How Can Herbs, Healing and Rituals Enhance Your Life? Seraphina Capranos Shares How

In this episode I was delighted to chat to the fascinating Seraphina Capranos, Internationally acclaimed Herbalist, Homeopath, Ritualist and Teacher.  We had an amazing chat about her spiritual journey, her time with a Shamanic teacher she met in her dreams, 6 months before meeting her in person(!), and the 10 years she spent with 2 Toltec wisdom teachers.

Seraphina shares a beautiful story of Persephone, which I adored, and so much more.

Get yourself comfy and join us, you’ll be glad you did!

Love 

Liz

You can contact Seraphina in the following ways:

Website:  https://www.seraphinacapranos.com/ and https://www.centerforsacredarts.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seraphina.capranos.magic
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/seraphina.capranos/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@seraphinacapranos3576

The link to her course is:  https://www.centerforsacredarts.com/a-feminine-path-home-8-week-program where you will also find the free class we discussed

You can contact me in the usual way:
 email:  spirituallyspeaking222@gmail.com
Instagram:  spirituallyspeakingwithLiz
Facebook:  spirituallyspeaking222
 
 Visit my website for all things spiritual  
 www.karmaripon.co.uk

Transcript

Liz Hill: 0:04

Hi, this is Liz and welcome to my podcast, Spiritually Speaking with Liz. I've got another exciting guest for you today. Just a reminder to do the usual, to like on the app and follow the podcast on the YouTube channel. If you like, subscribe and tick the little notification bell, then you'll get to know of any uploads that I do. Okay, let's dive in. So today I am joined by the fabulous Serafina Capranos, and she is an international clinical herbalist. path, teacher, and initiated priestess, with a practice spanning across two decades. Seraphina is a gifted practitioner, who as you'll hear, truly brings the balance of university education and science, to life. To the magic of what wild lands and indigenous healers have taught her to each of her classes, each of her talks, and to each of her clients. She's the co founder of the Center for Sacred Arts as well. Okay, let's begin. So good to see you, Serafina. Thank you for joining me.

Seraphina Capranos: 1:10

Such a pleasure to be here, Liz. Thank you so much.

Liz Hill: 1:13

So I like to, I'm a bit nosy, so I like to dive straight in and I'd love to hear about your story of how you woke up, for want of a better word, and how you, how this calling called you. How did you get here?

Seraphina Capranos: 1:29

Yeah, well, like many people it was through crisis and when I was 16, I had a spinal injury. I will say that I was raised in a, in a very holistic home. My mother immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was young. So with them, they brought this, I would say, village wisdom and we were raised in a home of Which was very different than my friends where we used herbal medicine. My mother was known to be meditating with crystals. When I was a little child, I'd peek in and see her doing that. So I was raised in a very, um, holistic home. And I always like to say to people, it wasn't that my family was anti establishment per se, but it was rather it's what they knew. I was 16 and I had the spinal injury. Of course, we went to every doctor. They said I would likely need surgery. My mom and I decided I didn't want to do that. And so we decided on seeing natural practitioners, but in that time and throughout many months of trying to figure out what was going on with me and what route I would need to take, I, in my pain, I would lay in bed where all my school friends were having fun and partying and being a normal teenager. I was going deep within. Wow. And I was meditating and I was pulling these esoteric books off my mother's bookshelf and I was diving into them and I was experimenting with my own energy field and I was experimenting with controlling my own chi and opening myself to receive healing energy from the universal cosmic intelligence. And I was doing all of these things as a teenager and essentially what I know now looking back as I was training myself, I was allowing myself. To be apprenticed by spirit and by that divine intelligence. So that was age 16, well into age 17 and thankfully to osteopathy and thanks to homeopathy in particular, those two, I was able to heal and never need surgery and I've never had any problems with my back ever since. And I'm now in my forties. So that period, it was very young. And I'll say in that time. I was also, uh, meeting through serendipity. You know how that is when you're in that magnetic field. Suddenly there I am meeting this incredible shamanic healer and learning from them. And when I was 17, I apprenticed with a, I would call her a medical medium. And she also practiced craniosacral therapist, uh, therapy. Her name was Elizabeth Hammond and I apprenticed with her for a good year and some, and she was an incredible teacher allowing me to harness that ability to see and to feel and to trust intuition and to know how the psychic field operates through this organism, my own body, your body. So all that was happening, um, in my formative years. And then the other crisis that came. Was when I was about 17, 18, my father began dying and he was only in his early 40s. So yet again, I felt like my apprenticeship to the healing arts took it amplified. And we were a very close knit family. I was still living at home and I had to utilize everything that I had. Learn and apply it to somebody that I love dearly. Wow. And that was probably the hardest couple of years. He ended up dying when I had the week I turned 21. And so from age 17 to 21, I was in this incredible learning period. And again, har learning how to harness that healing force through my own being, through my hands. And he was able to, um, find ease. Thankfully, in those last few years of his life, but that was certainly a crisis. And then the six months before he died, I had a dream. And in that dream, I saw a very petite, uh, dark skinned woman with leather, beautiful leather skin in this dream in the desert. And I told one of my friends and she said, that sounds like the shamanic healer I heard of in New Mexico. So this is before the internet. I get, find this woman's phone number. I phone her and I say, I think I had a dream about you. And she said, yes, I'm not surprised. I'll see you in six months. Yeah. What she didn't know and what I could not have known is it was six months later that my father died. And so I packed up my belongings, I left university, and I moved to the desert. And I apprenticed with her for one year. And that was it. That was the beginning of my adulthood and the beginning of a ten year Toltec shamanistic apprenticeship.

