When white water and black fire combine
How a plunge in the cold awakened the heat of my power
I spent last weekend in Glastonbury – the small British town known as the heart chakra of the world which is as famous for its magic as for its (nearby) music festival.
I’d visited with two of my closest friends to run a weekend workshop – the first in-person event we’ve ever run as Project Earthwork. And though I knew that Glastonbury would shake up my energy as it always does, I hadn’t even begun to understand how that would happen.
Hell, I’m not even sure I can tell you how it did happen. But since I think there’s an important story to be told, I’m going to give it a go.
Immersing in the White Spring
As those who are familiar with Glastonbury will know, the town is home to two famous springs: the red and the white.
The Red Spring, housed in the beautiful Chalice Well Garden, comprises iron-rich water which is said to align with the feminine and contain potent healing energy. Visitors can meditate in the garden, collect bottles of water, splash respectfully in a tiny pool, and more besides. I’d recommend all of those things by the way – in my experience there are few places more peaceful than Chalice Well.
The White Spring is a little different. The tall stone building surrounding it is pretty nondescript from the outside, but venturing over the threshold of the candlelit sanctuary feels like journeying into another world (a sign by the door says “warning: faery portals” and honestly, they’re not joking!).
The White Spring is filtered into multiple bathing areas – one wide but shallow pool, a couple of smaller spots where visitors can dunk their hands, feet or heads. And finally, tucked away in the darkest corner, a plunge pool with its own tiny but firm waterfall.
I’ve plunged there before. Back in 2018, fresh from the toughest few years of my life, I gathered excitedly with a group of women with whom I’d taken a five-month immersion into feminine power. On the day we visited the Spring, I took next to no convincing to strip naked and climb into the icy cold water that felt like it was going to steal my breath and quite possibly snap off my nipples too!!
This time was different. I dreamed of the White Spring a few weeks before so arrived armed with the three most important things one needs for an experience like that: two people you trust with every fibre of your being, and a fluffy towel!
What did the white water have in store for the three of us? Quite simply, cold. I’d forgotten just how cold! But, thanks to Yolandi’s determined but shivery urgings, I didn’t leap straight back out after I’d dunked my head in the water as I had before. Instead I immersed myself not once but three times, and then swam across the pitch black pool to stand under the waterfall before ducking under the surface again.
There’s a reason these springs are considered holy, and it’s not just down to the chemical composition of them (although for the record, the White Spring is especially high in calcium, hence it’s name) but also to all of the intentions, beliefs, wishes and sacred practices that have been whispered into and over them across the years.
As I swam, I swear I felt the other worlds swirling beneath my feet and knew I could dive into any one of them. I swear I heard the voices of the many ancestors who had chanted over water here and feltevery word of the wisdom they held floating around my being.
And when I emerged from the water? Well I can’t say I felt wholly changed, but I was definitely buzzing, and filled with a sense that something was on the horizon.
The answer to what that something was wouldn’t even begin to unfold until the next day.
Owning the Black Fire
Over the past few months I’ve been studying the realms of Feminine Magic with Seren Bertrand. As she’s spoken in-depth about the Structural Feminine (more on that another day), Seren has repeatedly come back to the idea of Black Fire; a potent feminine power we all carry within us.
Throughout that time, I’ve felt hints of my own black fire but, try as I might, didn’t feel like I could fully lean into that energy. So when I walked into a crystal shop in Glastonbury and found a black stone that was said to represent “Divine fire”, you bet I bought two tumblestones and tucked them in my bra.
The next day something was up. For the first time ever I would be leading part of a workshop having barely prepared for what I’d say or how. It’s far from my usual way of working but Spirit had been firm: Open your mouth and let it flow.
The preparation for that didn’t feel uncomfortable. What was uncomfortable though was the steady burning that seemed to fill every cell of my body, getting hotter and hotter as we moved through the day. A burning that had me responding to my Project Earthwork teammates’ questions in such a clipped way that I made one cry not once but twice (sorry!).
I wasn’t angry, upset, nor even stressed, I was just focussed. So focused that my energy felt like a laser beam pointing inwards to a door I’d only ever danced around and never dared to open.
That afternoon’s workshop went well. Words came out of my mouth I couldn’t have predicted and didn’t even think I knew; and the next day it became even more potent.
