Seren Bertrand

The return of the traditional Irish lament • Provides context and history for the traditional Irish lament known as the keen, examining the origins of the ritual and its history from paganism through Christianity • Explores keening’s shamanic dimensions and mythological connections to the Otherworld, including the world of Faerie while drawing on archaeology and traditional Irish folklore • Looks at the practicalities of keening, considering the wake as a rite of passage, the role and burden of keeners, the structure and music of the keen, and the contemporary rebirth of the practice Aiding the revival of a powerful rite nearly lost to history, Mary Mc Laughlin reveals the ancient keening lament as a ritualized practice which bears aspects of ancient shamanism while being rooted in the pre-Christian spiritual worldview of Ireland. Mc Laughlin, a singer and teacher, draws on personal experience, interviews, and historical and academic texts to provide a comprehensive and inspiring study of this ancient Irish tradition. She examines the origins of the keen in pre-Celtic Ireland and its mythological connections to the Fairies. She compares its similarities to archetypal lamentation rituals in North America and Asia. The author also explores the keen’s transformations over time, including the influence and integration of Christianity, its subsequent suppression, and its rebirth in recent years. The true magic of the keen goes beyond its role in expressing grief. Keening was a practice with a shamanic element where in addition to comforting the bereaved and honoring the deceased, the keeners aided the soul of the departed in making its journey to the Otherworld. Contemporary death doulas and hospice workers bear some similarities to keeners as they work in the same field of ritualizing and processing grief amid trauma and loss. Combining scholarship, storytelling, and embodied wisdom, this book offers an authoritative yet accessible guide to the Irish keen as both an ancient funeral rite and a modern tool that can help you navigate bereavement.

An invitation to embrace your feminine powers, awaken your soul’s creativity, and ignite your inner wild magic• Explains how to awaken your spiritual Womb to find strength within and how to reclaim your softness and vulnerability as a feminine superpower • Explores Earth Magic, the Moon Mysteries, Flower of Life teachings, Dragon wisdom, the shamanic powers of grief, the feminine archetypes of the Witch and the Priestess, and powerful goddesses from around the world • Reveals sacred spaces in the world where the power of the Goddess lives on The Womb is the seat of our primal power and intuition--our “wild knowing.” Spirit weavers are those who have heard this wild voice from within and have followed that call--embarking on a grail quest to follow the feminine path of magic, awaken to the depths of their soul, and embody their true feminine essence.Inviting you onto the spiral path of the spirit weaver, Seren Bertrand shares wisdom teachings and rituals from the feminine path of magic and her own ancestral lineage of old European witches and faerie folk, spirit keepers and story weavers. She explores Flower of Life teachings, the moon mysteries, and dragon wisdom. She unveils the shamanic powers of grief and deeply examines the feminine archetypes of the witch and the priestess. Drawing on powerful feminine spiritual icons from around the world, such as Kali, Isis, Teresa of Ávila, and Mary Magdalene, she explains how to awaken your spiritual Womb to find strength within and how to reclaim your soft powers of heart-opening vulnerability. She explores the lost traditions of the Goddess lineage and reveals sacred spaces in the world where her memory lives on. She shares the Womb Mysteries of alchemical union, revealing how to awaken the wild feminine and wild masculine and become sacred lovers who balance their light and shadow. From working with the cycles of the moon and learning how to root your power into the earth to healing the ancestral wounds left by the generations before you, Seren’s medicine teachings, like secret spells, cast an enchantment over your feminine soul, awakening its fertility and wild inner magic.

Discover the Womb Rites and initiatory magic of Mary Magdalene, who was revered as a Priestess and human embodiment of the Goddess • Reveals how Mary Magdalene was a sacred priestess of the ancient Womb Mysteries and how she was connected to sacred harlot archetypes and goddesses in many traditions, including Sophia, Isis, Inanna, Asherah, Lilith, Jezebel, and the Cathar Witches • Explains how the Magdalene Mysteries have been encoded in Gnostic texts, sacred art, and literature and unveils the secret Grail heresy of the Ghent Altarpiece • Offers rituals and practices to initiate you into the Womb magic of the ancient priestesses and access deeper dimensions of sexuality and feminine power A sacred priestess of the ancient Womb Rites, Mary Magdalene was at the center of a great and enduring Mystery tradition, one that touched on a stream of perennial spiritual wisdom as old as humanity. Worshipped as the human embodiment of the Goddess, the earthly Sophia, her womb was the spiritual luminatrix that anointed and empowered Jesus, transforming him into the Christ. As a priestess of the Goddess, Mary Magdalene knew how to embody the light and the dark, how to harness the magic potency of sacred sexual energy, and how to dissolve, cleanse, and resurrect the soul. Yet, even though she sparked the creation of a worldwide religion, her story and teachings have been forgotten. Unveiling the lost left-hand path of the Magdalene, the Feminine Christ, authors Seren and Azra Bertrand explore how this underground stream of knowledge has been carried forward over the millennia through an unbroken lineage of Womb Shamans, Priestesses, Oracles, and Medicine Women. They explain how the Magdalene Mysteries, symbolized by the Rose, have been encoded in Gnostic codices and gospels and in the highest art, literature, and architecture of many ages, including most significantly the Ghent Altarpiece. They examine Mary Magdalene’s connection to sacred harlot archetypes and goddesses in many traditions, including Isis, Inanna, Asherah, Lilith, and Jezebel, and look at shamanic, tantric, and Cathar expressions of sacred feminine mysteries as well as the Witch and Templar roots of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. In this revelatory and magical text on the lost feminine mystery traditions of Mary Magdalene and the lineage of Sophia, the authors present encompassing theological, historical, mythological, and archetypal wisdom, with rituals and practices to initiate you into the Womb magic of the ancient priestesses and the path of the wild feminine.

The Ancients lived by a feminine cosmology of creation, where everything was birthed and dissolved through a sacred universal Womb. Within each of us, whether female or male, lies a holographic blueprint of this Womb of Creation, connecting us to the Web of Life. By awakening your spiritual Womb, the holy of holies within the temple of your body, you can reconnect to the transformative energy of Womb Consciousness and reclaim your sacred powers of creation and love. Revealing how we must reconnect with the Divine Feminine to rebirth the Divine Masculine and restore balance to our world, they show how, as we reawaken the powerful ancient path of the Womb Mysteries, we help return our world to harmony with the wild, untamed creative flows and cyclical rhythms of the cosmos.