Sense of Soul - Water Priestess Annwyn Avalon Reclaiming the Celtic Goddess Energy

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Today on Sense of Soul podcast we have Water Priestess, Witch, Author, Artist, Dancer, Oracle, and Avalonian Annwyn Avalon. She lives in Glastonbury, as the sacred steward of Chalice Orchard, the former home of acclaimed occultist Dion Fortune. Annwyn serves as a keeper at the White Spring, one of Glastonbury’s sacred springs.  Annwyn is a Water Priestess and Water Witch with over 10 years of Water Priestess experience and over 15 years of Priestess and Magical experience. She is the founder of Triskele Rose, an Avalonian witchcraft tradition, and the 9 Month Water Magic course, which is the first of its kind covering all types of Water Magic, Witchcraft, and Priestess Practices. She has devoted her life as a Priestess to the path of water, which is expressed through the study and creation of art, witchcraft, temple arts, dance, and water magic. She has a BFA in sculpture and a BA in anthropology and has completed her Reiki Master teacher training and studied herbalism and Middle Eastern folk and esoteric dancing. Annwyn is the author of Water Witchcraft: Magic and Lore from the Celtic Tradition, The Way of the Water Priestess: Entering the World of Water magic, and The Celtic Goddess Grimiore. Follow her on Instagram @annwynavalon Visit her at  www.annwynavalon.com www.waterpriestess.com www.waterwitchcraft.com www.TriskeleRose.com for more information. Learn more about Shanna and Sense of Soul at www.senseofsoulpodcast.com 

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more.

Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have Anwen Avalon. She has devoted her life to the study of the esoteric water mysteries, art, witchcraft, and magic. She is a water priestess, a water witch, with over a decade of water priestess experience. She's the founder of Triscal Rose, an Avalon witchcraft tradition, and the nine Nine-Month Water Magic Course, which is the first of its kind, covering all types of water magic, witchcraft, and priestess practices. Anne Will is also an author, and she's joining us today to tell us about her new book,

The Celtic Goddess Grinmore. In her book, you will meet the great goddesses such as Bridget, the Morgan, Solas, Ellen of the Ways, and many more. And she's joining us today to tell us all about her Celtic journey into the divine feminine and to share with us some Avalon magic. Thank you for having me. Yes, I always make space for the goddess to come through and I can't wait to hear your journey and how you came to this. Where are you joining me from? I am in Glastonbury in England. So I moved here in November of 2022. I'm sure that you've heard of the famous occultist Dionne Fortune. Yeah. So I purchased her house and my husband and I are restoring it. The shed that I'm in right here is one of the sleeping sheds that she had built for the work

with the Temple of Inner Light. And we almost lost it because it was like in such rotten condition, but we were able to restore it. And so, yeah, so that's where I'm at. Okay. So you're going beyond just, I'm going to learn about the goddesses and this energy. You're like, I'm going to live it. I mean, I didn't set out to do that. It was listening to where the water took me and listening to spirit. And honestly, I almost missed this by five minutes. Five minutes. I was on pilgrimage here in Glastonbury and things weren't going great with one of the ladies that I was traveling with. And so I had made the decision that I wouldn't go down to breakfast, that I was just not going to have breakfast. It would be fine.

I was going to sleep in and I was just going to avoid having any interactions. And something happened, like spirit just like smacked me up on the side of my head. And the next thing you know, I'm tumbling down the stairs in my nightgown to get to breakfast. I walk into the breakfast room and one of the people that I was traveling with who wasn't in the mean girl situation was basically like, Edwin, you have to meet this lady. And so I go and I would like start talking to her and she's like, I have to run. Like, I can't talk right now. And the lady happened to be the financial steward for the White Spring, which is one of the sacred springs here in Avalon.

And I was going to interview her. We quickly exchanged phone numbers because I wanted to interview her for my Water Priestess series. So how could I not? But if I had stayed in bed, I never would have met her. And meeting her started the ball rolling and all summer we played phone tag and finally because of that mean girl situation my husband was like I'm taking you back to Glastonbury and you're gonna have a good time and so we did we went we came back to Glastonbury and I contacted her and she was like oh I happen to be here. I went to interview her about water. I got there. She started interviewing me about water.

