Goodness, what a gift this reading is. I’m often up in the middle of the night and this was the best thing to find. Thank you Sylvia, thank you Sooth. This deck is so powerful, so beautiful.
I love the idea of going analog and have been seriously considering it as well… there must be many of us!! Can we all connect and brainstorm?!
Oh I'm so glad Savannah! I'm glad it kept you company in the middle of the night, I know that feeling of being awake in the small hours these days. And yes there really must be so many of us with the analog longing... I like the idea of brainstorming! x
Thank you for this incredibly grounding and nurturing offering - it is a blessing for us all. I’m always so blown away (and cracked open, awoken, heartened, soothed, stirred, fed) every time I sit with these cards and receive the deep wisdom of Sooth. Lately, I keep getting Howl Mother and also Our Lady of the Bones in the Floor has shown up in a couple recent readings too. Thank you and Sooth and the blue jays for weaving us all together here in this healing way, during this ongoing heartbreaking, dissonant and horrifically devastating time. I found this reading and your woven reflections to be a very much needed balm and rooting down into the earth. A return to the vast and wise-wild knowing; attuning once more to the voices of Earth and ancestors.
During the reading, I was reminded of an experience I had while at a beekeeping immersion this past spring with Ariella Daly: while sitting with one of her hives, I was flooded with vivid images of gentle and kind men tending bees and I felt it in my bones that these were my great-great grandfathers, these forest beekeepers. They were shrouded in smoke, climbing trees, singing and laughing. It was surprising and very healing to receive what the bees had shared with me, and I had almost forgotten this vision until this Sooth reading stirred it up once more!
After listening to your reading, I sat with the cards and some writing/ reflections came through for me:
~~~
Held, hewn, stitched, woven
Caught between teeth
A song longing for release
Dearest grandfathers
the ones who tend the tree-hives
How smoke suffused their coats, their hair and beards
With propolis stained fingers
they kissed honey-sweet, the grandmothers
who howl into the long nights, into the soft mornings
They feed the prowling wolf mothers pots of honey-comb
Gentle and fierce unite
Protecting the stories embroidered in our bones
Nursing the babies with sweet milk and pollen
Singing the warp threads for the young ones to follow along
Together they weave, weft-weeping, the blessings into a vast and soaring net
All gathered in our hands, clawed and feathered, hoofed and silver scale-flecked
Remember, they say, Be brave, and Love within, through everything - Always.
Mourn and sing
Dance and birth
Protect and heal
Mend and Love
Listen.
~~~
Also, I dearly love this song by The Breath, it’s so stunning and one I’ve been returning to over the past few months. It pours the tears out and offers such tender holding and replenishment. Thank you again for this collective reading and for the invitation to share our reflections and experiences here in this circle of Sooth.
Sophia, oh my heart these grandfather beekeepers in the forest, climbing up the trees, sweet and wreathed in smoke! I am in love with this image, it feels like a blessing and a balm to carry in my own heart today, thank you so so much. The smoke suffusing their coats and beards, their propolis stained hands... I just find this so very soothing. It helps me find hope. I am so glad Sooth stirred it again for you to share with us. Sending love to your wise hands & heart xo
Reading your imaginal response to these cards I have tears streaming down my face. Thank you for the solace you offer our hearts by voicing and honoring the deep grief that feels like the only sane response to these times and current events.
I’m moved by the incredible balance in these three cards- starting with a place to hold and honor grief, and the love that it illuminates. The complementarity of the fathers and grandfathers who feed us and the mothers and grandmothers who protect us… your imaginal reflection gives me a glimpse of knowing this tale you tell is true. Under the devastating violence, the othering, -the ignorance of our own true natures and the sacred life in all our relations- underneath what seems like an inescapable darkening of our world, you remind us that the wisdom and light of this beautiful world and the love that made it is here with us - even now. This ignorance around and inside us can crumble like sand- thank you, dear Sylvia. May it be so. May our hearts and minds and actions align to make it so.
