48. Stella Marie - Re-Inhabiting Land
Would you like to talk with me about Land + Spirit?
48. ReConnect to Indigenous Land
Stella and I had this chat back in February and it was a treat for me to reacquaint myself with this time. For me it was a time of integration and Stella allowed me the safe space to articulate a lot of what I had allowed to go unsaid.
Stella is a Welsh Animist, Storyteller, Wordsmith and DJ. She is re-inhabiting Indigenous Land through mystical discovery of ancient ancestors and rooted being.
Transcript
Lezley (00:00:00):
Hi folks. Welcome back to the Beloved Presence Podcast. Today I'm going to talk with Stella Marie. She is on Instagram as Stella Marie Here. She has a podcast on YouTube that's also Stella Marie Here, Starlit Stories. This chat with her was a catalyst because it was me putting into words for the first time what's happening with my vocation and the interactions between Celtic ancestors and Indigenous land and how that's coming together for me. So Stella was really helpful in giving me safe space to talk about that and kind of vocalize it for the first time and vocalize a lot of integrations that were happening and have been happening since then. So this was a really vital podcast for me. I was very glad that I did it, and editing it was like a reminder of what that time was and still happening frankly.
Lezley (00:01:11):
But it was a long time ago. It was like February. Both of us feel like a million things have happened since then, and so much has been going on and changing for us, and there's more integration for both of us more rooting into this learning. So enjoy that. I am going to be hanging out on Samhain, so October 31st at eight on Facebook Live. We'll see how that goes. I'm going to be going live and chatting about a new teaching that I am releasing on Samhain, and it's called Being + Belonging. It is the intersection between ancestral healing and being and belonging and reconnecting to our body and reinhabiting our bodies and the land, and allowing magick. Again, there's this word in Irish called taur, what's the word in Gaelic? The word inic
LearnGaelic.scot (00:02:14):
Fàisneachd
Lezley (00:02:23):
Gaelic is hard prophecy. It's the same word as taur in Irish. And when we hang out during Saan, we're going to talk about magick. We're going to talk about being in belonging. We're going to talk about ancestral connection, and I'm going to pull cards for whoever wants it. I'm going to pull tarot and tarot iss, just one of the tools that we can communicate with the unseen. All the Oracle tools are ways that we can use Taur to communicate with the unseen. So I hope you hang out with me on Samhain, October 31st at 8:00 PM Eastern Time...
Strength. Strength is ninth in this deck, but it's also 11th, which is justice. But strength is exactly what you think. It's fortitude and perseverance and strength is also grounding and being able to accept our strengths, accept our gifts, and accept our talents and strengths and skills. Strength is allowing those to be expressed in our life. And then that's interesting because that's a big part of what being in belonging is about. Reclaiming our connection to self, reclaiming our connection, our embodiment of soul, self, and our embodiment of skills and talents and gifts that are spirit given and ours to express in the world. So strength. That was a good one. Alright, enjoy. Stella. I really enjoyed this conversation and hopefully I'll see you on Samhain.
Stella (00:04:35):
Yeah, well, thank you so much for bringing me onto this podcast because my podcasts are quite structured and they are quite structured, really. It's nice to go into a podcast that is more just spontaneous and flowing because there's different reasons as to why we choose to speak online. And the educational is just as necessary as having a chat with friends, which is what I feel like listening to your podcasts, but having deep conversations that we're meant to be having. And that's why I really enjoy having these chats online. It's really valuable for the part of us within us that feels like we're missing that community perhaps. And then we just listen to a little clip on Instagram and it anchors us back into that web.
Lezley (00:05:25):
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Stella (00:05:30):
Yes. So you were sharing about the languages you've been learning within the past year to connect to the language of your ancestors?
Lezley (00:05:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is just that it's very healing and it is, I really think it's magickal. There's something changing in my brain and there's something changing in the connection between my spirit and land in my body. When I speak a Gallic and Irish and I'm really terrible at it and I've asked people publicly correct me please, but if I'm saying it wrong, but correct me so that I can learn how to speak it properly, direct me to an audio or write it phonetically because I don't know how to speak any of this stuff and it's just mimicry almost. But it's a mimicry that I can feel in my heart.
Stella (00:06:29):
Yeah, yeah. With where I'm from in Wales, the Welsh language is, it's still around, but growing up in school, it wasn't a main language where I am, it is still in some places, and it didn't feel when I was a child, it felt natural. And celebrate St. David's Day, which is on the 1st of March. It's the National Day of Wales, and it all felt very, I enjoyed learning Welsh then. But then when I became a teenager and I went into high school, it was uncool. And the older we got, it was just uncool too. And if you really wanted to connect to Wales, it was just like you were studying something. It wasn't taught as if it was our culture. It was like a subject.
Lezley (00:07:18):
Oh, interesting. Right.
Stella (00:07:21):
In the school I was from, I've got friends who do a further route than I am. I'm in the capital city, so it's very industrialized. And I was similar to London in that retrospect, but my friends who lived further route were brought up on the myths and tales of the Magi and the Caltech Tales were taught to them in school, and I didn't have that, even though I'm in the capital of Wales. It's really, really bizarre. So I can relate to you, even though I'm brought up around the language that it's a deep feeling, isn't it? It's in here and we know that it's there and there's something in this that kind of vibrates and rumbles when we hear it and
Lezley (00:08:03):
Yes, absolutely.
Stella (00:08:05):
Yeah. It's the language wanting to come out. I feel like we just go blah, blah, blah.
Lezley (00:08:11):
It's
Stella (00:08:12):
True. And then languages, the sounds and the words of the way the mouth moves and everyth. Big thing.
