Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Practically Magick. If you are watching on video, you will notice that we are looking very domestic today, domestic in my kitchen. I decided, no, this is not going to be a cooking show, although I am making breakfast for myself, some protein pancakes. I am just about to put a dose of Dose in my coffee, mushroom coffee. I am here to talk to you about some things that have been happening lately in my life and hope that they give you a little inspiration to create some magic in your everyday life.

First of all, when I make my coffee in the morning, even something this simple can be a ritual, infused with your intention. I put mocha in my coffee because I want to scare away the dementors. That's a joke. There's no co-host with me today, so guess what? You get to enjoy some time in my kitchen with me while I make my protein pancakes.

And we're going to start today's episode by pulling a card, as we always do. So, let me bring in some of this abundance as I stir my coffee. I'm stirring with my right hand. I am stirring counterclockwise. Today, I have brought the Nordic, magical Nordic deck, which I've used before on the show.

And we're going to see what comes up for audiences today. Whatever card I pull, as usual, is whatever was meant for you today. So, let's see what comes up for you. And it is the devil card, which absolutely fits completely with how my day has been. It has gone so far this morning.

The devil card often represents something of like an addiction. And I would dare say, I would go so far as to say, everyone has an addiction to something that they hope makes them feel better. A lot of times in the healing work that I do, when I am working with a client, it will very much come up at some point in the session that there is a tendency or a pattern or an addiction to solve a problem in such a way that is pretty, reveals itself to be self-sabotaging, right? So, knowing that our brains work the way they do, knowing that we are trying to get some sort of brain is trying to get, we're all these little, all of us as a drug addict in some way, shape or form, because we all have these chemical needs, these little bursts of joy in our brain that happen with dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin. We get these little bursts.

And for lack of a better term, we are addicted to that. So, even if we don't partake, I shall say, of extracurricular medical interventions, we are still chasing that burst of joy or that feeling within ourselves. And so, the devil card, when it comes up, I often like to think about what it is that I'm leaning towards or what do I have an addiction towards or what have I been indulging in more than I should at this time. The word that comes up on the card, and I'll show the card now, on the screen, you can see it, boundaries. It doesn't look like the typical devil card.

You don't see the devil in this Nordic deck. But boundaries is a great word for this, because being able to get your needs met while being careful or setting a balance as to what it is that you're getting met without harm is a really important question to ask ourselves in our healing journey. And the reason I said it's a perfect card for me today is because I made myself a nice big batch of muddy buddies this weekend. It just felt like indulging because I, I'll explain why in a minute, but made an entire batch of this big bowl you see on the screen for those watching. And look how many I left today.

That's right, it's empty. And you're thinking, why would you put it back in the cabinet if it's empty? And to that I say, because I want to remind myself to make more in this bowl and make sure that I leave some for my kids this time. So yeah, I've been overindulging. Definitely, for sure.

Overindulging in certain things. But that is not what I'm here to talk about today. What we are going to talk about today as I make my protein pancakes, which is made with bananas, applesauce, protein pancake mix, chocolate protein pancake mix. Let's be very clear. I like chocolate in my coffee.

I like chocolate in my pancakes. I like chocolate just about everywhere. I like chocolate in my muddy buddies, apparently. So overindulgence in that as well. I make it in my blender, which I didn't want you to have to suffer through the noise of.

So I am making my pancakes. These are going to be extra fluffy. I can tell already because I think I put a little too much batter in it. I'm also making skull pancakes in a smaller. I keep saying pancakes.

It is pancake mix, but I'm actually making waffles. So I totally messed that up already. Here we are. I promise we'll get through this. I would like to discuss with you today, my darling magical people.

I would like to talk about something really special that I did over the weekend. And I just want to tell it kind of like in a story. How it came to be. So I had a couple of. Well, about a year and a half ago, I had someone reach out to me who knows that I do pagan ritual ceremony coming of age.

I teach classes on ritual and they had reached out to me because they had a son and daughter-in-law I could perform the wedding. And it is something I've always wanted to add to my repertoire of things that I do. But because I do love being present and creating a sacred space for people in their transitions of life. But on a legal side, I had not gone so far as to get ordained. Right.

