Welcome And Core Theme

Speaker 0:06

Hello, friends, and welcome to Episode One of Darkness and Light. I'm your host, Wendy Rule, and this is a podcast about myth, magic, and nature. I am so excited to be beginning this journey with you, starting out on this new project, and I am just so grateful that you've found your way here and that you're tuning in. Thank you. So in this episode, as we begin our journey together through the cycles of the moon, the sun, and the seasons, we're going to be acknowledging darkness and light as complementary energies rather than opposites. Both are equally necessary, equally powerful, equally beautiful. They're both part of nature, and nature is our anchor for this entire journey together, witnessing the rhythms and changes of nature from our position here as humans on earth. We're going to be utilizing mythology and ancient story, and also exploring some ways that we can bring some ritual and magic into our lives to deepen our experience of these cyclic changes. So I will be sharing an episode twice a month, every alternate Thursday, and each episode will acknowledge the phase of the moon, what astrological sign the moon might be in or is moving toward, if we're moving toward a full moon like we are now. We have a full moon coming up on April 1st or April 2nd, depending where you are in the world, waxing right now toward that full moon in Libra. So this will be our pace and our rhythm, the waxing and waning of the moon. And then witnessing how that plays out across the change of the seasons in both hemispheres.

Living Between Hemispheres

Speaker 2:29

  And I have a particular, I guess, relationship with that change across the hemispheres because I have a strong connection to both hemispheres. I am Australian. I grew up in Melbourne. But for the last 10 years or so, I have been living in New Mexico in the United States. And I'm a musician. So every year I am traveling back and forward across the hemisphere, switching seasons as I go on tour. So it's very apparent to me that whatever is going on in one hemisphere, the opposite is happening in the other hemisphere. If it is midwinter in the northern hemisphere, it's midsummer in the southern hemisphere. So I love this dance of darkness and light. I can kind of feel it like this pulse across the earth, this moving of one part in darkness and the other part in light. One part of the earth is experiencing day and the other part night, one part spring and the other hemisphere autumn. To me, this is a really strong reminder that darkness and light are part of the same complete energy. They are part of nature.

Nature As One Web Of Being

Speaker 4:01

  So what do I mean when I say that they're part of nature? Well, I mean the everything, the cosmos, the universe, the above, the below, the within, the without. Nature is the microcosm, it's the tiniest cell, it's the little insect on a flower, and it's also the macrocosm, the swirling galaxies, black holes, the mystery of the endless universe. Nature is neither good nor bad, it just is. And darkness and light are neither good nor bad. They just are part of this energy, which to me is spirit, that unifying spirit that flows through everything. Nothing is separate. Everything affects everything else in this great web of life of nature, in this cosmos, and we're part of that web. We're not separate from nature. We are nature. We are just as much nature as any flower or tree or mountain or star or galaxy. We are born of Mother Earth. We are made of the stuff of Mother Earth. Our bodies are earth. We eat earth to keep ourselves alive. We eat the things that grow and live on earth in order to sustain this earthly body. We are nature. And as human earthlings, we have a particular lens through which we experience nature. We have senses with their gifts and limitations. We can see only so far or so small. Even if we're looking into the furthest galaxies, it's from Earth. We might send out probes or international space stations or whatever, but our starting point is still here. We are part of this planet, and we experience life as part of this planet of Mother Earth. And this life, this nature, this spirit is both darkness and light.

Music Seed Of Darkness And Light

Personal Cycles And Alignment

Speaker 7:03

  So, last year, I released an album called "Darkness and Light". It's an ambient album, very dreamy, very restful. I had been fascinated by this idea of creating this album for many years. It had been bubbling away in the background, and in the meantime, I was releasing my albums of songs, which are also based on my experience of nature, of magic, and are anchored in my spiritual path of paganism, earth-based spirituality. But I wanted to make an album that directly spoke to this dance of darkness and light, of the ever-changing cycles of nature. So I created this very dreamy, very gentle album, and I was also going through a hard time. So for me, the act of creating this and spending time in such gentle space with this music was a healing, an act of healing for myself. So I created this album, and I really enjoyed the process. And then I thought, I am not done with that theme. I want to go further. I want to explore this in depth, this dance of darkness and light throughout the day, throughout the month with the moon, throughout the year with the seasons, and also my own cycles of darkness and light, because we go through those cycles as well, sometimes in sync with those cycles of sun and moon, and sometimes not. But we go through periods when we're drawing inward, when we're slowing down, and periods when we're active and out there, and we want to be hanging out with people and socializing. 