Lezley (00:08:18):
Yeah, absolutely. There's no way that anyone is speaking that in English. That sound doesn't exist in English at all. So I love speaking gallic when it's back deep in the throat, it's bringing something alive
Stella (00:08:41):
Here
Lezley (00:08:41):
Into me again. You brought up, here we go. You brought up something that I, is there a sense or what is the sense in whales of connection to the Indigenous practices, like connecting to my ancestors? There was a deep, deep grief and shame about their traditional spiritual beliefs and ways of being, and I am like, what's your thought? What's happening there? I'm so far removed from it, to be honest. It's been generations on my mother's side that we've been on Turtle Island, my dad much more recently, but all of my ancestors are from Ani.
Stella (00:09:40):
Yes. Yeah.
Lezley (00:09:42):
So what's
Stella (00:09:43):
Okay. Yeah, for me, it's going to be very different to other people. I visited my friend Dean who owns a farm, and he actually bought the land a year ago, and he wasn't a farmer at all. And he got this calling to indigenize himself in a sense, to the land. And I went to visit him, and it's him personally as Dean, the farmer who's now got six peacocks and all of these pigs, and he's wanting to protect the local woodland around him. His answer to this question would be very, very different to someone who is in the city. So it's so personal because the idea of having an Indigenous practice that's from here that's connected to the land is almost a complete fantasy for most people really. It's a very new concept and idea, but we've got different movements, pagan, pagan movements and witchcraft movements, druid movements, but they're all mystery schools, and it takes a little while to kind of find yourself in them, which is, it's sad because of their nature-based practices, but it's also a very mysterious and magickal kind of journey that I feel that I'm on because I was like, whoa, this stuff's still happening.
Stella (00:11:12):
But in my primary school, actually, we did something that a lot of other schools didn't do. I've asked my friends, and they didn't do this, but we have a celebration called the I sta fod. Have you heard of the I sta fod?
Lezley (00:11:24):
No,
Stella (00:11:25):
The
Lezley (00:11:26):
Iad fod.
Stella (00:11:27):
Yeah, the Isad fod or the Go Go
Lezley (00:11:32):
Go
Stella (00:11:33):
Word. And it's got two D's on the end, which is like a V, but with your tongue in the middle, the go go you. Yeah. And that is the name of a festival celebration that we do that actually is to initiate the Bards who in the ancient world, were a very highly valued spiritual leader of poetry and storytelling. And in Wales, we have a yearly celebration where we celebrate this, but it is actually a reinvention that hasn't got anything to do with what our ancestors actually did because we don't know, because we don't actually have the evidence. In the early 17 hundreds, someone called Yola Morgani came along and was like, this is what we should be doing,
Stella (00:12:32):
And that's how the Druid order today is what it is. And in primary school we celebrated that, and I remember it's really cool. I remember all the lights going off every year in the assembly hall and the whole day we have been sharing our poetry and our songs and our music and doing dances, and at the end of the day, the bard would be awarded as the bard, and we were in primary school and all the lights would go off and pupils dressed as Drew, it's on Eva side, would carry this candle, these candles, and we'd give the bird a trophy. Then that would go up in the school hallway, and it was just really mad and mystical and bizarre, and I didn't think about it. I just completely forgot about it until I was reintroduced to Calic spirituality and I was like, we did that. What was that about?
Lezley (00:13:29):
That's amazing. I love that. Now, we talked about, or briefly about the direct knowing. That's what I'm assuming. And by the way, I don't personally feel any connection to wca. I don't resonate with it personally. It doesn't speak to me. What's his name? Alistair Crowley and Gerald Gardner. I'm not resonant with that, but do you think that that's what's happening is that we're reconstructing through direct spiritual knowing, or what do you think is happening?
Stella (00:14:19):
Yeah, interesting. I think if it is, is a deeper spiritual knowing because it's an organic way of living, but it happens to select few. But over the past few years, I've really noticed it just, even people who aren't perhaps outwardly spiritual or outwardly practicing anything, there's a lot of people even around the world wanting to come back to farming and owning farms and having their own vegetable gardens and things like this. And I think it is in a knowing, but with the specific practices and rituals that we're doing today, we are creating them to fit with the world that we know, which I think is so important. Right,
Lezley (00:15:20):
Right. Yeah.
Stella (00:15:22):
Yeah. Yes.
Lezley (00:15:23):
So they're appropriate to our lives now. I feel like it's spirit speaking directly through land. That's how I experience the big nod from Stella. Yes. You can concur, I assume.
Stella (00:15:46):
Yeah. Yeah. I was brought up in the city and I've recently moved out into more of the sticks into nature, and it's beautiful because I always had a connection to listening to the land and trying. I feel there's a lot of witches being born in the cities because of its, and bringing that nature into us and then connecting and speaking with the spirits there, bringing stuff into our altars. We're not out there, but now I am out here. I know what I'm doing a lot more and I know why I am doing it, and yeah,
Lezley (00:16:31):
I resonate with that. I know what I'm doing more and I know why I am doing more, and it's for me, a result directly of connecting with land through my body and listening and also just accepting that what I'm receiving is real and true and helpful in wisdom. Do you know what I mean? I spent 40, no 45 years thinking that it was my own private little fantasy imagination. And the moment that I started to share it with the world, common dream, share it with the world and trust and have faith that this is real wisdom, everything started to change.