So I told them I was very sorry, but I couldn't get ordained that quickly. But it did push me to go and look into it and get whatever certifications needed to happen. I think it was Unified Life Church or something online where you can go and get ordained. Not the most important part, really. I wanted to make sure that if I am an ordained priestess to perform pagan or Celtic hand fasting type weddings, that I would be also really knowledgeable, that I would have some experience in putting together a ceremony or ritual for someone.

And, you know, do a really good job. Basically, if they wanted me for their wedding, I was going to give it my all. So I did the online becoming ordained, all of that. And then got this really cool package in the mail where it gives you a certificate, an officiant minister. It gives you these little press pass sort of things.

And it's like officiant. You can clip it to your shirt. I was just having a great time with all of this thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to wear this everywhere. To meetings and I'm just going to, you know, make the best of this. But I really didn't feel the need to advertise and promote that side of the work that I do because mostly I focus on healing work.

I focus on my art classes. I focus on educational things. And just kind of let this be something that I do on the side. But I think it was in a Facebook group that someone was asking about officiants that could do a specifically pagan spiritual centered wedding for them. And so I can't remember if I was tagged or if I reached out to them.

It's been a year now, so I can't remember how it turned out. But I reached out and I said this is something that I've just stepped my foot into for the very first time. I would really love to do your wedding. It will be my first wedding. And if that scares you or if you want someone more experienced, I totally understand.

But this is something that means a lot to me. And I will do a good job. And they trusted me enough to hire me. So what I decided to do over the last year, because the wedding was not happening until this year on a certain date, a very specific carefully picked date of this year, which means we had a whole year to prepare, which means there was a lot of downtime in between that I didn't want to lose track or, you know, get feel disconnected. So I set up a series of interviews, a series of meetings that we could have throughout the year where while they were preparing for the wedding and planning some of the details of how the wedding was going to go, I could use that time to prepare myself, prepare them, prepare for what I was going to say, prepare how the ceremony was going to be crafted as a ritual.

And this is something that I teach in my ritual classes, which is I want to empower people to set up or to feel comfortable setting up their own ritual, that you don't have to necessarily rely on specific rules or a person who's done the work and study like me, but that you yourself, if you feel you want to connect with some spirituality in some way, be it pagan or otherwise, that you could do it and that you could feel comfortable with it. We live in an area where people are either very engaged in or deconstructing their religious faith. Let's see how this waffle turned out here. I'm going to show, show you my skull waffles on the screen so you can see what I'm making. Very fluffy.

They're going to be delicious. So sad that you're not here to enjoy them with me, but we'll enjoy the time that we have together instead. So I like to teach ritual spells classes, and I am a little bit different than I would say some people who are practitioners of witchcraft would say there are exacting rules that you have to follow. The only thing that I necessarily, I wouldn't even call it a rule that I give, but I want people that are learning to take into consideration is cultural appropriation versus appreciation and just know where the line or boundary is on that when you are partaking in something like, for example, staging, smudging, which culture that you are invoking or participating in and whether it's something that you've looked into and studied and understand before you partake in it. Back to ritual.

So when I teach a class on ritual, I have an entire worksheet, and it can be filled out completely, or it can be filled out by bits and pieces. It is absolutely up to the facilitator of the ritual to decide what they want, what they want to include, and the worksheet just offers the ideas, a place to put all the brainstorming ideas of what one would want in their ritual, what considerations to take when making this ritual, gives it a little bit of a format or a structure. And again, that is completely up to the practitioner, up to the person themselves to decide what actually do I want to happen first, second, third. It's about empowerment more than it is about getting it right, is what I'm trying to say. So the magic is in the intention that you put into the ritual itself.

If it's meaningful to you and it flows in a meaningful way, then you're going to get a lot more out of that ritual. You're going to feel more connected to the purpose of the ritual than if you were to just simply follow someone's rules and say, this is exactly how it's supposed to happen or supposed to be done. And the beauty of performing a wedding is that legally there are a few key ingredients that legally have to happen. The officiant is in charge of making sure that those things do happen so that when we sign the marriage certificate, the witnesses and everything like that, we have seen both of the things happen. There's a lot of creative freedom in how a ritual like a hand fasting takes place.

And so this was a marvelous opportunity, especially where we live in Utah. I grew up with weddings being very much of a certain structure and a certain culture. Most people who are LDS, they have the wedding ceremony in complete private with only those worthy and close family members and friends that are allowed to go into the temple. And for anybody who doesn't know about Mormon culture, only ordained people, people found worthy with interviews and certain rights and rituals that have happened before that who get a temple card are allowed inside the temple. And you can imagine how, the word isn't quite coming to me.

