.

Please know it’s not personal, it’s likely not that you’re not doing something wrong or missing something… This is a collective and necessary shift, which is an aspect of a greater, deeper arc.

And yet, what’s most universal is most personal (paraphrasing Carl Rogers).

Can you love anyway? ♥️

We have just completed the final circle of Liberty Quest, our eight-week shamanic, alchemical journey with the spirit of the Mushroom, and what I learned from this crucible is something that I’ve seen many times before but never more clearly than now.

The nature of this journey and the challenges that it brought were far more intense than would typically be the case in an 8-week journey, some of those challenges were directly related to reactions to Mushroom itself, and some of them were because of the painful depths of what the Mushroom was illuminating.

The untapped power of the Night Self 🌙

“Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?” Carl Jung, The Red Book

A potent way to ‘be mythical’ - which is to say, to consciously enter the world of wild and mythical archetypes, beings, arcs, and symbols in service of living your soul’s unique myth - is to pay attention to the contents of our dreams, this intentional relationship with what I call our “Night Self” is one that grows richer with time and attention.

Is it really an accident.. or is it something very different? ♥️

As I learned during years in shamanic initiation and then in shamanic work since, anything that happens during a ceremony… be that the candle that gets knocked over, the way we’re struggling to light the sacred fire, the friction between people, or the rain beating down… all of these things have meaning are not incidental and accidental as we might normally think of these things, and they aren’t a problem to be solved (perhaps aside from taking action to resolve something that will cause damage). All of these things are part of the ceremony, in fact, a vital part of the ceremony, something to be observed, learn from, and help us to heal.

Is THIS the way? 💎

In the last few days I’ve used shamanic journeying, tarot, microdosing, astrology, dream work, mythology, inner child work, Socratic questioning, guided visualisation, Kabbalah, alchemy, and other traditions and systems in working with clients and students.

Some of these I use because they’re my mother tongue (e.g. Socratic questioning, mythology, and archetypes) some I use because I’ve been guided to do so despite much resistance (e.g. shamanism as a whole, and teacher plants especially), and some I use because they’re the other person’s mother tongue (e.g. Human Design).

WHY WELCOME THE WORST PARTS? 🐉

One of the important lessons of the folktale, The Lindworm, is that the more we push something away because we see it as ugly, unnecessary, disruptive, dark, shameful… The more dangerous and destructive it becomes.

This includes other people who we see as ‘other’, parts of ourselves, such as emotions like anger, pain, shame, grief, longing, and desire, as well as our natural gifts and traits, especially ones that aren’t understood or valued in our culture - neurodivergence being an example.