Thank you for these beautiful words Heather, I'm sending so much love to you! I was quite struck by the balance in these cards too, thank you for mentioning that and describing it so beautifully here. Yes, may it be so, may the love that is stronger than anything mind us all. xox
For months I thought I had purchased Sooth through the original campaign and then realized I never completed the order! Then I reached out to Hanna from Weaving Remembrance to see if there would be some copies to purchase through that program. Then I was directed to Rima’s site but I was hesitant to do the international shipping rates. How happy I was to discover I could have just ordered through you all along! Which I have now done!
I will spare you all the details, but this reading was soooooooo resonant for me on so many levels. Listening to the spins and threads from this reading brought tears to my eyes! Thank you!!!
I cannot wait to receive this oracle and work with it this year.
Also; I feel you will appreciate this. My husband and I say the same prayers every night with our children. Saying the same thing over and over is very grounding for them. And each night as part of it we give thanks for and say a blessing over our ancestors. Well, my four year old led prayers last night and he said “God bless our grand-cestors” and I smiled so big, and now, I don’t believe I will ever be able to call them anything else! Indeed, God bless our grandcestors!
Oh I'm so sorry you had such a goose-chase, Rachel! I actually only just recently brought these cards back to California from England to sell in my shop, so you weren't missing anything before. And then, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful moment with your children... God bless our grand-cestors, I'm going to be saying that too now! Sending love xo
Oh, good to know! I am just so very excited to begin working with it! I also wanted to mention that I loved the phrasing of soul-rot in relation to AI, and that if you ever leave this platform for old fashioned post office parcels and letters, I would be so happy to sign up! Two other folks I love have gone that route or are contemplating, and getting the letters in the mail is soooooo pleasing! Xoxo
Hey Sylvia, this was wondrous. Because of this post, I finally used those Sooth cards that I got from you and Rima a while back. It was good and important medicine for me.
The reading I got was Our Lady of the Emberbed for the House and then Apple Basket and Lines of Life for the Ways. I am going over the words to understand them and their incantation and the layers within.
I reached a point of peak sorrow about a month ago. All kinds of heartbreak in the last year and a bit, both personal and collective. I have tried staying in my hometown for years to attempt to make a difference, and in recent years have been attempting some very big ambitious stuff within the Episcopal Church. But we have so much inherited pride and privilege, and an unfortunate loyalty to many of the institutions of modern civilization, including the political structure of the United States being one that can serve life.
It just got too much. I went to a party for some friends for Solstice, and everybody was having a good time and I started to as well. Then I did a cannabis edible, and it was the worst experience of my life and most illuminating (I think me and drugs tend not to mix). I thought I was going to die and pass over. And I felt awful about how small and hopeless my life had become. How lacking in daily joy and pleasure. I am 38 and think I have gotten close to a couple stress related mini-strokes and also had some heart trouble. My body may have some fragility anyhow and I need to be careful, but my soul just didn't really want to be in my body. I thought I would see my Grandma Myrtle and her beloved prairies up along the Missouri.
I didn't. I am writing these words and in my body. But all of this, combined with a car crash last December, have made me think maybe it's time for some big moves. If the church proves to be less radical than what it needs to be- still unknown- I may quit exhausting myself and follow Jesus in my own way, becoming a pilgrim who heads to cooler and more enjoyable parts of the country to simply seek pleasure. If we are going through what I think we are, pleasure is important. That Apple Basket stuff talked about this.
I feel like Yoda needing to retreat to his hut. Trying to stay "involved" right now feels liminal. And also a certain kind of masculine forcefulness. All these systems of patriarchal control are and should collapse. And trying to make change within them is literally killing me, it could be.
What would Magdalene do? Where would Sophia have me go? For now, I love the Sooth as a wa to understand. I want to re-light my broken and worn out Ember. I want to live and taste all the Apples in the basket before I go home to the other side. I do believe life will return to balance, I don't believe we are doomed- but a big wave is coming and we are experiencing it.
God love you Sylvia. I love you too, and so many of us are glad of your medicine at this time.
Goodness, what a gift this reading is. I’m often up in the middle of the night and this was the best thing to find. Thank you Sylvia, thank you Sooth. This deck is so powerful, so beautiful.