Liz Hill: 6:26

Wow. So you lived out there with them for ten years? Yes.

Seraphina Capranos: 6:30

No, I lived out there with her for one year. And then again, as the universe works, there I am in New Mexico. I knew my time was done after one year and I needed to go back to Canada. I'm Canadian. So I went back to Canada. And I moved to the West coast of Canada, whereas I was born and raised on the East coast. And I ended up on this small island where I still live. And to my amazement, there I am first weekend here on this little island. And I'm telling somebody about my year in New Mexico and my year of Toltec wisdom and learning those life changing tools. And they turned to me and they said, well, you know, there lives a woman named Gloria Valencia. And her partner, Liz Forrest, they live here on Salt Spring. They're from New Mexico. And they teach Toltec wisdom. I mean, Liz, how does that even work? It was incredible. And I thought, I cannot believe this. I am. thousands of miles away, not only from where I'm, I'm from, but then New Mexico. And I end up on an island that I never even heard of. And it leads me right back to the path that I needed to be on. So it was here on Salt Spring Island that I studied with Liz and Gloria for 10 years. And I've had other teachers as well, but that was those, that was all through my twenties, 21 to about 31.

Liz Hill: 7:52

That's incredible. So the lady in New Mexico, the shaman in New Mexico, was she, what tribe was she, was she Toltec tribe also or different?

Seraphina Capranos: 8:02

No, she was multi. Her background was very, um, multicultural. Um, the Toltecs were a tribe of wisdom seekers that lived thousands of years ago. Um, and so she didn't particularly belong to that particular lineage that we know of, but the Toltecs were. As I was taught a, um, they were spiritual seekers from all over the world and they would congregate and gather in what is now called Teotihuacan in Mexico. It's where the pyramids are. So it's a, it's a school of thought, a spiritual tradition, if you will. And as Domiguel Ries, the author of the Four Agreements, he made the path quite popular. As he described it to us, he said, it was, um, everyone belonged. Well, that's

Liz Hill: 8:51

lovely. Yeah. How exciting. So that's a real, so you've gone from, from the education of, of the what I call rigid education. The, the. School, the university, and then into this, that, that must've been incredible. So in the year in New Mexico, I know there will have been loads, but what particularly stood out to you? What did you suddenly, you know, what made you think this is it? This is

Seraphina Capranos: 9:21

where I'm headed. Yeah, so imagine I land there just weeks after my father dies and our, which blows our family up and I was heart sick, of course, and I was also scared because I had my own. I still had that fear that my back might go out and what if, what if it happens that I move into my adulthood years and I'm flat out on my back again. So I was in a very raw place and what stands out most of that year is the first task I was given was to do, to give death to myself. Wow. Yeah. And what it meant is every week I would meet with this woman, her name was Blade. I would meet with her. Every week and for two to three hours, I would have to take inventory of my entire life up to them and give death to all the identities to give death and cut cords to all of what I knew, including how I related to my beloved father and my beloved mother and my siblings. And right down to the first boy I had a crush on in first grade, I had to cut it. Every chord and that emotional story and essentially unhook, if you will, from the judgments I had of myself, the judgments I had of others, and how I weaponized those judgments against myself and made myself a victim. So it was a very powerful year of what the Toltecs call taking inventory and, and then having to re examine who I was when I wasn't those stories. Thank you for joining us.

