“You can embody *any* archetypal myth you'd like to - it's helpful to remember it's your choice. Your spell. It always has been.”

~ Nicole Barton

WHO EVEN ARE YOU?

One of the things that came up as I was speaking to aspiring heart-led feminine healers and leaders recently was that they find it a real challenge to answer the question "what do you do?".

Every woman squirmed in her seat at trying to answer - their challenge being to define themselves into some sort of logical, linear box that makes sense to the mundane world. A nod to having to 'get it right', perhaps from their corporate days. That and having a millionty things that they are distracting themselves from their soul purpose with

“We all have a witchy dark shadow side that we suppress. We might show up as a rebel, fighting for power, instead of being loving, or we might long for more power, but feel helpless and end up being the submissive good girl when we don’t really want to be.”.

~ Nicole Barton

HOW TO UNLEASH THE KINKY WITCH WITHIN THIS VALENTINE’S DAY

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner (and what’s thought to be the sexiest day of the year), there’s lots of talk of exploring fantasies and expressing your true self. But as British witch Nicole Barton explains, reclaiming and unleashing the kinky witch within doesn’t have to be sexual and for a partner to enjoy. Instead, discovering your own kinky witch is an act of self-connection, self-love and fierce empowerment…

This is about returning to the truth of our Feminine souls. Beyond the stories and ideas we hold about the Feminine (and the Masculine).

~ Nicole Barton

THE FEMININE: A LAZY, WEAK VICTIM OR WISE, MEDICINAL HEALER?

Our bodies tell us, if we listen carefully, exactly what medicine they need.

I've been interviewing heart-led, aspiring healers and Feminine leaders today and each of them held a story about the Feminine. She was (innocently) feared being seen as lazy, weak or in need of empowerment.

Each of these stories is understandable given our cultural conditioning. And each of them is also putting her in victim and denying healing.  When she's actually super powerful and can tell us how to honour her needs and create powerfully - if we are prepared to listen and take the aligned-action she calls for, to fulfil her soul's mission.

“Knowing what your soft edge is, is a bit like creating your own personal safe word.”

~ Nicole Barton

CHOOSING TO BE THE REAL, VULNERABLE 'YOU' IS EDGY - WHAT'S YOUR SAFEWORD?

I leaned into another kinky edge recently with sharing my voice. And something I've come to see over the years is that, when we do, MAGIC is created.

I was feeling in victim to a surge of what felt like Dominatrix energy recently - which felt to leave me only in the energetic of Submissive (if you missed my last post about this, read it: I'm talking *energetics* here, not being an actual sexy Submissive, though that's always a place you can play with the dynamic ).

The Wildness is no place for the faint-hearted, so come, but bring all your might with you. And maybe, just maybe, you will get a chance to taste your freedom."

~ Alison Napp

I LIED - GOOD GIRL'S GOTTA BURN

Let's talk about truthful self-expression.

My audience is apprehensive recently. I can feel it.

Confusion is in the air.

Where has Nicole the Pastel Swan gone? (Yes, that was an actual description reflected in my soul essence a few years ago, which triggered the shit out of me because - well, I'm no pink swan at home; not to those with whom it feels safe for me to *fully* express my full intensity, anyway).

You aren't truly *integrating* unless you're taking the aligned-actions to do the deep, dark work to consciously and intentionally look at ALL the shadow (and gold) there is to be seen and reclaimed in your wounds.

~ Nicole Barton

ARE YOU REALLY "INTEGRATING"?!

I have lost count of the times I hear women saying they are "integrating" - when largely (whilst they have well-meaning intentions), they are often floating around after their healing waiting for the integration to happen by itself.

Anacardium is an energy of *identity*. She feels torn between the Angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other. The Good Girl and the Rebel. The Submissive and the Dominatrix. And all are shadow polarity "personalities" that a Secret Witch knows well.

~ Nicole Barton

🖤🤍DOMINATRIX VS SUBMISSIVE: WHICH ARE YOU?! 🖤🤍

Soul is calling me, recently (amidst my pleas to go gently - oh God, please!😆 ) to places I never honestly EVER thought I'd be called to.

To the depths of hell and back - it feels. 🖤

Becoming a shaman or a Medicine Woman isn't a case of logically learning magic and then churning it out as a commercialised thing. It is a process of deep initiation, which takes time, space, devotion, and a willingness to be in the mystery of the Feminine. (And if I'm totally honest, blood, sweat and tears)

~ Nicole Barton

IS YOUR UNWORTHINESS HAVING YOU TRYING TO DOSE MEDICINE BEFORE YOU'VE *BECOME* AN EMBODIED SHAMAN?

Something I've noticed recently in magical ones is the tendency to want to skip over the part where we *become* our remedy.

The biggest lesson I learned from this was NO ONE was coming to save me - and that I was going to have to choose to heal myself. And I'm still spiralling into deeper and deeper lessons of this, because it's my lifetimes's work as a Medicine Woman (whose very shadow and gold is trusting herself).