Stella (00:17:17):
Yeah, yeah. And so what just came to mind then was listening to you speaking on one of your other podcasts about the magick of words, and I wanted to ask you about that and how channeling basically is a very new kind of way of describing this inner inspiration that's coming through. I feel, and I haven't really spoke to many people actually that are talking about the magick of words and that understanding of the language and that on the similar path to me right now, because we're not there knowing it. We are like, I want to understand more of the language and speak it. And I feel like we've both got that same excitement at the moment. But yeah. Do you do any sort of song or poetry or storytelling or any specific creative ways of using the language? Just because something for me that's coming through at the moment,
Lezley (00:18:24):
That introduction or little prayer in the beginning is a result of spirit connection. I have recently started to talk publicly about the fact that I speak to the dead, that I am in conversation with spirit channeling mediumship, and that is a direct wrecked encouragement from spirit to create a prayer in the beginning that encompasses what is important to share and honor in what I'm doing now. So that definitely is, I also write fiction, but since the last year or two of an evolution, the story that I have been writing on needs to be rewritten because what I knew before is completely different Now. I don't know how you ever get finished with a story because as I learn and grow, the story changes too, so I don't Yeah,
Stella (00:19:31):
That reminds me of, because the traditions of the tic people here in Patian Ireland were oral traditions, so perhaps there was a sense of it is always changing,
Lezley (00:19:45):
Right? Yes, actually. Yeah. Ooh, that's interesting how writing solidifies it and creates almost a rigidness around truth.
Stella (00:19:57):
Yeah, because truth is ever changing. It is like the humans need to control and contain and oh my God, realizing this right now as well.
Lezley (00:20:06):
Yeah. We're having like ah, and how I felt about you sending me that Instagram note and how it felt so present. I've learned our voices are literally our spirit speaking into the world of form. So it's why words are so powerful is because they are magick making. They are world changing. They literally go out and vibrate out into the world of form. So they're very, very
Stella (00:20:36):
Powerful,
Lezley (00:20:38):
Which is, sorry, it's where you are. Speaking about the collective dream or the common dream kind of landed in me about, oh, I have to start sharing my spiritual views. I have to share it, and I'm scared. I'm scared about it. I'm scared that I'm going to be rejected. I'm scared that I'm going to be scorned and ridiculed and humiliated and despised, but I have to do it as a bridge. We talked about I have a responsibility to fulfill my purpose here, which is literally to speak always that land and spirit are inseparable.
Stella (00:21:28):
Which language
Lezley (00:21:28):
Is that? That's Irish. Yeah. And you know what it means, by the way, I just want to say I learned, I began my learning journey with a book it's called To Speak to the Trees by Diana Barford Kroger. She is an Irish Canadian who was born and raised in Ireland, and it's, have you ever heard of Braiding Sweet Grass?
Stella (00:21:55):
Yes.
Lezley (00:21:55):
Okay, so I hold those two together as bibles. They're like, one is Indigenous and the other one is Celtic, and they both have the same message, but Diana Barford, Kroger uses Irish in her. She teaches a lot of Irish and their heartfelt land connected Irish words. Moha was the first Irish word I learned, and then found out that Moha ha is the Gaelic, same word. Anyway, I got really off topic there. What was I saying?
Stella (00:22:33):
The bridge maybe that was one thing. Bridge.
Lezley (00:22:35):
Oh yeah, speaking Great, thank you.
Lezley (00:22:38):
Yeah, speaking it into the world and sharing it. And I had the misunderstanding that there needed to be consensus before I spoke my truth, that I needed to make sure. And it's partly a fear, and it's partly a people pleasing, and it's partly not wanting to be rejected or scorned or humiliated, but that's not how creating the collective dream works. That's not how it works. I have to have the courage to share. And then together, back and forth, we decide together what this collective dream is. We decide together what the reality is going to be, and I speak spirit into the world, into land. And then there's this Christian stuff that I, I've had to decolonize my mind, and I'm still doing it all the time from Christianity, I think in North America. I don't know what it's like in the uk, in Wales or whatever, but we have a really terrible of evangelical, weird Christian thing going on over here.
Stella (00:23:51):
And
Lezley (00:23:52):
It's terrible for me to realize I'm using the same words as them spirit, and we're not doing the same thing at all. But I could be seen as being that kind of presence in the world. And I mean, I don't know what to do about that. I just realized, oh, that's happening. Great.
Stella (00:24:16):
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I was on about my primary school yearly celebration that was Drew Dick. It was so strange because we celebrated Christianity really mainly. So it is not a religious or spiritual thing now it's more in our primary school anyway, it was more like a celebration of the day, but rest of the time it was we'd for Christmas, we would celebrate the Jesus birth story and we would reenact it, and we would sing hymns in assembly every day before school. I used to go to a Sunday school every now and again, but it was because it was the school holidays and it was a break, and it was somewhere for me to go. I wasn't born. I was born around it and brought up around it, but my family and the families in my neighborhood weren't very religious. But I did go to a college with a friend from South Carolina, and he spoke to me a lot about the Bible belt and how the buildings are placed all around the sacred, like the churches and the cathedrals and stuff. They are taller and buildings can't be built higher than the Christian buildings. And I was like, oh, I didn't
Stella (00:25:34):
Know that that was a thing over there.
Lezley (00:25:36):
I didn't know that was a thing either. Really? I didn't know there was laws about it. You couldn't do it.
Stella (00:25:42):
Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Where's from, in South Carolina, you walk around and you can just see the churches everywhere because the houses and the flat saw the shopping malls, nothing can be built higher than,
Lezley (00:25:55):
Wow, that's interesting. I feel like Christianity over the past few hundred years hoovered up every expression of spirit that was allowed. Do you know what I mean?