Liz Hill: 11:04

That's the thing. And I think that's very powerful, like you said, that we use the weapons of those against ourselves. And to be, I mean, obviously you're going through a horrendous time losing your father, not long being a hundred percent in your own body fitness wise, but then what, what's an amazing thing at such a young age to be doing that and to learn how to do that. So I imagine that's a process that you've continued through your

Seraphina Capranos: 11:32

life. Yeah, it's formative in a way I don't know any other way to be. Uh, I think what I would say is, I wouldn't Ever put a 21 year old. And of course I've been teaching a really long time. And even still, when I meet people that young who seek me out as a teacher, I, I don't dare put them through that because it was hard. I can talk about it now, 25 years later with wisdom and a grace, but I will tell you, it was shattering because how do you at 21, when you barely know who you are, you have to. Undo who you think you are and also reexamine all of those formative relationships and unpack them where I was at a time where I was wanting to grasp tightly to what I did know it was it was a complete twist and yet and yet I will say. I knew it was right at the very same time. I knew deep inside there was a voice that said, Serafina, keep going. This is going to lay the foundation that you need for your lifetime. And I did struggle and because I wanted to be a normal. young person. I wanted to experiment with drugs and alcohol and dating and being reckless and working in cafes and partying, but life would not let me have that, that youth. And, um, I've integrated lots. So I was able to kind of make up for what I needed to in my later, in my late twenties. Um, but it was very, very hard. It was very, very

Liz Hill: 13:10

hard. Yeah, because you were already going through the grieving, very raw grieving for your father. So then you began. a whole other level of grieving for every part of your life, everything that you knew. So literally everything was ripped away just to bring you back to your core, I suppose.

Seraphina Capranos: 13:30

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I had to learn also in that year I was learning, I already had, so when I was experiencing incredible pain, age 15, 16, I would have these, What I would now call like psychic openings. I could see things. I could sense things. I could my premonition was Incredible I could look at somebody and see that they had a pneumonia So I was having all this phenomenological Events happen and so in that year in New Mexico My teacher blade was also having me refine and fine tune that ability to see Um, ability to see entities and to track energy, to see what was going on with people, to do, um, deep possessions, soul retrievals. And I was, I was doing all this intensive work at such a young age. And, but I needed, I needed to give death to who I thought I was in order to be able to step into that and not be afraid of it because I was afraid of all that. I was afraid of that part of me. Um, to be so open, I didn't want to see what was happening in people's bodies and what was happening, what, where their soul sickness was coming from. So it was very intensive training and, um, and then as I moved along in my 20s, thankfully things became less intense because I knew how to control my own energy and I knew how to establish self boundaries with all of

Liz Hill: 14:57

that. She's a massive thing. Massive. Yeah. And I just can't get over the age of, of the intensity of, of what that must've been like to Yeah, me

Seraphina Capranos: 15:09

either sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was very hard because as I look at my life now, I've, uh, and as we do as we age, we have, we have so much more self knowledge and we also have more of a community. I didn't have a community back then and that was one of the hardest pieces. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To be out there on your own. Yeah, who could I talk to other than a few select friends? And I did find people that I could talk to to some degree, but in those early years, I didn't have a lot of peers my own age, certainly, that I could talk about this with. I tended to gravitate to people twice or even three times my age who were more like teachers. So it's mysterious how life works, uh, cause I could have never predicted any of that. And still, when I look back on it, I think, gosh, how did that happen? And why did that happen? Why is not a useful question, but it's more, wow. And in, in those years too, in kind of in the background, once I had gotten to Canada, as I mentioned, after my year of New Mexico, I enrolled and, you know, The four year training for homeopathic medicine, which was incredible because that gave me many of the teachers were, uh, had scientific backgrounds. They were clinicians. And yet if the listeners know anything about homeopathy, it has a very powerful esoteric side to it. And I felt a deep homecoming and something physical and landed where I wasn't necessarily in a shamanic community. And yet I was learning something that was akin to shamanic medicine you. in a very clinical environment with all kinds of people. So that was very grounding and that,

Liz Hill: 16:51

that was helpful. Well, it allows you then to straddle both worlds, doesn't it? Because you've got your, you know, your foot in the, in the clinical side of the training, and then you also in the spiritual side. So I would imagine that that That was quite balanced.

