The Blood Moon Portal and the Bone Temple: A Descent into Shadow, Ritual & Reclamation (part one of six)

Date: Blood Moon Portal, March 2025
Location: Somewhere between collapse and awakening

The Opening

I sensed the Blood Moon Eclipse coming at me and I was excited!

I always treat eclipses as portals. Sacred moments.

I lay down Tarot spreads for every moon, but eclipse moons carry some extra weight and meaning.

The opening eclipse of 2025, on March 13–14, ushers in the Blood Full Moon—and I sensed this was a big important one - a long overdue initiation I hoped.

I started a Tarot spread - first to feel the energy I was bringing into this Moon.

The Invitation

Then I asked what this moon was opening, the nature of the Eclipse Portal

- the cards struck hard.

The Ten of Swords.

Cave – Sanctuary.

Two of Wands.

So betrayal and sorrow basically. The familiar sting of being left behind, unwanted.

But also—sanctuary. Retreat. A cave in which to gather myself.

And then, the possibility of choosing a new path to navigate.

Well I didn't care, I didn't want to know, my heart sank when I saw the Ten. I hate that card. I got that card last year in the month where I lost my job and it felt like my world was ending. Frankly I don’t care if there is a positive side, I’m just not up to it!

When I asked how to integrate this shift, the cards gave me Wheel of Fortune and Insight – Be Open to Enchantment.

“You’re not stuck. You’re not broken. Fate is moving again. Magic is stirring. But you’ll need to surrender to it. Let it rearrange you.”

It terrified me. I don’t like surrender at all. When times are tough I like control. Strategy. Knowing what’s next. And the Wheel just turns in its own time.

I quietly put the cards away, quite enough Tarot for me thank you.

The Initiation

After that moon, things began to stir in strange ways.

I came to Thailand with this knowing that I had a healing modality in me, that I had something to create and offer. I started with simple Internal Family Systems because it was all I had. But it didn't feel enough. And recently I had been joining some Family Constellation circles and thinking...I think there's something in this for me. I joined some training and did some reading and it felt potent. But could I break through my imposter syndrome and performance anxiety enough to actually try and hold one?!

I had to force myself, my trial year in Thailand would be up soon and I had to know if this is what I'm here for. So I started some very smple ones, low key, no risk. Just me and a friend. Using a few objects. Just to test this modality out and see if I can make it work for me.

But something electric came through. My skin would hum. My spine would prickle. It wasn’t physical exactly, more like energetic resonance. Some current moving through my field. Sometimes just talking about constellations made the feeling rise, or even talking about something true. It felt important, like a tangible sensation I can trust.

And then came the dreams.

Dreams of passing energy between hands. Dreams of birthing a glowing egg. Dreams that left my body buzzing like I’d been plugged into lightning all night. One shock was so strong it woke me up with violent hiccups.

I didn’t know what was happening. But it felt like an initiation. And as with most spiritual experiences, you long for them, but when they come, they're pretty scary.

The Portal Opens

And then, as foretold, it came—the betrayal.

It wasn’t intended to wound, it wasn't said in malice. It came from someone I love. But it entered like a blade. That old wound—unseen, unchosen, left behind—split open like it had never healed at all.

It hit all the soft spots.

All the stories I thought I’d rewritten.

The me I'd surely left behind in the UK.

“No matter how kind I am, how thoughtful, how much I try to be the ideal friend… I am still discarded. Still not enough. Still replaceable.”

The ache sank into my work. I noticed myself losing confidence, losing my energy, shifting into performance. Showing up on my client therapy calls from the neck up—articulate, intelligent, emotionally seductive. The clever therapist mask. But I wasn’t in my body. I wasn’t really there.

And it felt awful. It felt awful because it's my comfort zone Karma - Gemini 7th house - over-thinking and intellectualisation.

“This can’t be why I moved my son and myself across the world. Not to sit on Zoom calls performing at therapy while I watch the clock and wish I was elsewhere”

The Descent

I felt so confused, so broken, so betrayed and humiliated. Our core wounds come with so much shame. When they're open it feels like everyone can see the awful truth of you.

I turned to the cards for answers and got all the usual ones—wait, trust the rhythm, solitude, dance.

I was frustrated and fed up.

I found myself lost on my path yet again - unmet, unheld.

If I’m following the wrong path here, then I need to get my old job back and head to the UK again pronto. This is my life and I’m a single mother to an 11-year-old boy trying to keep it all going with no income.

This sucks, frankly. And it hurts too.

My new best friend, who I thought had helped me with my friendship wounds, was now a new source of pain. And my bright new path of the Wounded Healer -felt stuck in performance and emptiness. I felt inauthentic with nothing to offer this path. It was like this one wound opening had brought everything down around me.

Marking out the Bones

From this wreakage and chaos something powerful seemed to stir—a determination to finally confront this thing head on. This wound has been with me all my life, and now I have the time and space to understand it and resolve it. I can't keep having it ruling my life.

I went back to my astrology.

My Chiron wound (Aries 4th house) was clearly reactivated. My Black Moon Lilith (in Capricorn 2nd House), very much present and screaming at me.

My Black Moon Lilith Shadow belief:

“If I were truly good enough, I’d be seen. I must not have value.”

My underlying fear:

“If I try to succeed and it doesn’t work, I’ll prove I was never worthy in the first place.”

The defense strategy:

Avoid visibility, or over-function and perform—then crash.

It’s all Exile energy.

The part of me that has been trying so hard to perform worthiness she can’t access her instincts anymore.