Stella (00:26:10):
Yeah, it did definitely hoover it up. I've just told at the moment, I'm learning about the history of the Druids and the history of the Roman Empire and the Catholicism, and trying to wrap my head around all of these things so that I, because really enjoy talking about this sort of stuff. And where I get anxious about my expression is when I'm talking about the history, because historians really like to have a go at you if you get a fact wrong. And for me, I've experienced that online is people who are really into history. You're like, no, you've got that wrong. And completely missing the points in why I'm talking about it. So now I feel like I have to know the history before I can even comment on certain things. But it's hard because our history is so messy and it doesn't really make sense anyway,
Lezley (00:27:03):
And it's what we know so far. History and science I think are very similar in that way, that what we know is only what we know so far until new evidence will come up that will change, change our understanding of it. How has history evolved since I went to school? Do you know what I mean? Our understanding of history has changed just based on what we know or what we're learning. So I don't think anyone has a gatekeeper around what the truth is about history. No.
Stella (00:27:37):
But in the academic world, people really do feel that. And it's funny because I've had experiences with the land and in nature and the spirits of the land and psychedelic experiences really meeting these spirits in profound ways. And I feel like I learn history through that, and I start to understand and see the world in the way that my ancestors did by having that deep connection to the natural world. And that's more so what informs me on how to be than the written
Lezley (00:28:13):
History. And that's what I was saying about the direct ways of knowing versus a westernized proof foundation where you have to proof, I looked it up because it means actually the root is convincing. That's what proof is, is your desire to convince another of your truth. And that's what proof is when other people, and I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, I get it now. It's all set up to convince as many people as possible to your way of seeing. But there's lots of different ways for us to know, and you and I are experiencing that this way of direct knowing from spirit and from the land is so powerful, and it's something that animists all over the world, Indigenous people all over the world have been practicing for thousands and well since the beginning. Since the beginning.
Stella (00:29:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, this conversation is just deeply reflecting the conversations I've been having with myself and people over the past few days. There is this, yeah, the spirit is waking up. And you mentioned the podcast I did with Sam about Ani. So if anyone is listening to this, and you're not quite sure on what we mean by ani, but it's an old word used by the people of Ancient Britain and around it to describe Britain as a whole, before it was separated into Wales, Cornwall, Devon, isle of Man, Scotland, and then Ireland is its own culture, but Britain is lots of different cultures, just in case any was wondering about that.
Lezley (00:29:59):
Yes, thank you. I meant to bring that up earlier, but we got there. That's great. Now, is Kya the word that the Irish used for themselves, or is that a word that was used for them by other people? Do?
Stella (00:30:15):
I'm not sure about Kya. No, I'm not sure about that. Yeah. One thing I've noticed on my journey, sharing Reinhabiting to the land for understanding the history and all of that, one thing I've noticed is that there are major differences between the cultures here and that we're still dealing with a lot of trauma over
Stella (00:30:45):
Things that we did to each other, and then also what our ancestors have done to the wider world, colonizing the wider world as Europeans, but what we have done to each other, and I'm only just scratching the surface within the names and the languages of things and why they're called that and when it is right for me to use those words and speak on that subject, especially with the Irish law. And it's wild because over the world, the pagan world is kind of in a sense culturally appropriating Irish culture. And I've had a lot of Irish people say this to me, and I feel the same with Welsh culture, but it is a taking of traditions and using it as this celebration and not knowing the origins of it.
Lezley (00:31:41):
Can you give me an example of how Paganism isn't appropriate and I don't disagree, I guess I'm just trying to understand. Yeah,
Stella (00:31:52):
The example I can give is from what someone was saying to me when I was sharing a post on the, so here in Wales we have our own kind of Christianized versions of the old Pagan holidays, but they were all Irish holidays. So the only traditions that survive today are actually Irish. So we've got St Bridger Day or in bulk. So in bulk is likely celebrated by a lot of people that don't even know its origins in Ireland. They kind of just think it is this kind of, it's a way to latch onto something and it is necessary actually. And at the beginning, wonderful. There's nothing wrong with us partaking in other people's cultures at all. I just think when we do, we should have that want to learn where it came from and why it became what it was, and that's where the cultural appropriation comes in. And I didn't really know that when I was practicing these things, and I've had Irish people message me and say, Hey, we're still feeling really sticky about our past.
Lezley (00:33:04):
Right? Yeah. There's a lot going on in Ireland still. What a stupid thing for me to say, but I have to say that I don't know about participating in other people's cultures. I think for me personally, it's really important for us to all individually connect to our own ancestry. Just I found with my own experience, and that's all I know, that's all I can speak to. I don't know what other people are needing, but there was so much cutoff for me, especially on Turtle Island, just total cutoff. I'm not living on the land of my ancestors anymore. And in order for me to connect to land, I had to connect to my actual ancestors and connect to my actual ancestral trauma and do all of that. I feel that if I had started to practice another land-based spiritual practice, that I may have gotten distracted away from healing my own roots. Do you know what I mean? That I would've been standing literally on someone else's ground as opposed to having to do the work because it's hard. It's hard and it's uncomfortable and it's painful to do ancestral healing work. It's very humbling. It's very humbling work.
Lezley (00:34:56):
And the reason I bring that up is because I have been wanting to and called to reach out to Indigenous knowledge keepers for probably 20 years of my life, but I was always prevented from it until I went and connected to my own roots. And I think it would've been because it would've been an appropriation, it would've been an attempt to root into a culture that wasn't mine. Do you know what I mean? And now I feel that I have started to grow my own roots and can reach out in a more honorable way, if that makes sense.
