Kristin Lisenby and Kate Belew are sending up soul flares to storytellers, poets, and word witches because the Crossroads creative coven returns in April for the Luminous Months!
Starting on April 15th, join Kristin and Kate for a six-month creative coven with monthly gatherings, rituals, prompts, folklore, and stories about the Witches of the crossroads, their potent gardens, and sacred symbols. Explore the crossroads, the realm of these stories, the liminal where magic is made.
Gather under the dark moon during the luminous months of April-September.
During this six-month series and program, we will hold space with you at the creative cauldron. By the glow of the bonefire, and under the watch of the guardian oak tree, together we will explore and tell the tales of the Witches, Goddesses, potent plants, folklore, and myth. These stories are fodder for your creative work. They are rituals to hold you in the shifting of the seasons. Together we’ll celebrate the luminous months of the year, spring, which turns toward summer, and finally descends into autumn.
The dark moon is the keeper of many messages, secrets, and stories. And at the crossroads, a few of her favorite stories will be shared. Each class will include a meditation, a discussion of sacred symbols, an exploration of the crossroads, a story retelling from the Goddesses and Witches of the dark moon, and an opportunity to write an invocation with guidance for each of these mythic figures.
Wednesday, April 15th, 7:00-8:30 pm EST, The Dark Moon of Pandora
Wednesday, May 13th, 7:00-8:30 pm EST, The Dark Moon of The Maenads
Wednesday, June 10th, 7:00-8:30 pm EST, The Dark Moon of Ariadne
Wednesday, July 8th, 7:00-8:30 pm EST, The Dark Moon of Artemis
Wednesday, August 12th, 7:00-8:30 pm EST, The Dark Moon of Psyche
Wednesday, September 9th, 7:00-8:30 pm, The Dark Moon of Inanna
In our first meeting at the Crossroads, we meet Pandora and her sacred vessel of curiosity.
A long time ago, Zeus held the reins of power. From his throne in the Above, Zeus pulled and tugged at the web of humanity. But when humans unexpectedly acquired fire, mortals became magicians. They brought the sun indoors, collected secrets from its crackling voice, and ousted shadows without a single prayer to the gods. Horrified by the idea of being forgotten, Zeus called on his fellow Olympians, and they crafted a curse. Hephaestus began with a handful of earth and forged a body with the face of a goddess. Athena taught the cursed woman how to weave, and Aphrodite offered golden beauty and scalding desire. The Graces showered the woman with flowers, Queen Hera crowned her with curiosity, and Hermes supplied a trickster’s mind and a name –Pandora.
Under the dark moon of May, we head to the forest to revel with the wild Maenads, following their pine-tipped wands of wildness.
Painted as lunatics and wicked women of the woods, the Maenads were followers of Dionysus, the Greek God of the Vine. In stories, they possessed superhuman strength and fiery tresses, and lacked any stitch of self-control. The Maenads’ frenzied dance both enticed and frightened uninitiated mortals, the people who’d never tasted the language of the moon. But to the outcasts, the wild ones, the people surrendering to their feral roots, the Maenads were not madwomen but messengers, sisters to witches, heathen guardians of the fairy tale forest. To them, movement was prayer, intoxicating and intuitive.
In our second gathering at the Crossroads, a coven of dancing women beckons from a wooded haven. Dionysus prepares the harvest while his muses, the Maenads, writhe to the tune of madness. As the Maenads swirl in the forest with the madness of their dance and moon, their pine-tipped wands cast a spell. Pine is symbolically intertwined with the archetype of Peace, however, in the hands of the Maenads, Pine casts the spell of freedom.
“We are most at peace when we are most ourselves,” they cackle. Pine is a wayfinding tree. Follow its tall stature to the center of the forest, where you’ll find shelter in the cathedral of its branches, held by the ancientness of dance and song.
Come the buzzing of June, Ariadne gestures to her symbol of the sacred spool.
The goddess waves to us from the labyrinth’s threshold. Using her spool of golden thread, she leads us deep within the walls of the Minotaur’s lair. Ariadne’s name means ‘holy,’ and helping people navigate the maze of becoming is her divine gift. Tying together the threads of betrayal, redemption, and initiation, in our third gathering at the Crossroads, Ariadne unravels a story about monsters, mugwort, and harvesting mysteries from the lunar labyrinth.
Mugwort is an expert traveler of the labyrinth and the underworld. Known for their intuitive properties, this Witching Herb and weedy and wild ally appears at the crossroads with messages from the other world. Put your ear to the earth of the Labyrinth, crowned in Mugwort, and connect with your wyrd and knowing self.
In the shadows of the wildwood, Artemis tracks her prey and nocks a silver arrow. What lessons can we learn from the sacred bow?
The Huntress of the forest, the keeper of the wild wood, Artemis arrives with her seeking arrow to teach us about the moon, wildness, cypress, and the hunt. She is an independent archetype, teacher of fierceness, and a cunning witch who knows that the wildness growing deep within our rib cages longs to unfurl into the world and our work.
Beneath the dark moon of July, Artemis strings her bow and aims for the heavens, teaching us that whatever need exists already within us. Wherever Artemis walks, her hunting dogs by her side, Cypress springs up behind her, messengers of wildness and magic at the edge of the forest. Gather around this bonfire and listen to the tales of her potent and powerful path.
From her gardens of desire, Aphrodite unveils the mysteries of the heart, soul, and the goddess Psyche…
Aphrodite wears many crowns: Lady of the Sea, the Golden One, and Bringer of Dawn. She is a guardian of swans, geese, and the winged spirits who keep our passions in flight. Aphrodite is also a mother, and at the Crossroads of August, she narrates a story about her son, Eros.
Eros is a divine archer and a spirit of desire. As a young boy, Eros dutifully carried out his mother’s bidding, firing enchanted arrows at nymphs and shepherds. However, Eros is now a man, and when he’s tasked with punishing a mortal princess whose beauty threatens Aphrodite, he does the opposite. When Eros meets Psyche, he falls in love.
Psyche translates to ‘soul,’ and her union with Eros spawns a love story with an ancient knowing: our desires are more than cravings, they’re pieces of the soul.
September’s moon welcomes you to the door of the Underworld, guided by Our Lady, Inanna.
In all her winged forms—the dove, the goose, and the vulture, Inanna circles the earth. Both a bringer of light and a harbinger of death, Inanna’s plumage reflects her celestial status. She is, after all, the moon god’s eldest child. In her cosmic form, the planet Venus, Inanna is our Morning Star. She is also Hesperus, our nighttime compass. Fluid and sensual, ancient poetry describes our Lady of the Largest Heart as a vessel for alchemy and sacred partnership. People call her their Battle Planner and Foe Smasher, but Inanna also tends to the land. In her wild garden, she speaks to the date palm and the mystical Huluppu tree. She whispers to the rivers; their Underworld currents swell and deliver.
Inanna and the ancient date palm are stories grown from the same seed: fertility. She is a guardian of the harvest, the door between this world and the next.
In our sixth and final Crossroads gathering, a strange tree washes ashore after a storm and summons the goddess of potential and partnership, the guardian of the old stories. Although the sapling is weak, Inanna peers into the weathered rings of what could be. She shuffles through the possibilities for autonomy and independence, and witnesses a societal shift following a great change.
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