Following a rain-soaked climb up Glastonbury Tor I led our hardy group in a meditation to weave ourselves back into our primal power, only to open my eyes and find that more than ten strangers had joined in – a few of them crying at the impact that the meditation (including Charlie’s beautiful singing) had upon them.
And that afternoon, when a figure I now know to be the Goddess Atargatis stepped in and asked to speak through me before I closed the circle, I found our combined voice accompanied by an actual drum band outside who started playing as I opened my mouth and continued throughout the whole of the message.
In those moments I knew exactly what Black Fire was. More than that, I knew what and where my black fire was and how to access it.
And following those experiences I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the power and the wisdom I’ve always spoken about us claiming is right there for the taking in a greater way than even I had ever considered before; a way that makes the whole world, if not the Universe, our oyster.
But of course, the pathway to do that may take a little more work.
The backlash on stepping up
With our workshop finished myself, Yolandi and Charlie took ourselves off for a roast dinner (wise move on our part!) and then headed back to our little Airbnb. We chatted for hours, getting into some really deep stuff about power, the missions of our Souls and the history of the world as we’ve seen it.
Midway through the conversation I went to the bathroom. I did what I needed to and then crossed to the washbasin by the window that was open just a crack. I was washing my hands when I heard the whisper “just come outside…”.
That voice sent a shudder through my entire being, and when I opened the door to see my friends at the other end of the building, I knew that at least one of them had experienced something similar.
Let me be clear: We do not cut corners when it comes to energetic protection. We work with powerful teams of guides daily and we’re fiercely protective about our space. Yet on that night, after I – and all of us – had stepped further into that fire that is Soul power, the nastiness tried to step in.
Obviously we put up even more protection and kicked it to the curb to the point that, right now, I feel more spiritually protected than I ever have before.
Since venturing home the next day though I’ve seen the other side of the energetic backlash – the one that lives inside of my own body.
Because although yes, I’ve long been aware of magic/ energy hangovers (something Charlie spoke very eloquently about on our Project Earthwork Instagram last week) and am always prepared for them after a big ritual or important energetic shift, this week of integration has been like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
Don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing though (especially since I’ve had Oreos, Agatha All Along and Lagertha cuddles to get me through!) – in many ways it’s a super powerful thing: proof, if ever I needed it, that things are shifting within my body and my energy field.
At its core, an energy hangover is what follows the moment we step up into a new level of our power, a new and more expansive aspect of our energy – no different to the stretch we feel after a tougher workout at the gym. But it’s also what happens in the period after we’ve seen ourselves through that new and clearer lens.
It’s the point when life comes to meet us fresh from the beauty of that expansiveness and places us face to face with all of the ways we’ve been playing small and living in opposition to the power and wisdom that is ours to claim.
So what now?
Honestly, I’m not sure.
As I sit beneath a blanket on my sofa a part of me is still trying to find my feet again in just being me, never mind in being a me that feels white water in her heart and black fire in her belly. It’s been a busy old week and I haven’t yet managed to settle back into full rootedness.
But I do know that this period of integration has taken me back to one of the first metaphors I ever used when it comes to working with the unseen realms: That of radio dials.
You’ve inevitably heard or seen me say before that tuning into spirit is a lot like turning the dial on an old-fashioned radio until we find the frequency those we want to connect with are broadcasting on.
Well what I’ve realised after this weekend is that tuning into our deepest power and wisdom – the primal power and wisdom that I know lives within each of us – involves much the same process.
So I guess that’s what. Ahead of my plans to lead others on the Primal Path next year, I’m going to be spending some time getting familiar with those dials for myself, and understanding how I can bring the mystery and wisdom of the White Water together with the power and clarity of the Black Fire into the whole of my life every day, and then honing that understanding until it’s ready to be shared.
In the meantime? Well I guess I’ll continue eating Oreos, watching Agatha All Along and having Lagertha cuddles.
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead, and sending my deepest gratitude to you for sticking with this one!
Love,
Ceryn xx
P.S.
Two quick things I wanted to make you aware of:
Interested in ordering one of the original, video format Soul Integration Readings? I’m offering just a few more before I take them off sale forever next weekend. Learn more here.
This October I’ll be running not one but two Rekindling Her Story sessions, both of which are completely free!
Sign up if you can make it – I’d love to see you there!