Seraphina Capranos: 17:11

Actually, it was, that's when I began to find my own inner balance. Exactly. Because I am of the earth. I was raised with herbs and I am a herbalist. I did finish, or I didn't finish all my training in herbalism, but I certainly got most of it before my father died. I had my university education. So I had, I'm a very earthy person and I needed that. I have a deep connection to the, to the plants and the plant world. So homeopathy school was that perfect mix for

Liz Hill: 17:41

me. Was your mum a herbalist? Yeah.

Seraphina Capranos: 17:46

And my grandmother too, in, in an untrained way, but more in that historical ancestral way. Yeah. That's all we used as medicine in the

Liz Hill: 17:53

home. Yeah. So it's in your blood anyway, isn't it? And that knowing, you know, you'll have been hearing the language of it from since one time. began since when you can

Seraphina Capranos: 18:03

remember. That's right. Yeah. It was part of everyday living herbs.

Liz Hill: 18:08

I think people are so blessed that when they've been brought up with something like that, that it becomes the norm. Yeah. Because herbalism homeopathy are so powerful.

Seraphina Capranos: 18:20

Very powerful.

Liz Hill: 18:22

So you moved to the island and then you start with the, these two ladies, how did they help you? Where, what did they, where Blade had left you, what did they sort of pick up and carry on with for you?

Seraphina Capranos: 18:37

Yeah, I was very similar. Um, very similar work in that we met every week. Um, and sometimes for weekends where it was again, the toll tech practice is about reclaiming your energy every single day. And I call it like an internal martial art. So you're reclaiming your energy back from how somebody, how you think someone might've looked at you in the shops or how, um, you judge somebody at the gas station or how you were not present in a conversation with another person because you were afraid of what they might be seeing, or you were judging them. So we all have. These threads of awareness that are unconscious. And the work of toll tech is to reclaim and to become more conscious by reclaiming all of those threads, those currents of energy. And we can do that in the everyday examples, as I just explained. And then we can also take deeper inventory and keep going back to those bigger relationships. And ultimately, as we do that, we get down. To the kernel of how we, um, how we imprison ourselves in the ways in which we perceive ourselves and again, where we are the judge and we are our own victim all at the same time, moment by moment in ways that we might not even be aware of. Stories like I'm an introvert, stories like I'm an extrovert, stories like I'm not good at math, stories like I'm afraid of public speaking. We have all of these labels that we put on ourselves, but those are, um, it's part of our, what in homeopathy we might call our core delusion. And the Toltecs, as Don Miguel writes in his book, The Four Agreements, it's the way in which we create our own hell. So every week for those 10 years, it was, uh, you could say like a daily practice of cleansing, just cleansing the everyday occur occurrence, and then going back into the deeper recesses of our life as well. The goal of all this, what I want listeners to hear is, is that you're freeing your energy. It's a path of freedom and where I love how this dovetails with homeopathy is the goal of homeopathy is, uh, the, actually how homeopathy defines health is by freedom. So it's a path of freedom that you can be your whole divine self and see the beauty in the miracle and everyone else and to cast away your assumptions and your judgments of others. And there's so much liberation in that, for example, you might see somebody at a shop and you might think they gave you a nasty look. But maybe they just had a bad day and they're experiencing pain.

Liz Hill: 21:28

Yeah. Yeah. This is it. We're very, we are very quick to judge, aren't we? We're very quick and very defensive. You know, it, it's a, um, someday I interviewed and this is, um, something I'd seen in an article about her a long time ago and it really hit me and it was what, what is the old, what other people think of you? It's not about you. It's about them. It's coming through the filters of their eyes, it's nothing to do with you. And it's quite a hard one, but we, we do constantly critique ourselves, or there's this narrative going, isn't there, all the time, if we're not careful, that we can easily fall into and be quite harmed by it at times.

Seraphina Capranos: 22:14

Absolutely. And, and the quest of the Toltec warrior or the Toltec practitioner is to understand where it's coming from within yourself, which is usually fear. And I recommend anyone interested in this to read Domiguel Ries book, Beyond Fear. It's a great one, but it's to liberate ourselves from those fears because ultimately it's inhibiting our opportunity to experience intimacy. And friendship and the beauty of our humanity and freedom and access at spiritual evolution, because humans are social primates were meant to learn from one another. We're meant to be together in a conversation like we're having right now, so that we can expand our field of perception and ultimately facilitate. our spiritual evolution together.