And three hours later, we had hatched a plan to purchase this property. The White Springs property is like long and thin like this. And then the Unfortunes property is like this. And so obviously, like she wanted to, we wanted to purchase it because it makes the project bigger. And then it was agreed that I would move here. I would live in it, oversee the renovations and work on the renovations and all of that kind of stuff. That's the short version of the story. There's a much longer one with the synchronicity after synchronicity and it was just wild and when we renovated this place or the shed here we found

underneath the floorboards four hagstones and one of those hagstones still has, and I've done a really deep dive. We are 90% sure that this is hand spun nettle fiber, but it has the knot still on it. And it's probably a hundred years old. We don't know that Dion Dion Fortune herself tied this knot, but we are so sure that if it wasn't her, it was someone from the Temple of Inner Light. It certainly was from the work that they were doing here. Maybe it was Thomas, her longtime partner,

or maybe someone else. We actually don't know because we literally just like found them under the floorboards, but like how crazy is that you know years ago before any of this goddess stuff started it was probably about a decade ago I had this dream where this man in this red robe came to me and he came to me twice around that time one time he told me I need to take a sabbatical, which is hilarious. I was like, what? And then the second thing he told me is I needed to find my druid stone. I did see that they're also called hag stones, but I never heard them called druid stones. I know about holy stones and Adam's stones. I've chalked it up to thinking that it is the philosopher's stone

for me too. But I did originally see, if you look up Druidstone, that is what shows up, is a hag stone. And so I thought that was interesting. And I was going through a lot of ancestry during that time. And I have Marie Laveau in my tree, you know, by two lineages that have her and so I was very much connecting with the feminine power within myself which is what I think what happened which is probably what happened with you you know your DNA has this ancient power of the divine feminine in mind just started lighting up and so I think that's what happened and all of a sudden I just started attracting and seeing all the synchronicities and receiving wisdom from nature and the moon and whatever else. But much like your journey, I cannot tell you how much synchronous, well, I wrote a book, so maybe you'll read it one day that you'll see as well, just like how you ended

up where you are. I was guided, never seeked any of it, just landed in my lap, just like how you ended up where you are. I was guided. Never seeked any of it. Just landed in my lap, just like you. You're writing it, so it's not out yet. I have enough for three books. Oh, I know. My first book, I was contracted for 50,000 words and I sent in 97,000. And they kicked it back to me in a couple hours with, no. And I was like, I didn't know I would get in trouble for overachieving

it's okay because I ended up splitting it out and they were like you have to cut it so I ended up cutting um all of the priestess stuff and then that ended up being its own anyways so and when here's the thing she has a lot to say because she has been silenced for thousands of years oh yeah so she's got a lot to say and the Celtic goddess grimoire was so hard to write too because I was halfway through the book when I reached 50,000 words, because I was contracted for 50,000 on Celtic God or Two, I was halfway through. And I was like, help. What do I do? I still have half a book to write.

And we made some more really hard decisions. And we cut some more stuff. And we made big decisions around some of the more popular goddesses, like Bridget and the Morgan, who have not just one or two books, but like 10 books on each of them. Like we've made decisions to like really just be like, here's a little bit on this goddess and give the other more obscure goddesses a lot more room. I appreciate your book very much. I was so happy to receive it. I'll tell you why. Because first of all, I feel the energy rising in me just now saying this. I could feel the love. I could feel the

love deeply that you have for this work. I felt it. So the way I am, very spiritual and trusting in that. However, I'm also, I like history. I like to go back and where did this come from? And finding out that, my God, they knew all this long ago, right? This is just rebirthing, but this is not new. And that's why I love when people say new age. I'm like, new age, what? This should be called old age.

But it's been hidden and buried and kept for only a small few, some secret societies. I grew up Catholic. This shit was not available. Oh no. I grew up in like a cult. I was in one of the homeschool slash evangelical born again, Southern Baptist like homes and I always knew there were goddesses there's an old blog that can be found if you just google like a man and a couple of women like all men and a couple of women so my dad like make this like big deal praying, right? Because he was the head of the household ordained by God to... And it was always this like, look at me pray. It's also really weird because my dad was the only male in the family. He had a wife and three daughters.

So he would always have this like big thing about praying. And then he would end with, Amen, you know, in Jesus's name, Amen. And I thought that it was funny that there was a man at the table, a singular man at the the table and so he would then be like all men and I would be like and a couple of women oh my god I love it because that was physically what was there and that like it went from like a cheeky little joke into something that I would do all the time. And then as I started transitioning out of that through my teens, and then I graduated high school at like 17. And by the time I had turned eight, it was like 30 days after I turned 18, I was gone. And I got into the world of secret societies. I joined a sorority. That's a whole story. I am

not a sorority girl. They recruited me because I was a cute hippie. So I was in a sorority for a minute and it was tarot cards. Like I was learning all these things and like going to the hippie shops and just like really having this like big explosion of like all the things that are out there. And then I would come back. I'm like, I'd have my dad like, you know, praying and this and that. So then it started to be like, I had a couple of women, like a bunch of goddesses, like in my mind, right? I was always really drawn to the Celtic path. My mother is British, born and raised in England near Birmingham. And we would come over in the summers and spend a ton of time here and my mom

was really into like history and like this kind of stuff and so we would go to Bath and Bath is like this beautiful city that's about an hour from here and it has this huge Roman temple complex it is it was the Romans that built it and they built it on like a Celtic sacred site. And the goddess that the Celts worshipped at this thermal spring was Sulis or Sulis Minerva. This is why she gets the first entry in that book. I was like, she's my girl. She's been with me forever. Like, because we had her actually towards the end.