I love the idea of going analog and have been seriously considering it as well… there must be many of us!! Can we all connect and brainstorm?!
Oh I'm so glad Savannah! I'm glad it kept you company in the middle of the night, I know that feeling of being awake in the small hours these days. And yes there really must be so many of us with the analog longing... I like the idea of brainstorming! x
Crying so much with this!!!
Thank you Sylvia!!!!
awww bless you Rebeca xx
Thank you for this incredibly grounding and nurturing offering - it is a blessing for us all. I’m always so blown away (and cracked open, awoken, heartened, soothed, stirred, fed) every time I sit with these cards and receive the deep wisdom of Sooth. Lately, I keep getting Howl Mother and also Our Lady of the Bones in the Floor has shown up in a couple recent readings too. Thank you and Sooth and the blue jays for weaving us all together here in this healing way, during this ongoing heartbreaking, dissonant and horrifically devastating time. I found this reading and your woven reflections to be a very much needed balm and rooting down into the earth. A return to the vast and wise-wild knowing; attuning once more to the voices of Earth and ancestors.
During the reading, I was reminded of an experience I had while at a beekeeping immersion this past spring with Ariella Daly: while sitting with one of her hives, I was flooded with vivid images of gentle and kind men tending bees and I felt it in my bones that these were my great-great grandfathers, these forest beekeepers. They were shrouded in smoke, climbing trees, singing and laughing. It was surprising and very healing to receive what the bees had shared with me, and I had almost forgotten this vision until this Sooth reading stirred it up once more!
After listening to your reading, I sat with the cards and some writing/ reflections came through for me:
~~~
Held, hewn, stitched, woven
Caught between teeth
A song longing for release
Dearest grandfathers
the ones who tend the tree-hives
How smoke suffused their coats, their hair and beards
With propolis stained fingers
they kissed honey-sweet, the grandmothers
who howl into the long nights, into the soft mornings
They feed the prowling wolf mothers pots of honey-comb
Gentle and fierce unite
Protecting the stories embroidered in our bones
Nursing the babies with sweet milk and pollen
Singing the warp threads for the young ones to follow along
Together they weave, weft-weeping, the blessings into a vast and soaring net
All gathered in our hands, clawed and feathered, hoofed and silver scale-flecked
Remember, they say, Be brave, and Love within, through everything - Always.
Mourn and sing
Dance and birth
Protect and heal
Mend and Love
Listen.
~~~
Also, I dearly love this song by The Breath, it’s so stunning and one I’ve been returning to over the past few months. It pours the tears out and offers such tender holding and replenishment. Thank you again for this collective reading and for the invitation to share our reflections and experiences here in this circle of Sooth.
♥️
Sophia, oh my heart these grandfather beekeepers in the forest, climbing up the trees, sweet and wreathed in smoke! I am in love with this image, it feels like a blessing and a balm to carry in my own heart today, thank you so so much. The smoke suffusing their coats and beards, their propolis stained hands... I just find this so very soothing. It helps me find hope. I am so glad Sooth stirred it again for you to share with us. Sending love to your wise hands & heart xo
Reading your imaginal response to these cards I have tears streaming down my face. Thank you for the solace you offer our hearts by voicing and honoring the deep grief that feels like the only sane response to these times and current events.
I’m moved by the incredible balance in these three cards- starting with a place to hold and honor grief, and the love that it illuminates. The complementarity of the fathers and grandfathers who feed us and the mothers and grandmothers who protect us… your imaginal reflection gives me a glimpse of knowing this tale you tell is true. Under the devastating violence, the othering, -the ignorance of our own true natures and the sacred life in all our relations- underneath what seems like an inescapable darkening of our world, you remind us that the wisdom and light of this beautiful world and the love that made it is here with us - even now. This ignorance around and inside us can crumble like sand- thank you, dear Sylvia. May it be so. May our hearts and minds and actions align to make it so.