Liz Hill: 23:06

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think it's coming back now is community, isn't it? That sense of community. I've, I've noticed, as you will have seen, I'm sure in Canada, as there is here, there's a real resurgence of, um, women's groups, women's circles, drumming circles. And I think it was highlighted during the pandemic where we all became isolated and then by the wonderful medium of zoom, we were able to beat it. Okay. We couldn't physically be together, but energetically we, we were together and we could create, um, we could start to create a community. And I think that. stuck with people. Would you agree?

Seraphina Capranos: 23:48

Oh yeah. Community is the container where healing can happen. I think we can only get so far alone. And even in the little bit I've shared so far in my story, it all had to do with being in connection with others. Because And again, this is where I see in many spiritual traditions, and even in the practice of homeopathy, part of our suffering, what binds us all together is our belief that we're alone, that we're alone in our suffering and our neuroses and our insecurities and our All of it. We think, and we feel that we're alone, but isn't it interesting? It's that belief system that connects us. Yes. And so there is healing in community. And that is what has been since the beginning of time in any, uh, unbroken or even broken traditional wisdom, philosophy, or circle or spirituality or culture. It's community healing.

Liz Hill: 24:45

Totally agree. You know, we're told we come in on our own, we leave on our own. Yeah,

Seraphina Capranos: 24:53

we are told that. And yet, it's not entirely true. Because we come through the mother, and there's usually hands to catch us. And if we're lucky, there are others around as we take our last breath.

Liz Hill: 25:09

Yes, true. I never thought about it like that. Okay. And a shift of gears. Now you're very big into ritual, which obviously is what you've. So for the lay person listening, what is ritual and what's it's importance? Yeah, well, it

Seraphina Capranos: 25:32

dovetails well into what we were just saying about community ritual. Ritual is, um, you can do ritual alone. We have our daily rituals. I'm sure all the listeners have their own making their cup of tea or coffee. And when we bring a certain level of presence and consciousness, um, to With that act, it becomes a ritual in the sense how I would define it is being in conversation with the soul of the world and being in conversation with nature or the cosmic intelligence or God, depending on your choice of language. The benefit of ritual is that when we enter that conversation with the soul of the world or God, or that cosmic intelligence, we're able to be in that in reciprocity with nature. So think about a time, I would encourage anyone listening to think about a time where you were maybe singing or dancing or keening or grieving or wailing and you were so present you didn't have the ability to think what's happening in a minute previously or Before after that level of presence is when there's congruency inside our own being inside our own ecosystem. And when we're in that level of presence, we're able to have intuitive flashes. We're able to listen to what I call the soul of the world or that divine intelligence move through us. I bet you it's in those moments that you have had. Flashes of insight and deep knowing of what needs to shift, or there's a shift inside your own being that you can't explain just happened. Ritual gives us that, um, and ritual allows us to be in that deep, beautiful stillness where we can open and commune with God or that cosmic intelligence. So when you do this in community, which is where mostly I've spent my time doing ritual in community. That is where I've seen some of the most profound healing happen. And one of the reasons why is because as I was saying earlier, we recognize that it's, we're not alone in our suffering. And I just taught a program and there was 200 people from around the world. And at the end, everyone said, I can't believe what you said was medicine for me. Like, how is that possible that you said just the thing I needed to hear, and yet we're on opposite sides of the world, we're in the shared container, which is what ritual gives us. And we are, we end up finding that we're medicine for one another. And then when we commune and we enact a ritual, which is an embodied way to allow our soul to catch up to what we just heard or said or did, um, that's where healing happens and I've spent my whole life exploring what is healing. And what I know healing to be is when there's, um, energetically, it's like, there's a lining up, there's a congruency, there's a moment and a breath. Where we allow that cosmic intelligence to move through us, but then we're able to respond to it. There's a waking up that happens. There's a waking up. Beautiful. Mm hmm. So yeah, ritual to me is one of the most important and powerful healing modalities. It is a healing modality for me and because of what I've seen.

Liz Hill: 29:18

So what do you do? So for Seraphina, What do you do for you every day as a ritual?