And I was like, look, I know it misses the order up, but she has got to be first. It's your introduction. Right, right. And then that is, this is her. There we go. This is her right here. This is her altar.

And there aren't any really known statues to Sulis. So this one is the one that looked closest to her. In the 1700s, they found her bronze head. They started to do excavations it is one of the oldest sacred sites that has been continually visited since the ancient Celtic time so the Celts worshipped her then the Romans showed up they built this huge temple complex they honored her with lots of altars all sorts of things there were other deities that the romans brought in as well but like she was a big one and then after the romans

left it fell into disrepair but then they built a beautiful cathedral over the top of it this is where some of the original like some of the first kings of england were crowned cathedrals there and like all the roman ruins were like literally like right under it and then so jane austen and a lot of the other books from like the regency and victorian period what did they do they were always going to birth to take the waters okay that's right yeah those waters that they were taking were literally the thermal spring waters from the original. Because the waters have always flowed, right? That's why the Celts were like, whoa, this is really important.

So they would go to drink those waters and take the waters, literally continuing to make pilgrimages of healing to this goddess, even though they didn't know her name at the time. It was still as close as we're going to yeah because well i guess they found the bust in the 1700s i'm not sure when they started finding the altars and the tablets with the to her i just have recently been studying mithra and inanna and that was a Roman deal and so that's what I was wondering you know and it's been buried and hidden but they they are all over too and they're finding these altars all over oh yeah yeah to date now there's a huge museum you can go to and see all the Roman ruins

it takes like two hours to get through you can can even do virtual tours. And they've got some really interesting artifacts and things. But yeah, so I went there when I was a little girl, like five, like 12. And then again at 16. And then again at 18. Like it just kept going, right? And then I started getting into all of these esoteric things. And I was like, oh my God, she's been with me my whole life. Yeah.

And then in 2018, I came on pilgrimage with the sisterhood of Avalon and we went to a place called Thermae Spa which is a modern spa that is built on top of the sacred sites again and they have gone down into the aquifer the sacred waters and pumped them up. And so you can go soak in pools and do saunas and hot steams and all this stuff. And then there's this other little place that's called Crossbath. And Crossbath is the known location of where the Celts originally worshipped her. And they've turned it into this little pool. And so you can actually go and pay an exorbitant fee and get like 90 minutes in this, this pool space. And so we were in the water, we were chanting and I had this like crazy healing experience.

And like, she boomed into my head that like, she claimed me back when I was like young and she was just basically like waiting for me to like realize it all. And I was like, well, I was dedicated to you before and now I'm really dedicated to you. I feel like I should make a separate podcast of just interviewing women on how they were introduced to the goddess because this is my favorite. I mean, it is always like this it's always rich with a journey that is so divine like nothing we've ever heard yeah and the fact that i grew up in a in a home that was actively saying like no you cannot hold religious authority. Like even like women cannot be the intermediary between humanity and God. They couldn't even be deacons in a church. Like women were allowed to teach Sunday school.

And I started teaching Sunday school at like 12 years old. Right. I did too. Mary Magdalene was a whore Mary the mother well she was just some you know virgin yeah it's just the vessel like and it always blew my my mind that like and I put it in this perspective right like I had this imaginary conversation with my sister my older sister who is still in the cult, unfortunately. I am the black sheep.

I am like not only the black sheep, but I'm like the evil one. I think that I'm super evil, which is at first really hurtful and now really funny. But these conversations in my head, I'm like processing things and like saying the things that I wish that I could say to them because I'll never get to. I've been estranged since 2016. So we're not having those these conversations, but it's great to process. So my older sister has a son, it's about the same age as my son. And I really wanted to send her

like the Gnostic texts and some of the Apocrypha and like the book of Sophia, Mary Magdalene's books, and you know, Mary Magdalene's books. And you know which ones I'm talking about. And I was having this moment where I was like, oh, I never did. So this conversation went something along the lines of like, could you imagine like birthing and raising your son and being active in his life until his mid-30s, where then, you know, he goes out and does all these things with his friends and dies at the ripe old age of 33. And then

someone comes along and is like, I want the story of your son. I want to write the story of your son. So they go to all of his friends who knew him in his adulthood only and asked them for information and then wrote his biography based off of that information only. And then when you as his mother were like well look I have intimate knowledge of this journey this person and they were like no this is wrong this is fake like you don't know your son like to eliminate his mother's voice the person that probably probably knows him more intimately than anyone else on the planet, is wild. We would never do that. Her entire story was kicked out of the Bible altogether. It wasn't included.

You can find her story in the infancy of James. You can find also in the Gnostic Gospels. There is the story of the nativity and also in the Quran. And there are three different perspectives. So you know the story is true. It's from three different people. In this family that I grew up in, you're not allowed to talk about the Quran. Are you kidding me? That's blasphemy. Same thing with the Apocrypha and the Gnostic texts and all these different things. And I'm like, like how sinister and like how oppressive to women do you have to be in order to basically be like his mother's word is no good. Blows my mind.