Stella (00:35:35):
Yeah, it really does. I've also felt that, well, actually, I felt quite stuck here actually. I didn't think there was anything really here for me while I was going through my awakening and I got catapulted into the new age spiritual movement, which actually made me feel like I needed other cultures to guide me. And I felt stuck here wanting to leave and go to other cultures because I didn't feel that I could root here. And as soon as I started to come to that second awakening, then that I can, it was more of a, oh, we can be guided by the surviving cultures like the surviving traditions, which is I can see within you, you are bridging them together in this same way. And there are so many people within the Indigenous traditions today who were openly wanting their whole lives are based around educating us, who were trying to decolonize our minds. So it's really hard emotionally, but in the world it is waiting for us to do so, and we end up having these powerful conversations. And for me, having a social media page dedicated to reinhabiting and indigenizing to the land here in Britani in Britain, I also need to be sharing Indigenous voices today because as much as I do have that in a knowing and I can have that in a knowing there is hundreds and thousands of years of skill, yes, I'm not right. I know.
Lezley (00:37:22):
Yes.
Stella (00:37:23):
And this is why I actually really want to travel the world so I can start to explore the different nature-based skills and crafts and folk ways people have still got, which we don't have here. So over there,
Lezley (00:37:41):
Why would I attempt to try and remake the wheel when land has been speaking to Indigenous nations here for however long, 30,000 years, 50,000 years? We don't really know actually.
Lezley (00:37:57):
But yeah, there's so much wisdom available, and it was reconnecting to Celtic roots that I realized how nourishing that culture is, how whiteness, whiteness is bullshit. It's this thin veneer of nothing valuable, nothing nurturing, nothing. It's nothing as an identity and as a culture, it absolutely gives nothing but rooting into and beginning. My relationship with my Celtic ancestors was deeply, deeply nourishing, deeply enriching, and I felt, I'm going to cry because I felt seen in a way for the first time in my life in a way that I've never felt seen before, that all of the relationship with land that I'd kept private, my mystical magickal life of meaning is very, very Celtic in its origin. It's very, apple fell from the tree, so to speak. I was held and claimed by Celtic ancestors and claimed them in return because I felt seen and known for who I am in a way that I haven't before ever in this
Stella (00:39:24):
Life. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I've heard there are so many people feeling that right now. I don't know if there's more now than there was before or if it's just that I've got the platform and I'm speaking to people, but yeah, it is making me emotional as well because I've brought this, I'm in a sense feeling like I'm being a bridge and giving people an invitation to dive deeper into this and showing people as I learn and I figure it out myself, showing people that there is something to connect to, and you can bridge your ancestral Caltech wisdom and with the wisdom of the Indigenous peoples who are around you, and this is the dream. This is the new world that we need to be creating with each other. And yeah. You say it's hard. This ancestral work is hard. Do you feel like it gets easier? It gets easier because it just feels so right and so true, and then it's like releasing the shackles
Lezley (00:40:39):
Is so interesting.
Stella (00:40:44):
Go on.
Lezley (00:40:45):
Well, the shackles, that's weird because I like you, I don't know if this is just me growing and evolving, and so it seems different and there's way more people connecting and there's way more spirit here, or whether there's actually something happening and the shackles are coming off. For me, the difficulty was the willingness to feel the unprocessed trauma of my ancestors. It's literal unprocessed trauma, and that's what's hard. If you're willing to do that, if you can sail through that and be grounded and not be annihilated by all of that, I'm making it sound worse than it is. You only get as much as you can handle. I'm not trying to set out,
Stella (00:41:35):
Yeah, this isn't E turn anyone.
Lezley (00:41:38):
Yeah, it's not at all. Not at all. But it's real. There is very real unpro trauma in my, I can only speak for my own direct lineage, who literally denied their Celtic selves and identified with the oppressor and then moved to Turtle Island and turned around and did the colonizing to the Indigenous people here. So it's both of those, right? The shame that my ancestors felt about themselves, then they delivered to Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, and I saw it happen in my own childhood growing up and how my grandmother treated Metis people in Saskatchewan. It's awful. It's awful. And so for on Turtle Island, anyone who's living on Turtle Island, especially like I keep saying, which is in Pagans, we have a responsibility to learn and honor Indigenous land.
Stella (00:42:57):
That's beautiful. That's beautiful work. And yeah, you were saying earlier, the more you say it, the more you speak it, the more these pagans in, which is people like us are listening, you're connecting to them just by speaking it right now. Both of us are. And yeah, it is such deep work, accepting. It starts with accepting that we have made mistakes personally, and then our ancestors have made mistakes, and that's okay because we can move on through it together. And when we get over the hurdles, it's really liberating and it is dealing with the trauma, but that it's letting the spirit feel the liberation to push through that once more. And that's where I think the ceremony comes into it, the celebration and allowing even through our shadow, which is the darker, the more uncomfortable side, also having the celebration and the ceremony come through with that twice as hard, which is something I'm really feeling at the moment that I want to start doing is celebrating with people, but with this as the intention.