Seraphina Capranos: 29:27

Yeah, so how I make my cup of herbal tea in the morning is very much a ritual. And so there's a presence and a consciousness with how I prepare my herbs. Um, and it's the way I sit and I pour my prayer into the tea. And then as I drink it, as I drink it, I'm drinking that prayer and I'm allowing it to be absorbed into my cells. I love that. Okay. Yeah, very simple, very, very simple and attainable. And then the next thing I do is I may journal. Um, not every day, but I might journal. But what I do do every day is I'll go out in nature, no matter rain or storm or hail or wind or snow, I'll go out for minimum 10 minutes, ideally an hour, and I'll just be, I won't be listening to any music or podcasts. I'll just be with nature and I pay close attention to the wind and I'll play close attention to the birds and I'll pay close attention to the birds. To every rustle in the trees and every cat that I might see on the path. And I'll, I'll, as I'm doing this walk, I am cultivating space. That's all it is, is cultivating space. Maybe intentions will come in, maybe affirmations will come in, but mainly my objective is to create space within to receive. That's beautiful. Yeah, and then there might be, depending on what's happening in my life, um, if someone had just died or someone's going through suffering, I might come home and light a candle and a prayer on my altar. Um, and what I do like to do if I'm working, I'm a clinical practitioner, so I do call on the directions in my office. That's the room I'm in right now. And so in the mornings, I'll call to the directions and I'll call to my guides to guide my work. And I did that today for our recording. So that we're held and we're held in that container where your guides are present, my guides are present, and we're in that holy sanctum together so that I and we can be of service. And so that's important to me as well as to call in those invisible helpers and those mysterious ones.

Liz Hill: 31:43

Yeah, absolutely. I must admit, I do that every morning. I find, I find it very reassuring and very comforting that you just feel that. I was trying to explain it to somebody the other day. It's, it's like, um, for me, it's like a sense of being like wrapped in cotton wool. You just suddenly feel this softness. I can't explain it of how I feel it, but you just feel very held.

Seraphina Capranos: 32:11

Yeah. And one of the reasons that is, is we've given the Invisible Ones permission to be with us. But, um, it's exactly as you described it. I love how you described it as cotton, cotton wool. You're being held and there's a softness. And that, that is because we, you have made yourself receptive.

Liz Hill: 32:35

And that's, but this is what I was going to say. That's a big thing. People, you know, say, Oh, I'm not in touch with my guides. They're not here. But do you invite them in? Do you ask them in? It's like having somebody stood outside your house. If you don't ask them in, they can't, you don't know why they're there.

Seraphina Capranos: 32:52

Exactly. That's right. Yeah. Okay.

Liz Hill: 32:56

When you, um, when I was researching you, I found, um, on your website, you're about to do a course, aren't you? And your course is from the wild edge and there's a free part of the course that people can download and I recommend that you do. And I was listening to it in the car and. I was driving along and you started to tell this story, which I've asked you to tell in a moment, and I'm not going to say anything about it, I just want people to hear it and see, but I was, like I said to you, I missed the traffic lights, somebody beeped behind, because I was so captivated by this story, and it just Well, it just came alive in me. So I'm going to ask you to, to read it. And then the question that you asked afterwards and let, you know, let people experience that if that's okay. Yeah,

Seraphina Capranos: 33:55

of course. All right, everyone, take a moment and get ready for a beautiful story. Once upon a time, many moons ago, there was a young maiden named Persephone, who lived with her mother Demeter, the great goddess of the earth. Demeter ruled the natural world, the plants and the harvests, and the trees. And often, mother and daughter would walk through the fields of lush and beautiful wildflowers that were painted in every color you could imagine. Flowers would rise and bloom under their feet. But one day, Persephone wandered off alone, captivated by a delicate, small yellow flower. That she, that she had seen in the distance. Smitten, she reached down to pluck the beautiful Narcissus flower. And suddenly, before she could catch her breath, the space from which the roots were pulled began to widen until it became an immense, gaping hole. As the earth split under her feet, Persephone fell deep into the underworld and disappeared beside herself with grief. Demeter walked the land looking for her dear daughter. Her sorrow caused leaves to fall from the trees, flowers to die back, and crops to halt from ripening. The land grieved with Demeter. As she searched for her lost daughter. Meanwhile, in the underworld, Persephone encountered the god Hades, who ruled there as king. Some say he captured her. Others say she chose to walk beside him. Across the shadowlands and dark rivers. To his table, set with fruit. Water and wine. Despite thirst and hunger, Persephone refused to eat or drink, because if she did, she would belong to the underworld forever. She loved her mother Demeter and the fields of wildflowers. But, she discovered she also loved the shadowlands, the dark rivers, and the king, Demeter. One day Persephone noticed a pomegranate lay in front of her. And with that fruit, Persephone struck a sacred bargain. She ate six seeds, one seed for each month she would spend in each realm. From fall equinox to spring equinox, she would live in the Shadowlands as wife to Hades and queen of the underworld. And from spring equinox to fall, she would return to her mother, Demeter. where they would walk among the fields of wildflowers and restore the land, making it lush and fertile once more. The end.

