My guest for this episode is the wild and wonderful Danielle Dulsky. Danielle is the author of The Holy Wild, Seasons of Moon and Flame, Woman Most Wild, The Holy Wild Grimoire, and most recently, Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book. A heathen visionary, painter, poet, storyteller, and word-witch, Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, embodiment trainings, communal spell work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School, and believes in the emerging power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists in healing our ailing world. On this episode we discuss: * Her formative experiences in a fundamentalist Christian church, and why she believes we choose the families that will wound us in exactly the right way for our own growth * How she met the Goddess during time spent in Ireland as a young woman * What it means for her to embrace the term "heathen," and how she sees it as living on "untamed spiritual ground" * How she came to know the Goddess a trickster and fringe dweller, and what shifts when we embrace her in this way - as opposed to a victim of oppressive patriarchy Plus Danielle reads two beautiful prayers from her latest book, Bones and Honey!
My guest for this episode is the wild and wonderful Danielle Dulsky. Danielle is the author of The Holy Wild, Seasons of Moon and Flame, Woman Most Wild, The Holy Wild Grimoire, and most recently, Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book. A heathen visionary, painter, poet, storyteller, and word-witch, Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, embodiment trainings, communal spell work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School, and believes in the emerging power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists in healing our ailing world.
On this episode we discuss:
Plus Danielle reads two beautiful prayers from her latest book, Bones and Honey!
Show Notes
Hello, and welcome to Home to Her, the podcast that's dedicated to reclaiming the lost and stolen wisdom of the sacred feminine. I'm your host, Liz Kelly, and on each episode, we explore her stories and myths, her spiritual principles, and most importantly, what this wisdom has to offer us right now.
Thanks for being here. Let's get started.
Liz:
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the show. This is Liz joining you as usual from Central Virginia and the unceded lands of the Monacan Nation. I am so glad that you are here with me today and If you would like to know whose lands you might be residing on, be sure to check out the map native land. ca. I will put that in the show notes for you in case you can't remember that.
And yeah, I'm really glad you're here. If you are interested in learning more about the Sacred Feminine, there are a lot of ways you can do that. You, you can listen to lots of the episodes of this show. At this point, there's a whole bunch of them. You can also check out my award winning book, Home to Her, Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine from WomanCraft Publishing that's available wherever you buy your books. You can check out the classes available via the Home to Her Academy. I'm going to be rolling out new courses in collaboration with some amazing teachers all year long. You can, you can follow me on social at Home to Her on Facebook and Instagram.
You can check out articles at hometoher. com. You'll find all the past podcast episodes there too, and I will put all this in the show notes. If you are a regular listener, I would love for you to leave a review of the show wherever you access it. I like seeing what you have to say, and I also think it's really helpful to, for other people to find this information.
And as always, feel free to reach out to me with your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, your suggestions. Social is a really good way to do that. I really do love hearing from you. And with that, let's get on with the show. So, I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite a while, and one of my favorite things is when I discover a writer, it sounds like I discovered them, like I discovered land, but like when they come into my life, someone who writes like they have dirt under their fingernails, and mud in their toes, in between their toes, and branches in their hair And my guest today, the wild and wonderful Danielle Dulsky, I hope she's okay that I just called her wild and wonderful, writes just like that.
She's the author of The Holy Wild, Seasons of Moon and Flame, Woman Most Wild, The Holy Wild Grimoire and most recently Bones and Honey: a Heathen Prayer Book. A heathen visionary, painter, poet, storyteller and word witch, she teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, embodiment trainings, communal spell work and seasonal rituals since 2007. She's also the founder of the Hag School, and believes in the emerging power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists and healing our ailing world Amen to that or some other appropriate word And she's joining us today, from outside Philadelphia.
Danielle. Thanks so much for being here. It's an honor to have you with me
Danielle:
Thank you for having me, Liz.
Liz:
Yeah. So I want to get into all the things and the, the dirt in your writing and all that, but I love to start with people usually just hearing about your religious and spiritual upbringing.
And I'm just curious. I'm a curious person. So I like to hear about it first of all, but I also think it's interesting in the context of the conversation that we're going to have. Was it helpful to you? Was it an obstacle you had to get around? Like how, what was that experience like for you?
Danielle:
Well, it was helpful to me in that I believe we choose the families that will wound us in just the right way so that we are oriented on the path that we need to walk in order to fulfill our soul's purpose.
So, in that way it was helpful. I don't know that I have received it as helpful at all times in my life. I was raised very born again Christian for maybe the first 12 or so years of my life and also had this. kind of wild polarity between my very religious mother and my atheist outlaw biker father.
And and also was raised during that same 12 year window, half of the time by my grandparents who were very cookies in the oven, loving, nurturing people. And then my parents were very the opposite of that. Very, very dysfunctional in a lot of ways. So yeah, so my coming to know that I was a witch and identifying as a witch and also, you know, being witnessed as a witch, which is a totally different thing that was a pretty long journey that didn't happen, didn't begin until really my late teenage years.