I was going to say discouraging, but it's not discouraging. It's difficult. It's emotional. For those people who have family members that cannot enter the temple, especially if they're very close, loving family members, I mean, can you imagine not being able to go to your own son or daughter's wedding because you aren't temple worthy or you're not allowed to go in? And so a lot of Mormon weddings, LDS weddings in this culture, they can be difficult.

They can be broken up. Now, if everybody is worthy and everyone gets to go in the temple who is a close friend or family member, then not much of an issue there. They have usually a luncheon after they go through the temple, they do their ceremony and ritual there that they do inside the temple. And then they come out and they do pictures outside the temple with family and all the things. Then everyone usually goes to another venue.

None of this, the public part of the wedding or the day is done in the temple, only the ceremony of the wedding itself. And then they usually rent a space somewhere else or they do a venue. Um, or if they want to do it for free, they go to a local church or their own church where their ward is. And usually it's just a matter of getting on the calendar and making sure that the gym, yes, it's a gym, basketball gym with lines on the floor and hoops and everything, is free that day so that you can set up tables, put a couple of nice tapestries and lighting and some arches and flowers so that maybe it looks a little less like a gym and a little bit more like a wedding venue. And then you can invite your friends and family to come and join you there.

Not often is it a big party, although that has changed in the last 20 years. But when I was getting married, not a big to do. There's usually not dancing. Maybe a first dance, maybe the couple dances and then they dance with, you know, the groom dances with his mother and the bride dances with her father. And that's kind of it.

They play some nice, solemn music. Most of the reception, which is now open because there are separate invitations for the wedding or the luncheon, which is close family and friends, that there are going out for the reception. And the reception is like everybody. Your mother's third cousin she hasn't seen in 40 years is coming to your reception. And this is great for the couple because then you get a lot of gifts, the more people that you invite.

Right. So not judging it. Good, bad, whatever. This is just the typical what you see. And during the reception, you will usually see the couple standing in some beautifully drawn up area with like an arch and flowers and some backdrop of some kind.

And they stand there for almost the entire reception. This is when everybody and their dog walks through a line, goes through the line to congratulate the couple, to have a word with the parents. And then they get to go and enjoy kind of an open house style, grab a bite to eat, not usually anything big because they've already had a luncheon. It's not a meal. It's usually like hors d'oeuvres and some treats and some eclairs and cream puffs and whatever.

And some of it was made by the Relief Society if they were willing to donate their time, that kind of thing. So this is the typical wedding you might see here in this region of our country. And I know a lot of other religious areas of our country, you know, with a large accumulation of Christian traditions, will have something similar, maybe not the temple, maybe not the exact same thing, but it will kind of follow a format like that. So the wedding that I was asked to perform, I was very excited to really make sure that the couple's values and what they wanted to include would be considered and would be added and would be made to happen. So I did a lot in the interviews to ask things like what sort of plants and herbs are meaningful to you, what deities do you connect with, or archetypes, what sort of, you know, views do you have about God or what God would be if that were to be explained by your own interpretation.

And so asking a lot of questions and wanting to incorporate the connection that they have to land, wanting it to be a pagan tradition, it wasn't going to be as much about religious experience, but more about connection to the land we live on, where we walk, where we live, our homeland that our ancestors came from, and wanting to incorporate that somehow into the ceremony. So I asked a lot of questions like, what was your childhood like? What were things you loved to do when you were a child? What did you hope for your future? What did you hope as a child you would see in your marriage and your life together?

And then I asked questions about each other, you know, what do you like about the person you're marrying? What do you admire about them? What have they done for you? What do you foresee happening when you have struggle or there's going to be hard times in your marriage and in your lives together? You know, just as many questions as I could, I wanted to get to know them really personally so that the ceremony did not feel like they just hired some stranger to go up there and say some names.

Speaking of that, I have been to a wedding at one point, and I think it was the groom's aunt that was actually the officiant. She was officiating the wedding. I can't remember. It was a long time ago, but I feel like what happened and everybody kind of recognized it, she said the wrong names when she was calling one of them, the groom or the bride. I don't remember exactly the details, but I remember all of us listening to the ceremony and kind of looking around at each other like, did she not know the bride's name?