Thank you for these beautiful words Heather, I'm sending so much love to you! I was quite struck by the balance in these cards too, thank you for mentioning that and describing it so beautifully here. Yes, may it be so, may the love that is stronger than anything mind us all. xox
For months I thought I had purchased Sooth through the original campaign and then realized I never completed the order! Then I reached out to Hanna from Weaving Remembrance to see if there would be some copies to purchase through that program. Then I was directed to Rima’s site but I was hesitant to do the international shipping rates. How happy I was to discover I could have just ordered through you all along! Which I have now done!
I will spare you all the details, but this reading was soooooooo resonant for me on so many levels. Listening to the spins and threads from this reading brought tears to my eyes! Thank you!!!
I cannot wait to receive this oracle and work with it this year.
Also; I feel you will appreciate this. My husband and I say the same prayers every night with our children. Saying the same thing over and over is very grounding for them. And each night as part of it we give thanks for and say a blessing over our ancestors. Well, my four year old led prayers last night and he said “God bless our grand-cestors” and I smiled so big, and now, I don’t believe I will ever be able to call them anything else! Indeed, God bless our grandcestors!
Oh I'm so sorry you had such a goose-chase, Rachel! I actually only just recently brought these cards back to California from England to sell in my shop, so you weren't missing anything before. And then, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful moment with your children... God bless our grand-cestors, I'm going to be saying that too now! Sending love xo
Oh, good to know! I am just so very excited to begin working with it! I also wanted to mention that I loved the phrasing of soul-rot in relation to AI, and that if you ever leave this platform for old fashioned post office parcels and letters, I would be so happy to sign up! Two other folks I love have gone that route or are contemplating, and getting the letters in the mail is soooooo pleasing! Xoxo
I love this so much and it’s also reminding me that I need to pick up these cards again for my own reading :)
Oh that's so nice dear Simone! Thank you :) xo
Hey Sylvia, this was wondrous. Because of this post, I finally used those Sooth cards that I got from you and Rima a while back. It was good and important medicine for me.
The reading I got was Our Lady of the Emberbed for the House and then Apple Basket and Lines of Life for the Ways. I am going over the words to understand them and their incantation and the layers within.
I reached a point of peak sorrow about a month ago. All kinds of heartbreak in the last year and a bit, both personal and collective. I have tried staying in my hometown for years to attempt to make a difference, and in recent years have been attempting some very big ambitious stuff within the Episcopal Church. But we have so much inherited pride and privilege, and an unfortunate loyalty to many of the institutions of modern civilization, including the political structure of the United States being one that can serve life.
It just got too much. I went to a party for some friends for Solstice, and everybody was having a good time and I started to as well. Then I did a cannabis edible, and it was the worst experience of my life and most illuminating (I think me and drugs tend not to mix). I thought I was going to die and pass over. And I felt awful about how small and hopeless my life had become. How lacking in daily joy and pleasure. I am 38 and think I have gotten close to a couple stress related mini-strokes and also had some heart trouble. My body may have some fragility anyhow and I need to be careful, but my soul just didn't really want to be in my body. I thought I would see my Grandma Myrtle and her beloved prairies up along the Missouri.
I didn't. I am writing these words and in my body. But all of this, combined with a car crash last December, have made me think maybe it's time for some big moves. If the church proves to be less radical than what it needs to be- still unknown- I may quit exhausting myself and follow Jesus in my own way, becoming a pilgrim who heads to cooler and more enjoyable parts of the country to simply seek pleasure. If we are going through what I think we are, pleasure is important. That Apple Basket stuff talked about this.
I feel like Yoda needing to retreat to his hut. Trying to stay "involved" right now feels liminal. And also a certain kind of masculine forcefulness. All these systems of patriarchal control are and should collapse. And trying to make change within them is literally killing me, it could be.
What would Magdalene do? Where would Sophia have me go? For now, I love the Sooth as a wa to understand. I want to re-light my broken and worn out Ember. I want to live and taste all the Apples in the basket before I go home to the other side. I do believe life will return to balance, I don't believe we are doomed- but a big wave is coming and we are experiencing it.
God love you Sylvia. I love you too, and so many of us are glad of your medicine at this time.