From boss girl to moss girl

I used to debate with my ex-boyfriend about the life each of us wanted; he wanted a simple, ordinary, everyday life, and I wanted a great adventure, an extraordinary life. Over the last few years, I’ve fallen into the kind of life that sits between where both these lives meet, what I describe as a magically ordinary life. Yes, I went on my big adventure in Colombia, a pilgrimage to the roots of my ancestral tree and yet I came back wanting a very human life. I thought upon returning that my life would begin again. Yet, it is now permanently laced with awe and wonder, ritual and ceremony, coven and community. It’s safe to say I probably got more than I bargained for on my return, but that happens when you move in with a hedge witch.

 I can tell you the exact moment the seed was planted of living a magically ordinary life. If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you’ll have heard me refer to some magical woodlands and a women’s retreat where I heard the myth of the handless maiden. I remember particular things about that weekend: how time stretched, how a woman sat at the fire and sang hours at the stew she was stirring, how food was blessed and an ancestral bowl prepared, how my words were weaving themselves in ways they never had, how nature would inch it’s way closer, and caterpillars landed in my lap. Something happened that weekend. I’m still not entirely sure what, but the seed was planted, and the roots, spores and unseen beings of that land worked their magic on my city ways until I remembered. 

I remembered the old ways, the forgotten ways, the ancestral ways. The way we used to commune over food, how we used to tend to the earth, how we used to grieve collectively, how we used to dance in ecstasy, how we used our voice to sing our sorrow. As I remembered, grief overcame me, and I cried for all that I had lost, all I had forgotten and all I had ignored. It took time, but slowly, I laid the boss girl to rest, buried her with a mandala of forest flowers and sang her to sleep, laying my tears at the foot of her bed. I honoured how she got me to where I was, all that she taught me, all the encounters I had and the places around the world she took me. I was grateful, but the Moss Girl era awaited.

Life slowed right down to the point that I could feel my skin tingle with electrical pulses as I walked out of the cauldron, the nickname we’d given our secret swim spot in the river down the road. I could taste the bitter passionflower with the floral rose petals in my evening tea. I could seethings beyond my human eyes, beings beyond the veil, hear the calls of my ancestors, and see the history of the lands that my soles lay on. Life felt different, and for a while, I went back and forth between these two lives, these two versions of me, these two worlds. I was trying to find my footing and place in the world again, a world that felt new and fresh, more alive. And with that, I began falling out of love with my work, the selling and the marketing. The presence building and the follower counting.

 And at the same time, I began to notice a hunger, a yearning, in clients and friends. They were wishing for it, too. A life of more meaning. They might not have been able to articulate what that looked like, but they could feel the longing for something more, or less really. Because this unravelling was really an unlearning from the conditioning of the life we’re sold or what life should look like. Get a job, get married, get a mortgage, and ultimately die.

And in all our getting, we somehow forgot to give.

To give back to the earth, our community, and the next generation? The very things that sustain us keep us alive and fill us with love, connection and belonging. It wasn’t until I began living a different life that I realised not only what I was losing but what WE were losing collectively.

And at this part in the journey, I can’t pinpoint where it happened, but I began thinking beyond myself. With that, I paid more attention to how I led and lived my life and how it impacted my environment and the world. I made an effort because it requires attention when you’ve been so focused on yourself to start building deeper relationships with the land, the community, and the different worlds. It required a commitment I’ve often struggled with, the commitment to people and to place but the reward was so obvious. I had been watching from the sidelines for some time as people tended to each other’s grief, ceremonies were held, rituals were practised, land was praised, and ancestors were honoured. I realised that’s a life I want to live, a life I want my future children to be brought up in, and finally, that’s the life I want to teach people about.

With love and magic,

#AuthenticAlex

And with that said, I have a new offering I have been cooking up with my friends for a weekend immersion.

Come and stay at a beautiful cottage in the South Downs National Park, for a magical immersive experience, accompanied by three witchy women who have been unravelled and courted by the wild. If you feel called to explore myth telling, story weaving, crafting ceremony and ritual.

If you’re longing to be rooted and claimed by place and to deepen your relationship with the more than human and unseen world.

We are laying a place at our table for you.

Our weekend will include: Beautiful home grown, foraged food and collective cooking. Poetry, song, storytelling, and dance. Beauty making, ceremony and ritual. Wild swimming and crafting a handmade life. Remembering the magic

Have you heard the whispers of your spirit longing for more nourishment?

Have you been dreaming of being barefooted and to feel the earth between your toes?

Have you been dancing at the threshold of intuition, magic, and mystery?

Are you ready to court the wild edge?

If so, reach out to me here to find out more: alex@authenticalex.com