And at that time, you know, there really wasn't an internet because I'm 44. And so I'm talking about like the late 90s, when you really couldn't Google witchcraft teacher and find one readily. So our witchcraft teachers in the 90s were often the shop owners, you know, you would drive however long you had to drive to get to your local And then you would just ask whatever you needed to ask of the person who happened to be behind the counter and hope that they wouldn't be too annoyed with you and answer all of your questions.
So some of my original teachers in witchcraft were shop owners. And then I moved to Ireland when I was 18 because I couldn't get out of my parents house fast enough. And my entire mother line is Irish. So I was. Kind of on this unwitting journey of reclaiming some of the ancestral medicines that are there in that lineage.
Of course, at age 18, I wasn't really doing that intentionally. I was going there to have fun. And I did, I did have fun, but I also was able to come to a kind of inadvertent knowing that the other world is real, that the ghosts of my grandmothers really are afoot all the time. And it kind of opened me and softened me that pretty painful overall rite of passage experience of living in Ireland at age 18 and almost dying quite a few times softened me to other possibilities and that, you know, all things pagan and heathen were certainly not evil, in fact, that they are the earth based roots of all spiritual belief.
So after that, when I came home, I kind of pursued witchcraft more fervently and didn't really claim the name witch until I was about 25. And I just decided, like, I'm not going to hide it anymore. Yeah. So that was 20 years ago. I could go on, but that's the, that's the start of it.
Liz:
Yeah. I love it. And there's just something well, so I was raised as a Southern Baptist.
And so to me, there's something quite deliciously poetically naughty about being, you know, procla proudly proclaiming yourself as a heathen. Because like the only time I heard that word, you know, growing up was like, we're talking about your neighbors who didn't go to church. And so so I actually would love to hear you talk about what that means to you.
Like what that, and I do want to get into the divine feminine part, but just what does it mean to embrace that word heathen? And then like a more of a practical question around, like, how do you see that? Is that part of a larger umbrella of paganism? Is that how you understand it? Or do you see like distinct kind of differences there?
Danielle:
Well, I'm a huge word nerd. So, heathen is, you know, the story that's kind of locked inside that one word, heathen, is dweller on the heath. So, a heathen is really referring to the last holdouts. particularly in the Celtic lands who refused to be colonized or christianized. So there were the ones who lived among the heather flowers, the ones that were in the more rural areas.
So I always think of the word heathen for me as being the one who lives on untamed, untamed spiritual ground. And so That's a big piece of it. In terms of paganism, there is heathenry, which is its own kind of religious system, which isn't something that I personally subscribe to. But yeah, the word heathen for me means constantly questioning, like, What do, well, what do I really want versus what I've been told to want in my life, and what do I really believe versus what I've been told I can believe in my life, and of course allowing that to be influenced and co created by this global underworld journey that we're all moving through but it is a, you know, to me, heathen, it's kind, there's a, there's a level of like, you know, Uncertainty that's woven in that word, because then that uncertainty gives you the room to constantly.
Adapt and shift and change what you believe in and even how you practice and, you know, constantly be asking yourself, well, what does a witch's discipline mean for me today? And I think as I get older, I'm much more soft with myself around how I practice my spirituality and I'm less into like self admonishment around like, oh, I missed the full moon spell or, or anything like that.
And part of that is, is heathen. So it's not necessarily rebelling against Christianity or any other formalized religion. It's like your own spiritual practice. It's constantly making sure that that's true for you. And what was true for you last year might not be true for you this year. And the more the world shifts and changes.
Over the next 20 years I think that people are constantly going to have to be doing that, like, asking, you know, what does it really mean to believe what I believe, to practice what I practice, to share what I am willing to share with other people. I think all of that's just going to be more and more in flux than maybe it ever was before.
Yeah. So it's helpful to be a heathen.
Liz:
Yeah. I love it. I wrote that, your words down, untamed spiritual ground. So really beautiful. And I think what you're describing too of like, okay, so I missed the full moon spell or, or whatever it is, is also very conducive to, or I don't know if you're a parent or not, but
Yeah, so it's sort of the nature of existence as a parent as well. You know, I mean they're just kind of moving through the reality of that and holding the space for what's real right now and asking your spiritual practices, I think, to meet you where you are, as opposed to trying to tame yourself to I don't know.
These are the things that I tell myself when life is so crazy busy that I'm like, Oh God, how are we going to honor this as a family? So anyways, what you're saying is really, really resonates with me.
Danielle:
I think like for me, witchcraft is at least in part an art. And so my, I went to school for painting and so I am a painter and.
It always helps me when I'm questioning about like, you know, whether I'm proceeding the right way as witch in the world, because I do believe that word comes with some responsibility, especially these days. It helps me to see how my path as a painter and my practice as a painter really mirrors my witchcraft in a lot of ways.
So. You know, if I am too tired to paint, I mean, even now, I don't know that I've painted anything in like, maybe three months, because life got a little nuts. You know, I had a book come out, and so I wasn't, I wasn't actively painting. So like, I'm still a painter, but I do really feel called to that action of painting, just like in Witchcraft and in reference a little bit to the Divine Feminine.
It's such a radical act to move through, say, a spell or ritual, which is really a symbolic action where you're pulling the imagined into the material like that is radical. So instead of just like, you know, sitting still and praying and hoping for the best, there really is. An importance and a value to embodying what it is you're, you know, just wishing for praying for.
