August 8–September 4
Eleventh Lunation, August/September
Ogham: Gort (gor’it), G: 
Keywords: The labyrinth, inner knowing, the journey into the self, the spiral, the double helix, the DNA
Totems: Spider, wolf
Guides and Deities: The weaver aspect of the Goddess, Spider Woman (Native American)
Practical Guidance: Persistence pays off and leads to success. Move toward the light.
Gort/Ivy Month Ceremony
Purpose
Honoring the Ivy portal. Celebrating our creativity and self-expression.
Preparation
Find pictures of the Milky Way or of DNA or of a labyrinth that leads into a center. Have folks bring their natal astrology charts with them if they have one. You will need a beautiful chalice or vase and a knife.
Prepare small cardboard squares that you can tie five or six strands of yarn or ribbon to from top to bottom—this will be for a weaving activity. If you cut into the tops and bottoms of the cardboard squares about a half inch, it is easy to set the strings. Cut various ribbons and yarn for each participant to use to weave into the strands on the squares that you have prepared.
Welcome and Greetings
Welcome to our Ivy month ceremony. Introduce yourself and go around the circle having each participant share their name and why they came to the circle. Have them close their eyes and share a moment of silence to prepare for the ceremony.
Call the Directions
Call in the directions and call in the plant spirit of Ivy (prophecy, the journey into the self) and her totems, guides, and deities (spider and wolf and the Goddesses of weaving.)
Teachings
This portal includes the energy of the sign of Leo and here we want to honor our will and purpose, our creativity, and our self-expression. Where do you want to shine in your life? In what area do you seek applause? Look at your natal chart and see in which house the sign of Leo falls. Also review which house your sun is in. Look at your fifth house as well. These are places where you want to be a star! Leo, the sun, and the fifth house are similar in their expressions. This is where you look to define your purpose, your path, and your reason to be. In this ritual we seek strengthening and empowerment as we align with our true purpose.
The symbol for our growth pattern is the spiral. (Show pictures you have of the spiral pattern.) Trace the pattern of a spiral into the center, and then out again. Close your eyes and see the pattern of a spiral; follow it into the center and out again. Imagine Ivy growing around a pole up toward the light.
This portal is represented by the Ivy that grows toward the light even when it is challenged to grow in the worst of environments. Ivy continues to grow toward the light as she spirals up and around in a continuous pattern. This is how we develop our lives. This is how we grow more refined lives and keep moving toward greater consciousness. Tonight, we define what we are moving and growing toward. We claim what we want to become!
Chant
What is the teaching of the Ivy? The light lives within.
Our freedom comes from growing toward the light.
Behold! We spiral toward our greater consciousness.
And we are free to recreate ourselves at every moment.
We seek guidance as we walk through our own inner
labyrinth into the mystery
What is the teaching of the Ivy? Persistence and peace.
Activity
Pass a beautiful chalice or vase around the circle. Have each person place—energetically—what they are creating into the vase. Have them vocalize what they are placing into the caldron or chalice. Pass around a knife and have them use it to symbolically cut away any thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that block this creation. They can cut away what no longer serves them. Have them take a moment to really energize and visualize and honor what they have placed into that chalice. Then pass the experience on to the next person. When complete, read these words:
We are all seeds of a new culture
and a new world that is yet to come.
Let wisdom come to us.
We ask for guidance and courage as
we intentionally weave the best of our
resources, our aspirations, and our
creativity to make a new reality.
We ask for enlightenment as we learn
to trust and express our true nature.
We give gratitude.
Sing
Choose songs that have to do with the Goddess and with creativity.
Guided Meditation
Close your eyes and slow down your breath. Take some deep breaths. Allow yourself to become quiet and let go of your worries. Breathe and let yourself relax. Center yourself at your heart. There is a doorway here at the center of your heart. As you walk through the threshold, find yourself in a beautiful favorite place in nature. Take a moment to feel the safety of this place and know that you can return here anytime you so choose. Notice the terrain. The sun is warm and the sky blue and you are surrounded by this familiar place.
Imagine yourself in proximity to an ancient woman who is a master weaver. You see her from afar as she begins to walk toward you. She is a small woman and dressed in woven fabrics, with hints of nature added. You see feathers, shells, and gemstones added into her garment, her cloak, and her headdress. As she approaches you, she smiles, and you see the love she has for you in her bright eyes. This is the Goddess of weaving. In fact, it is she that weaves the fabric of our existence upon the material plane. She lives in the unseen realm, but she is willing to work with you today. She wears upon her body a cloak of weavings with many colors and many patterns. It is mesmerizing just to look at her.
As she looks at you she sees the patterns of your life. She sees the patterns of your habits and she sees your dysfunctions (don’t worry, we all have this), and she sees this as part of your beauty. She looks at you with intense love and she accepts all. She also sees all your originality and color and magnificence. She asks you if she can have your permission to unweave a few strands here and there, do some reweaving, mending, and energizing. Nod if you are willing to have this master goddess attend to you.