Lezley (00:44:14):
Absolutely. That sounds amazing. And the fact that you brought up ceremony is that's key. Dr. Dave is an elder that I'm in communication with who is on the spirit realm. He has a of learning, it's like a turtle lodge of learning, and it's a call for anyone on the earth who wants to bridge this and bring this spirit knowledge into the earth. But he says ceremony can heal everything, and ceremony is making sacred, being intentional, intentionally making sacred so that we start this conversation with intention of making it sacred. Any conversation, I was speaking with bogs and other Indigenous creator on TikTok, and she's the one that told me witches and witchcraft are pretty much all that's left of, or she thinks that it's left of Indigenous European culture or spirituality. And that kind of hit me, and then I had to cry a little bit because I deeply resonated with that term. I prefer K just because I love that, but it's been denied. Do you know what I mean? Christianity denied it. Society denies it. It's much more prevalent now for you to call yourself a witch or to say that. But it's just interesting to me that it was an Indigenous person who brought that to my awareness. I'm like,
Stella (00:46:02):
Yeah, the folk practices, especially the folk practices that go off of the law that's been passed down. It truly is, and it's what we today call witchcraft. So I agree with them, and witchcraft is a funny term because I have this conversation with my witchy friends a lot. What really is witchcraft because I could say, call myself a witch and say, I'm practicing witchcraft. I could be doing exactly the same thing as someone else who doesn't even know what that word means. So it is surviving and not even as a movement, just as a natural way of being and a natural way of living with the land. And yeah, Druidry is another one. We've got the order of bad ovates and Druids, which is the druid accord that I was talking about that brought in the ice stead fod, the is connected to that movement, the modern druid movement. That is another one of the only things we've got left, but it's not that we've got it left, it's all being created at the moment. It's all actually very, very modern in terms of the movements that exist right now that you would join are modern, but they have that in a knowing and the ritual and the ceremony is there to nurture that inner a knowing together,
Lezley (00:47:32):
Right? Yeah,
Stella (00:47:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Lezley (00:47:41):
I was watching a video about ways of knowing that was had Dr. Dave in it, but there was another Indigenous elder there who was telling a story, and it was a beautiful story of complaining about how we've lost our language and our culture and our spirituality. And there was an elder at the table that he was telling this kind of complaining about this loss, and this elder thought that he was asleep and hadn't been paying attention, but he woke up and he said, you talk about what you've lost, but that wisdom is still where your grandfather's left it. And I was like, whoa. So yes, it's still there. It's still there available for us. That never changed. There was no, that's our relationship with land and spirit.
Stella (00:48:43):
I really truly feel like the new movement, what we're feeling, awakening is the F of the evolution of the individualization of the self on an evolutionary and spiritual perspective of humanity. And we're seeing it happen here where we are, so we're disconnected from a bigger community of ceremony and ritual and spiritual practice. We're all kind of individualized, and what we need to do is keep pushing that in our personal connection and our personal need for doing whatever it is that connects us to spirit and joy and to just keep nurturing and feeding that because that is that inner knowings. The more we know on the outside, the less we can truly listen. And yeah, this is what I feel like paganism is really and witchcraft, because if you've got low, you could have hundreds and hundreds of different types of pagan and witches, but there's one thing that they all have in common, and it is that there's nothing to call it because it is a natural way of being. It is crazy. It's crazy to even try and label it because it's like,
Lezley (00:49:56):
Yeah, yeah. I don't even know what to call it. It's being, well, to call it beloved presence. That's what I call it. Just that's how I experienced that in the world.
Stella (00:50:10):
Yeah, beloved presence, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to be this year, have you got any ceremonies planned or celebrations that you are going to be doing? Do you follow any of the celebrations yourself or?
Lezley (00:50:26):
I'm sole practitioner of all things, and I don't have any plans of doing anything. I do, I have my own solstice ceremonies and I have my own green study yodi ceremonies, but they're just things that I do alone. It sounds so sad. I do them alone, but I mean, it's exactly what you said.
Stella (00:50:58):
Yeah, no, it was funny. I was speaking to my friend yesterday or the day before Victoria, and I was like, we should really do stuff together. We should come together with our families and people we know. And I've been asking people who I don't know are really into it perhaps, but people that I know and I'm like, I want us to come together and celebrate these things. And she was like, yeah, because I just have my little candle and my little this, and we're just there on our own in our rooms with our little things, and we're just looking out over the window just like, oh,
Lezley (00:51:38):
We used to gather together in large groups and the energy has to be much bigger when we're all gathered together, but we do what we can. Yeah,
Stella (00:51:51):
We're all connected through that as well, isn't it? Even though we're not together, we are connected through that. I am going to think about that now actually when I do my candle on my own, all of the other kind of solo witches and pagans, and I've been making an effort this past two years to get out into the community a bit more and meet some people within it. And yeah, it is been nice, and I'm feeling a calling now with my following to do some online events so that we can all actually talk to each other and celebrate these things in the online sphere and have our own tical little caves.
Lezley (00:52:29):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Stella (00:52:31):
I'm not sure how it's going to manifest yet, but it's an idea that keeps popping up and
Lezley (00:52:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There's got to be a coming together. I do think about gathering with others in the woods, but I have no idea even how to bring that about, do you know what I mean? Just because all the people that resonate with me on this level don't live anywhere near me to gather in woods together, so I'm not sure. I will watch and see what you figure out.
Stella (00:53:07):
Yeah, that's why I want to create the online space because what I figured with the difference between here in Britain and over in the Americas is there's just so much land, space and nature over there that over here we're always a few hours away really from each other. If I wanted to create some sort of in-person live community with people all over the uk, everyone could easily get to the place within seven hours minimum. Whereas a lot of the people I'm talking to in America and Canada and mainly over there actually is very, there's not a load of people in one spot, so people feel quite isolated, which is why I want to do the online event so then people can meet each other and connect with each other and be a bit like a bridge bridge between people because grown my following really from sharing individual posts and not actually being in the moment speaking to people with my voice, which is who I really am, not this one individual post someone might see. So
Lezley (00:54:11):
It's interesting that just before we got on, I was scrolling and you shared that on your Instagram about you're much bigger than the persona that you show on Instagram, and then I didn't get to finish it. I had to come on and actually talk to you for real. So yeah, of course you're much bigger than just the persona. Do you feel restricted by social media?