So, you know, in that way, it is important to do it to like pull it into action and actually, you know, move through it. But, but the The spaces between your symbolic actions can be very wide, and so it's not something that needs to necessarily be something you do every day. Because I do remember having, when my children were younger, I mean now they're older and about to fly the nest, so.
I can't really use them as an excuse anymore, but I remember when they were younger and it was, it was so hard, you know, it was casting the spell during nap time and hoping that they didn't wake up before you were finished. And that's, and, and writing and painting, it was the same, you know, it's such a tension.
I talk to young mothers all the time and I am, I know it's such a tension between your art and your creativity and spiritual practice and then motherhood. It's a tricky, tricky thing when the kids are young.
Liz:
Oh, yeah. I mean, and I'm, I'm in the phase now where I just drive people places and, you know, coordinate school and after school activities, which is a whole different demand, you know, like it's just literally becomes about time, like, I cannot, like, I, yeah, how many, how many hours will I log in the car today?
Yeah. So, anyways, yes. I know. Well, you referenced the divine feminine, the sacred feminine. So this is a show, you know, about home to her, about her. And so I would love to hear from you. And first of all, whatever language resonates with you. I say the sacred feminine, but if that works for you, then great.
And if not, feel free to use other language. But I would love to know if there was a specific part of your journey when she made her presence known to you and What that might have been like.
Danielle:
Yeah. I think that something that I always think of when I'm asked this question like, not necessarily like the wild or the other world, but specific to the Divine Feminine, when did she find you?
I always think about the goddess Brigid, and of course, This is her late winter time. And how she showed up for me when I was a child. So my Irish grandmother died when I right after I was born. And so I don't really remember her, but all of her things were put in Tupperware and kept in my room because we lived in a very small house and so in my bedroom I had these like huge tubs of Tupperware just full of the Irish Catholic albums and Bibles and these Mother of Pearl crucifixes and you know, my mother having kind of rebelled against all of that and become born again Christian, Catholicism was like almost evil.
And so because they revered Mary so much, I mean, that was what she told me. And so, of course, to me, even as a little girl, that was interesting. So, seeing how, like, some of the symbols are the same, but the cross is here, but this is bad, and that's good, and why would that be? And in this tupperware full of my grandmother's things, there was, and this is my mother's mother, there was a prayer card.
for Brigid and also a rosary that I think had Brigid on it, or I was seeing her as Brigid anyway. And so that was kind of my first encounter with her and also this energy of like, oh, well, Jesus's mother and, but how is that bad to revere Jesus's mother? And I remember telling my grandfather. At like age seven or eight that I wanted to be a nun and it was like the sky fell down.
I mean, it was like, oh my God, no, you can't. And he like sat me down and talked to me about it. So there was that. And then when I did move to Ireland, when I was 18, of course, Brigid is everywhere. And, you know, the, the sun wheels or the Brigid crosses, which are a pretty pagan symbol. They're everywhere and they're in the churches.
There was just sort of this like she was returning for me at age 18 when I was still, you know, pretty resistant to anything religious because of how I was raised. And of course, witnessing in Ireland how paganism and Catholicism just kind of walk right beside each other, and they don't do that here.
But there it's somehow. works and it's fine and it's beautiful. So yeah, I always think about that, like Brigid returning for me and having kind of like a dark night of the soul moment in Dublin and just seeing a statue of Brigid when I was walking home and being like, Oh, for some reason that's comforting.
She's comforting. I don't know why, but she is. Yeah.
Liz:
I love that. Well, and you know, we're recording this right now, you know, right around you know, this will come out later, but we're recording this right now around, well, it's called St., well, you might, I mean, you might know her name is Brigid, right?
St. Brigid's Day. Do you say Imbolc or Imbolc? How do you pronounce that? Imbolc. Imbolc used to be, okay. Yeah, so we're recording this right around this time, so that feels very fortuitous too that you're, that you're presencing her. And I also just wanted to say I think having been, I think I've, I've interviewed many people who grew up Catholic and I think maybe they don't understand this quite the same way as if you were raised in a more restricted form of Protestantism that Those Protestants do not see Catholics even as Christian.
Like there's just something else like altogether. It's, it's it's, it's akin to being heathen, actually. It's akin to being like something that doesn't, you know, somebody who just doesn't believe in God, period. So what you're saying, I can relate to for sure.
Danielle:
Yeah. That's so weird. My husband was raised Catholic and I've tried to explain that to him.
And he's like. But I'm wounded too. I know. We all are.
Liz:
Yes, my partner was raised Catholic too. And yes, for sure. Well, and so you mentioned Brigid, and I was gonna ask you, you know, what you know, how how are you relating to the Sacred Feminine? That's, you know, when she showed up to you, but how do you relate to her now?
Like, what, how, who is she to you? You can answer that literally, either literally in this moment, or like, at this time. And how do you, how do you relate to her?
Danielle:
Yeah. Most of the deities that I work with in my witchcraft are goddesses. They're, and my relationship with them is very different. I mean, I, I think that it's, than, than it is with the gods that I work with.