~ Nicole Barton

NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU...

Medicine Woman first knocked on my door when I was the tender young age of 10. I had suffered grief and trauma on the run up for about 5 years, and it was catching up with me - I was so burned out that one day I just woke up, unable to walk, barely able to move and just numb. I remember being wheeled around on an office chair as a kind of makeshift wheelchair.

How are we being called to shine our Medicine Woman's healing light into the world?

Happy Winter Solstice, my loves. 🔥🌙✨

The next few days offers a powerful portal of both Yule and New Moon. And so, as we didn't gather in circle this week as planned, my Medicine Woman wants to share a ritual for you as an invitation to enjoy in your own time.

We are celebrating the longest night, and the depths of the darkness returning to light (and magically #darkness was our theme in this group this month) whilst also harnessing the New Moon in Capricorn.

How are we being called to shine our Medicine Woman's healing light into the world?

Happy Winter Solstice, my loves. 🔥🌙✨

The next few days offers a powerful portal of both Yule and New Moon. And so, as we didn't gather in circle this week as planned, my Medicine Woman wants to share a ritual for you as an invitation to enjoy in your own time.

We are celebrating the longest night, and the depths of the darkness returning to light (and magically #darkness was our theme in this group this month) whilst also harnessing the New Moon in Capricorn.

“There's a level of deep devotion required to navigate the ups and downs of becoming the Self-Healer and Magical Guide you truly came here to be.”

~ Nicole Barton

I have been embodying and teaching 'healing' for over a decade (woah, as I share that my Archetypal Luna remedy - my inner magical wise woman - is like "yes, I'm being owned! 🔥"). You see, healing is something I've lived and breathed the lessons of. It's something, as I often say, that I've "lived into" - over my whole lifetime, actually - and it's been the place where I've had my deepest wounds (which also means as I've alchemised it, it has become my medicine for others).

“True Self-Healing is being willing to go into our wounds - into the fire - and courageously look them in the eyes, and begin to love those pieces of ourselves back to wholeness”

~ Nicole Barton

ABANDONMENT AND SCARCITY ALCHEMY IN MOTION

The path of reclaiming your unapologetic magic is not easy to walk. I've said it over and over again (I'm pretty sure everyone still thinks I'm joking 😁 likely because the work they've done before is 'Woo Lite' - see my earlier post on this).

“True Self-Healing is being willing to go into our wounds - into the fire - and courageously look them in the eyes, and begin to love those pieces of ourselves back to wholeness”

~ Nicole Barton

ABANDONMENT AND SCARCITY ALCHEMY IN MOTION

The path of reclaiming your unapologetic magic is not easy to walk. I've said it over and over again (I'm pretty sure everyone still thinks I'm joking 😁 likely because the work they've done before is 'Woo Lite' - see my earlier post on this).

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.”

~ Clarissa Pinkola

Secretly magical healers: let's talk REAL for a moment as to why searching logically for your "niche" isn't as important as you DISCOVERING, HEALING and BECOMING your own remedy for others.

“This isn't a journey for everyone. It takes deep courage and a willingness to go into the darkness and see what wants to be loved”

~ Nicole Barton

LOVE OR DESTRUCTION.

When I first came to shadow work, I would often use it as a tool to beat myself up with for all the ways I was 'sabotaging' my soul (my magical wand became a 'beaty' stick! )

“The woman who is here to work with her 'inner witch' is here to experience the darkness of being a human fully in form, and she's here to play there, making gold from it - because she's a manifestor here on earth.”

~ Nicole Barton

FOR THE MAGICAL WOMEN WHO SUPPRESS THEMSELVES

There's an absolute rage bubbling from an experience I created yesterday, and I can feel a big angry NO in my belly to our humanness being denied. I witness within myself that more fire is wanting to be expressed…

“Fire, as an Archetypal Apothecary Remedy, is one of transformation, of burning things down so that they can be rebirthed as their real, true, full potency”

~ Nicole Barton

And only where the forest fires have sped, Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands, A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head, And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed, It hides the scars with almost human hands.

“If she's not healed her Witch Wound (that deep seated fear of being her full self-expression), then no matter how hard she trains in magical modalities, it's unlikely that she will ever have the courage to bring that medicine to the world fully and completely.”

~ Nicole Barton

Oh my god has my Secret Witch been having meltdowns this week over where my business is going.

“ The more unapologetically magical you can become - the more you shine who you are into the world - the more you will actually reach the hearts you are meant to, and those hearts that will love you.”

~ Nicole Barton

The path of becoming your own remedy in the world - of becoming your unapologetic magic - is not an easy path to walk. It's often one filled with tears, wounds and fear. It is one that takes deep courage and vulnerability. It's one that requires you to continue to face all the places that your heart wants to close and consciously choose to open them instead.