Medicine Stories 7. The Motherline: Embodied Ancestry & Feminine Magic - Lara Veleda Vesta
The scrolls are in our bones, and an embodied relationship with our ancestors can bring countless rewards and reveal things a merely intellectual path cannot. Through myth, ritual, and creative expression we can remember the feminine magic of our grandmothers and reap their blessings.
Lara Veleda Vesta is an artist, writer, and educator with strong, well tended ties to her Northern European ancestors. Her works and offerings focus on folk spirituality, archaic magic, mythology, ritual, and women’s remembrance. Our conversation runs deep and meanders from the cultural legacy of the burning times to the language of symbol to the nature of fate to the illusion of linear time and its effect on our modern lives to mold toxicity to snake medicine. And so much more!
-In the Intro:
Garden Party Giveaway!
The status of the podcast
Healing the Witch Wound
Herbal Tip: plant recognition & the human brain
-In the Interview:
The Motherline- intergenerational trauma, we’re all descended from survivors, and we are never separate from our ancestors
“Things are real and not real simultaneously”
Ancestral connection as an embodied path: connecting with the ancestors via direct information from your intuition, art, and ritual
The scrolls are in our bones: the ancestral dream that changed my life
Listening to the language of symbol
Hyndla- goddess of the bloodlines (let's bring her back!)
The woven web of Wyrd- the matrix of existence
Fate is interactive, time is non-linear, everything is happening simultaneously
The Disir- support, guidance, and blessings from the sacred grandmothers of your lineage
Go sit on your ancestors graves (for real tho)
Collapsing time and shifting consciousness
How linear time separates us from nature, the ancestors, myth, and indigenous ways of knowing
"Get off the grid of your thinking"
The multiplicity of reasons you are never alone
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, mold toxicity, and invisible disabilities
Disregarding cultural expectations: exhaustion, trauma, and illness in women (especially at midlife)
The ancient Northern myth of Golveig- “Thrice burned and yet she lives”- and what it can teach us about feminine power, magic, surviving patriarchy, and healing after pain and trauma
Snake medicine & feminine magic
-Links:
Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz
Max Dashu and The Suppressed Histories Archives
Jung and the Ancestors by Sandra Easter
My blog post Ancestral Voices, Women's Weariness, & the Illusion of Linear Time
The New Midlife Crisis for Women on Oprah.com