And there's only really one or two gods that I work with, but goddesses, I think I could name three or four that I. You know, regularly make offerings to and and pray to, and if I'm casting a spell, I might call them in and, you know, the difference, which I think, I think most women would feel this, is that you can really see yourself in the face of the Divine Feminine you know, those of us that were cast told that God was always a man, like it's, there's such grief that's tied to that, that you don't really acknowledge until you get older.
If you were raised, you know, knowing God as masculine, that how, how damaging that is, you know, that we didn't have we weren't able to see ourselves The face of Jesus, for example, as much as we could with maybe Mary or another face of the divine feminine. So I think that There's that. And then as I get older I'm trying to think of when I would have first had this realization.
Well, there's a great book called Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George. And I know I read that about 10 years ago. And in that book, she speaks about how the idea of The goddess being darkened like the dark moon, the goddess going into shadow, that it's so disempowering to assume that that was some kind of global strategy that made that happen alone, you know, it's become that, but she talks about how, you know, if the goddess is darkened Very like a lunar cycle that this could be her dark moon time and what if she essentially chose to go and so that she can regenerate and return, you know, fuller and brighter and more potent and more powerful when it's time.
And in this book, she kind of tracks. When that might be and of course, it's essentially starting now And so I do as I get older. I like this idea I'm into this idea of you know, the goddess being a little bit of a trickster and being able to Exist on the fringes so that just like any trickster character in a fairy tale exists on the fringes they're never the main character because that's where they can kind of operate from and Manipulate and, and do what they need to do in order to change the world, they kind of have to be on the borderlands rather than in the middle and you know, for that reason, the witch is always on the borderlands, you know, the old hag in the woods, the Yaga, she's not in the center of the story, she's off in the hidden place, just like the heathens are the dwellers on the heath, you know, there's this kind of necessary um removal from the overculture that allows the divine feminine and witchcraft and, and, you know, heathenism to be able to Function as they need to function, you know, if the spotlight was on them, if, if, you know, we had witch, well, I know we do have witch celebrities, but they don't usually say that.
Liz:
Oh, now I want you to pull him out of the broom closet and tell us who the, which celebrities are.
Danielle:
Well, I mean, obviously Stevie Nicks is, oh, yes, for sure. Yeah. And, like, that, that, but like, but I, you know, her, her witchcraft being illuminated and the spotlight on that instead of her music, like, I don't know that that would happen and that she wouldn't want it to because you kind of need it to be hidden in order to do what you need to do, like you know, somebody, if a witch is hexing somebody, like the worst thing you could do is like post that you're doing it on social media or, you know, tell them you're doing it.
You don't want to do that. You want to be able to operate in the shadows. That was kind of a dark example, but is relevant. So yeah, as I get older, the Divine Feminine has this kind of trickster quality for me where I'm not as, well sometimes I am, but I'm not as constantly full of rage and, and like you know, that she was somehow stolen from me.
I know that I, In my 20s and early 30s, I really felt that anger and rage over the way I was raised and not having an accessible goddess presence or, or yeah, godlike woman to be able to receive my prayers, but I'm less angry now and I'm more into this idea that there is kind of a hidden intelligence afoot and and of course she was always there and she never left.
Liz:
I am in love with this idea of goddesses trickster, you know, it's a I was thinking about. Well, when you, when you started talking about that, I was first was thinking about the activist, activist, Valerie Kaur and the speech that she gave several years ago. What if this isn't the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?
So reframing the darkness in a different way, you know, and like, what do we, what does the midwife say? We breathe and then we push, you know, and this is how we get the new world. And by the way, I don't think we have to choose one metaphor, you know, I don't think we have to latch onto one, but But I just love that idea.
Well, of course, of course, she's dancing at the fringes. And this, this makes so much sense from that lunar mythology too. The other thing that I was reminded of was a graduate school class I took in social movements, which is you learn that social movements always start from the fringes, like everything, like the, the instigators are out here.
Like if it wouldn't happen, if they were right in the middle it'd just be squashed immediately. So that, that makes so much sense to me and feels really. Empowering. I wonder, and I, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I too went through a period of years, I would say, of just rage and anger and feeling like betrayal, you know, just like how could this have been stolen from me?
And and I, I wonder if that is a. You know, I don't know if we need to blanket it to everybody, but I'd be curious if that's like a, if you think that's almost like a necessary thing that maybe we need to go through when we recognize like, ah, there was this thing that could have been so beneficial to me that wasn't in my life.
Like for me, it's almost like I had to dance with that rage before I could get to where I am now.
Danielle:
I think that for some people it's necessary. I know that. You know, because I've led women's circles for years that there are people that, that aren't angry, somehow possible, it always blows my mind. I know.
There are, there are women who have had similar experiences and have come to, you know, have followed a similar journey that just didn't didn't feel, That that righteous rage was necessary, or it just wasn't part of their journey. And like, I know that, you know, when I was younger and I would hear them talk, I'd be like, Oh, well, you're just suppressing it or you're you're just hiding it.
But it really does seem like it just wasn't a part of their story. So I don't know that it is. necessary for everybody. But for me, it certainly was. And I do think you said the word betrayal. I really do think that it's, it's Bill Klotkin that says there's three big sacred wounds and there's rejection, abandonment, and betrayal.
