A Prayer of Gratitude in Troubled Times

Dear Earth, our Mother — 

Even as we acknowledge the problems we face and those we have caused others of your children, your living species, we also recognise the many joys and delights in our lives. Being alive on this planet is, above all, a blessing.

Thank you dear Mother for the ground that supports us, the air we breathe to take in life; the water we drink to keep us alive, cleansing us inside and out; the food we eat to sustain our lives; the sun we orbit, warming us, giving us light, making life possible.

We give thanks for small daily joys — the smile of a child, the kind word of a friend, the hug of a family member, the kiss of a lover. We are grateful for jokes and laughter, the healing that comes with tears, the pleasure of good conversation, the useful power of thought; for taste and smell, art and music, the colours of flowers, songs of birds, the ever-changing moods of the ocean. We thank you for our guardian mountains, our companion rivers, the fields and forests filling our lives with beauty. We thank you for this land where we live. Thank you for our being here.

We thank you for major miracles: illnesses that didn’t kill us, accidents from which we emerged still breathing, emotional traumas which have not sent us mad, obstacles we overcame by apparent magic or by strengths we didn’t know we had, fore-ordained meetings which brought important friends and surprising opportunities into our lives. We thank you for experiences we considered bad or unlucky, understanding now they were opportunities, gifts to enrich our lives.

We give thanks for being here now, for whatever part we are called to play in this present crisis and whatever new challenges may come. We ask to be of service to the greater good of humanity, and the whole planet — whether our personal roles appear large or small. We know that every strand in the fabric is not only important but essential. Thank you for this momentous opportunity, and for ensuring we are equal to it.

Thank you for the Love within and surrounding us, making everything possible. Thank you for everything.


Written for the Wisdom Circle of The Goddesses of Shining Light (Murwillumbah, Australia).

Shared with Writers' Pantry #33 at Poets and Storytellers United

The Gender of God

A poet whose blog I read just posted this wonderful haibun. (Go on, read it; it’s quite short and truly delightful.)

I fell in love with it.

But then, a little while later, I had the thought that it would have been even more perfect if she’d said ‘Praise God’ instead of ‘Praise the Lord’. The word Lord is clearly male, whereas I like to think of God as female.

Of course, many many people all over the world – probably the majority – believe that God is male, as the widespread book religions* teach. But a substantial number believe that God is female – or that God encompasses all genders and much more besides, whilst they personally prefer to focus on the female or Great Mother aspect. (This latter is my own position.)

Well, it’s obviously a bit much to expect that devout Christians will stop equating ‘Lord’ with God, or that the devout of any other book religion will allow their Deity to be more gender-inclusive. So, if that seems to some of us to be selling God very short, it’s up to us to find our own words.

It’s seldom necessary to make huge changes. I do use the word Goddess sometimes, but ‘God’ works for me too. In my mind ‘God’ is all-encompassing and can be interpreted as ‘Goddess’ if I choose to focus on that aspect. In fact I see the words ‘Goddess’ and also ‘Deity’ as being similarly all-encompassing. (Sometimes I say 'the Universe', giving it this same meaning, way beyond the physical universe. But that's a bit tricky, as I might sometimes refer, in another context, to the physical universe.) The reality of God, I believe, is so vast as to be far beyond our understanding. Paradoxically, each of us can have a personal relationship with the Deity – and to do that, it helps to focus on one aspect we can relate to.

‘Praise God’ works for me.


*The books: E.g. the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Vedic texts, the Buddhist sutras and shastras…. (
Individuals have written books about the Pagan or earth-based spiritual paths, but they are not ‘have to’ books of laws to be obeyed; they are not regarded as the sacred words of God which emanated from the Deity even though written down by people.)

Taking Issue with the Word ‘Abundance’

People often recommend that we ask for it in our spells, visualisations, affirmations, whatever. It’s better to use that word than ‘money’, they assert, because ‘money’ is too limiting.

I think ‘abundance’ isn’t limiting enough.

I’m inclined to be fat. I’m afraid to ask for abundance in case I acquire, among other things, an abundance of flesh! In fact it’s a very general word altogether. The Universe might interpret a focus on abundance as meaning you wish for an abundance of anything and everything you experience. There are some experiences I definitely would not want more of!

So what I ask for is  prosperity.

This is a much more specific word. There are, of course, various kinds of prosperity one might be blessed with, but all within a certain category, all positive in nature.

I’m a witch and a poet. Both poets and witches understand that they need to be very careful and precise in the way they use words. Words have power!

By Caitlin Johnstone

How To Love Yourself

Caitlin Johnstone

Jan 14, 2019 · 4 min read

Bring a deep, enthusiastic “yes” to whatever feels like the center of your experience right now. Not with your thoughts, but with your feelings.

Go on. Try it. You can’t do it wrong.

If you have a thought rattling around in your head that’s taking up a lot of attention, that’s the center of your experience in this moment. Bring a deep, enthusiastic “yes” to that. Take it in the exact opposite direction of rejection, and embrace it fully.