Speaker 9:20

There's this natural rhythm and flow within our own lives of darkness and light. So in this podcast, I'm interested in exploring that interrelationship between the cycles of darkness and light that we're witnessing in the sun, in the moon, in the seasons, and also the cycles of darkness and light in our own lives, that we go through times that are up and times that are down, and how when we align ourselves with nature's cycles, that can bring meaning and depth to our own cycles of darkness and light. If we see and witness and acknowledge that the moon goes through a period of darkness each month, maybe we won't feel so alienated when we're going through our own times of darkness, of maybe grief or a period of depression, or deep rest or maybe illness. Nature says, Hey, that's okay. I go through this too. Look at me in winter at nighttime, at the dark of the moon. Notice that I have an above ground and a below ground. Everything is part of this dance of darkness and light, and we're not separate from that. So I am going to be using some of that music that I created throughout this podcast. The intro and outro music is part of that album, and sometimes I might just float a little bit of that music when we need to take a moment of rest between ideas and talking. We need to just slow down for a minute. You might hear that music floating in the background.

Reclaiming The Gifts Of Darkness

Speaker 11:34

  So in our mainstream culture, there's a bias against darkness. Light is celebrated. Let there be light, love and light, lighten up. I've found the light. But darkness not so much. But if we're to be aligned with the energies of nature, we need to embrace both darkness and light. Both have particular gifts to offer us. So in a culture that so often maligns the energies of darkness, we can lose the ability to see the gifts that darkness brings. Gifts of softness, of healing, of slowing down, of solitude, of introspection, and integration, of looking within, deeply feeling, exploring our own emotional worlds, spending time with our deepest selves. But our mainstream culture is so biased towards the light that these softer energies are often overlooked or undervalued. Light is celebrated. But darkness needs to be celebrated as well. They're both part of nature, neither good nor bad. We can't have one without the other. They're coexisting.

Beauty Of Light And Shadow

Speaker 13:59

  Light is indeed beautiful. I witnessed the sunrise this morning, that sun cresting the eastern horizon, golden rays so uplifting, so energizing, absolutely beautiful. And last night I witnessed a spectacular sunset, and then that sun sinking into darkness. Both equally beautiful. I love to witness the play of light on the land here in New Mexico, big expanses of space, the light playing out on the mountains to the west, dancing over canyon and prairie. I love to witness that, the shadows that are cast. I love to witness the light of moonlight and starlight. Light is beautiful. I have a candle lit right now on this altar. As I'm recording this, it feels like a guide, like a friend. Light is lovely, but darkness is also lovely. Darkness is softly closing our eyes at the end of a day. It's standing in the quiet night and hearing the secret sounds of nocturnal animals. Darkness is that dark moon that allows us to see so many stars. Darkness is the below ground, the soil.

Darkness As Crucible And Renewal

Speaker 15:51

  Darkness is the gift that transforms seeming death into life. The seed that falls from last year's crop lays dormant in the dark earth, and then magically emerges as life. Darkness transforms the old moon into the new. That period of darkness, the three days of the dark moon, and then magically out of that dark cauldron emerges the new crescent that grows and grows through the waxing cycle up to the full moon and then diminishes smaller and smaller each night until she is a secret waning crescent in the pre-dawn sky. And then disappears entirely, seemingly gone. The energy of death of darkness. Only for something magical to happen. Rebirth. Renewal. And once again that new crescent emerges fresh and bright. Darkness is the great transforming energy, the crucible of change.

Mythology As Map And Companion

Speaker 18:20

  So I mentioned at the start of this episode that we are going to be exploring the cycles of nature and our own experiences of darkness and light, utilizing the gift of mythology. And mythology really is a gift. Ancient stories pass down through generations. Every culture since the beginning of the human journey has created stories. Stories that connect us with nature. Stories that make sense of our experience. These myths, our wisdom passed down from our ancestors, wisdom traveling down through generations, and across all the different cultures of humanity. There's connecting threads. Stories that speak of life, of death, of the creation of our universe, of our place within it. Stories that bring meaning to different energies in nature, to sun and moon, to stars, to trees, to animals, to rivers and mountains. These stories act as maps for our human journey. Throughout this darkness and light podcast, I'm going to be weaving stories that speak to a particular phase of the moon, a particular season, a particular astrological sign that the moon might be moving toward. I'm going to be exploring some of these energies through the lens of mythology.