And Betrayal is, and so whichever one of those three words kind of sticks at you the most, you're like, Oh, that, that's the one that hits me. That's probably yours. That's probably your sacred wound. And so for me, betrayal is the one that hits me. And I know that the betrayal wound people, they do tend to have a lot of anger more so than the rejection and abandonment sacred wound people.
So there might be something to that also.
Liz:
Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing, and I'll see if I could articulate this. That's that came present for me when you were talking about kind of the fringes and the change on the fringes is there's the empowerment of that. Like, there's something, I have a I have a Facebook group and you know, this will come up from time to time like this I'm thinking of it because it came up fairly recently this language around smashing the patriarchy and these metaphors of violence that we reach for over and over and over again and I think it's honestly we just we just don't know any other way and so there's something to me about Like, I don't think we have enough trickster energy in our culture that's sort of like, right?
That kind of like, no, I don't have to smash anything. I'm going to like, like, let me just see how I, I kind of work my way around the outside to, I don't know whether that's destabilized or just start to. Laugh and not take this all so seriously and point out, you know, the emperor has no clothes or whatever that is.
There's something that just feels like liberating and creative about playing in those spaces. Or in that way.
Danielle:
Yeah. One of my, one of my most beloved and brilliant teachers is Bayo Akomolafe. And he says, like, these are his words that a system can become so large, and then these are his words, that it endorses his own, its own critique.
So, you know, the, the smashing of the patriarchy, well, we don't want to smash things forever. You know, and I'm not saying that that's not necessary right now. And I certainly have a t shirt that says smash the patriarchy. I think I do too, actually. And I do, I do want to do that. But yeah, there is, there's such a power. In, like, being able to really you know, not just think outside the box, but, like, just, like, how weird can we get? Like, what is the strangest solution that you can come up with for this thing? And, and I think that like you just mentioned, laughter, like the, the Joker archetype is so powerful in magic and in spell containers, and of course it is in the world often, you know, when you're trying to affect change in your life, or you're trying to cast that spell for something, as soon as you stop taking yourself so seriously, that's when you the, the spell comes to fruition. As soon as you retract your claws a little bit and just let go and laugh at the great cosmic joke, that's when the spell really starts to work. So yeah, there's something really important about that. But I almost feel like you have to be older to get that. At least I, I did.
Like I, Yeah, my taking myself very seriously and my anger was very important for me. Oh, yeah. Oh, I still do it sometimes Yeah, right around my Saturn return, especially I really needed that it was like medicine for me.
Liz:
Yes, although there is like a child you know as you were talking about that I had a flashing memory of my daughter when she was younger and You know, she, she can take the, it's like, I am her mother, you know, she can take things quite seriously and she, I remember her, I don't remember what it was, but I remember her being deeply upset about something when she was five or six and she definitely didn't like being seen, you know, doing something that she thought was silly or, or not age appropriate or whatever and so that was part of it too and she's sort of stuck in this spiral and she's upset and she's upset and yeah.
I, I think I just made a really silly face at her or really stupid noise and it just stopped her mid step and she started giggling, you know, so I wouldn't like, maybe there's like a childlike, very childlike thing that understands that too, that laughter is really funny. Okay. Good medicine even for dark times.
Danielle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely in witchcraft They well in fairy Wicca, they they call that energy the fetch energy Or or the young self so it's like when you're in a very somber ritual the deep self is in control, but I remember this one ritual that I was leading where I was taking myself very seriously, and I was, and I had so many people in the room, and then my, my amazing playlist, like, hiccuped, and I think it was like Guns N Roses started playing, or it was some ridiculous song that just did not match the vibe, and Somebody started humping a broom and it was exactly the right thing, like, you know, it's, it's one of those instances where you kind of put the obstacle in the middle, like, okay, here, this thing came up that could ruin the entire.
Intention that we're trying to fulfill here, so let's put it in the middle, and let's put the person who's humping the broom at the center of our circle, and let's let Axl Rose keep singing, and it became the exact right thing, so yeah, and I think like that, that young self, that innocent energy, like you making the face at your daughter and stopping her, like that kind of gets in the picture.
When we need it to like, you know, that it's there all the time, but it does leak in when we need it to kind of organizes the experience for us sometimes.
Liz:
Yes, for sure. I'm also thinking of you know, my own I did it. Like a mystery school, a priestess initiation training that was a year long and we've worked with divine feminine archetypes and one of them was the wise woman.
And so the wise woman was also she carries that trickster energy because she's just so old. She just, she doesn't really give a shit. Like she's seen it all. She's like, you know, rolls her eyes at how we take ourselves seriously. And so there's like a practice of sacred needling. You know, like kind of like, as long as it's done in love, right?
Like it can't be just meanness, but if it's done in love, there's actually, it's, it's a, it's a powerful tool to kind of point out the humor in the situations that we think are, are completely humorless.
Danielle:
Right. Yeah, exactly.
Liz:
Yeah. And I'm also wanting to presence. There are certain situations where we're not going to be laughing people in great pain and that kind of thing.
Context is everything, but yeah.
Danielle:
Right. Yeah. And then, you know, and then that energy doesn't get in there. I think. Yes. It's only when Time.