If you have an emotion, if you’re looking at something interesting, if you’re just feeling your body, whatever’s in the spotlight of your attention in the present moment, bring a full, unequivocal “yes” to that experience. Not to the thing itself, but to your experience of it. If you’re thinking about a murderer, you’re not sitting there going “Yeah, murderers!”, you’re bringing a deep, penetrating “yes” to your experience of thinking about the murderer.

If you are having difficulty fully yessing what’s in the center of your experience, bring a deep, experiential “yes” to that difficulty. If you’re having some elements of rejection or revulsion toward what happens to be at the center of your experience in a given moment, bring a deep, enthusiastic “yes” to your experience of that rejection or revulsion. You will notice the rejection or revulsion relaxing the more “yes” you can bring to it.

Practice doing this in each moment. Keep turning your attention to whatever feels more or less like the core of your experience, no matter how insignificant or petty it may seem at first glance, and give it a full embrace of felt affirmation with 100 percent of your being. If there is resistance to this embrace, embrace that resistance with 100 percent of your being. Practice doing this from moment to moment to moment throughout your day.

This doesn’t mean accepting anything anyone tries to impose upon you, and it doesn’t mean ceasing to say “No” with your voice. You can say “No” with your mouth while fully and deeply yessing that experience in the present moment. It simply means making a practice of bringing a deep “yes” to the core of your being in each moment.

This is the direct path to self-love.

Many people say the words “I just need to learn to love myself,” or intuit that many of their inner difficulties stem from self-hatred, but putting self-love into practice is a confusing ordeal that people rarely seem to know how to navigate. If they were raised in a loving environment, they tend to do it naturally, and if they were raised in an environment full of rejection, they tend to internalize that rejection.

The reason self-love is such a confusing ideal to put into practice despite one’s ability to intuit its central value is because our society is full of so much confusion about what the word “love” means, and because there is no actual, tangible “self” that can be found anywhere in experience. Two things:

1 — The most useful definition of love I’ve been able to come up with is a deep, enthusiastic yes to something. It’s the exact opposite of total rejection, which is the experience of “No, all no to all of this.” It’s the experience of “Oh! All yes to all of this!” It’s as simple as that, and it’s a skill you can get better at.

2 — When I say there is no self that can be found anywhere in experience, I mean no matter how hard you look within your own field of experience you’ll never find a solid thing in the here and now that can accurately be labeled “me”. You’ll find sensory impressions, feelings, thoughts, and a mental story about an individual with a particular name who’s led a particular kind of life, but an actual self only exists linguistically as an abstract concept we invented to differentiate one human body from the others in our speech. I am saying “I” and “you” in this essay, but these are just concepts of distinction which only exist out of linguistic convention in a totally boundless and inseparable field of experience.

Self-love in practice is therefore the deep, felt yessing of the core of this swirling, shifting, shapeless light show that is the human experience.

As you become more skillful at loving the core of your experience, you’ll notice yourself becoming more skillful at loving everything that comes up, including family, co-workers, animals, trees, music, the wind, the ground beneath your feet, and the sun upon your face. It’s like pouring water upon the point of a cone: by pouring love into the center of your experience, you ensure that it will spread outward and everywhere.

If you make a diligent practice of this, rejection will find less and less purchase within you, and you will quickly transform into a deeply loving and joyful being. And from there, miracles can happen. And a new world can be birthed through you.

Note from Caitlin's website:
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

A Night Visitor

(A lesson in self-protection)

I’m used to spirits of the dead turning up in my space. Most often it’s my own dear departed, particularly (but not only) my late husband Andrew, popping in to see how I’m doing, or responding to a call from me — which might be a yell for help, but more often just that I’m thinking of that person and missing them.

(Less often nowadays, but commonplace in the past) I’ve been a conduit for lost spirits needing to find their way home to the Light — a ‘clearing house’, as one psychic described me. I know how to clear whatever is holding them up and send them on, swift and straight, in the right direction. (Perhaps they have found a more sympathetic helper now. It got to the point where there were so many, and I became so blasé about it, that if I was busy writing a poem, or having a conversation with a living person, I would say — telepathically and brusquely — ‘ Not now! Later.’ That later, I’m ashamed to say, could be a long time coming.)

I have protection in place, and tools and guardians I can also call on if needed. On the rare occasions I sense a negative energy, it’s quickly blocked. So I was more puzzled than worried when an unknown being emanating extreme cold came up behind me in my kitchen the other night. For quite other reasons, I hate the cold; but I also know that cold associated with ghosts is not necessarily sinister. It simply means they’ve been dead a long time: the longer, the colder. 

All the same, I got a little spooked. I had a sense that this one wanted to enter into me, merge with me in some way. I wasn’t having that! The feeling of the energy was a little like a sexual predator — wanting control; prepared to commit intrusion, violation — and likely to be sneaky rather than brutal. Even so, I could have chosen to engage in a dialogue, find out their purpose and reasons, help them resolve the underlying cause and move on in Love, towards the Light. This has worked in the past, even with formidable entities. But this time I didn’t want to engage. 