Like, is she getting the name wrong? And I think that stuck with me in the preparation for this ceremony is I really wanted to know these two people as well as a person could in some interviews throughout the course of a year. I mean, if I had really gone deep, I probably would have asked to interview their family members too and gotten to know them. And now maybe in the future, now that I know, I'll incorporate that into the next one. But just getting to know everything that I could about them so that when I wrote my speech, it was going to be what they wanted.

And just like any other ritual, if I'm facilitating this space, my job is to hold sacred space for this ritual to happen, right? To set the intentions for the day, to make sure that as much as I possibly could, it was an experience that they wanted. And I'm happy to say that that is how it went. I mean, not everything went perfect, of course, because I told the groom before the ceremony started, there are going to be some things that go wrong that are with it and when that happens, we can just check that box and say, okay, check, done. That's happened.

And, you know, we had some very, very special funny moments that just are a matter of like, it is what it is, couldn't have done anything different. But I'm happy to say that it went just as well as anyone could have expected. It was an absolutely beautiful venue. They did such a fantastic job of decorating it and putting out things that felt very connected to the land, things that grew in the gardens were laid out on the tables as centerpieces and very natural. Um, the elements of the place itself, it was in a very old factory building.

And so there was just kind of, you know, that old brick that's just sort of falling apart or like places where you could see there were walls and now there's not. And it's just very like rustic. And then like wood beams that were pillars around the space where they had their meal and their reception. And the ceremony was outdoors in the courtyard and it was kind of like enclosed with shipping container, steel around where the factory had been. And a big, one of those smokestack things that goes all the way up into the sky was kind of on the, on the side of the courtyard.

And these beautiful trees already showing their little yellow fall colors was just magic because when wind blew through, it would just sprinkle like confetti, these tiny little yellow leaves all over everything. And it was just lovely. Um, we set up a nice arch and altar the arch, the groom made a beautiful arch for the, the end of the aisle. And, um, while we did follow some traditional wedding things, one thing that we were able to incorporate into this wedding ceremony that the bride requested was that before the ceremony started, we had each of the guests, um, were given the box with the wedding rings in it and asked to infuse it with their hopes and dreams, blessings on the marriage, just anything that they would like to offer. And so when the rings were put on, those blessings would go to the couple.

And so I started the ceremony by passing the rings around. Um, a little funny story that happened. Um, one of the guests had his teenage boys with him and I handed him the rings first and he sat with the box for a moment. I knew I could tell he was really taking it in and giving, giving it a moment with the rings. And then he passed the rings to one of his teenage sons and his teenage son just said, no, I don't believe in that.

And I had to like stop myself from laughing because it really was pretty funny. But, uh, we passed the rings along and it went to each of the guests. And so I, I loved seeing each of the family members that came for the ceremony, just have that moment to give that intention to the rings that were going to be placed on their fingers and a symbol of this day and this union. Um, so we incorporated that into our ceremony. We incorporated the bride's daughter walking down the aisle and her other daughter was actually FaceTiming.

So we were able to have her there and participating in the way that she could at the time. And it was really beautiful. Um, the bride had made her way up the aisle to the altar. I started my speech with a land acknowledgement and I know that's something that the couple would have approved. Um, they did approve, they, they approved the speech anyway.

I sent it to him ahead of time, but a land acknowledgement to me, especially in something this formal was really important to show that we who were there were participating in something that was of a Northern European pagan tradition, but that we were standing on the indigenous land of the Timpanogos, the Shoshone and the Paiute peoples. So I did say a small thing about the gratitude that we had for the land itself, for being our adoptive mother when it was previously cared for by those people whose land we stood on that day. And then later when the vows were done, we were able to invite the rings to come up and be placed on their fingers. And I was able to talk about the stones and the rings. And this was really, really kind of a unique synchronicities moment that happened, which is that, uh, the bride chose an Alexandrite ring for her wedding ring.

And she was like, I don't know anybody that has an Alexandrite ring for their wedding, for their wedding ring. Um, and I said, I was married 22 years ago and my wedding ring is Alexandrite. So we had this moment where we were just like connected and like, what a coincidence that is. Like, can you believe that that we found each other and that that's something so rare? So there was a special moment for us in our bonding and getting to know each other.

And his was a meteorite ring. So I talked a little bit about the meaning of those two stones, what it mean to them. And they both have this cosmic connection to each other as well as those rings and the stones that they, what they mean. And then it was time for the hand fasting, which was probably my favorite thing about doing something like a pagan ceremony. Um, when we were doing the rehearsal, the groom's father was a little bit confused.