What I would have you ask your sister is this. Father, son, and what? You want a ghost? Holy ghost. Wait, how do you think that a family, you're going to take the mother out? They took the mother out. That's ridiculous. The Holy Ghost is the mother. You can't have a spiritual family without a mother. Oh, that's the other thing is we're made in God's image, but like God's a guy. So like, how does that work? Also, like I went through Bible study and stuff. And I remember being around like 10, 12 and like digging deep.

I joined this like adult Bible study because they were doing like an entire like. When you were 10? Yeah. Something I would have done. I was very sheltered like I didn't have much choice of things to do but there was this adult bible study and they were doing like a three month deep dive on Daniel and I was there I was like I don't care about the other books but I was like prophecy talking in tongues magic like angels being the book is full of divinity like little discrepancies like just really started like just like making me be like okay wait if we're

made in God's image then like how does that work because guys don't have babies or this is one of my favorite ones that I was like there's holes in these stories and it goes back to Genesis and the people of the land of Nod where did they come from Adam and Eve according to the Bible Adam and Eve were the first two they then had Cain and Abel and And then Cain committed the first murder, blah, blah, blah, and was banished and left. And here's where the discrepancy shows up. And so he went to the land of Nod where there were many beautiful women and found a wife. Those women weren't his sister. Absolutely.

They were not. There was a land outside of Eden that was already populated with beautiful women where he found his wife. And I was like, excuse me, I have questions. This also got me into big trouble. And like, what do you mean, Azura is like a thing? Like there's a name for the God of heaven? Like that makes sense. Well, all of the dark mothers that were kicked out and never acknowledged at all and remember that jesus was jewish and they

they absolutely knew of a lilith and i'm here to redeem lilith okay i see lilith as well adam's first wife who refused to lay before adam she is the first representation of an independent woman, which is the definition of virgin. That's the true definition of virgin. She's independent, strong. I'm glad that you brought up Lilith because two things. One, like one of my gifts, one of the things that spirit has gifted me against my will with the embodiment of the dark mother and the initiator. And it really sucks because I would love to be all light and love, but that is not my path and not what I have been brought here to do and sometimes in order to truly heal something you got to take a sharp knife and cut out the infection and that hurts yeah hurts really big like it's just like oh and so I I really love

the dark goddess archetypes because yeah I have, I have friend priestesses who are like, oh, my path is to sing to the water. And I was like, I want that. But the fact is that I'm here to shake the earth and make change. I have a totally different perspective on the dark goddesses. And I think one of the reasons is through Marie Laveau, only because she's known as this boogeyman, boogeywoman. I mean, I was definitely scared of her. And I was told, stay far away from the House ofe named her, it was titled the sainted woman. And the reason why she was feared is because she sat with people who had yellow fever and she wouldn't get sick. And she sat with prisoners and they thought, what is wrong with her? Why is she hanging out with sinners? She was feared and of color. I mean, what a powerful thing. I mean, I feel very honored to have that within me.

Looking at Lilith, she's a Jewish lore. She's described in the Bible as a hag. Right, but she's not. There is reference of her. No. I mean, this is how, I mean, look at, they made Eve look like some stupid bimbo just ate, you know, some app off the tree. I believe a totally, you know, that, I mean, the Gnostic gospels have an entirely different creation story, but you know, it's, it's very interesting though. It's hard sometimes for me because I'm so it's beyond conditioned. It's in my DNA. This has been deeply rooted beliefs for thousands of years before, you know, so I'm the first to break this. Obviously, you are too, that this is happening collectively. The next generations, you mentioned

you have a son, I have four kids. These kids will not be fooled by this kind of stuff. Oh, no, my son has more tolerance for it, more tolerance than he does. He's just like, you're gonna love this. There's this audio clip on TikTok right now. I think it's TikTok. And it's just this short little audio clip. It's a new song, I think, that's dropping. And it goes, funny how the first sin is a woman who ate.

Yeah, the very first sin was a woman who ate. A woman who ate. She served and licked the plate. And I might not be getting this exactly right, but the first sin is a woman who ate. What? What? You see, there's something far bigger than even I think we could even wrap our head around that's happening. I mean, think about all of the women.

