Flashes of Insight

FOR THE FIRST TIME ANYWHERE WWFEST 7
Rebuilding Spiritual Confidence: The Dianic Tarot
w/ Billie Luisi Potts and Flash Silvermoon

Tarot Creators, Billie Luisi Potts and Flash Silvermoon discuss the herstory, evolution, and pathways of the women’s tarot revival including The Amazon Tarot I, II,[1980, 1984] and Flash’s Wise Woman’s tarot and others: their influence, impact, and usage in every day life.
THIS IS A RARE AND SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY

INSPIRATION FOR THE SEVENTH ANNUAL WISE WOMAN’S FESTIVAL
APRIL 9-11 By Flash Silvermoon

Since 2003, we women have yet to change the world into a place of Peace, Justice, and Healing. We will take the opportunity of the Wise Woman’s Festival to gather again to put our wisest and best efforts towards that end. If anything, the need for peace and healing is more dire than ever before in our lives. Through spirited work and play, we will join together once more to restore our energies which have been so depleted by the ravages of war, the patriarchy,and the no-fundamentalists who are fundamentally ruining the world for the rest of us. By renewing our strength and coming together in the spirit of love, empowerment and healing, we can elevate the vibration of the planet, our sweet Mother Earth, for the good of the animals, the children, the ancestors and all the people… ALL OUR RELATIONS!!
YES THERE HAS BEEN CHANGE BUT WE STILL NEED TO CHANGE THE PARADIGM
LET US JOIN TOGETHER TO DREAM THE DREAM OF PEACE ALIVE!

Why have a Wise Woman Festival?
by Flash Silvermoon

As the 7th Wise Woman’s Festival approaches its April 9th Re- Birth, I hear the question from some folks..why?

There are many answers to this question, some more obvious than others. Let’s face it, anytime the tribes of Wise Women from near and far can gather to make music and magic, its a good thing we all know this. This is an invitation to Change The World, not such an ambitious feat for a Circle of Wisewomen!

Communing in nature with your women friends, attending fascinating workshops/hearing some of the finest women musicians around and sharing deep spaces of intuition and inspiration is always inviting.

With all that being said, I offer yet another factor as well. The concept of Homeopathy is among other things a way to treat the whole by treating a part. It is no secret that this world is in turmoil and on the edge of major trouble on many fronts. Interestingly, if you look at Florida as the place where the fabulous Bush Boys gained their foothold on the world via those lovely non ballots, it is not a bizarre concept to see this state as a place to begin to unwind the web of betrayals of the real evildoers.

Let Peace and an end to the Power over Patriarchal Paradigm begin here and now with we women. Let us bring the seeds of peace and global cooperation into reality by breathing life into this dream; to let it be more than just a dream ; something that we co create and manifest amongst ourselves. We can create a ripple effect, a 100th monkey idea if you will that can spread like a Tidal Wave of love, trust, and healing.

By being the change we want to see in this world for one weekend, we can effect the world by being that acupuncture needle in the state of Florida to unblock the stagnant chi and create a flow of new ideas for peace, freedom and justice not for just us but for all.

This is a most unique Gathering of the Tribes where Dianic Wiccans share ritual and magic with Native Medicine Women, Shamans with Yoruba, Pagans with New Age Women and many exquisite blends in our Rainbow Cosmic Gumbo! We wild, wise women will teach and learn the ways to heal ourselves and our Mother as we all cope and roll with the shifts and changes that these times demand.

This is not so much a crisis in economics as it is in Spirit. We have been poisoned by toxic doses of fear by a prevailing culture that knows that this will freeze and paralyze us all into hopelessness which is an easy way to control us.

OK, WHO IS READY TO COME OUT OF THE DEEP FREEZE AND INTO THE LIGHT OF THE SUN AND THE MOON? Sounds like a lot more fun to me!

As the Producer Priestess, I do my best to keep the price within reason for most women who want to come and offer a few work scholarships as well. Only $60 advance registration!

We know prayers, thoughts and intentions especially focused with others of a like mind and spirit can effect change in a profound and miraculous way. I am inviting you Wise Women to come help us effect this change. I believe this is a window of opportunity for a major Shift in Consciousness lets SEIZE THIS MOMENT IN HERSTORY!! We can turn the tides of war/poverty/bigotry/and violence! Are you willing to commit to this step with us?

