Cerridwen’s Guidance in Healing the Land – Finding the balance between Water and Earth
I’m Alex, a Priestess of Cerridwen from Italy. As we’re approaching the Water season in our wheel, I would like to share some of my experiences about the work we can do as Priestess Guardians and Protectors of our lands, especially about the destructive side of Water as we humans are forced to confront it, given all the consequences of climate changes and bad land management.
Here in the region where I live, which is Emilia Romagna, in the northern part of Italy, just one month ago we experienced the destructive power of Water: in mid May 2023, in many locations both in the plains and in the Apennine Mountains, the quantity of rain due for half of the year fell in three days… leading to devastating floods and landslides everywhere.
See Facebook story.
The toll of the disaster, according to the newspapers, consisted of 15 deaths, more than 23,000 evacuees (many have been able to return to their homes, only to find them completely covered with mud, with everything that wasn’t carried away by the fury of water now completely useless), 23 rivers flooded at the same time, more than 300 landslides everywhere and more than 500 interrupted roads.
In the cities that had the worst damage, like Faenza, the water has reached 6 metres in height.
I am lucky I live in a town that hasn’t witnessed that level of destruction: but I have friends and acquaintances, living in other places, that lost everything they had, carried away by the fury of water, or literally crumbled into pieces under torrential rains, or sliding slopes of mountain.
There aren’t words capable to convey how my heart breaks, seeing all the pain of the people that lost everything; seeing parts of my land, of our beautiful hills and mountains, to which I went so many times, now torn apart like they were paper; seeing the fertile land full of fruiting trees and crops, now dead in the dried out mud, as are many animals, in the very time of the year in which the young are born.
And this was not the first time… that’s one of the reasons why it all went so bad one month ago: after months of drought (which led to very dry soils, incapable of absorbing much water), just two weeks earlier there were other rainfalls, and floods: this meant the land and the rivers were still full of water, and weren’t able to manage the enormous volume of rain that came two weeks later.
What’s behind these environmental disasters?
I know that sadly this will definitely ring a bell to all of us: the Earth is experiencing extreme weather conditions for a while now. Why does all this continue to happen? Scientists warned us: these are consequences of climate change. The increased average global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution; the continual emissions of greenhouse gases caused by our economic system; the really bad soil management, land use, and the rate of deforestation are all roots of the problem.
Here, many houses are built where they shouldn’t be – absurd laws were issued in the past, in Italy that led to reckless speculation in the construction industry… lots of houses are built in geologically unstable places; the drainage basins of rivers aren’t managed in the best way -structural interventions never made, maintenance works never done, lots of public money wasted, and so on; entire hills are stripped bare to leave space to crops, exposing the land to erosion, compacting the soil, and eliminating the only ones that could help prevent landslides: wild plants and trees…
Politics and their endless, contorted bureaucracy too often seem to jeopardise any effort to change. Now that extreme weather events are occurring more and more, we witness, powerless, the consequences.
How can we help?
So… what are we doing, here where I live, after what happened? What can we do, to face events like these? Obviously, we help when it’s needed, in terms of physical help (here we saw an incredible amount of people willing to help shovel mud, and clean streets and houses), sending money and/or goods of first necessity – being united as a community…
But also, I think it’s of critical importance to become aware of the land we live in – Cerridwen frequently points that out-, of the problems and possible solutions; to become activists, spreading consciousness about the environmental crisis, and do our best to make our voice heard by the people in power… I know many will think this is useless, but we can’t afford to let everything go sideways: how many life-threatening events do we need to witness, to realise where we’re headed?
Most of all, I think we must start changing ourselves and our lifestyles, trying to make environmentally friendly choices every time we can.
If there’s something that came out in a prominent way, throughout my Priestess training work with Cerridwen, it is the importance of educating ourselves and especially our children to think and act differently; we must teach them that it is our responsibility to take care of our home!
