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An excerpt from Seasons of Moon and Flame 
by Danielle Dulsky

As a young woman, beloved witch, author, and teacher Danielle Dulsky found refuge, nurturance, and wisdom when visiting her grandmother’s rustic home. Next to the fire of the winter hearth and sitting outside with the wildflowers of spring, her anorexic body was loved and fed, her racing thoughts were slowed, and she received a maternal support she did not have in any other part of her life. These visits with Grandmother Grace were the seeds that eventually grew into Danielle’s deepening exploration into the Sacred Hag archetype and the wisdom that these elder women have been sharing since the beginning of humanity. Her third book, Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer's Epic Journey of Becoming is a “Year of the Wild,” — consisting of thirteen chapters that correspond to the thirteen moon cycles, or lunations.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt from the book.

Materials: Three small, squat candles, one for each “cosmic egg” spell jar

As the new moon dawns at midspring, place your small candles on top of your cosmic egg jars. You might choose colors that correspond to your dream visions, or a simple tea light will suffice. When ready, affirm that you are in sacred space, feel into your body, and light these candles, one at a time, in the name of a less wounded, more whole world. As you light each candle, call to mind a vision of children in the future gifted with a dream similar to the dream you are calling in for yourself. If one of your cosmic eggs represents you rooted and secure in new home, for instance, perhaps you envision future generations, the yet-to-be-born, swaddled and secure, as you light the candle. If you are calling in travel and spaciousness,
perhaps you see young ones playing in wide-open spaces while you light the candle, affirming that what you are calling in for yourself is not for you and you alone.

Let the candles burn for a few minutes, holding your hands over the heat of each flame as you move between your visions. When it feels right, carefully pour some of the wax over the jar to seal it, then thank the elder ancestors for the flames they have tended for you. Open the circle and, ideally, allow the candles to burn out naturally, or snuff them if you must.

And so it is.

Waxing Moon Practice: The Wildness of Our Longing

As the moon waxes, consider that what you yearn for is also yearning for you, that you are more sensitive to the spiral dance of nonlinear time than you think, and that desire is memory. As the moon swells toward fullness, task yourself with this practice as often as possible. For each of your cosmic egg jars, move your thoughts between these four points:

Call to mind a seed memory — that is, a memory of you feeling the same feeling that is integral to your vision. While envisioning this moment, chant aloud: “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
Now, come to the present moment. Chant: “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
Call to mind the vision of you with dream fulfilled. “Yes, thank you. More, please.”
Finally, picture the vision of future generations in a more sustainable world, feeling the same feeling that you yourself are calling in.

Do this strategically until it comes more easily, though it might seem difficult at first. If your vision is you joyously dancing in nature, the seed memory might be you softly swaying in your kitchen on the first warm spring day, and then the dream-world vision might be children dancing while bees buzz about and butterflies grace the skies. Envision these scenes in succession: first, you swaying softly, then you in the present moment as you are now, then the vision of you dancing in nature, then the dream-world vision, you in nature, present moment, softly swaying, present moment, nature vision, dream world, and continue. This is a psychic dance that makes for potent spellwork, binding what you want to what you already have to what you hope will bless the great-great-grandbabes of the future, be they your own blood or not.

Danielle Dulsky is a heathen visionary, pagan poet, and word-witch. The author of Seasons of Moon and Flame, The Holy Wild, and Woman Most Wild, she teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, 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, cunning witches, and rebellious artists in healing our ailing world. Find her online at www.DanielleDulsky.com.

Excerpted from the book Seasons of Moon and Flame. Copyright ©2020 by Danielle Dulsky. Printed with permission from New World Library.

My fiance is constantly having nightmares about fighting demons and monsters. He wakes up all over the room and house. He is a sleepwalker who regularly dreams about white snakes biting him and spiders on the ceiling, but under stress, he fights all kinds of evil beings. Should I be worried? What can we do to help him? Thanks!

- Susie

Dreamchaser:

You absolutely should NOT be worried about your fiance.