Stella (00:54:45):
There are definitely restraints, but I don't let them change what I do or who I am, but they're definitely there. I think at the end of that story that you were on, actually, I think I spoke about that, how I am ever changing. I'm always changing, and I have to take a break from social media this week to be like, oh, I don't want to just fit to the demands of the algorithm in the audience because I'm always changing. One day I wake up and I feel like, oh, I don't actually want to talk about this subject. I'm not going to force myself to, because it's a creative and spiritual pursuit for me. That's the main reason I'm doing this. And I've seen so many people fall into the, oh, well, they got this following, they spoke about this one thing, and then they create this identity for themselves that's not them. And it's social media is very good at doing that for morphing you, but I'm not going to let it morph
Lezley (00:55:40):
Me. Good. No good. I would be sad about that. What's refreshing to me about you is you seem so present, and I'm not sure how you create your media, so maybe you're not, but you feel so present with what you share that you are a hundred percent there in the sharing. So I appreciate what you do and I encourage you to be who you are,
Stella (00:56:15):
And we just need to keep, as you said, just speaking our passions into the world and create this collective dream together and this full moon as well. These past few days, I've really noticed it, for me personally anyway, I haven't been celebrating the full moon or actively choosing to follow it, but I've just been like, and you just know,
Lezley (00:56:39):
It just happens anyway. Yeah, it's true.
Stella (00:56:42):
Yeah, you just know. And I've been like, oh, okay. This is quite a powerful moon at the moment. And the themes that have been coming through are just sharing and talking and using our voice and using our language and
Lezley (00:56:58):
Yeah. Can I ask you how you deal with people coming for you? I know. I think that is the biggest fear I have about being fully authentic on the internet in the public space is the fear of being of attack and of people coming for me, I know I'm going to get things wrong. I know I am. This is a weird am morphous thing, but
Stella (00:57:35):
I'm afraid of that. I'm going to say what not. I'm going to say what someone said the other day when I asked them this question. I asked the same question. So you're asking me right now, Lucas, I was on his podcast the other day, it's called Elements of Community, and he talks to people who are building communities, and I was like, he said that he'll just try anything and he'll talk about anything. And I was like, so what if you get that wrong? How do you feel about the mistakes you make? And he said that if he doesn't have people correcting him, he's probably not talking enough about what he needs to be talking about.
Lezley (00:58:12):
Interesting.
Stella (00:58:14):
And I was like, ah. Right, okay. So there's a preparation because I do get quite butt hit and I feel with some messages when I read them, I'm like, that's directed at me knowing that they're energetically giving that to me, it feels icky. It's not like, yay, come on. I don't love the conflict. I don't like the arguments, but now I'm just going to be like that. It's a part of the process. It's just another brick on the road to expression my truth. And those people, as soon as they judge you, they forget about it and they carry on with their lives. And it's about why I am doing it and always returning to my intention. And I'm going to learn way more if I'm open to people correcting me my mistakes. But then there is a difference between people who are actually quite mean and cruel.
Stella (00:59:10):
And I think it's just kind of having some kind of magickal metaphysical armor really, and knowing that those people we're just going to reflect back. And for me, it's like knowing that I'm protected and just nurturing that protective bubble around me. Because if you are sharing yourself, and a lot of people are placing their awareness on you and their thoughts and their energy, that is quantumly people giving that to you. And this is what I've realized actually is I can feel it when I share a video, and I noticed it's got some controversial comments. It's like throughout the day, it's really bizarre, but I can feel the presence of the other people who are aware of me. So I will say that is a thing that does happen. And if you are a witch and you do work with your energetic field and making that stronger, that doesn't matter because you've got that protective bubble around
Lezley (01:00:17):
You. Yeah, okay. It's funny you, I have experienced that. I don't know that I'm strong enough to handle it until it happens, and then I learn that I'm strong enough to handle it. And so I'm fearful of I'm of what I'm going to be hurt over, but that's stupid and a waste of time.
Stella (01:00:42):
And when it comes, it's always an in the moment thing. It's that you could feel like if I'm having a bad day, perhaps I could read a comment and it will affect me massively differently to if I'm on a walk and I'm having a really good day.
Stella (01:00:57):
So it's just about constantly realizing I am sharing this because I want to, and I can see, and I'm creating this dream. And often people, like someone the other day actually commented on a post and said, when I first saw your page and your posts, I really didn't like what you were saying and I was arguing in the comment section, but the more I see your posts, I actually, I see your intention and you seem like a nice person. And yeah, when someone sees one thing that you've said, they're never judging your whole character anyway, and that's something I need to is they've seen one little aspect of me. They don't know me.
Lezley (01:01:40):
No, I'm on a mission. Wait, you're what?
Stella (01:01:43):
I'm on a mission.
Lezley (01:01:44):
On a mission. Yes,
Stella (01:01:46):
Yes. And I'm going to complete that mission.
Lezley (01:01:49):
Yes, yes. I am very envious of you understanding this so early in your life. I am over halfway through. Do you know what I mean? I'm grateful for finally getting it now and for finally getting on board to do it, but I'm very envious of you knowing so early. Congratulations. Good for you. Oh,
Stella (01:02:11):
Wow. Yeah. Thank you. I do think the whole world of social media is, it forces you into that place of, my little brother is 16, and I really hope that they start to understand this as early as possible as well. And I think it's more necessary now than ever with the younger generations, especially to have these realizations sooner rather than later. Because the world that we live in right now is really, it needs it. It really needs it.