“The moment one definitely commits oneself,then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred…..Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius,power,and magic in it. Begin it now.”…Goethe

Begin with us at www.flashsilvermoon.com for all Wise Woman’s Festival Info APRIL 9 -11 please post to all the women that you love. Please also join the Wise Woman’s Festival E list there for all updates

Blessings,
Flash Silvermoon

SEVENTH ANNUAL WISE WOMAN’S FESTIVAL APRIL 9-11
@ Florida Coalition For peace and Justice Camp, Hampton,N. Central Fl, near Gainesville
One of the Nation’s only Multi Traditional Goddess Festivals for Women
only $60 in advance for 3 days of music, magic,Lakota sweatlodge, workshops, camping, poetry, healing and drumming circles, and an incredible Healing Ritual for the Planet led by Priestesses from 4 traditions to RAISE THE VIBE FOR THE TRIBE
Presenters, Billie Luisi Potts,”Witches Heal”, Flash Silvermoon, “The Wise Woman’s Tarot”, The Blues Sisters, Robin G White, Cherie Lyon, Omi Aladora Ajamu, Butterfly Circle Woman, Lylly Rodriguez, Ann Harmon, Mariel Masque, Aurora Whitebird and many more awesome women and YOU!
CONTACT FLASH SILVERMOON 352 4752432 @
www.flashsilvermoon.com

A Favorite Solstice Ritual By Flash Silvermoon @ Moonhaven
Flash Silvermoon shares her thoughts for the Winter Solstice.

Along with jumping over the fire to affirm one’s new path, which is a wonderful tried and true ritual, I have created a fun and third eye opening ritual for Yule.

Tell all who come to your circle to bring a wrapped gift of something that they want to pass on. It needn’t be new but it can be and not too expensive… just something you want to pass on.
These gifts are placed in a box or sack in the center of the group.
The woman who begins has the Priestess or group member place a lovely blindfold over her eyes and then she reaches into the sack and lets the gift pick her. At this point she uses psychometry (a form of object reading where the diviner tunes into the object and gets impressions re the gift or giver) to divine the message from the gift etc. (read on…)

PROSPERITY RITUAL GREAT FOR TONIGHT’S FULL MOON IN TAURUS
by Flash silvermoon
My Class tonight at the Moonhaven Mystery School of Earth Magic for Women will be doing a Prosperity Ritual that I have created and have used for many many years and I am sharing it here for you to use tonight wherever you are or for future reference. it is really simple and needs to be done with a group ideally for the full and best result, even better if you are doing it for a shared cause. OTHER WOMEN, IF YOU WANT TO COME, BE SURE TO BRING THESE ITEMS WITH YOU and a donation for your participation.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED
1. Open Hearts, Minds and Enthusiasm
2.a vibrant NEW green candle in a holder or best , use one of the tall candles in a glass that last for 7days that you can get in some food stores in the ethnic food aisle
3. A gold or silver Dollar
4. Some Prosperity oil and incense buy or make your fave blend. Whatever you have, use some Cinnamon to quicken the result. Myrrh oil is very good as is Frankincense.
5. Magical Pouch of Transformation. A strong pouch - velvet , leather etc that you will use to create a rattle with every one’s coins
6. Sage, Cedar or some other form of banishing incense to use in the beginning when all release negative thought forms and ideas about $$
7. MOST IMPORTANT A CLEAR AND FOCUSED MIND with this you achieve all without it no candle or special oil can help! (read on…)

MOONHAVEN IN MELLOW ROSE HOME SWEET HOME
by FLASH SILVERMOON

Moonhaven is an illuminating and mystical space and I feel that this place is my home to the very core of me. It is a space so familiar yet continually offers surprises when I take the time to wander amidst the citrus groves, listen to the night call of the many Barred owls, or sit beneath the welcoming arms of the ancient Grandmother Tree.

The Grandmother Tree is a 500 + year old Live Oak that was struck and split in two by lightning some 300 years ago. Now she presides over Moonhaven like some all-enveloping Druid Priestess.

What an incredible metaphor for Flash Silvermoon to live beside this Phoenix, this awesome earth sculpture that was struck by lightning and not only didn’t die but thrived winding its moss laden arms around my lavender house!