Greek Myths And Personal Healing

Speaker 21:49

  And I want to explain now that I am often and mostly going to be referencing Greek mythology.And that isn't because I think Greek mythology is better than any other cultures. It's not that at all. It's just that I particularly love it. It just really speaks to me, it resonates with me. The Greek pantheon and those ancient stories are the ones that I know and I love, and I want to share my experience of them with you. But yeah, I want to make that really clear. That just because I'm anchored in that pantheon doesn't mean that I don't see value, equal value, in every other culture's collection of stories. But for me, the Greek stories, those ancient stories, have been deeply helpful in my own life. They have helped me personally navigate some really difficult times. They've helped me make sense of my experience and times when I would have felt very lost in the underworld. Times when I've been very down. Those stories have really saved me. Stories like the myth of Persephone traveling into the underground, into the underworld. They've said, hey, it's okay to be down here for a while. Here's a map, here's something that could help you to navigate your way back out. So stories of descent and then reemergence really have a particular interest for me.Maybe this is because I'm a Scorpio. I am born on October 31st, and I have this real affinity with themes of underworld, of darkness. Of regeneration. But I'm equally fascinated by that energy of re-emergence. The underworld is a place to visit, but not to stay. So these themes fascinate me. And mythology has been really, really helpful for me on a direct personal level. Not just in an intellectual way. Sure, I learn these stories and I read a lot of books about mythology and the human experience. But in a very visceral way, in a very personal way, these stories have come to life for me. And they've taught me skills for navigating my journey as a human. So yeah, I want to share that with you. I want to share why I love mythology so much and why I find it genuinely helpful. And these ancient stories from our ancestors, and when I'm saying ancestors, I'm not just meaning bloodline, you know, whatever culture your your DNA comes from. The whole human experience, every human that has come before us, in some way is our ancestor. So I feel that we can draw from and learn from mythology from all cultures, regardless of what our family line, our blood lines might come from. I have no idea. Maybe I have some Greek blood in me. I'm so obsessed by Greek mythology. Greek myth has featured on so many of my albums because it's helped me. Because it's made my personal story find a place within the collective. My experience of feeling drawn down into the underworld is like Inanna's experience, the Sumerian goddess Inanna of traveling into the underworld, dying and then being reborn, or Persephone's journey. So mythology helped me to feel less isolated in this culture that says cheer up, lighten up. Over those years when I went through my own personal times of depression, mythology helped me see this as part of something bigger, not just something that I was doing wrong, not just something that I was failing at. My spiritual path of paganism combined with that exploration of mythology, these stories that are so robust, that are so strong that they've survived for thousands and thousands of years. Yeah, they helped me feel less like I was out there on my own. They gave me hope and healing.

Ad-Free Flow And Patreon Support

Tarot Practice And Approach

Speaker 26:03

 You'll notice that this podcast doesn't have any ads, and that's a very conscious choice that I've made because I don't want to break the flow. I want you to be able to dive into each episode and let it be fully immersive. I'd like us to be able to relax into it. Maybe even fall asleep during each episode, knowing that you're not going to be jolted awake by an ad. I do that so often with even my favorite podcasts. Drift off to sleep and then come back the next night, pick up where I left off. So I don't want that jolt of ads. I don't want any interruptions in this. I want us to stay in the flow. So rather than this podcast being supported through advertising, it's supported by my wonderful Patreon community. So Patreon is an online resource that connects creators with people who appreciate their work with fans. I've been running a Patreon community for many, many years. It's my Patreon community that is allowing me the time and space and energy to dedicate to darkness and light. So firstly, thank you, wonderful patrons. You're the best. You know how much I appreciate you. And I'm going to suggest for those listeners who are not yet part of my Patreon community, if you would like to support this podcast, you might consider jumping on board. For about the cost of a cup of coffee each month, you can join my Patreon community. You will find a link in the show notes. And if you're not in a position to contribute, that's absolutely fine. Everyone is getting the same podcast. Patrons and non-patrons alike. Okay, I have this idea, an experiment. That we might like or we might not. We'll find out. That every episode I will draw a tarot card and that that can give us some guidance for the coming week or the coming couple of weeks until the next episode. I find tarot a really helpful tool for slowing down and listening to the messages of the universe, of spirit. If you're already familiar with tarot, that's great. I always find that I continue to learn from opening up to different people's experience and insights of tarot. So if you already are very familiar with tarot, that's wonderful. If you're not, then let me give you a brief introduction and bear with me, those folks who already know this stuff. Tarot is a set of 78 cards, and each card represents a particular energy which corresponds to an aspect of the human journey. Twenty of those cards are called the major arcana. They have names that might be familiar to you, like the high priestess, the magician, the fool, the hermit, etc. Each of those represents an aspect of the soul journey, a big part, like an archetypal imprint of our human journey. And then the rest of the deck is kind of a little more like a deck of playing cards. There are four suits that correspond to the four elements: earth, air, fire, water. There is pentacles, which is earth, cups, which is water, wands, which is fire, and swords, which is air. They're numbered ace to ten. And then each suit also has four court cards: a page, a knight, a queen, and a king. So each of these cards holds a particular energy. I like to think of them kind of like windows that we're looking through and witnessing life through that particular lens. I don't use tarot so much for divination of saying, hey, this is going to happen, but rather as a way of clarifying the energies of the present moment. To me, when I pull a tarot card, it's spirit, and I use the term spirit very broadly to represent the everything, the above, the below, the within, the without, spirit who is me, spirit who is you, spirit of a thousand names, and spirit nameless, spirit who is goddess, spirit who is God, spirit who is everything in between and beyond the binary, spirit who is love, spirit who is magic. So when I say that I get a message from spirit, I'm saying that's a message from the cosmos, from the universe that I'm part of. When I pull a tarot card, to me that's a message from spirit saying, hey, you might like to be aware of this particular energy. It might be helpful for you to consider this today. Maybe you need more of this energy. Maybe you need less of this energy. Maybe you need to recognize that this energy is already there and be grateful for it. Tarot is a tool for helping us to understand the present moment more deeply. And when we understand the present moment, we can respond with knowledge and grace to that moment, and that then affects the future. We can bring our wisdom to the present moment, and then that sends a ripple effect. How we respond to the now is what creates our future. So that's what we'll be doing. Drawing a card and saying what's going on right now. And also just a little note,you might be listening to this on the day that it's released, this podcast, aligned exactly with the phase of the moon that I'm talking about. Or you might listen at some time in the future. That's all okay. Just trust that when you're hearing this, that's when you're meant to be hearing it. When you're getting this message about this card, that's exactly the right time to be getting this message. If you're tuning into this podcast and it doesn't align with the phase of the moon or the seasons that I might be referencing, don't worry. Nature is cyclic. That phase, that season will come around again. Or maybe you'll find an insight in a particular episode that speaks to you regardless of when you're listening to it. Maybe I'm talking about the dark moon when it's actually the full moon when you're listening. But it's all nature. So yeah, just trust in the flow.