I'm, he was just like surprised and he just commented, I've never seen this before with this rope. And they had a beautiful cord that they had made. Um, they didn't make it, but they had it made, which was like an obsidian amethyst with silver cord. And it had the amethyst in the middle and the obsidian on either side. And then they carefully chose charms on either of the sides of the rope, one for hers and one for his.

Um, she chose the symbol of a bee, which is hard work and perseverance to get something out of life. That's very sweet. And he chose a stag and a moon connection to nature and to cycles. And, uh, it was, it was something that they were able to work on together before the ceremony in preparation for the ceremony is to get this cord that they wanted for their hand fasting prepared and ready. And so they, they carefully crafted this hand fasting rope and they, um, asked the sister, sister-in-law to come up and be the, the one who brought the rope up and did the tying.

So I just explained to the audience what we were doing and why we were doing it. Um, just as explained to the groom's dad when he was like, what is this? How, what are we doing here? I've never seen this before. And I said, um, you know, this is where Celtic or, um, Nordic traditions came from with hand fasting marriage ceremonies.

This is what, what was legally binding back in, you know, what we now call ancient times, but not sure how ancient it goes really anymore. Uh, where tying the knot came from. And the couple was able to grasp each other's wrists and we were able to include the bride's daughter into it. So she grabbed their hand as well. And then we laid the rope over each of their hands and then she just looped it around their arms so that each of them had one side of the rope on the arm and left space underneath.

And so while I was explaining the hand fasting, while I was reading my part of the speech, they each got a chance to reach through the loops, grab the other side and pull it through. So while they let go of their hands, they pulled on the rope and it created a knot in the middle. And they had this on display at the reception for guests to be able to see it. Now they can keep that at home on display in their own, in their own homes. So a reminder of this beautiful ceremony that they had.

Um, yeah, probably the part that I was the most nervous about was making sure that the legalities all went through according to what they were supposed to be and not mess any of that up. So we were able to go back at the end of the ceremony and sign the paperwork, making sure it was all legal so they didn't have to, you know, go to a justice of the or something after and do it all again. I would have felt so bad, but we did it. We did it correctly. Everything's good.

Witnesses signed it, everything. It was a beautiful day. And then it was time for the reception and they had food, they had a slideshow. They actually invited me to read tarot cards at the reception. So I had a table already set up at the reception hall and we just, um, spent the whole night partying, dancing, having a good time and doing tarot card readings.

And that just goes to show you, you can literally make a ceremony or important to you any way that you'd like. So thank you so much. And if this was something that meant a lot to you, the topic today being in creating ritual and ceremony around something that is important to you, I want you to look for the classes that I have coming up. My new website is finally out. So that means that I'm going to get to get really creative with what I can offer.

Hopefully I'll be able to have some video channels, educational tools and resources and something that I am beginning work on. Hopefully that will be ready next year. It will be a membership. So for memberships at Prism Healing, we'll be able to have even deeper dives into ways to connect with your own spirituality and your own healing journey, whatever that looks like for you. I'm really excited to be teaching more.

I'm really excited to have a space where I can offer that. And the website is everything I dreamed would be and more. So I hope that you go visit prism-healing.com and see what the offerings are, the services, the classes, the events, scroll all the way to the bottom because every inch of this website was so carefully masterfully created to make you feel like you stepped into my own space, just like the kitchen that we've been spending some time in today. And so I want you to go check out prism-healing.com and please follow me, my podcast Practically Magic with Courtney Pearl right here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, pretty much wherever you get your podcasts, look for Practically Magick. And don't forget that magic has a CK.

That's important. We're not doing magic tricks here. We're talking about the real and true magic that exists in the world. And this is what we do on Practically Magick is talk about magical moments like weddings and death and birth and rebirths and everything in between. I might be my new catchphrase.

Who knows? Thanks for sticking around to have a spot of tea with me and making some awesome skull waffles for breakfast hanging out with me. You can also follow me on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, just look for me anywhere, Courtney Pearl, Prism Healing, or Practically Magick, the podcast. We'll see you next week. Thank you, Ride The Wave Media, for producing this podcast.

It's been wonderful to be a part of an amazing podcast network. And as always, go make magic, witches and wizards.