There are a couple of things going on here. The first and most obvious is that he keeps a lot of stress locked up inside of him during his normal waking hours, and when he sleeps, he works through all that stress. This is actually very healthy in terms of his mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Another thing happening here relates to his past lives. He is not only remembering them - he is re-living them in his dreams. The "monsters" and "demons" are really memories of skirmishes from past lives when he was a warrior, knight, soldier, etc. When he gets stressed, he re-visits those lives in his dreams. As he fights and relives those battles, he releases a lot of stress.

In Asian mythology, white snakes were considered lucky. He has had a number of past lives in China and Japan, and on a soul level, he still has these associations with white snakes. It's likely that the white snakes around him in these dreams are protecting him and bringing him luck. The snakes are teaching him to use his creative powers, to explore some mysteries in life, and to travel between the two worlds (waking and sleeping), amongst other things.

The spiders are allowing him to balance his masculine and feminine energy while he is sleeping. Spiders teach us how to use our feminine energy as a creative force. Since he is such a "manly man," he doesn't allow his feminine side to come out often. The spiders are also bringing him divine inspiration; he wakes up with a lot more soul knowledge than when he went to sleep.

I imagine it is really scary to sleep next to someone who has crazy dreams, acts them out and sleepwalks. I am like your fiancÈ. I am the one who sleepwalks and acts out in my sleep. I know I freak out everyone around me. I work through a lot of stuff in my dreams, so I know your man is doing the same.

Please reassure him that he is normal and that he does not have some type of psychological issue. He is just buttoned up so tight in his waking hours that he does not allow much spiritual knowledge to enter his consciousness while awake, so Spirit teaches him when he's dreaming.

He is NOT crazy and has nothing to fear. I bet that he feels better when he wakes up in the morning after one of these dreams, or at least better than he does after nights when he doesn't seem to dream at all.

I wish you both peaceful nights.

*****

Astrea:

The word "mare" is Old English for "demon." In the old days, people believed that troubled sleep was caused by a demon who rode you like a horse while you were asleep. The terrible things you dreamed were the experiences from that ride.

Is your fiance a Libra? They seem to be plagued more than the rest of us with those kinds of night terrors.

There are lots of good remedies for this kind of thing. Here are a few:

One of the easiest ways to protect your fiance from nightmares is to have him find a shell or a stone with a hole through the center. This is a natural holy (holey?) stone. Thread a red string through the hole and hang it on your bed.

Say this together, out loud: "We lay us here to sleep. No nightmares shall plague me until they swim the waters that flow upon the earth and count all the stars that appear in the firmament!"

Another is to have your fiance place his shoes under the bed on the south side, one facing one way, one facing the other. This will keep monsters from "entering" his dreams, because the directions of the shoes confuse them. It will also cut down on the sleepwalking, because if he tries to get up, his feet won't know which direction to take.

For more protection, take three nine-yard pieces of blue yarn. Have him braid the yarn and say at each plait: "Triple headed hag, protect me from phantasmagorical harm. MARES! Ride and scare ELSEWHERE!"

Then place a twig of rosemary and seven dried chamomile flowers in a little pouch. Wrap your yarn around the top of the pouch. (It'll be a big lump when you're done). Refresh once a month, and replace the contents of the pouch.

The oldest and the stinkiest remedy (and sometimes these work best) is to take an onion and cut it in half. Release it and pick up the side that lands cut side up. Pull your bed away from the wall and walk clockwise around your bed, stopping at each corner.

Hold the cut onion over the corner with the cut side facing up. You might also wrap the bottom of the onion in Saran Wrap and let it come up the sides, so it's still stinky but doesn't drip on your bed or your floor. Then at each corner say, "Dragon North, Dragon South, Dragon East, Dragon West, Sweet Dreams on the Dragon's Breast!" When you finish, go to the center of the head of the bed and inscribe a cross with a circle around it.

I hope these easy rituals help you BOTH get more restful sleep. GOOD LUCK!