In this episode, we explore the spring equinox below the equator - from longer evenings and flowering wattle to nesting birds and unpredictable weather. We look at the difference between the equinox and Ostara, how to build a seasonal practice around what’s actually happening where you live, and why balance doesn’t have to mean giving everything equal time.

The episode finishes with a simple equinox ritual. You’ll reflect on what winter gave you, choose something you’d like to nurture this spring, and set one manageable action to take before the next full moon.

For the ritual: Bring two small objects - one dark and one light and something to write with.

If you’d like to explore a little further:

• Embracing the Equinox - NASA
  An easy-to-follow look at what happens during an equinox and why day and night aren’t exactly equal.
  https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/night-sky-network/embracing-the-equinox/
• Solstices, equinoxes and the seasons- Bureau of Meteorology
  A useful guide to how seasons work here in Australia.
  https://www.bom.gov.au/news-and-media/solstices-equinoxes-and-the-seasons
• Indigenous seasonal calendars - Bureau of Meteorology
  Explore some of the seasonal calendars that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have chosen to share publicly.
  https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars
• Indigenous seasonal calendars - CSIRO
  More about seasonal knowledge connected to particular Countries, along with guidance on respecting the communities who hold it.
  https://www.csiro.au/en/research/indigenous-science/indigenous-knowledge/calendars
• Phenology by Theresa M. Crimmins
  A lovely introduction to noticing seasonal changes in the plants and animals around us.
  https://www.penguin.com.au/books/phenology-9780262551052
• The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton
  For anyone interested in taking a deeper dive into the history of seasonal festivals and the ritual year.
  https://academic.oup.com/book/1390

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

What happens when we look at the world and ask it to answer us?

In Part II of The Art of Seeing, we leave the Oracle of Delphi behind and follow the quieter, stranger history of divination through bowls of water, dark mirrors, birds in flight, marked lots and ancient oracle bones.

We step into the candlelit world of John Dee and Edward Kelley, explore Dee’s mysterious obsidian scrying mirror and its connection to the Mexica god Tezcatlipoca, before following mirror magic into folklore, superstition and the childhood terror of Bloody Mary.

From Roman augury and Germanic divination to scrying, omens and ghost stories, this is an episode about our very old desire to notice patterns, search for signs and glimpse something just beyond ordinary sight.

And at the end, we’ll try a little scrying ritual of our own.

Further Reading & References

Clucas, Stephen, ed. John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought. Springer, 2006.

Dee, John. John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic. Edited by Joseph H. Peterson. Weiser Books, 2003.

Dundes, Alan. “Bloody Mary in the Mirror: A Ritual Reflection of Pre-Pubescent Anxiety.” Western Folklore, vol. 57, no. 2/3, 1998, pp. 119–135.

Olivier, Guilhem. Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror.” University Press of Colorado, 2003.

Campbell, Stuart, Elizabeth Healey, Yvette Balbaligo and Caroline Cartwright. “The Mirror, the Magus and More: Reflections on John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror.” Antiquity, vol. 95, no. 384, 2021, pp. 1547–1564.

Tacitus. Germania, Chapter 10. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. In The Complete Works of Tacitus. Random House, 1942.

Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. University of California Press, 1978.

British Museum. Dr Dee’s Magical Mirror / Magical Speculum. Museum no. 1966,1001.1. British Museum Collection.

British Library. Oracle Bone Collection 甲骨. Or 7694/1506–2125. British Library Asian and African Collections.

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

High on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, beneath the gaze of Apollo, people once climbed toward Delphi carrying questions they could not answer alone. In this episode, we follow them up the Sacred Way to meet the Pythia, the woman believed to speak with the voice of a god, and explore the strange, beautiful world of prophecy, ritual, myth and interpretation.Because sometimes the hardest part is not receiving an answer. It is deciding what we want it to mean.

Further Reading

Scott, Michael. Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by A. D. Godley. Harvard University Press, 1920.

Pausanias. Description of Greece. Translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod. Harvard University Press, 1918.

Plutarch. Moralia, Volume V: Isis and Osiris. The E at Delphi. The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse. The Obsolescence of Oracles. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Harvard University Press, 1936.

Bowden, Hugh. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Johnston, Sarah Iles. Ancient Greek Divination. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.