Liz Hill: 36:47

Oh, I just love that story and the question that you posed.

Seraphina Capranos: 36:52

Let me see if I remember it, Liz. You might have to remind me. But I, I mean, the question that comes and what I do propose to my students is to think of a time when they felt they were initiated by life and they were cast into the underworld. And um, and was there ever a time where they felt like they were stuck there? That's also, I think many of us can relate to, I shared my story of being stuck in the underworld. Is that the question you were thinking of? Yeah,

Liz Hill: 37:23

it is. I just, when I heard that and it's become, I More and more apparent to me, like I did, um, a podcast last year with, uh, Kirstie Gallagher. She follows a lot moon rituals and that hit a chord when she said that she doesn't celebrate new year. She celebrates spring. Because it's that time of hibernation. And then when you were saying about Persephone and about from, um, the autumn through to the spring is in the shadow lands, it's in the dark, it's the hibernation type. And then from the spring through to autumn. Is, uh, you know, in, in the, all the color, all the brightness, it just, it really something about that. And I hope it does to the listeners as well, but there was just something about that that really struck me and I just found it really powerful. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. My

Seraphina Capranos: 38:25

pleasure. Do you know what it is that struck you?

Liz Hill: 38:30

I think it was the real, the realization of like what I've just said, uh, the shadow and the, the. The fact of what was my initiation and it was quite a harsh one. And now I look back on it with gratitude at the time it was too traumatic. And for years I pushed it down, couldn't cope with it. It was just pushed away. Um, but now I embrace that. Because it's made me who I am today. So I think that was just a, um, a reconfirming, you know, like you say, it's about claiming your sovereignty, isn't it? About, yeah. And, and that story sort of, it was almost like a full circle. It just, it just brought it home to me. Like, wow. Yeah, I just, I just loved it. I really did. I just, like I say, some things really strike a chord with you and, and for me that did. Would you like to tell us about your course now we're, now I've sort of cut into it a little bit?

