The Descent: Fall & Winter Sanctuary Journey
The Sanctuary Journey: The Descent is a guided Fall and Winter journey through the two inward directions of the Medicine Wheel of Life.
Beginning in the West with the season of composting, truth-telling, and honest release, then moving into the North with the deep winter medicine of steadiness, integration, and inner authority, this journey teaches you how to walk the inward arc of the cycle with awareness, support, and sacred creative practice at the center.
You will be guided by four inner archetypal presences: Skeleton Woman and the Thread Weaver through the falling away of autumn, and the Bone Keeper and Medicine Woman through the quiet depths of winter. And throughout the full arc of the season, you will create your Medicine Spirit Doll through the ancient practice of needle felting, a living mirror of what this journey is asking you to remember about yourself.
Weekly lessons are released in a gentle seasonal rhythm. Live Sanctuary Talking Circles offer witnessing and community. And the work itself happens inside your real life, not outside of it.
This is not something you add to your life.
It changes how you move through the life you already have.
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Welcome: Crossing the Threshold
A warm welcome to The Descent for both new and returning students. This lesson orients you to the full journey ahead, what the inward arc of the cycle holds, and how to move through this work at your own pace without pressure or performance.
A warm welcome to The Descent for both new and returning students. This lesson orients you to the full journey ahead, what the inward arc of the cycle holds, and how to move through this work at your own pace without pressure or performance.
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Community Talking Circle: Schedule & Recordings
Your full Talking Circle schedule for the Westgate and Northgate seasons, including all dates, topics, and planned breaks. Circles are optional and all recordings are posted here after each gathering.
Your full Talking Circle schedule for the Westgate and Northgate seasons, including all dates, topics, and planned breaks. Circles are optional and all recordings are posted here after each gathering.
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Signal: Staying Connected Between Circles
How to join our private Signal group, the intimate community space where sisters connect, share, and support one another between live Talking Circles.
How to join our private Signal group, the intimate community space where sisters connect, share, and support one another between live Talking Circles.
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Materials & Preparing for the Journey
Everything you need to begin your Medicine Spirit Doll through needle felting, including a full materials list, information about the optional Deluxe Felting Kit, and guidance for students sourcing their own supplies or joining from outside the United States.
Everything you need to begin your Medicine Spirit Doll through needle felting, including a full materials list, information about the optional Deluxe Felting Kit, and guidance for students sourcing their own supplies or joining from outside the United States.
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1: Arriving at the Westgate
The first phase of the Westgate season. We slow down, turn inward, and begin noticing what has been drawing us beneath the surface of our lives. A grounding orientation to the West as a direction and a season.
The first phase of the Westgate season. We slow down, turn inward, and begin noticing what has been drawing us beneath the surface of our lives. A grounding orientation to the West as a direction and a season.
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2: The Medicine Wheel of Life
An orientation to the Medicine Wheel of Life, its four directions, the Center, and Above and Below. Grounded journal prompts help you locate exactly where you stand right now, seeding what will become your Dream Egg.
An orientation to the Medicine Wheel of Life, its four directions, the Center, and Above and Below. Grounded journal prompts help you locate exactly where you stand right now, seeding what will become your Dream Egg.
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The Dream Egg
Your first symbolic creation of the season, a sacred cocoon for the intention you're calling in. Includes a reflection for returning students on last year's egg, and creative options beyond needle felting for those working in other mediums.
Your first symbolic creation of the season, a sacred cocoon for the intention you're calling in. Includes a reflection for returning students on last year's egg, and creative options beyond needle felting for those working in other mediums.
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Step by step needle felting tutorials to create your Dream Egg.
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3: The Art of Softening
The Descent rewards those who slow down rather than push through. This lesson explores what it means to soften into the inward season, how to recognize when you are resisting, and how to find your footing in the downward turn.
The Descent rewards those who slow down rather than push through. This lesson explores what it means to soften into the inward season, how to recognize when you are resisting, and how to find your footing in the downward turn.
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1: Meeting Skeleton Woman
A full introduction to Skeleton Woman, the primary archetypal guide of the West. Her mythic lineage, her medicine, her shadow terrain, and how to recognize her already alive within you. She is the one who knows the beauty of the descent.
A full introduction to Skeleton Woman, the primary archetypal guide of the West. Her mythic lineage, her medicine, her shadow terrain, and how to recognize her already alive within you. She is the one who knows the beauty of the descent.
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2: Skeleton Woman | Grief as Fertilizer
Skeleton Woman teaches that grief is not a problem to solve but a substance to be composted. This lesson explores how loss, endings, and what has been scattered can become the very ground from which something more honest grows.
Skeleton Woman teaches that grief is not a problem to solve but a substance to be composted. This lesson explores how loss, endings, and what has been scattered can become the very ground from which something more honest grows.
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The Descent gives you a living framework for the inward seasons of your life, four archetypal guides to walk with, and a Medicine Spirit Doll made by your own hands as a mirror of what is unfolding within you.
This journey gives you language for what you are living, steadiness for what is unclear, and a sacred creative practice that makes the invisible visible.
By the time the Spring Equinox arrives, you will not be the same woman who entered. You will be a more honest one.
If you have been feeling more inward, more sensitive, and more aware that something is shifting, you are in the Descent. And there is a way to walk it.