So there's whenever I work with women, there's always these mother wounds, always. There's always, I mean, for generations, I mean, my mom has that, her mom had it. I mean, it's just, there's this mother wound. And I really do believe this is the time where that might stop because we're going to see this mother energy as God energy. Oh, yeah. Divine feminine is rising. When my publisher was like, hey, do you want to tackle Celtic goddesses? I was like, yeah, of course I do. The reason that I said yes was because I had already been looking

and almost every single Celtic goddess I worked with was connected with water. But that's a whole other thing. But at the same time, I remember like kind of researching and realizing that there wasn't any really good books out there on Celtic goddesses. Now, let me rephrase that so no one comes for me on the end of goddesses. There are books that focus on specific goddesses right that are very good but when like someone is new to this path and they want to connect with their Celtic ancestry or the Celtic path or these various Celtic goddesses like you go to Amazon and you put it in there's like one book on Celtic gods and goddesses from I think like the nineties or something. And I was like, what do you mean this doesn't exist? And then I really just wanted to fill it with all the goddesses I already worked with and

loved dearly, but also for it to be like this little stepping stone for people to be able to immerse themselves in the goddess path. I also wanted to touch really quick on Melusine because I'm sure that you read about Melusine and I have been doing some interesting research around Melusine. So first off, I'm polytheistic. So I do believe that each individual spirit is their own individual spirit, but I can also understand the archetype of like seeing similar goddesses and being like these goddesses are this like similar right and so I've been doing kind of a lot of research and kind of a deep dive into Melusine and there are certainly a lot of similarities with Lilith and she fits into the same archetype

as Lilith and Medusa and even things like the Nagas and this kind of like this idea that these are like demons and like air quotes for, you know, those out there that might be listening to this later that can't see that. Right. But like they're demons, they're evil. We look at like Medusa's story and it's like the poor woman was sexually assaulted like can we like look at her as a victim instead of this evil thing or Lilith and the same thing where she's very demonized Melusine was the same way in her story your husband loses his temper after some things go bad and literally calls her a demon it's just like these women that have these magical abilities to shape ship men are very scared of it. I find that across the board, when you look at different cultures, you're going to find that she is just like this one.

Even when I was studying Sophia at the beginning and Bridget was coming through and I started to put together bride, right? Bridget and Sophia being also known as the bride of Christ. And there were so many similarities. And all of the archetypes of like the goddesses are very similar. Not just the fertility part. They also have like this hunter part, right? Which is what women are. You know, we aren't just, we're not here just to breed.

You know, we do have so much more, you know, that's been left out. You always have found that the goddess is connected with water this is why i love this journey so much and and actually i was even looking at you and me and and i look at you and you've got this blue and you've got the red hair and i feel like you embody even looking like you know the goddess most of the stuff i've been working, the goddess is connected to fire. Oh, okay. There's a really interesting connection between the water and the fire. This is something that I've been like musing about a lot. First off, one of my first students and an amazing priestess that I've trained.

I, you know, I watch her priestess training, but she was one of the first ones that I trained to be a priestess. And she was trying so hard to be a water priestess. And then one day I was like, it's the fire. Like everything about her was fire. So down to the point where she like the entire like northern Arizona section of north. Yeah, Arizona, not northern Arizona, but like northern Phoenix. So that district, like she's the executive assistant to the chief of the fire department of the district. And I was like, how did we miss the fire? But what's so interesting is Bridget of this like iron. And so it leaves this like bright

red, like the color of like red hair bread, this like iron film on everything. Also her name, one of the, there's a little bit of discrepancy about where her name comes from, but one of them believes that her name means like eye of the sun. And so like the solar energies, which is fire. So here in Glastonbury, there are multiple sacred springs. The most popular one is the Chalice Well, which is comes from the Christian lineage. I know that one. I know the Christian one. Right. Okay. So literally a single lane road. Okay. Single lane and not even american single lanes like european single lanes so take what you think of a single lane and cut that in half that's a european single lane we can fit like one car up the road at a time i'm picturing chevy chase and a european vacation so the chalice Well is on the left side of the road.

Okay. And the single lane road separates the Chalice Well from the White Spring. So the Red Spring and the White Spring. The White Spring is called the White Spring because it's got calcium and limestone and it leaves like white sediment. But they're a single lane road apart from each other. And this is like a crazy phenomenon because they have two completely separate sources. And that just should not be a thing, right? But they are. They're two sacred springs that flow that close to each other.

But that is an old well house. So basically, it was this beautiful sacred site with all of these like fairy dropping pools. And then there was a cholera outbreak in the 1800s. And they destroyed that sacred site and built this well house on top of it. In the early 2000s, it was purchased and interestingly enough, was dedicated to Saint Bridget. And a perpetual flame was lit and lasted for several years until a new ritual kind of began to take place. But this old well house over the years has morphed from basically just this like well house that people could like come into. Now it is what they call the White Spring Temple.