Liz:
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, I want to, I want to talk about your latest book, Bones and Honey. First of all, if anybody watches Ted Lasso, I'm pretty sure this is not like a reference to the Bones and Honey Club. Right?
Danielle:
It is not.
Liz:
Maybe they stole it from you. They.
Danielle:
Well, they didn't because the book wasn't out yet, but I do I was watching when that episode came on. I was like, oh shit. And then, of course, I got two messages from my publisher. But, you know, it's all zeitgeist.
Liz:
Well, I mean, who knows? Like, it could be really helpful for sales, right?
Danielle:
I don't know that that many people noticed it. Like yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking of It's a cool club.
Liz:
Yeah, and I'm thinking, like, Fringe Dweller Energy, like, how great is that? You know, like, somebody picks up your book thinking it's a Ted Lasso reference and they get initiated into heathenism. It's pretty amazing.
Danielle:
Yes, please let that happen. Just once. Yeah.
Liz:
Yeah. Well, tell us, I mean, just, yeah, let's talk about the book. I loved it, but I'd love to just hear you talk a little bit about the the inspiration for it. You know, what, what kind of inspired you to pull it together and, and
Danielle:
Yeah, it's a, the idea for Bones and Honey came from me. wondering what archetypes were the most medicinal for the world right now. So like I work with a lot of writers and often the thing that stops people from writing that book finally, especially since 2020, but maybe a little bit before that too, was this sense that They have to know the end of this story.
They have to, they have to like see the ever after in the world story, and then they'll be able to write the book. And I just have had this knowing that this is the beginning, like we're not, I'm, I'm probably not going to live to see the end of this story. And so knowing that. Then what are the most medicinal archetypes?
If this is more like a once upon a time instead of the ever after, what are the medicinal characters that need to be really empowered right now and named and witnessed? And I think that, you know, archetypes come into the world story most potently when they are needed, and they often do through art. And so I'm thinking, you know, if I'm I'm going to write a new book and, you know, I don't know, and knowing that it's also going to come out like in a year and who knows what will be going on then, right?
So I wrote most of Bones and Honey almost exactly a year ago, and then it came out in November of 2023. So, and that's the nature of writing a book. It's like you don't know what the landscape of the world is going to look like when the book comes out. My book, Seasons of Moon and Flame, came out in March of 2020.
So you never know what the world's going to be doing and like your best laid plans of book promotion could just get thrown out the window. So, but, but I was thinking, you know, the remedy for that are these medicinal archetypes because of course they're going to keep being the medicine, no matter what is going on and what the, you know, news happens to be paying attention to.
So. That was the idea and then naming these 13 medicinal archetypes and thinking about going back to me being a word nerd prayer really means earnest request. So, thinking about what are my earnest requests, or what might anyone's earnest request be to these particular archetypes right now? And. Yeah.
And then the rest of the book kind of unfolded from there.
Liz:
Yeah. And do you have a vision of, and I want to, I, well, and actually I'd love for you to read read one if you're, if you're up for that, but as you were writing them and they're so, well, no, we'll get to the dirt. I want to talk about the dirt.
Let me just hold that thought for now. But did you have a vision of how people might, I don't think the word use is wrong, but how people might Interact with them when you wrote them because they feel very alive. Like they're, they're very they're, they're shimmery, you know, there's like a vibration to them.
Danielle:
Mm hmm. I mean, my, my author's hope was that of course it would become like a bedside table book and people, you know, not read it linearly but open it and, and work with. any prayer that called to them at that point in their lives. But you know, in the end, I have no control over how people actually use the book or work with the book.
But yeah, that was the original hope. And, and also that knowing that not Every single person or every single reader, even someone who, you know, loves my writing is going to resonate with every single prayer in there, but that there wouldn't be be at least one prayer in the book that would resonate with anybody who happens to read it, that there would be like one was like, Okay, that's why I bought this book.
Liz:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I think some of them definitely have a feel of like, Anchor to ceremony. Anchor to ritual. Like you could, you could build around it for sure. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, yes, would you would you be open to reading one? I'd love, I'd love it if you would. Yeah, absolutely.
Danielle:
So I'll read Holy Howls.
This is in the Book of the Mountain Mage. So, mage archetype is always interested in transformation of self and others.
This full moon is made of holy howls, longing, and silver fire, stitched together by that wise and wicked thread of fate. May we wander long in its ghostly glow, this midwinter evening, when the certainties are few and the curiosities are many. Here, we are creaturely, hunting a new dream in the shadows of these haunted snowscapes, tracking the older than ancient footprints of the Calleach back through the ice caves of deep time.
Lost in these heathen imaginings, may we welcome our next once upon a time. May we sense a new story and sniff out a hidden path, readying our dream den for its ceremonial thaw, naming truth treasure and finding food for the spirit in winter's befuddlement in these dark and wild fallows. Yeah. So good.
Liz:
Thank you. So good.
Danielle:
I was going to bring up the Calleach before when you were talking about the hilarious, the hilarity that is woven into the wise woman archetype. So the Calleach is the old hag of winter, of course, and something that is not, that is less known about her, and I think this is specific to the Irish Calleach and not the Scottish Calleach, but I don't know that for sure.