She begins to work her magic. You hear her soft words and incantations. She unweaves patterns that you no longer need or that are causing your problems. She adjusts and reworks and frees up energy. Simply feel her at work, gently rebuilding and reweaving. She lets more light in and weaves in strands of love, joy, compassion, and freedom. Feel her love like honey and begin to see the beauty of you that she is working at … (long pause)
When she is finished give her your gratitude and ask her to tell you what she did for you … Take a moment to receive her information.
Now she gives you ribbon and a small hand loom, which already has the vertical strands in place. She asks you to begin to weave your ribbons into and through the ribbons that are already there. Go ahead and work your loom and place into it ribbons of love, abundance, fun, friendship, creativity, joy, flow, grace, ease, and any other positive words that come up for you. This is your symbol for reworking your life to include more of the joy of living. She tells you that just as you weave this piece of art, you also weave the art of your life. You do this through positive words, feelings, and actions. You do this through forgiveness and letting go. You do this through your gratitude. These are choices that you can make. When you are conscious of how you create, you can create a beautiful life. Take your time and enjoy the process of consciously working your own loom, your own life.
When your work with the Priestess of Weaving is complete, give your gratitude. Take a moment to think of the Ivy plant that is always moving toward the light. You too can choose light. Ground and center.
Sharing
Have your participants share their experiences.
Sing
Choose songs about spiraling into the center or weaving, or ones that honor the Goddess.
Chant
We are weavers. We are woven.
We are the warp and we are the weft.
We are the magic creators. We weave
the multicolored fabrics of our lives.
The Goddess directs our hands with love.
We create beauty everywhere we go.
Activity: Weaving Qualities into Our Lives
Pass out the small weaving cards and have each person weave in strands as they think about the qualities they want to build into their life.
Sharing
After enough time to work, allow them to share about what they wove into their piece and how they felt about the activity.
Ending
Give gratitude for the totems and guides of Ivy. (Sometimes spiders are attracted by the attention and will show up after a ceremony. Let the spiders know that as much as you honor them, you would like them to stay outside.) Release the directions and open the circle.
An Ivy Story: Spider
One of my first real memories as a toddler is of seeing a very large spiderweb. It was a beautiful early fall morning and I was outside; the web was above me on an overhanging trellis above our garage. As I looked up I saw this beautiful circular pattern full of dew drops and glistening in the new morning’s sunshine. I was transfixed by this beauty. Ever since that experience I have been careful to catch and release spiders rather than kill them. To me, they create such beautiful pieces of art with every web they spin.
Spider as a totem first came to me in dream time. She was a great jumping Mexican tarantula with red and white spots on her back. In this dream she came down from the ceiling beams to my bed and met me at eye level. Again, there was the transfixing quality of our moment together. Although I was surprised by the spider, I also saw that she was beautiful, and I was awestruck. There was nothing scary about her. It seemed to me that we had a conversation without words and that it was about the use of personal power.
Ever since I learned Alchemical Healing, which is an energetic healing form that I now teach, spider has appeared as a totem to help me in my work. She can ethereally weave torn muscle or ligament and has been especially helpful in weaving gaskets over hernias or sewing hernias shut after she gently pushes the intestines back into their proper place. My husband tore the gasket that was sewn in by a surgeon to repair a hernia and we were very afraid that he would have to go back and have another surgery.
As we started our work together he began to have an inner vision that he reported to me. In his journey he saw spider show up and she asked him if she could do some repair work for him. He said yes. He then actually began to feel spider reweave the torn area. Afterward we gave our gratitude to spider, and he never has had another problem with his hernia.
A couple of years ago I did a ritual for Ivy. I invited spider to come as a guide as we called in the directions. We had a powerful and wonderful circle and I was happy with it. The next day, the hugest black spider I had ever seen walked across our living room floor. The next day another one showed up. And the next day another one came. My family and I were pretty sure we didn’t want any more of these big black spiders in the house. I had to be the brave one and catch each one in a large glass and then release them into our yard with a blessing. I let the spirit of spider know that as much as I honored their weaving and appreciated all they do, I didn’t want any more spiders to come visiting. I hoped we could continue our relationship with them outside. No more spiders showed up.
When you contemplate Ivy, you see her pattern of growth; she always moves toward the light and she is unstoppable. We grow in the same way as the Ivy. Sometimes when we are moving through our life we revisit an old wound. But remember, as we grow up and around our central selves, we are just visiting. We never relive what has gone before, but we see it from a different perspective.
You can always choose to create beauty. You can always choose to imbue the past with love, forgiveness, and the green persistent energy of Ivy. The best place to unite with the green energy is on the journey within. In this place there is a doorway to the mystery that offers you renewal, peace, and comfort. This is not a secret. Go there in silence and make space to listen and receive. This is the best vitamin of all time. In this quiet space you can connect with the light. This a passageway into greater consciousness.
After you have taken the journey to spend some time with your own inner life, bring that nourishment back out into the world. Think about what you are weaving or spinning. You are indeed a god or goddess and you are the master weaver of your own life. If you don’t like something, you can take out a few strands of energy here and there and recreate the fabric of your existence with new choices. You can make an easy dance between the inner and the outer, the below and the above … You can create the life you love that will enrich others as well. This is the teaching of Ivy.