Owl & Crow

07/10/2022

"In more ways than one, women talk in circles: conversation takes a spiral shape in its subjective exploration of every subject. Listening, witnessing, role modeling, reacting, deepening, mirroring, laughing, crying, grieving, drawing upon experience, and sharing the wisdom of experience, women in circles support each other and discover themselves, through talk. Circles of women supporting each other, healing circles, wisdom circles, soul sister circles, circles of wisewomen, of clan mothers, of grandmothers. Circles of crones, circles of pre-crones, lifetime circles and ad hoc circles, even circles of women in cyberspace and the business place, circles are forming everywhere."
~ Jean Shinoda Bolen, The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and the World

Arna Baartz Artist

05/22/2022

May the air carry your spirit gently.
May the fire release your soul.
May the water cleanse you.
May the earth receive you.
May the wheel turn again and bring you to rebirth.

Blessed Be, and so Be it.

05/02/2022

Happy Beltane!

We celebrated today with Earth Folk Fellowship. Thank you for this joyous celebration of mid-spring.

04/19/2022

04/17/2022

Full moon tonight.

Time to release that which no longer serves us.

04/13/2022

What are the rituals that get your day started?

For me, I cuddle with my cat who's made her way under the covers sometime during the night, eat breakfast while watching a couple YouTube videos, write out a list of my tasks for the day, and then spend time in meditation at my altar.

Brainstorm ideas with us for your own morning ritual! owlandcrow.net

04/05/2022

The Crone is an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. The word crone is derived from the word cronus (time), and it means the wisdom gained through life long experiences. Crone also means crown. To become a crowned crone then, acknowledges that you are a wise woman who has transformed the fruits of her experience into a profound understanding of life and the ways of the world. The wise crone thus becomes the resource of wisdom for her people and a source of inspiration for her circle of loved ones.

In a world that worships at the altar of youth it can be hard to stand up and be proud to be an elder. As women we are healers and teachers. In early societies we were the wisdom keepers; we helped women in labour to bring new life into the world and we journeyed with members of our tribe on their deathbeds. The Crone was the post-menopausal woman who enjoyed a special, revered status. The elder woman was viewed as a font of wisdom, law, healing skills, and moral leadership; her presence and leadership were treasured at every significant ceremony. The wise woman was venerated for her knowledge acquired over a long life.

The Crone’s title was related to the word crown and she represented the power of the ancient tribal matriarch who made the moral and legal decisions for her subjects and descendants. It was the medieval metamorphosis of the wise woman into the witch that changed the word Crone from a compliment to an insult and established the stereotype of malevolent old womanhood that continues to haunt elder women today (Barbara Walker, The Crone).

The Crone Ceremony is a ritual. A ritual during which your family, tribe, and community welcome you as you take your rightful place as a ‘grand-mother’ who represents the Crone Goddess.

This ceremony invites us to think back to a time when reaching the status of Crone was a major milestone. A positive, life affirming time that was full of joy and celebration. Our ancestors had much shorter life expectancy so to become an elder was a significant achievement. It is a time to reclaim the title of Crone in a positive way, and see it as a time to joyfully welcome one’s position as an elder within our communities.

Are you ready to subversively step into your feminine wisdom?

04/02/2022

Or however you understand “that which is greater than yourself.”

03/30/2022

Book Review:

Rituals & Sabbats by Lady Passion, High Priestess of the Oldenwilde Coven, is an excellent starter book that provides pre-written rituals to observe the sabbats and moon phases. Additionally, it provides resources for writing and performing one's own rituals.

It is written from a traditional Wiccan perspective, but it provides a broad scope of ceremonial practices that anyone can perform.

This book includes chapters on ritual order, typical ritual conventions, ritual preparation, crafting scripts, and a variety of options and variations for practical use.

Excerpt: "A ritual is like a magic loom that weaves...tangled, intricate, interconnected threads together into an archetypally ordered pattern, allowing the internal factors to affect the external ones so as to alter the fabric of reality."

03/20/2022

Today marks the first day of Spring.

Happy Ostara!

03/15/2022

When people think of ritual, they often think of a complicated series of actions shrouded in mysterious meaning, connected to ancient peoples or the traditions of other cultures or religions. When Jenn and I say we perform ritual ceremonies, the most frequent question we get is "What does that mean?" Part of the beauty of ritual is that it can be found in the ordinary actions of our lives - lighting a candle, pouring water, sharing tea, walking the boundary of your home. Ritual is the act of making the ordinary extraordinary.

03/13/2022

Postcards, business cards, and brochures.

We are spreading the word.