Is that she has a superpower and the superpower is that she can regrow her hymen at will in order to, as Patricia Monaghan says, permit the thrill of another deflowering. And yet she's an old blue skinned red teethed hag woman. Who, you know, seduces otherworldly travelers on the road, and then she regrows her hymen after that, and that is funny.
Liz:
That is fantastic. And then probably just laughs uproariously after it all, you know? Oh my god, that's so good. I love it. You know, as you were reading that too, I was thinking, I know I said in the intro that your words have dirt in them And they do, and they also, they're just, they're like feral, you know, and I, I mean, which I love, like there's a feral quality to your writing that just makes me want to go well it's too cold right now, but you know, if it weren't that cold, like just go run naked out in the woods, and I, and I, I wonder well, did you run naked in the woods to write these, or no, but like in all seriousness, kind of what's your What's your relationship with nature?
Because that seems like a big part of your spirit that comes through in the writing and even what you were saying about people of the heath too, you know, the heathen aspect.
Danielle:
Yeah, I have I'm in a strange chapter of my life right now where I, in late 2020, we, through very bizarre circumstances, found This wild land in central New York that is incredibly removed from everything.
The internet doesn't work and you can't get a phone signal. I mean, it was really like pretty in the middle of nowhere. And we loved it so much. We, we found a house there and we really split our time between this incredibly built urban environment outside of Philadelphia, and then this really complete opposite mountain cabin.
If that's the right word for it. It's a very peculiar house that we have there. And so, you know, if I were to have answered your question before 2020, before I found that place, I think I would have really thought about the kinship that I have with the mountains, the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, which is where I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was young and there was still that duality and that back and forth between being in this cabin with no running water and then being, you know, in the built place where I would go to school and do the more civilized things.
And now I have that again in the tension between these two places that I do call home. So I can really feel the energy of. As you say, nature, the wild, like, amplified now because I have this polarity between the two places and I can sense how my nervous system functions completely differently.
Time moves differently for me when I'm there. Like, it's not weird for me when I'm in the wild place to not know where my phone is, sometimes for days. Whereas here, you know, I constantly, like, I always have it with me here. So. You know, it does feel like increasingly I'm aware that being in. In the wild and where I can just like, walk out my front door and I'm, I don't see anybody and except maybe the heron or the beaver or a herd of deer that time moves differently when you're in that place.
And I don't think I was really aware of that before. And I certainly wouldn't have been as a child in the mountains because time moves differently for children anyway. But, Yeah, it feels like there's a, there's, the linear time kind of falls apart the more connected you are to the elements and the weather and the less connected you are to screens.
Yeah. For better or worse. Yeah.
Liz:
Yeah, it makes me think of well just how often we seem like hungry, hungry for that. That, that connection or, or like if you close your eyes and you think about, you ask people to think about like a place where they felt a place in a time where they felt most at peace.
I think a lot of times we call up some place in nature because we know that there's that, that critical part of our soul that's not being fed by, by the manic nature of this culture. Right. Yeah.
Danielle:
Yeah. And that it's supposed to be that way. I mean, our biology has not caught up with our technology.
Liz:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm remembering I had a, I had a career before what I do now, or I was. Very in the business world and I'm super into that. And then had a, you know, awakening to this divine feminine energy. And there's that in between time, you're like, Oh no, I'm being called to something completely different.
And Oh God, that's scary. So I'm just going to try to keep making this work. You know, that, that space like, no, no, no, no, no. Or maybe I confused these two things. But during that time, I remember, you know, one of the things that really happened is just how alive nature came for me and how deeply frustrating it was for me that.
I would just want to slow down and be present, even to like a tree in Oakland, California, you know, which is where my office was at the time. And people would be like, what are you doing? You know, and you're like, I just, I just want to look at the damn tree. Like, you know, just give me a minute. And I remember doing a team offsite with my team and I had a team member who had flown in from.
She lived in Manhattan and we were doing it in the hills of Berkeley, California, just so absolutely stunning views of the bay and everything as we're driving. And I drove this specific way because I wanted her to see it. Cause I was like, God, this is so beautiful. And she literally could not look up from her phone.
Like she was just like, this is so important. I did it. And I'm like, I know, but look, but look, look, look at that. Like, isn't it beautiful? Look at the way the water's shining on the bay. And then she just like, couldn't see it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I don't know, I associate city energy with a lot of amazing things, but I also associate it with that disconnect, like in the more, right.
I think those urban environments can really kind of get stuck on us in lots of ways.
Danielle:
Yeah. Yeah. And like, I can really see how, like I've lived where I live now for about 13 or 14 years and I needed it. Like, like right after I got divorced when I was 30. It would have been terrifying for me to be like out in the middle of the woods living.
I needed to be among people and community and hear the car horns and all the things I needed that. But you know, I'm getting to a place in my life where like, I just don't anymore. I don't need it. And I resist it. Yeah.
Yeah. Another thing that really came through in your writing to me was this Ancestral connections.
Liz:
And I know you've got, you know, I forget the name of the chapter, but it's, it's about that connection to grandmothers. But I think it feels present throughout the book too. And I wondered if you could speak a little bit to you know, I know I, that's something that I hear from women in particular is this Disconnect from our mother line from our ancestors or our ancestors are in our minds connected with these disempowering religions.
