HEART + Earth + soul
A SIX MONTH 1:1 SPIRITUAL APPRENTICESHIP TO LAND, SPIRITS, SOUL
Do you long for a connection to spirituality and magic? To feel the childlike sense of wonder for a world full of life, alongside a deeply rooted connection to the sacred within you and around you?
This program is created to support an exploration into the soil of your soul.
Heart/Earth/Soul is a 6 month immersion into:
folk magic—discovering ancient skills of spiritual craft while forming a deepened connection to your ancestral gifts
land honoring work—learning about the plants, stones, animals, waters of the land you live on, and working with them in your spiritual practice, while also learning about and honoring the First Peoples of the land on which you live
herbcraft—working with healing plants, and building an embodied connection to their medicine & magic
mysticism—developing an intentional spiritual practice around spirit communication, meditation & prayer, altar work, and crafting cosmology
After these six months you will have a solid foundation of spirit relationships, confidence in divination and spirit communication, a repertoire of herbal allies, a deepened connection to the land you live on, and an embodied experience of healing & spirituality that will continue to bloom throughout your practice.
This apprenticeship is built around you and your personal goals & healing. But there are modules of focus:
Heart:
What does your magic feel like to you? How can you cultivate a relationship with the sacred as it flows through your life? What practices connect you to your intentions?
Earth:
How do you honor the land you live on? How do you listen to it? How do you find yourself in connection to the land? What is the role of the human animal?
Soul:
What are the ritual practices that help you make meaning of and cross through thresholds in your life? What is your relationship and personal cosmology around the divine? How do you access the sacred?
ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
We will dance with these topics in a spiral fashion, moving in and out of them, braiding them together for the months of journeying through this program.
We will meet twice a month (virtually or in-person depending on what works best for your schedule and for the module we are on) and we will delve into topics around folk healing, herbalism, and magic…as well as leave space for sessions for you to receive healing work, energy healing, and readings where it feels natural & needed. This is meant to be a healing space for you in every way!
For our third session each month, we will meet in person in an outdoor space in WA state (always within 3 hours of Seattle unless we decide otherwise for our personal ritual practice) and connect with, learn about, and sink into a conversation with the landscape. For this outing, we may join together as a small group, or it may be 1:1—this will depend on the scheduling needs of applicants! These outings will likely take place on one Sunday of the month. If other days are needed, we can discuss in our first meeting!
Some of the places we visit may include:
Cascade mountains, local rivers, the Salish Sea (aka Puget Sound), city parks, the Olympic Peninsula, Lake Crescent, and more!
Throughout the process, you will be learning practices of folk healing, and actively working with healing herbs, stones, and spiritual practices. You will be connecting with the landscape you live on, and learning about plants, stones, and animals that reside here in the PNW.
Topics we will cover: what is healing? what is magic? how to create an altar, connecting with cosmology, folk magic and fairytales, herbalism, plant identification, earth-honoring, elemental magic, spellcasting, ritual, and much more.
A note: This work is centered in an anti-oppressive lens. We will work to acknowledge and divest from systems of harm in all directions as we do this work. This is an incredibly important aspect of spiritual practice, and we will discuss ethics, integrity, and liberation within spirit work. I am a nonbinary human, and will also be working from a lens that honors and centers queerness as sacred! All people are welcome, but we will not be working with concepts of “divine binary” and rather around cultivating an appreciation for the sacred in all things.
An example of a month’s curriculum (though the program will be fluid and depend on the needs of the applicants, this is an example of the kind of work we will do):
Session 1: Crafting a flying salve—identifying plants that support spirit communication and petitioning their aid. Making an herbal salve. Ritual herbalism. Spirit invocation.
Session 2: Journey work/Faring forth—practicing techniques of spirit travel, working with the flying salve, safety and precautions in this work, aftercare and integration.
Session 3: Evening field trip to experience twilight near the waters of the Salish Sea. Looking for bioluminescence, making offerings, attuning to the liminal and light within the dark on this landscape. Exploring how light pollution impacts the darkness—in both literal and metaphorical/metaphysical ways. Honoring the night.
ABOUT YOUR GUIDE:
I am Espen Artio! (they/them) I am a folk healer and animist. I work within folk traditions that I like to broadly categorize as embodied, ecological witchcraft. I am a human that has dealt extensively with trauma, CPTSD, and various forms of abuse in myself as well as in clients over the last 6 years of client work. My experience of trauma impacted my ability to connect deeply with myself and the world around me…and so I became quite hungry for moments, experiences, and practices that brought me to presence. I found my path alongside the plants of the PNW, who taught me so much about being here now. I work with spirits, ancestors, and the land as the foundational holders of healing and wisdom. I have trained in witchcraft and healing, herbalism, permaculture, and liberation work. I care deeply for supporting anti-oppression work anywhere and everywhere, and where I feel I do the most good is within the framework of spiritual practice. I seek to support folks in creating liberatory spiritual lives that both address collective systems of harm and uplift frameworks of liberation & healing, as well as actively healing ourselves from the scars of religious and spiritual trauma, and the severance many of us feel from ourselves and the land in this late-stage capitalist world. If you’d like to learn more about me, read along here or visit my instagram @tendingthemystery
Cost:
This work is offered on a sliding scale to support accessibility. Please pay whatever you are honestly able to afford: $800-1350 pay in full (a 10% discount), or $150-250 USD per month for 6 months. Includes 3 sessions per month, Voxer support in between sessions (Voxer is a text and voice app so we can connect, ask questions, consult between sessions), and a monthly herbal preparation made by me for you—will rotate between tea blends, bath salts, flower essences, tinctures, oils, salves, and more! (Sometimes you will just receive this, and other times I will provide the materials for us to make it together!)
Scheduling:
You will have access to a private scheduling link to book your session. Our outings will be half day excisions to parks, forests, beaches within 3 hours from Seattle. Those we will schedule as we go so it can align well with your schedule. Once you apply and are accepted, you will receive a link to send your first payment, and then once received, you will get the scheduling link and we will begin!
REGISTRATION:
If you are called to this work, please submit an application. Once reviewed, if you are accepted into this Spring’s session, you will be able to pay your deposit and begin. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year. Always accepting new students.