And pools were built in the center of this old well house there's cascading pools you can go and do sacred immersions we have shrines to saint bridget the lady of avalon the black madonna we actually hold two black madonnas then we have like a solar king and a fairy king of avalon so it's like this like you walk in and it's just this beautiful temple where you can do these sacred immersions, pray, meditate, sing, whatever you want, but there's no electricity. It's all candle lit. So when I go to open the spring to the public, it takes me roughly 30 minutes to 45 minutes to light nearly all candles, but my hair and my pictures was down to my knees when I started right I thought when I first started volunteering there that it would be like this beautiful thing and I'd wear these

beautiful dresses my hair would be down you had this whole vision yes and it was just like you know like it's gonna be beautiful and like I get to live out my priestess fantasy dreams like no and the fire was like watch me snatch your hair and it did I've burned it three times now first off it's not a bad omen every keeper that has ever kept there has lit themselves on fire it's like part of a rite of passage. But two, I actually think that the water spirits know me well enough to know that I would never cut my hair willingly. And they were like, you've got to get rid of the energy that's held in that those last that last foot of your hair. So I've never had this short of hair before. But I cut this because my hair is going

gray, and I'm embracing my chrome. So I cut it all. And I felt as well that I was cutting it like it was almost like a ritual that I was really surrendering this energy as I moved into the other. Yep. It happened to me when I first got here, like the first six months of keeping. Since then, I've gotten really good. Now I keep it in a nice, tight little bun on the top of my head. It took that that wasn't serving me. It took the energy that I was holding onto and it was like, new life, you're going lose like a foot of your hair. And I never would have done it willingly. Is there some sort of, cause I do believe our DNA holds a lot of this stuff. Like my youngest daughter has always refused to cut her hair. Like if I ever suggested it,

I mean, it was like, she thought she was being punished in some way, but I feel like she came here with that. Is that something spiritually that I don't know? There's certainly something with the hair. Well, we know that it holds memory. I, several years ago, many years ago, I did some deep dives on hair because I always had that same like kind of reaction as your daughter. It wasn't punishment, but it was like, I never cut my hair. I never wanted to cut my hair. People would always look at me and be like, oh my God, your hair is so long. You should cut it off and donate it to people that like, you know, don't have hair. And I would

look at them and be like, oh, like you should cut your arm off and donate it to people that don't have arms. Because there wasn't a difference between my hair and my arm and cutting off one or the other. I mean, obviously if you cut off your arm, like that is way worse than your hair. But like in my mind, it wasn't, it was like a big no-no. When I went to university for the first time, when I was about 18, 19, a girl that I was working with was like, Oh my God, let me cut your hair. Let me cut your hair. It needs to be cut. And I was like, okay, but like only a couple of inches. Like I don't want to lose it all. And yeah, she cut like two feet off and she took it from below my bum to my bra strap. And I didn't know that that's what happened until I stood up and I was devastated. You couldn't get me out of bed for a week. Like I felt like I was

so rocked. So I went on a deep dive several years later trying to figure out like, what is this like weirdness with my hair? And there are many things throughout the world, time, history, culture that talk about hair. One of them, I'll go with the not so good one first, and we'll end with a good one. So disclaimer, if you go down this particular rabbit hole, you are going to run into Nazi things. And obviously that is like terrible, like Nazis are bad. No, thank you. however the nazis were also known to be digging into a lot of these esoteric topics we know that they were digging up things in india and trying to build vimanas and we're doing all sorts of like weird shady shit and one of the things that

i came upon was something called the vril society. I came across it, of course, because I was looking for people with really long hair and like learning about it. And they had this belief that their hair was an antenna to like an alien race. And one of Hitler's up there guys was actively going to these women, these two sisters, these two women that had hair like longer than like it was way longer than they were tall. Like it was like you see pictures of them and it's like on the floor type of thing or like into their heel. You know, it's like so long. And they believed that their hair was literally what connected them to this alien race. And they were like channeling this information for the Nazis. I would like to say that it was under duress or against their will, but I'm not 100% sure that that's true.

But that was kind of the first thing that I had found. And then I was like, ooh, that's terrible. I don't want to be associated with that. So I kept diving deep, deeper and deeper. And I started coming across interesting things from Vietnam. And this is when I really started to be like, okay, well, there's something here. So these stories were, and you can actually, I'm sure you can Google it and find some of this information. But basically the U.S. government was doing studies on trackers and tracking they knew that the first nations tribes were expert trackers or that there would be people in their communities

that were expert trackers it had been that way for ever right like it was just kind of this thing that like yes we know that they're amazing trackers. And so they would go and they would recruit them into the military because of their tracking abilities. And they put them through boot camp where they shaved their heads. And all of a sudden, they were not getting the results that they used to get you know it's been so long so I don't want to say something that might be misinformation but from my understanding long story short eventually they allowed them to keep their hair and they were still recruiting them so that they could then actually do all of this like jungle tracking and all of this kind of stuff

and then they started doing studies because they were like okay like we knew that they were good trackers we recruited them we shaved their head they couldn't track anymore so we went back we recruited more we let them keep their hair and they can now track so there is something. Yep. I have a First Nation shaman in my tree who he's from the 1600s. He was known as the apostate. Oh, they converted him and his tribe to Christianity. The Jesuits forced him. Yeah. And I've done years and years in study with him on with descendants of him, because there's a few of us