And so how do we, how do we find that? And I wonder, you speak, I mean, you write really beautifully about these connections to our ancestors. You even mentioned at the beginning, like really having that feeling of ancestral grandmothers walking beside you in Ireland when you were young, but I wonder if you could speak to that.
If you've cultivated that, or how you've cultivated that, or, or, you know, how even you guide people who are feeling that disconnect, because I'm sure you must have heard this in your classes as well.
Danielle:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, the, Ancestors are in us, whether we want them there or not. We are the living ancestral altar.
And similar, like, talking about the religions and the way we were raised, I think it's Joseph Campbell that says, the stories that were put into you when you were a child, they're in there anyway. Like, you can't get away from them, so you might as well. Revisit them or revision them or befriend them in some way because they're there no matter what.
So what I often tell people is to think about their lineages as a whole, especially their for grandparental lineages and to not allow yourself to get stuck in the more recent. Generations that are probably the most wounded. And know that, you know, we all go back to an earth based tradition if we go back far enough.
And it's often a matter of figuring out either. Intellectually on Ancestry. com, or more importantly, intuitively or through pathworking or meditation, just what is the gift or the treasure or the medicine that is in that like deep past place for your lineages, because that's what the gift is and Also, the medicine, probably for whatever that exact wound might be more recently so not to let, you know, what you know about your grandfather being a bad person or whatever to stop you from doing ancestral healing.
I mean, in fact, that's the reason And then the flip side of that is also to not over romanticize the gifts that are in the Earth based tradition. I mean, the point is to bring those gifts forward and to, you know do the healing of the more recent generations when you're ready. But you don't usually start there because it's too hard to start there.
Liz: Hmm. I love that. And then not romanticizing. That seems important. It is.
Yeah. Yeah. In some way that's like bringing up our conversation about trickster energy too. I don't know why exactly, but just sort of that there seems like a, like a, a feeling of holding it lightly, you know, or just like, yeah, it's like yeah, yeah, I'm not quite sure how those two things are connecting quite in my head, but they're trying to.
Danielle:
There we go. Yeah.
It's, it's like shadow work. Like if ancestral healing feels easy for you, there's probably not it. It might be a good place to start. It was probably not the whole thing. Yeah.
Liz:
That, that makes sense. Oh my goodness. So Danielle, tell us about how people can learn more about you and if you've got anything exciting coming up, feel free to tell us about it or yeah.
Danielle:
Yeah they can, I have two websites. One is just my name. So Daniel Dulsky. com and then the other one is the hag school. com. And I have a lot of, I have a lot of offerings at the hag school this spring. So we have the Hidden House Coven, which is kind of a virtual coven where I tell stories and then we cast spells that have to do with that story and I have a storytelling training called the witching hearth this spring.
That's also virtual and. Yeah, I have this new, this new evolution in my business where I have to work with people virtually first and then maybe they get to come to my wild land and do some rituals with me, but the world's so nuts. I have to see them first.
Liz:
I think that's very reasonable.
Absolutely. Well, and I wonder too, if you might close us out I'm looking at your book right now with one more of your delicious prayers. And I think we talked about you reading, inviting the small voice to sing. If that just feels really, it feels like a really nice way to close too.
Danielle:
Yeah, absolutely.
So this is in the first chapter of the book of stars. A slow to shadow moon calls a somber sky its home. This night of revelations and quickening seeds, and my mind's eye sees a vision I call my singular desire. Be a lantern lighting my path, dear moon, and invite my small voice to sing. Cast your silver light spells on the faces of the storytelling ghosts and the warm hearted mystics who know me best.
Empower this vision of mine now, for I cannot wait for your fullness. When midnight finds me at the fireside blanketed in longing and bidding the clock speed forth that I might find my vision realized, remind me this, if I can, if it can be imagined, if I can hold this vision in all of its glory, it's already real.
On some timeline, in some wild place, my vision is already unfolding. My desire is already mine, and I am already blooming with gratitude, my shining self glorified by the beauty of another dream fulfilled.
Liz:
Mm. Mm mm. And so it is. It's just fabulous. Yeah. Danielle, thank you so much for joining me today.
Danielle:
This has been so fun. I've, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
Liz:
Danielle's latest book, Bones and Honey, a heathen prayer book. I'm going to try to hold it up for those of you who are watching this without messing up my camera. It's a really cool cover too. Yeah, thank you so much. This has been a joy. Yeah.
Danielle: Thanks so much for having me, Liz.
Liz:
Yeah, and thanks to all of you as always for listening and hey, if you like the show you can do a few things you can Tell everybody you know about it. You can subscribe to it. You can leave it a favorable review You can do all that if you're feeling so inspired and until next time take very good care of yourselves Maybe go outside and howl at the moon or you know run minimally clothed in the woods if depending on the the temperature where you are and yeah, we'll be with you again soon.
Home to her is hosted by me, Liz Kelly. You can visit me online@hometoher.com where you can find show notes and other episodes. You can read articles about the sacred feminine, and you'll also find a link to join the home to her Facebook group for lots more discussion and exploration of her. You can also follow me on Instagram at home to her to keep up to date with the latest at.
Thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you back here soon.