Lara Vesta's Blog, page 8

The Willing Sacrifice

My cousins lived down the road from us in Wimer. We were raised together, a passel of wild children. R and I are the only girls, and grew up sharing secrets, laughter. Our paths parallel, together and apart. We are both educators, activists, advocates. We are both mothers of three, our journeys as parents unique. Our eldest children have autism, our family situations are…non conforming. Stressful, beautiful, ever evolving.We are also hair sisters. In the last many years we’ve grown our hair out

When Listening Illogical

Yesterday I had a rune reading withmy teacher and patron Ingrid Kincaid. Ingrid was the first person to ever pay me for my art, commissioning a series of rune and northern traditions spiritual illustrations for her books and classes. I arrived at the reading fragile, full, ready to bleed any day, dark as the moon.I’ve spent the better part of the past few months in depression. I struggle with this each year, but it is not particular to the season. This year there was death, overwork, challenging

When Listening Illogical

Yesterday I had a rune reading with my teacher and patron Ingrid Kincaid.  Ingrid was the first person to ever pay me for my art, commissioning a series of rune and northern traditions spiritual illustrations for her books and classes.  I arrived at the reading fragile, full, ready to bleed any day, dark as the moon.I’ve spent the better part of the past few months in depression.  I struggle with this each year, but it is not particular to the season.  This year there was death, overwork, challenging changes and decisions.  And there was this:  a creative push inside my soul, longing to be born.  And all else barring the way.  I’d been laboring for months with no motion toward the birth.  I wasn’t open.My rune for this dark moon was Ac, pictured above, rune of the blasted oak, the lightning strike, rune of Angrboda, hag of the myrkwood who through a sacred union birthed fearsome and essential creations into the world.  Fenris, the wolf of chaos, Jormungand the world serpent, and Hela, Goddess of Death.In the reading it was clear that I need to make.  Badly.  And make without worry, without interruption.  For a full moon cycle.Ingrid left me with three mandates:  lead with the art, rearrange the furniture, and stop eating bad food.The first is the most obvious.  Everything I do must begin with making art, or in the service of art.  I use the word art to encompass my writing, too, and ritual, of course.  But what feeds me most after a lifetime of words is image.  So creation, to me, means beginning with the image.Rearranging the furniture is literal.  My “studio” is in the main area of my home, shared with my partner and our three teen-ish children.  I needed to move my desk out of the mid space and clear myself for art.Rearranging the furniture is also metaphorical.  This is where listening to the illogical becomes part of a dedicated sacred art practice.  I had just finished publicizing my Moon Divas Chrysalis Class, set to begin in February.  But February is the month I am supposed to dedicate to art.  It is a significant time for me, my birthday month, the start of spring here in the north, a gestative and potent moon.I could ignore spirit.  I could ignore my calling.  But I have lived into this spirituality long enough to know that if I don’t follow my true path I will get sick.  Physically, mentally, emotionally.So I canceled the class, receiving overwhelming support from my community to take this time and space for art and healing.Step two.  Done.Step three, stop eating bad food is harder for me.  It is literal, of course.  My increased sensitivity over the past decade has included food sensitivities.  My body won’t let me eat things that are intolerable.  Metaphorically, however, I keep saying yes to things that are the mental equivalent of bad food.  Saying yes out of fear.  Saying yes out of guilt or shame.  Getting stuck with the consequences.Over the next two weeks I have to clear my space, my consciousness, my schedule of the bad food and prepare to nourish myself as I enter creative time.I’m simultaneously thrilled, relieved, and terrified.  I still need to make rent, pay bills including tuition for my son’s education (he has autism and we’ve finally found a school that is a great fit.  But I alone am paying for it…).  Can I believe that if I am in the service of spirit that I will receive?  Can I trust that if I devote myself to the practice of sacred art, everything will work out?It will be an exercise in real, rooted faith, this.And I am ready.I’ll be sharing the journey here and on Instagram in the weeks ahead.With love–

And the word for the year is...

Freedom.Freedom from inhibitions. From stories that no longer serve.Freedom to take chances, make mistakes and get messy.Freedom to open.Freedom to risk.Freedom to create.Freedom to flow.This morning I woke at 5am and packed my runes, my drum, cheerios and almond milk, a bosc pear, the warmest shoes. My husband and I have a tradition to celebrate our anniversary, seven years this year. Not our marriage, that came much later in the relationship. This is our official first becoming, this

Dark in the Celebration: Winter Depression and Spirited Self-Care

  Back from southern Oregon sunshine and the depths of my family.  Returning to the dark cold wet of Portland.  And so let's talk about depression, seasonal or otherwise.   The holidays are an incredibly difficult time for me.  Moreso as I've articulated my spiritual practice and a path outside most of the normative expectations around this time of year.  My agrarian ancestors speak into my bones, saying, "rest" when the sun travels low on the horizon and the cold winds start to come up the

Transition=Transformation

 Today I set the intention for this time, this place, this space, this frame of mind.  Every time things start to open, I shrink in.  Now, tested...a little afraid, but tempered by this season, by the pains of the year, I open to the possiblities of bigness.   See, I've found my passion:  it is making.  Making art, making connections, making community.  In the service of this making, I set myself free.   Because, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek."  Joseph Campbell  

Begin Again at Any Time

   

On Becoming Who You Already Are

Consulting session offerings from Magnetize Studio. This year my education brought me into alignment with the turning season and my ancestors.