Mini Meditation To Arrive

Tarot Card Pull: Page Of Pentacles

Speaker 33:09

  So before I shuffle these tarot cards, let's take a moment just to bring ourselves into the present moment. A little mini meditation just to slow us down. If you feel comfortable, you might like to close your eyes for a moment and just take your awareness to your breath. Without changing anything, just notice that natural rhythm of inhalation and exhalation. Right here and right now, and becoming aware of your body, your physical beings, the weight of your body on the chair, maybe you're lying down. Just feel that pull of gravity, of Mother Earth drawing us down, holding us, and take your mind to the great above, to starlight, to the space between stars, to the infinite everything, and let that energy pour down into you, drawing up the energy from below, drawing down the energy from above, becoming the conduit between above and below, between darkness and light. Okay, I am gonna shuffle now and open to the gifts of the universe and see what it is that we could benefit from bearing in mind right now. Okay, this is what ended up at the top. Page of Pentacles. What a lovely card. Pentacles, as I mentioned earlier, is aligned with the element of earth, and that element is everything to do with the physical world. So, with what keeps body and soul together, our physical bodies, our finances, our work, and it reminds us of the magic in the physical world. A quick description of this card. There is a young man, and he's standing on a field of green with some flowers, and there's a ploughed field. It looks like farmland in the background,a beautiful golden sky. It's a very uplifting card, and he's gazing, putting all of his attention on this disc with a star on it that he's holding lightly in his hands. Completely fascinated by the energy of this disc, this magical pentacle. So the pages are a youthful energy. They are enthusiastic, inquisitive. This is in all the suits, enthusiastic, inquisitive. They are fascinated with a wide-eyed kind of beginner's mind view of like, wow, he's holding this seed, like wow, this is I say seed, this disc. I always think of it as a seed. He's holding this, going, oh, this is absolutely fascinating. This is amazing. Look at this thing that I have in my hands. And I did say seed because to me it is like this beginning. What am I gonna do with this energy? Where am I gonna plant it? So I think the message for us at this time, when there's so much upheaval and difficulty in the world, when we're living in such troubled times, is to come back to that simple appreciation for nature itself, to remember to take the time to notice and say, Wow, this is incredible, this whole life thing, to bring that youthful enthusiasm into our daily experience. It can be hard in these times when every day there seems to be some new piece of awful news of war, of trauma, of discrimination. It can be hard to find what to do with this. Well, this card is saying ground yourself in nature. Take a moment just to remember how incredible it is to be part of this amazing planet, to bring that youthful enthusiasm into our daily experience. The page brings a sense of hope, of wonder I think he's come for us as a reminder not to lose hope, but to remember that we are part of this magical journey, which is nature, which is darkness, and which is light. I'm gonna sign off there and I'm gonna say, have a wonderful couple of weeks. Enjoy the Libra full moon. Remember that page of pentacles energy, to be fascinated, to be excited, beginner's mind. Wow, look at this earth around us. How incredible it is to be an earthling, hey? I hope to see you back here in two weeks' time for the next episode of darkness and light. Blessed be