Sacred Earth beneath my feet,draw my scattered attention down and in.Let my senses be roots,sight, sound, scent, taste, touch,and the knowing beneath words,reaching deep into your living heart.Remind me that life is not a race,but a gentle returning to what always holds me.As I change, may I stay rooted.As I root, may I be free to change. Happy July and welcome to this week’s Rituals of Returning newsletter! This month we are steeping in the Cauldron of Change. We also have August’s ritual kit ready for you in the shop. This week's magic: 13 minute mini ritual video: allies for July impromptu “witch at work” studio altar tour part two house altar tour I’m happy to report that I won third place in the Deane Wagner Poetry Contest for my poem: “Do Poets Eat at Taco Bell?” My 100 word story, “Warm-blooded” (shortlisted in the Tadpole Press 100 word story contest last month), has now been published in the 10th volume of “How to Save the World” from Compassiviste Press. 100% of the proceeds from the anthology goes to the Zaatari Desert Garden project, helping Syrian refugees develop hydroponic food production in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. The digital book is available from: Compassiviste website Amazon Barnes and Noble Kobo Event notice for upcoming free event (not-affiliated, just passing the word along): On July 21st at 11am PT/ 2pm ET/ 8pm CET, there is a free online gathering with Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining): Seeding a New Future. Pat is a Diné elder, ceremonial leader and voice for global peace and will be in conversation with Rachel Duffy and Michael Denmeade. Together we’ll explore the wisdom of these times. And the work of coming back into right relationship with the Earth, with each other, and with our own true nature, such that together we can seed a thriving future for all. It’s free, donation-based, and open to all. The registration link is here. Replay from our 2000 Days of Goddess live celebration including free printable booklets! Back to the Roots collection with so many free resources from June! The Cauldron of Change I’ve been making space to steep in the Cauldron of Change this month, even with just a few morning minutes to reflect and integrate. I made this little prompts booklet for my community and it has been such a helpful resource—I’ve also been dropping my Womanrunes draw of the day into the Cauldron rune and seeing how the two work together. I’d love to invite you to join us as well—we’re doing live community practices each Monday! Back to the Roots! Back to the Roots has drawn to a close after celebrating our 2000th day of #30DaysofGoddess! Make sure to check out the collection where all of the free posts are available. And, you can still grab your welcome kit with beautiful journals and customizable covers. Life’s Bits and Pieces: Even when life is busy even when there is too much to do,even when everythingand everyone needs something from you,you know a one word spell of power:Return,a practice,a process,a prayer, an invitation to settle and re-settle into your own wise center,to root downand reach outand reclaim. reading: (to self) How to Save the World—referenced above from Compassiviste. This is an interesting anthology with poems, short stories, and book excerpts from speculative fiction. It has made me highlight several book titles to get separately because I was hooked in by the extracts included. (to kids) The Violet Keystone, the sixth and final book in the Seventh Tower series (why there aren’t seven gets on all of our nerves, but we’re also ready for the series to be over). listening to: by self: Caroline—this is an adult retelling of the Little House on the Prairie saga through Ma’s eyes. It WAY overuses simile and is a little more navel-gazing than I expect Ma would actually have had time for, but I’m finding it very engaging and interesting. Listening to this for me is completely independent of the new Netflix series that is currently ALL over the news and social media. I didn’t even know there was going to be a new series until just this week and I have been on the waiting list for Caroline for several months now. I also feel like I need a disclaimer that despite my deep childhood fondness for this series, as an adult, I’ve definitely come to see what a sanitized, idealized, and whitewashed picture it paints of the westward expansion, colonialism, and the indigenous nightmare of forced removal. with Tanner and Mark: Daughter of the Deep—a lengthy revisiting of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Rick Riordan. Shades of Percy Jackson and a bit of Harry Potter abound therein. I do enjoy the diverse cast and the female heroine. This made for good listening on our recent drive to Ohio and Kentucky. Note: I am on Fable if you want to follow along with what I read there! Resource Reminders: Intro audio about the Goddess Magic Mystery School I’ve started to add our monthly activation replay videos for this year’s #30DaysofGoddess practice to the homepage! Scroll past the “2026 Practice Updates” section to access the videos. Note: Live monthly activations are available to any member of the Goddess Magic Mystery School Patreon community free and paid both! FREE class: forty week Intro to Goddess Studies class! Gift a Goddess Magic membership to a friend! Rituals of Returning for Midyear Reflection & Integration Happy July! Rooster call, cicada buzz, fly dance, wind rustle, spiderweb shimmer, ironweed in bloom. Wise weeds and wild ones, show me the holiness hidden in what I overlook. There is plenty right here, a cocoon for the metamorphosis of now. Inviting you to step into the Cauldron of Change in our Rituals of Returning video for July. This month is a gently powerful invitation into midyear reflection and integration—a sacred pause to let your experiences steep, so you can carry forward what truly nourishes you. Reminder: I do create monthly handbooks for members of our Goddess Magic Mystery School community and July’s handbook is available here. Expanded post available here. Questions to consider: What from the first half of this year needs to be: Scooped out and released? Left to steep longer? More fully savored and integrated? What needs to be reconsidered, redefined, or re‑explored at this midpoint of the year? Where do you need spikier boundaries around your time, your days, and your energy? What needs to be lovingly cut away so you can choose transformation? Where are you being invited to savor the sweetness of your life more fully? How can you create sanctuary in your everyday life, right where you are? How can you create what you seek right now, in the middle of everything? What might become clear if you grant yourself a sacred pause this month to integrate, reflect, deepen, and steep? Affirmations I tumble with the turning. I allow myself to choose and to change. I take my life to the cauldron and listen. I am on the lookout for the presence of wonder. I am awake to the miracle. I tend to the secret garden in my soul. I am at home in myself. I create a sanctuary in my everyday. I savor this sweet and wild life. A Blessing of Belonging We close our weekly live community practice each week with our familiar blessing of belonging:Breathing in, we arrive in our bodies,breathing out we soften.We remember we belong to the earth and the sky,to ourselves and one another.May our small, steady flamesjoin countless othersin a great weaving of repair.Here, in the Cauldron of Change of summer, we remember: we do not change alone.We change in circles, in conversations, in the solidarity of knowing that other people, other places, are lighting their candles too, placing their own experiences into the cauldron, asking their own questions, and trusting that together, across distance and in all our imperfect humanity, we are part of a great weaving of repair.So as July unfurls, I invite you to steep in some practices/ideas that we’ve recently been exploring in circle: Let July be July. Let yourself be yourself. Release what is too heavy. Let what is still becoming have time to steep. Savor what is already sweet and true. And remember, every time you pause to remember you belong: you are a small, steady flame in a wide, wild, shimmering cauldron of change in which we can brew a new world to share. Our Inner Pace… My inner pace in Julymoves in resonancewith the languorous,liquid,luminous,lazy rhythm of desire,of longing,of curiosity and wonder. It is the pace of discovery,of creative renewaland energetic re-setand review,the pace of life’s own unfolding,on its own time,in its own ways. Sending love to all of you. Keep living your magic, Molly, Mark, + Family This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goddessmagic.substack.com/subscribe
