Before I begin the rest of this newsletter, I want to remind you that our free writing workshop with special guest Derek Zboran (founder of Rolla Writers Club, Tedx speaker, and author of four books) is TONIGHT (October 9th) at 7:00 central time. This workshop is free and this is the Zoom link to join in!
We are on the threshold of Samhain, honoring endings and welcoming mystery. Standing in the doorway, we make our commitment and allow our own lives to charm and delight us. We pause here, honoring what was and welcoming what will be. We thank our bones for carrying us. We turn in wide circles beneath the waning moon, letting our gratitude fly free to bless the darkening night.
Happy October and welcome to this week’s Rituals of Returning newsletter! This issue explores our allies for the month. We’ve also updated the shop with our extra special Samhain ritual kits!
This week's magic:
20 minute video: October Allies (note: this video goes live tomorrow!) Companion handouts are right here for you:
Rituals Of Returning Companion Card Set
1.85MB ∙ PDF file
Download
Download
A Book of Magic Days is available for pre-order on Kindle! The print edition will also become available by December 1 (hopefully earlier!).
I’m also so excited to announce that I’ve opened submissions for our first anthology: Simple and Sacred, the book!
I’m also pleased to have my essay, Earth’s Mystery School, and a poem (Table Rock Lake) in the newly released Missouri Writers’ Guild anthology, celebrating 100 years.
And, I also have four poems in the forthcoming Underworld Guide and Holy Hag Hecate anthology from Girl God Books. Pre-orders are open for it now as well.
And, wait, one more as well! I was honored to contribute to a new anthology from Pantheon Press called "In the Deep," poems of resilience and grief. The book was released in print this week!
This is How We Pray
In a recent Live community practice, I shared a quote from Mary Oliver:
“So this is how you swim inward.So this is how you flow outwards.So this is how you pray.”
It felt like a perfect encapsulation for what we do together in circle and in our lives. There is a rhythm to a well-nourished life: a movement inward and a movement outward. Time alone and time in community. Reflection and expression. Receiving and offering.
If we swim inward but never flow outward, we can become stagnant, over-contained, cut off from the life that wants to move through us. If we flow outward without ever swimming inward, we grow depleted, brittle, burned out by constant giving and doing.
So in circle we practice both: Swimming inward, (breath, body, journaling, contemplating, noticing our own inner landscape), flowing outward (blessing one another, sharing stories, creating, writing, making things with our hands).
This, too, is prayer: not only words, but in the ways we show up for our own lives and for each other.
(photo is from GGG last month)
Announcements:
October Enchantment
Throughout this month, I’m offering a simple and sacred class called October Enchantment, designed to help you settle and soften into the enchantment of the season as well as to explore Baba Yaga and to deepen into our allies for the month. This class is included at the $10 tier and above!
Too Much Woman anthology
Available for pre-order, I’m also delighted to be a contributor to the third Womancraft Publishing anthology, Too Much Woman. Really excited about this one!
Resource Reminders:
May we continueto practice fierce self-care.May we honor and trustour own boundaries.May we listen to our sacred yesand holy no.
Our popular Back to the Root free series is still available:
Make sure to check out the collection where all of the free posts are available.
And, you can still grab your welcome kit with beautiful journals and customizable covers.
Intro audio about the Goddess Magic Mystery School
I’ve started to add our monthly activation replay videos for this year’s #30DaysofGoddess practice to the homepage! Scroll past the “2026 Practice Updates” section to access the videos. Note: Live monthly activations are available to any member of the Goddess Magic Mystery School Patreon community free and paid both!
FREE class:
forty week Intro to Goddess Studies class!
Gift a Goddess Magic membership to a friend!
Life’s Bits and Pieces:
Today,soften intothe great web of belongingand feel itenchant and inspire you.Today,believe in the constancyof change.Today,trust the yearningtoward returning,the seed of possibilitybeing nourishedin the dark wombof beginnings.
Currently reading:
(to self) Daggerbound—from T. Kingfisher, this is second in a series about ancient warriors bound/trapped in magical swords. This one has a m/m romance subplot and an absolutely fabulous new species of character that I will not spoil by describing! (The library suddenly got a digital copy of this and I set aside Summer in Orcus in favor of returning to the world of the White Rat!)
(listening to by self) The Spare Room—surprise! This is NOT by T. Kingfisher! I haven’t listened to enough of it yet to draw any conclusions—it seems to be domestic suspense/mystery-ish, but I also think it has a salacious side that I might not be ready for, toxic relationships are about to begin. Side note: I also did manage to finish listening to Yesteryear, which was very engrossing, but was also more appropriately described as domestic suspense than “comedy,” and was truly about descent into mental illness rather than anything else.
October’s Allies: Baba Yaga, Burdock, Tortoise, and Labradorite
Reminder: May you anchor in. May you root deep. May you tap your resources, and may you claim the wild within.
Note: expanded edition is here.
Questions
What are you grinding away that is extraneous? What are you shedding or casting away?
How do you embrace your own wildness?
Where in your life are you being asked to pay attention, or to seek solitude?
Who do you count on when you are burned out and your soul is malnourished?
What lineages are you already part of? Which ones do you want to claim?
Where does structure appear in your life? Are you comfortable in it, or do you rebel against it?
Where do you need to slow down and set your own pace?
Where do you need stronger boundaries? Where are you being asked to own your authority?
Affirmations
Magic lives in this very moment.
I reclaim my life-loving wisdom.
I embrace the fullness of living.
I travel on pathways I make myself.
I reclaim the wild one within.
I express my wild self creatively.
Keep it simple and sacred whisper the trees,let go with grace and trust the turning, watch how the leaf rides the air all the way to the ground.Let life astonish you,mess and magic all entwined.Be patient with yourself.Feel the mask slip away as the mist rises and mystery invites you in.
Much love,
Molly, Mark, + Family
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