It would not be at all difficult to imagine or perhaps even see the Faeries playing around and under this Ancient One dancing draped in Spanish Moss with acorn caps.

This majestic tree enchanted my Pagan soul into buying this homestead and becoming her caretaker. I have been honored to be in service of such a profound offering from Mother.Earth.

(read on…)

Aphrodite and Oshun/Imbolc and Beyond
 

I like to celebrate the coming of the Sacred Love Goddesses starting on Feb 2 with Imbolc,Candlemas,Brigid’s Day and so on.
Mainstream culture likes to deify St. Valentine and give this bloodthirsty slayer of women the one day of the year that Love is supposed to Rule. How totally bizarre  and how the hell did he manage to grab that gig? I could research but let’s just chalk that up to the  badass patriarchy.
This just does not work for me at all so for years, I have celebrated  the time between Imbolc and Feb 14 or so as the Feast of Aphrodite. During this time one can delight in all manner of love rituals [as long as they are non-manipulative] and generally pump up your love groove. (read on…)

Around the early seventies it became apparent to me that my lesbian feminsim also needed a spiritual path that was congruent. I had been reading and studying about Witchcraft and for everything that I read this seeemd to fit my more anarchistic ways. Not a lot of rules there and they honor a Goddess hmmm sounded good to me and yet I was yet to have a real circle of women who believed as i did and I longed for that.
I remember that I first heard of Z when she was arrested in LA for reading Tarot Cards, or so they said. At the time I was also making my living on the East Coast reading Tarot Cards and starting women’s Kozmic Consciousness groups beacuse I didn’t think they would buy Coven’s just yet.

Sept 1975 NYC in the loft of artist Carol Clemments, I actually met Z and we shared Tarot readings on the floor over boxes.By this time,Z had become my Hera for standing up against the establishment to try to actually have Church status like the other religions and not have to pay taxes, she was very savvy and that was of course why they came down so hard and what led to her First US Tour to market The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows..hence my meeting her in NYC.

(read on…)

How Far Out of the Broom Closet and into the Streets

Part of my “outness” is just me being me and if that helps another to be themselves more then part of my job is done whether as a witch,a lesbian,a feminist,,whatever closet you inhabit, I suggest that you feel around for ways to be more comfortable,more you whatever that is, , to test those boundaries and expand them and bust out as much as is comfortable and then in time push a little further.

My job is being a Priestess and that for me is my full time job which includes Divination, Astrology, Sacred Stones, Vibrational Healing,Animal Communication, teaching playing music and on and on so I am fortunate to love all that I do and not need to occupy a closet for any of these things.

Of course at times I have paid a price for my freedom and this was my choice to make.

(read on…)

Flash Silvermoon Interview..for Pagan Pathways
Date: 10/2/2007 8:36:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Thank you so much for agreeing to share with us! Please do tell us about yourself and feel free to be as in depth as you like!We would love to print your picture too!

ok I will pick a couple for ya

Where were you born and raised and what are some of your earliest memories?

I was born in the presence of my mother on March 18, 1950, in Jersey City, NJ. I am quite sure that my room must have faced the Statue of Liberty because I have been a freedom fighter for as long as I can remember. They tell me that after singing Happy Birthday to me on my first birthday, I smiled and put my fist through the cake!

My first Feminist action took place in kindergarten at 4 yrs of age. I had been participating in the rhythm band for a couple of weeks just waiting for my turn to play the snare drum. I had clicked the claves and clanged the triangle but that magic moment when my sticks would strike the skin of the DRUM was awaiting me that morning or so I thought. I was not raised to think that girls were inferior to boys so imagine my surprise when I had the sticks taken from my hands and was told that girls could play anything but this and that I could go to the back of the line again.

My little egalitarian heart was breaking but I screwed up my courage to tell the teacher that this was unfair and was there something else that I could do during this time as I didn’t want to be a part of something so unfair. She told me that I could fingerprint and so I stood in the corner for the rest of the year and finger-painted during the rhythm band time.
This theme and connection with the drums has followed me all the way through adulthood and today am appreciated as an accomplished percussionist. (read on…)

Moonhaven Mystery School:Our First Class Sept 29 1-4pm

The initial purpose for starting the long awaited Moonhaven Mystery School was to create a vehicle to share the wisdom and magic that we as Elders in the Womanspirituality Movement have accumulatd over years and years of practice and service to our communities.