Seraphina Capranos: 39:29

Yeah, I will. So, well, there's so much that you just said that, um, has got me thinking. And one of the things I'd like to share is imagine 3000 years ago. In ancient Greece, the entire country would shut down for eight days. So women could go together in a, in a secret place that men didn't know about and enact this ritual of Demeter and Persephone. Wow. That really happened. For real? And it lasted. Yeah. And it lasted for approximately 300 years. Um, I talk about this in the program, The Wild Edge, because it is, it's so profound. It hit me just like you were just struck. When I learned, I've known this story and I've worked with it for many years, but when I was digging into some, I think it was Harvard, um, Historical documents and I have them the references in the in the program materials. So people could look it up, but for about 300 years in ancient Greece, women would gather every every equinox. Um, women of all ages, as long as they were, I believe, adult women, not children, not small children, I don't think, and they would go and no one knows exactly what they did for those eight days, because it was a ritual. What we do know, the little bits of what we would know, is they would grieve, just as Zemmertur grieved, and they would explore their shadow realms. And they would, um, build altars and there would be a procession. We know a little bit about what happened. It's called the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Eleusinian, Eleusinian Mysteries. So we know that some ceremonial magic happened. These women were not allowed to tell their husbands, or their brothers, or their fathers what would happen in those eight days. And so we don't have a lot of recorded data. But the reason I bring it up is because of what you said, which is, this is how we process trauma. And so imagine being in a culture where for eight days every year, we could go together to gather together with other women and process our trauma. Imagine our culture then. The other interesting phenomenon is when I went to Greece in 2008. 17, I was struck at how much Vitex, the plant, chaste treeberry, also known as Vitex, is all over everywhere. And what I learned doing this, this research is that in the Eleusinian Mysteries, all those thousands of years ago, when they would go away for those eight days, they would work with this plant, Vitex, also known as chaste treeberry. Wow. And they would wear wreaths in their hair, they would sit on it, they would pray for fertility, because remember the story is about Demeter and Persephone and fertility, bringing fertility back to the land. So we do know that there were some fertility rites and this plant is still used today to nourish our cycles and our seasons in our own physical body. So I could wax poetic about this forever, but just to say that, um, The reason that in the wild edge, it's an eight week, although truthfully, the content will, could take, you could take years going through all the content, but it's essentially an eight week program where my colleague, Dr. Carly Dunoon, who's a naturopathic doctor and physician, and I, we co facilitate this program. And what we found together in our work as clinicians, and then myself as a priestess and ceremonialist, is women, Especially men too, all genders go through many phases and seasons of life. But what I've found in my practice, and she as well, is that working with women, there are these, um, you can't ignore that there are these thresholds. That we go through, that we cycle through in our healing journey. And in the eight weeks, we go through what are called the eight phases of, you could say the heroine's journey, which I want to credit Maureen Murdoch for writing this, this book, bringing us to our consciousness so beautifully. But we start with Persephone to remind us of that initiation. There's usually a crisis in our life that wakes us up. Often it's a trauma. And I shared some of mine, you mentioned you had your own, I'm sure every listener can identify at least one. But then after that trauma, the second phase, very loosely, this is our interpretation that there's also a try to hold it all together. And so in the second week, we explore Artemis and that fighting and that fighting for life and trying to keep it all together and coming up against your own perfectionism. Um, and then there's Cassandra. Who is the prophetess. So we all meet that edge where we begin to see and feel things and our intuition begins to wake up and it might even be telling us to tear down our life or break down what we know to be true about our life. So I won't go through all of, we'd have to be here for a much longer to go through. Yeah, but just to say, we go through these phases. And Carly, and I as clinicians of nearly 20 years, we both looked at each other and we said, whether it be a cancer diagnosis, whether it be a divorce, whether it be a bankruptcy, or whether it be. Uh, severe menstrual pain or endometriosis. No matter what, when a woman is healing and being, you could say, resurrected from the dark, she has to meet all of these gates or these thresholds. And I will tell you, it is a beautiful thing. And when a woman comes to me for, let's say, a first appointment, I'll know within five minutes where she is on that cycle of those eight. Really? Absolutely. Wow. Wow. And my work is to help her see it and bring it to consciousness, because like we're saying in our, in today's conversation, it's when we can place ourselves, it's when we can see the patterns and know that we're not alone in our suffering, that we can find our way out. And sometimes, just like Persephone, we have to bargain. With the underworld and make some agreements and set some boundaries. So we're not there forever. And what can help us are those sacred allies, whether that be plants, other people, a dream, an animal, something, something usually comes. That's what I've also observed is I always like to pay attention when I'm in a new session with a new patient is I often ask like, what helped or who helped you? And it's always interesting to me how there are helpers and sometimes they're strangers. I'm

Liz Hill: 46:41

laughing because in, in my room where I am, there's a butterfly. It's winter here, but there's a butterfly like flying around. And as you've just said that, I was just like, Oh, my mentor, Janet, who I've spoken about in other podcasts, when she crossed over, she came as a butterfly and sat on my windowsill. And so, with you saying that, I've been thinking, is that you? Are you here? And then you've just said that. It is you.

Seraphina Capranos: 47:18

Isn't that wonderful? That's wonderful. I have chills. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Liz Hill: 47:23

Oh, that really is. Yeah. I think that's a perfect way to come to an end today. so much for joining me. I've absolutely loved it. I feel like I hang off your every word. And I'm sure you've been told this before, but you have the most soothing voice. You really do. You need to be doing some recorded meditations if you haven't already. Yeah. Well, I have lots of them. All right. Okay, good. I'm glad you put it to good use. Guys, I'll put all Serafina's details in the show notes below and do just listen to the freebie of her course. And I think I'm on the edge, on the edge, pardon the pun of like, Ooh, I really want to do this. So I might be joining you. You never know. So check out her details. I'll put them all in the show notes below. Um, she's on. Podcast. Being on podcast, there's all sorts of information for you, whether you sign up to the course or not. Seraphina, thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you've taken this time to join me, and thank you so much, Liz. Oh, my pleasure. And guys, I will be back soon with another fabulous guest. Thanks for joining us. Bye.