Lezley (01:02:45):
Well, I mean, we've kind of figured out that the way it's set up right now isn't working right. It's not a collective dream. It's not a common, it's not a common dream. It's a great dream for a small amount of people, but it's not working for a lot of us. And we can change that and we will with
Stella (01:03:07):
Sharing. And one thing I wanted to touch on, I forgot with my, something I've realized recently with my social media sharing, and because my little brother is 16 and he's within that social media world, I feel a little bit of a responsibility to be in there making it a safe place for the youth and the younger generations. And this is something that stopped me from just completely abandoning it. I think for those of us who do feel a calling to use these platforms, it's because we need to be making it a safe space.
Lezley (01:03:40):
Good. Yes, exactly.
Lezley (01:03:46):
Yeah. It's interesting when, of course I was here before the internet, and I love how social media and the internet has changed now to be, no, no, this is real life, and you have a responsibility to treat each other kindly on here. When it started, it wasn't like that. It was like this idea of, oh, it's just the internet. Oh, it's just online. Oh, it's just social media. It doesn't really matter. And that fostered this idea that you could go and be an asshole and there was no consequence. Well, that's not true anywhere. You know what I mean? It's just not, yeah.
Stella (01:04:26):
Yeah. And it's being proven now that this really not great for the youth's mental health and that it's really damaging all aspects. So yeah, we do have a responsibility, and I just hope that we figure it out because it's funny. It's like navigating this technological world. It's a completely new world of spirit in a sense. It's
Lezley (01:04:46):
True
Stella (01:04:47):
In technology is I heard someone the other day, Sophie Strand, she's a deep feminine ecologist, and she speaks on the Mary Magdalene missing links through that, and she's just very connected deeply to the natural world, and she was commenting on, this was crazy. It blew my mind, but how our technology is made out of crystals and the crystals are made, well, they're crystals and we need to use them in the right way. We need to still respect them by using the technology in the right way, because if we don't, it's like, oh my God, crystals as slaves. And I was just like, oh God. Oh my God. All those years I hated tech. She was like, no, it's still.
Lezley (01:05:41):
And
Stella (01:05:41):
I was like, oh my God.
Lezley (01:05:44):
And it's resonance. It's crystal technology resonance, and yes, speak kindly to your devices. Show them love and appreciation. Our printer at work is freezing. What's that?
Stella (01:06:01):
Even when they're freezing, when you're competing,
Lezley (01:06:03):
Even when they're freezing, give them understanding and acceptance. I understand. You maybe need a little downtime right now. Well, okay. This is part of it is these ideas and ways of being were little fantasy things that I would just keep to myself sharing. This is important, sharing this idea of being kind to your devices, your electronics. Oh, it's so important. Thank you.
Stella (01:06:37):
Yeah, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I feel like it's a nice kind of launch off of the full moon and this one, so my podcast at the moment, if anyone is listening, it is educational and I'm choosing to speak to specific people on specific topics, but diving into mainly Caltech ancestry from Ani and Ireland, but also I want to branch out into over Indigenous wisdom traditions, and I feel like you've got quite a little bag of wisdom crystals. It feels that you're bringing through you right now, and it would be great to carry on these conversations, build this. I
Lezley (01:07:22):
Would love to, this is new to me reaching out to Indigenous knowledge keepers, and I have a connection to spirit, to an Indigenous elder, and I am unsure and uncomfortable about how I'm proceeding with this, and I'm allowing the Indigenous creators that I'm talking to kind of teach me, not kind of, I'm allowing them and asking them and hoping that they're going to teach me how the proper relationship, how to build this relationship honorably and respectfully and properly, because I'm not sure I'm not how that looks or what's required or what's expected. And I've been really clear that I don't have any Indigenous knowledge to share that I am only calling in Indigenous knowledge keepers to teach me if I have any Indigenous knowledge to share. It's how Indigenous, cultural and spiritual practice is very similar to Celtic spiritual practice that we definitely cross over and there's very similar processes. Processes, basically.
Stella (01:08:52):
Yeah,
Lezley (01:08:53):
I'm struggling here. I do struggle with this because I don't want to offend anyone with my ignorance. Do you know what I mean? I'm very aware of a fraught history this, and I relate, but I want to share, I want to share vision then about common dream in regards to this is I've had over the past several years a vision given to me over and over again of witches and pagans and other animists on Turtle Island being the biggest allies and support for Indigenous sovereignty and land back because of our shared spiritual and heart connection to land that we all want the same thing. And that's leading me, and I'm just, I'm being taught as I go.
Stella (01:09:49):
Yeah, same literally. I could have repeated all of that. I could have said all of that. I completely get it, and I think as long as we just just keep accepting that we don't know, then when we do get met with people perceiving it as ignorance, it's okay because we are quite ignorant to a lot of things, and that is the process of decolonizing. If we don't speak about it, nothing's going to get done.
Lezley (01:10:15):
So
Stella (01:10:15):
Yeah, thank you to speak about it.
Lezley (01:10:19):
Okay. Thank you for speaking about it. Thank you. I really, really enjoyed this. Let me know where I can point people to you. You've mentioned your podcast, it's great.
Stella (01:10:32):
Yeah. Yeah, just my Instagram account, Stella Marie here, and my podcast, which is also Marie here, so
Lezley (01:10:41):
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you.
Stella (01:10:44):
Alright. bye-Bye.
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Stella and I had this chat back in February and it was a treat for me to reacquaint myself with this time. For me it was a time of integration and Stella allowed me the safe space to articulate a lot of what I had allowed to go unsaid.
Stella is a Welsh Animist, Storyteller, Wordsmith and DJ. She is re-inhabiting Indigenous Land through mystical discovery of ancient ancestors and rooted being.