I called on my angels. Nothing changed. Maybe this was a friend after all? Or else an unusually powerful threat? Either way, I wasn’t in the mood. I recited, in thought, some protective mantras I know. I visualised shields. No physical actions, nothing spoken aloud. I felt that, for some reason, I should be sneaky too, not overt about my awareness or protective measures. 

I sensed it right up close at my back. Casting about for something else to do, I recalled some ways of being that I aspire to: honesty, integrity, loyalty, respect.... I began, almost instinctively, declaring in my mind, ‘I stand in honesty, I stand in integrity....’ Then I gathered them under an overall label: ‘I stand in honour.’ It's not a thing I'd ever done before as a protection ritual. I think I was more shoring up my courage.  My mind was still stumbling around, trying to find the best thing to say, the thing that would work. I didn’t realise until later, looking back, that the intruder had already halted. I found more qualities to invoke. ‘I stand in peace, I stand in joy, I stand in strength, I stand in my courage.’ I wanted to assert, ‘I stand in my power,’ but was afraid that could be interpreted as a challenge, that the entity might respond with some version of, ‘Oh yeah? Go on, show me.’ I didn’t want to entrap myself in a battle. I kept searching through various phrases, clutching hastily at whatever virtue popped into my head. Serenity, determination, authenticity.... Suddenly it all solidified into a statement that settled in my heart, calming me. I spoke it aloud: ‘I stand in my truth.’

I liked it. I breathed easier. I repeated it aloud several times — not aggressively but with certainty. Even with a kind of gladness. 

(Could I have articulated the specifics of ‘my truth’ if I’d been asked? It was more a sense that I would know it in any situation, I could rely on it absolutely, and it would always guide me.)

I went about my usual activities, no longer feeling threatened, although still shaken by the experience. Gradually the evening settled back into normality. I wasn’t afraid. I almost forgot that any of it had happened.

Next morning, recalling it all, I renewed my self-dedication to ‘Love, Peace and Truth’, which I had let lapse for some time. To me, those are the universal essentials. They are also qualities I can align with in my intention for the day, taking them as my own on a personal level while continuing to trust them as the essence of the Divine. Surely this practice, this daily renewal, is my very best protection?

What if that cold energy invading my space was not so much a threat as a test? Or it might have been a manifestation of some self-doubts and deep self-questioning that had assailed me recently. The Universe has a way of giving us exactly what we need.

It is wonderful to me that the thing which grounded, centred, empowered and freed me was finally to stand in my own truth.

My Virtual Ritual

The Goddesses of Shining Light gathered on the etheric plane. We won't meet physically during the pandemic.

I dressed in the nearest I have to autumn colours: long, russet skirt and top and coppery jewellery (plus my usual silver pentacle). Although this wasn’t Equinox, April’s still autumn [in the Southern Hemisphere]. Adding my magenta cloak, I felt wrapped in the arms of the Goddess. 

I used the room where I usually perform magic or give psychic readings (aka spare bedroom). At 12 noon — one of the magical hours — I used my cleansing wand, first to clear the space, then my aura, then imagined doing the auras of all present, using physical actions, as I envisaged them arriving in their coloured cloaks: blue, red, purple, aqua, burgundy, orange, forest green. Laying aside my wand, I walked around the room in a circle – a very small circle, in that fairly small room – visualising the space expanded and the others with me, chanting a song we always use.

With my crystal-laser-tipped athame (witch’s dagger) I brought in the elements / directions. I spoke our traditional Light Ritual, with the requisite actions. I have great love for it, and I like the continuity of having worked with it for years, building that energy. 

Thereafter, I followed a procedure we’d been emailed, including bringing light to each of us around the circle, in all our various physical locations, and to those loved ones we’d called into the centre. 

This time we omitted the singing and dancing we normally do. Circle dancing does need a physical group!

On my iPad, I tuned into Goddess Elizabeth singing her inspirational song, ‘Lifting the Veil’, knowing others did too. 

I spoke aloud Section 1 of our Shining Vision*, with focus and intention.

I recited our closing prayer.

I thanked the beings who had come to be with us — clear that it was us, not just me — and opened the circle.

Finally I sang aloud, ‘May the circle be open but unbroken ...’ three times.

Later I took a selfie, still in my cloak, to mark the occasion. Then I changed back into everyday wear and went about my day, feeling at once grounded and uplifted, calmed and elated.


*To hear Our Shining Vision (with preamble). 


Note: 'The Goddesses of Shining Light' is not a group of witches, although there are witches among us. We are women of all beliefs (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, New Age, agnostic ... and yes, Pagan) and all ages (from 3 to 93) living in and around a particular locality, who seek to embody the qualities of the Divine Feminine and to spread our light to the community in ways both practical (e.g. feeding the homeless) and energetic. Our monthly gatherings are also occasions for taking time out of our busy lives to nourish ourselves.