connected through ancestry DNA and all studied him and have crazy connections, by the way. We're all the same. I'm like, yeah, there's something in DNA for sure. But this is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that story with me. Now it kind of makes sense. So Kinsley has always seen everything before me. Like she saw Brid everything before me like she saw bridget before me she saw saint germain right before me and i definitely think there's a connection to the stars because when i read the bible with new eyes the first thing that i thought was holy crap angels are aliens it's right there if you read the descriptions yes if you take the description of an angel out and you just like insert it into

modern ufo like they weren't campbell's soup kids like we thought the descriptions are just like oh yeah yeah they are i have a theory when they say there's four faces of you know a seraphim or whatever i think it is you know there's a lion there's an ox a human and an eagle I almost think that if I told you I am a French Italian Czechoslovakian right I've got African how do we know that these aren't this and I associate lyren right lyrens, right? Lyrens and lions. And how do we know that these aren't just what they associated with also, you know, I mean, they associated their animals with the stars, you know, and the constellations. This is all they knew. We have different terminology. How do we know that the three faces aren't just their lineages they come from?

Oh, that's an interesting theory. My weird angel alien theory is people have recently been drawing the biblical angels like they're drawing angels from the description like the biblical description all these rings with eyes and wing like all this stuff right so the one specifically that are like the rings within the rings yeah i look at that and i'm like y'all is is that a ufo and are those eyes like i know when you take those descriptions out of biblical context and you put it into modern like abductee and ufo framework it's like what happens when we like read about abductions like big bright lights, kind of paralyzed, maybe like- Parried in a fire? And the first thing they say is, we come in peace, right?

I know. And it's like, that's the same thing as do not be afraid. Same thing. I mean, if you really just looked at the simple definition of what they are, they're off-planet, interdimensional beings. Like you said, where were the people from Nod? Right. You know, and look at the names, like there's Abenaki and Anunnaki and Anasazi. And this is

a global collective thing. And then they were worshipping water, they were worshipping fire, they all worshipped goddesses. That was the other thing. Any religion that professes belief in life yeah of course have some connection with the divine feminine because it is feminine that brings forth life plain and simple if the fact of the matter is science doesn't lie biology doesn't lie. It's the woman that has the child that creates life. And the fact that they worked so hard to erase this from history also gives you a clue on how powerful they, you know, they know that we are. Your entire book also makes notice of all of this, which I love. So that's why I loved your book so much. And that's why I know me and you can be friends forever

because you're like me. I stopped living by what people told me to believe. And I started to do the research for myself. We can say whatever we want, right? And we can be like, this is the truth. This is the truth. Like right now I'm wearing blue, right? But I could be like, I am wearing red.

This right here, I'm pointing at my scarf for those on the podcast. Like this right here is red. This is red. This is red. This is red, I'm pointing at my scarf for those on the podcast. Like this right here is red. This is red. This is red. This is red. Right. And we can say these things all we want. But then like when there's actions, right.

And actions are things that we do, which then are things that we have done and the things that we have done these actions that we have taken they are like facts in our history in timeline their points where it's like this thing occurred it took place like you could say that this is read all day long but the fact of the matter is like the actions are what really took place so when we look at the bible and we look at like the old testament and he's like oh i'm the creator god oh i'm the creator god oh i'm the creator god and then we look at his actions and they're clearly actions of violence and destruction slaughter it's like demiurge basically all you have to do is read the bible i mean if you align with someone that commits genocide on people and children on babies that just can't be someone i

would want to follow for myself i believe that you look at something like the ancient text that hasn't been touched by kings hasn't been touched by hierarchy, patriarchy, all of the different popes throughout generations and generations that have pretty much been the most powerful. And working on Mithra, in Inanna, in Mithra, I mean, there is a whole, you know, a statue, ancient statue that's in the bottom of the Vatican. Mithra is often known as the son of God. He had 12 disciples. He was baptized. He was born from a virgin. He was worshiped by the Romans and likely by Constantine. And so, you know, I mean, there's so many, it's not that I'm denying that Jesus didn't have a great purpose. He was a great master on this earth and taught many great things as did Buddha and many others and many others even today.

You find a common thread through all three of my books, Water Witchcraft, Water Priestess, and Celtic Goddess Grimoire, but mostly Water Witchcraft and Goddess Grimoire, that the goddess sites, the places where the divine feminine was worshipped, is where there was usually water, usually a holy well or lake or river or something like that. And the churches were built on top. This is why so many of the holy wells and sacred springs in Europe are connected to churches it's because the churches were built on the old pagan sites that were connected to worshiping a goddess and so many times they were just renamed and they were like renamed for the new religion a great example is sulis right so sulis this was the celtic name but then when the Romans got there

they called her Minerva and when the Christians showed up they started doing this all in these other places as well like there's so many holy wells dedicated to Saint Anne Saint Mary like this is Mary's well this is Anne's well all of these most likely are the new religion's name and this preserving what was underneath there's a church in a place called cross comb you're looking through it it's like a mermaid in a church as i think what's on the front of it. So it is like not too far from here. I think it's like a 45 minute drive. And it's this little tiny village that's just very unassuming. And then you go into this church and these pews that date back to like the 1400s, maybe even earlier, have mermaids and mermen carved all over them. And one of them is a two-tailed mermaid, just like on your cup.