In my Sacred Lineages class we were drawn through exploration of our mother line, our maternal ancestors.  What I found in my line was power, daring women who strained against the confines of convention.

I also found tremendous grief, legions of untended dead.  And so began a project to honor our collective ancestry and preserve stories that would otherwise be lost:

The Shrine for the Motherline

Only the stories of my ancestors are present as yet, but I'm opening the door for you to share the stories of your ancestors, too.  Because when we know where we come from, we have context.  We can begin to make sense of who we are.
This work saturates me, in a good way.  And it brings me back to center, to the practices and wisdom that nourish fully.

One of these that I return to is choosing qualities to embody at this sacred, All Hallowed time.  This is in many traditions the start of a new year, and here in the Pacific Northwest, just past the full moon, the rains fall, the leaves fall.  Things end.  The seeds are sheltered in the dark of earth.  It is a moment edging to a pause.  To stillness, to quiet, dreams, reflection.

What will you be in the year to come?  Where do you live?  Where do you come from?  What are your roots, literal, figurative, metamorphic?

As Ophelia says, "Lord, we know what we are, but we know not what we may be."

Over and over culturally, in my reading and my work I see quite the opposite.  We don't know what we are.  We cast about for present-tense self-knowledge because our continuity has been broken.  Our ancestry, our earth-based connections, our spiritual selves, shattered. We grasp the fragments and look outside for self- knowledge.  Partners, friends, teachers, gurus all become a substitute for innate knowing. What qualities are you embodying for the dark northern time, the light southern time, the time of cycle?

A year ago I posted this about my Halloween costume practice.  I was considering Baba Yaga and Vasalisa the Brave as role models.  The sacred stories have so many forms that fulfill us with their rootedness.   Even if we cannot identify our own biological ancestry, the stories are our lineage.

What mythic models are you finding in your life this year?

What sacred stories, fairy tales or myths are showing you the way?

Right now I'm studying the story of Demeter and Persephone, the descent and ascent, separation and reunion, the unity of light and dark.  Who are we in the story?  Everyone.  We are all in divinity.  Who we are is free.

Sending wishes for invention, creation, integration.
​With love--

News and Emergence

I just returned from a week in San Francisco at the California Institute for Integral Studies beginning my PhD residency for the Philosophy and Religion program.  It is the only program in the country that concentrates on Women's Spirituality as an area of emphasis, and I am emerging transformed, buoyed, a little terrified by the volume of synapse work ahead.  And completely, utterly in love.

A few snapshots of this process...my class names:

Embodied Earth Wisdom
Building Conscious Allyship
Sacred Lineages:  Goddesses, Foremothers and Activists
The Eleusinian Mysteries and Greek Goddess Traditions

Yes.  Also:  Altars in the classrooms, tissues on the altars, space for integration of the experiential, academic, somatic, spiritual.

Yes.  Also:  passionate, intelligent students and professors crafting sacred community, called to this work by a synergy of so many paths.

Yes.  Also:  A little bit of overwhelm.  And gratitude, whole hearted gratitude.
When I left Oregon in August, it was summer.  Returning, it is autumn.  I am realigning with my work, redefining my purpose and balance amid parenting, clients, and the classes I love to facilitate--which are so in alignment with my education:  Moon Divas Certification and Magnetize Studio.  I will post more on these rhythms as they become clear, as I integrate.  

Before I return to this morning, to my son and my homework, I want to speak openly about calling and risk:  in all we do there is risk.  But is it the risk of the heart, your work in the world, your gifts, that you fear leaning in to?  What happens when you leap?  Can you look to your life and find the places where you risked?  Were you held?

Are you held?

I look forward to co-creating in the months ahead.  Sending love to the emergence for you all.
xox--Lara

In the Chrysalis

I may have some news.
I won't know for days...maybe weeks.
The prayer: "I am changing my life"
Yes, that one.  It fits.

Until then, it is the time of the chrysalis.  The time of making and remaking, of dissolution, of integration.  In the chrysalis it is quiet.  

Thank the Goddesses I am teaching right now.  It is a sweet, stalwart anchor in my weeks.  And of course, what better place to be in the chrysalis than in The Chrysalis Class?

This week we are focusing on the womb, and this too feels appropriate.  If you are in the Portland area stop on by, Wednesday evenings from 6-8 at Tabor Space on SE Belmont.

When I emerge, I'll be in touch.
Until soon.