These are THE SECRETS,to coin a popular theme that has hit the Mainstream..and these Secrets have always been kept by the wisewomen of the communities.

These are not the times for hoarding information that can serve and possibly save the world. These are times to break open Pandora’s Box of Women’s Mysteries and demystify and share in positive, safe healing spaces where the coming generations can build on what we know, that these Secrets do not die with us, that the younger or newer ones needn’t reinvent the Wheel!

It is clear to me that this is part of the Mission that I was sent here to complete and I never launch anything BIG unless I get a direct communication from the Goddess, and I got the Word so it is with great honor and joy that I present the Moonhaven Mystery School,may she open doors for women wanting to understand and delight in their own magic as well as that of sweet Mother Earth. Bring us to her Breast for Nurturing and deep Wisdom. Blessed be.
Flash Silvermoon -Priestess and Founder of the Moonhaven Mystery School (read on…)

from J Marie, Guest Blogger:

Hello Sisters,

I just wanted to take a moment to share with you all the awesome spiritual experience of Autumn Equinox at MoonHaven. We met at the mystical home of our priestess, the esteemed Crone, Flash Silvermoon and shared a feast and stories. Some of us knew each other some had never met and all connected.

My partner, SallieAnn told stories of LW, her ex-husband from 1974 who showed up on her door step a year ago and we laughed until our sides ached. I am there when these vignettes unfold and the recounting in Sallies inimitable, irreverent style just reduces me to helplesss giggles.Maybe I’ll write a little of the stuff after this post.

Following the “dinner show” we retired to the chapel in this Goddess blest cathederal. The chapel is a gazebo home of Goddess avatars and crystal grids and esoterica that herself understands but I do not……..Yet.

(read on…)

A Tale of 2 Decks:The Wise Woman’s Tarot /Rider Waite Smith

I started reading cards with the Rider Waite Tarot and it is a good primer, used it for years and was only going to write a good “how to book” for it’s use when the Goddess took control and turned my few pages called “Visions for a New Deck” into a 25 yr. lifework called The Wise Woman’s Tarot.

I definitely was influenced by RWaite but I felt like I wanted to create images that were relevant to all races and that were also very Goddess oriented.

Some people have used the Tarot as a way to offer Feminist rhetoric but I have found to my delight that no one need put such an overlay on the Tarot because feminism, and a woman-centered magical philosophy was already present if one wold but look more deeply,which is exactly what I did. (read on…)

I have often described myself as a woman who walks inside her Spirituality everyday. It is like my skin and involves and encompasses everything that I do.

I would also say more accurately, that I live the life of a Dianic Priestess. My work is about as traditional as you can get for a Priestess as I use Divination, Vibrational Healing for people and animals,Astrology,Music, Crystal Healing, Ritual and much more witchy things in my practice.

On any given day, I am as likely to read a clients cards, find a missing cat, treat a tiger for Grief and Loss, help a couple heal their relationship through the use of a Composite Astrological Chart, sell some stones, make a Gem Elixir, play a concert for Gay Pride, lecture at the University of Florida on Women’s Spirituality, create and lead a ritual or just love my land and critters and encounter the magic of the wild things, plants and trees that live here with me at Moonhaven.

(read on…)

I have definitely been in my share of “Infamous Circles” so I will turn on the time machine to share space with you so to speak regarding a ritual referred to in Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon.I forget now exactly what the chapter was called, but it was the first pages of a chapter about a circle in Staten Island NY,might have been called New Witches or Pagans.

Anyway it was a most steamy summer night and it was a Full Moon if memory serves so I decided that we should do a bathing ritual as the women’s home had a beautiful big old bathroom with clawfoot tub. One by one ,crones first we each in turn got into the warm tub filled with flowers and aromatic oils to be adored and cleansed by our sisters. I was probably only 27 then or even younger. It was soooo beautiful and I remember my then lover Pandora playing her flute standing on the toileet seat, Kate Millett who was part of this first NYC Coven, The Amelia Earhardt Coven,initiated the first dip into the lovely waters and marvelled on how exotic it all felt.

(read on…)