I appreciate all of the historical stuff that you put in your book, as in the different geological sites. And I can only imagine, you know, how they physically feel to be around them. Book is full of different exercises, rituals, prayers, poems. I mean, it's just absolutely, I love it. There's so much you fit into this little book. But I love this part where you call upon, it's so enigmatic, Ellen. I call upon the green maiden, antlered one, golden brilliance like the sun. Show me the tracks that are straight when life is too hard to navigate. Forest goddess, please show me the way. Show me the path upon which to stay.

Did you write that yourself? Oh, yeah. Well, yes, I did. But it might have been Ellen that wrote it. So like no other human wrote that. Like I am the human that wrote it so like like no other human wrote that like I am the human that wrote it but but so much of like the history and the archaeology and all of the facts that's all me everything else is like I it comes from them because sometimes I just put on psytrance here's a secret to how I write my books I put psytrance music on really loud and I create like a nest.

And then I just like let the goddesses, like I invoke them and I'm like, right. And then that's what comes through. Oh my God. Well, this very similar happened to me throughout my journey. And sometimes I'm like, that's not how I talk. You know, I don't end every sentence with, so mode it be. Like, I don't. You know, but in this poem I did.

Or, you know, there's certain flavors, right, that show up in writing. This one, though, for whatever reason, like really captured me. And it was like something I was like, I want to like take a picture of it and like blow it off. Maybe it's like, yeah, I mean, I absolutely love you. And that's okay with you to stay in contact. Because sometimes, like when I discover something or if something crazy happens, I'm like, who can I tell? Right? I don't have a sisterhood. So I do have a few sisters that I've made through this journey, the goddesses that they are. But yeah, I tell you, the work that

you've done is really, really important, I think, in this time. And your book is very tangible. It's a great read. And I think that, like you said, if you're just moving into discovering all this stuff, this is, this is great. And it also has stuff too, for folks that have already discovered and want to dive deep. And I also wrote it in a way that like, if you're really inspired by the exercise I gave you for nematoma, you can totally do that for Ellen. Like, you know, like it doesn't like you can mix and match. Yeah. I mean, that's what I love about the divine feminine is they're all one, you know, it's all one. It's all under the same, you know, energy of that goddess creator.

And I love that you have a glossary because when I first get some big books, I don't read them. I read the glossary. I have ADHD. This is the way I work. But yeah, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you and meeting you. I feel like I could talk to you for hours upon hours and share stories and just you blow my mind. Well, thank you so much for having me and for letting me, you know, chat about some of the weird thoughts that I have. I don't get to talk about like angels, maybe being aliens. And while I'm not one of those people out there talking about it, it certainly crossed my mind. So yeah, I have a lot to take away from this as well.

A couple of deep dives that I'd like to do, especially on Mithras. So thank you. Tell everybody where they can find your book, where they can find all of your books and you, and you mentioned your Instagram. Yes. Okay. So the place that I am most active is on Instagram and that is at Anwen Avalon. So A-N-N-W-Y-N Avalon. Be careful and look for the account that has like 65,000 followers or something ridiculous like that. That's been around since 2013. I think right now I've probably got like 10 scammers. Like the past two years, I've had like a real big problem with people copying my profile and scamming people and being like, Oh, grand rising darling, let me read your palm. But anyways, that's the place that I'm most active you can also find my water priestess things where I actually highlight and focus on a lot of other watery women in the world

at water priestess arts make sure you get the arts on the end of there that's on Instagram you can also find me on Facebook although I don't use it as much you can also find me I've got some old YouTube videos up on my YouTube channel that kind of walk you through water spirits and like intros to water priestessing and different things like that. You can find me at anwenavalon.com, which is my entire portfolio from sacred dance and art to water witchcraft, water priestessing, absolutely everything is on there. And then my main two hubs that I use as far as my website are waterwitchcraft.com, which is where you can find all of Water Witchcraft information. And then also waterpriestess.com. But waterpriestess.com does have water priestess training with me. But when you go to the homepage, after you've entered and you click home,

it's going to bring you to water priestess interviews, priestess interviews, a directory for other water priestesses. While it is my website, it's focused very much on the water priestess community and other watery women. Oh my God. That's amazing. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Thank you so much. And it's been a pleasure to meet you. Oh, it's so lovely to meet you too. Yeah. And keep in touch. If you have you. Oh, it's so lovely to meet you too. Yeah. And keep in touch. If you have any weird stories, I want to know. Sounds great.

Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.