We can make informed choices, and this has an incredible power: it won’t be possible to fix everything, but true changes are made one step at a time, starting to act here and now, in our own little environment, in the best way we can.
Cerridwen’s Guidance in Healing the Land
All the above, I think, are the basis that we can’t neglect, in these times. But, as a Priestess of Cerridwen, I also asked Her, and myself, if there was anything I could do to help my land heal on a more subtle level: Cerridwen has always been by my side, the countless times I walked my land in awe and respect; She acted many times as a bridge between me and the Spirits of the plants, the animals, the woods and waters; She is the silent companion whispering songs into my ears, and leading my steps into places of power.
I asked Cerridwen to be with me on this journey, as always; and She was… speaking with Her language of songs, well measured words, spells, and meaningful silences.
The Spirits of my land showed me how we humans can act as catalysts of energy when consciously integrating with the matrix of the energies in the landscape.
Cerridwen made me see clearly that it’s wiser to work with the Earth element, to somehow counterbalance the excess of Water in the land: as the soil needs to drain and to be consolidated, as the bare slopes need plants to return to their original firmness, as the rivers inevitably recede to their beds, it’s the Earth element, and all the life it contains, that needs energy and space to work, and that needs to be nourished and called upon: I’ve collected wood soil for the purpose, from a wild place full of power.
Cerridwen then spoke to me of the importance of cycles and timing: “Don’t forget the Moon… you must work with the Moon’s energy…”
“How?”, I asked…
She answered: “Simple… with a spell in each phase of the Moon, with different purposes”.
Yes, simple but it didn’t really dawn on me before!
But it made perfect sense; as Nature works in cycles, so must we, if we want to help her…
So Cerridwen gave me instructions for spells to be made in each phase – ingredients, some precise, some at will, some for which I’ll have to work on in time…
She asked at the present time, for example, for seeds, but now isn’t exactly the moment for foraging seeds: She showed me it’s a work that must be carried on in time (now I can manage to find them in other ways, but foraged they will be, when the time comes); it can be and serve as a year long work of healing – yes, thinking of it, a yearly work like Her brew…
The spells are meant to be put in power places, from where their energy can spread easily, and also the nearest possible to the damaged zones. Songs that the Spirits of the land themselves and our Lady have taught me in the past, will be sung to fix the spells… the ingredients are all natural and biodegradable, and crystals will be used to charge them, especially the ones I found in my land (clear quartz above all).
The aim is to help the damaged lands recover their energies and re-establish their connection to the whole of the landscape: water is richness, and the abundance of rivers in the plains, in the mountains, has to be kept with reverence and wisdom by us humans…
I am adding to the spells some movements that Cerridwen has shown me, to encourage on a subtle level the absorption of water, and to try to help their natural and harmonious flow…
Water feels, Water is alive, just like the land; and the more we feel its presence, the more we align with its nature, the more we’re able to add drops of calmness and ease to support the energies in settling down.
There’s no need or will to manipulate anything – Cerridwen shows me something that is following the flow, gently treading on the web of energies that surround us with full awareness: and this is the vision I want to nurture for the future!
Going further, this can be the base of the work of many years, in connection with Her and the land, to deepen the relationship with the area in which we live, to help heal the disasters we humans do, re-establishing our place in the land as part of it… because healing is never something readily available at zero cost; we have to work for it, and, as Priestesses and Priests, be ready to do so both in the mundane and in the Spirit world.
Thank you with all my heart for reading so far! Many blessings from the land of Italy,
Alex, Priestess of Cerridwen
Alex La Malfa
Emilia Romagna, Italy
Instagram: @song_of_the_waves
Alex is a Priestess of Cerridwen from Italy. She has been on the path of paganism and Goddess spirituality for 20 years, and has a huge passion for herbs, crystals, painting, folk traditions and all works of reconnection with the land.
All photos with link documenting the floods are from the Facebook public weather pages “Emilia Romagna Meteo” and “Meteo-PedemontanaForlivese”