The Bone Temple was born—I needed a ritual space to confront this shadow. To do my own constellation and understand what it wanted from me.

The Archetypes Revealed

I sat for a while with this Shadow and the Archetypes started to emerge:

• The Swan Queen – The performative part that wears a mask
  

• The Guardian of the Void – The part that believes if the Swan Queen doesn’t perform, there will be nothing, no Self to step in—just a void
  

• The Exile – The part that feels unseen, unworthy
  

And the main question, the focus of all this -

"What does Lilith want from me?! She’s given me this ugly shadow—why?!"

The astrology says -

Lilith wants me to own my value from within.

Stop striving for worth through mastery and instead embody it in your presence.
Make peace with your rawness, and then build something solid with it.

She’s asking me to alchemise shame into soul-structure.

She is the force behind my desire to be a Wisdom Keeper. But she insists:

“You cannot lead others to their truth while still apologising for yours.”

Six of Wands reversed and Shaman – Ancient Healing Wisdom

A strange pairing.

One card told me I was failing.

Unseen. Doubting myself.

The other assured me I was walking with ancestors, carrying wisdom.

A contradiction but it felt very true. It brought me hope, that this doubt I felt could be carried by the Shaman energy - not needing validation, just trusting, working with Spirit like its natural, being in flow.

I wanted to meet my Archetypes represented here in the objects of the constellation - that's whole point, to meet them and hear them and help them shift. But the first part to meet me was actually a part that was sitting in the background while I was setting all this up going - what the hell is all this nonsense then?! What on earth are we doing sitting on the floor, lighting candles, reading out great long incantations, this is crazy embarassing and weird!

So I thought. well, you're chatty and clearly going to be disruptive, lets hear what you have to say. I chose an object for this part and tuned in.

And I met a part that was actually terrified—like she was just holding on and trying her best to keep going, but so scared of being found out and ousted as an imposter. She became very young then, an anxious suckling child, who wanted to be wrapped for comfort and to suck on my knuckles.

I gave her what comfort I could, let her have what she needed and I started to recieve images and sensations of how the role of 'performance' began. I wept for this part as she showed what she'd been through.

And as I cried a detached observer part appeared and started up his commentary on all this, a part pulling me away from my authentic presence and feeling, separating me from this experience. I tuned into her and she showed me—physically—how uncomfortable it has felt to be me.

How I have abandoned myself many, many times over.

Sorrow and rage blew through me from this part and I screamed into a pillow.

I chose a card for her message: The Initiation card (Witches Wisdom). It confirmed I needed to release this burden of abandonment and unworthiness.

The Emergence

I set down four tarot decks as sacred portals to messages from my unseen guides.

I choose an object to represent the Swan Queen.

Another for the Guardian of the Void.

“I step into the Bone Temple,
Not to find glory or gold,
But to meet the voices that have shaped my silence.
Swan Queen, I honour your elegance.
Guardian, I see your doubt.
Exile, I come to sit with your bones.
Let what has been hidden be revealed.
Let what was buried be remembered.
Let me meet myself without performance or fear.”

Then I light a yellow candle for my Exile and lay a feather for her.

“I call you forth, Lilith, not as demon, but as the First Forgotten.
You who would not lie beneath the lie.
You who were cast out for remembering your own name.
Come walk with me through bone corridors and blood memory.
I bring the parts of me I have hidden in shadow—
The Wild Self, the Wanting Self, the Seen Self.
I am ready to retrieve what was buried to survive.”

I start by lighting a red candle for Lilith and mark her place with The Moon tarot card.

I wrote out all the beliefs held by this part, I burnt them in the candle fire, and washed them away in water.

I felt ready now to resonate with The Guardian of the Void, she felt like the first gatekeeper. She stirred something in my womb. She began to try and show me how fertile and rich The Void really is.

I chose a card for her message: The New Moon Promise (Earth Magic). This confirmed my intuition: New Moon is a time when the moon is not visible, often seen as a time of darkness, introspection, and releasing what no longer serves us. This is likened to the womb space before conception, where the body is shedding old tissue and preparing for new possibilities. This Guardian is protects this sacred space which is actually the opposite of nothingness, it's everything!

This is where my Self really lives.

This is where the magic is. I just never tuned in to listen.

The Swan Queen is done with her role. I barely had the chance to meet her before she transformed into the Hag Witch—concerned only with truth, not perception or appearance.

"The path leads down, deep beneath the surface, and inward to the very centre of her soul. It's time for unburdening, for cleansing the unreal and unwanted, for shedding all that separates you from your sacred self, from the Sacred that surrounds, sustains and summons you. It's time to die and be reborn." ~ Initiation, Witches Wisdom

The Bone Temple

I feel renewed. Refreshed. I have space.

This temple really wrung me out, but now I feel so light, so spacious.

It’s like I can see the world clearly.

I feel like I’ve only just landed here, in the world, able to see it clearly with my own Self, unblended from unworthiness.

I go and lie down in the sun. I just want to cleanse: feel the heat, eat fruit, drink water.

Bask in this embodiment of healing.

Embodiment

If this resonates...

If you’ve ever found yourself performing a life — being the capable one, the beautiful one, the one who always knows what to do — while something beneath you aches…
If you carry a lurking fear that there’s no real you beneath the mask…that performance is all you have
If you live with a wound like unworthiness, abandonment -

In my work, we honour these inner landscapes. We can find your own Archetypes, maybe it's not a Swan Queen, but 'A Golden Child', 'The Good Daughter', we can find them and meet them with tenderness — and follow them down to the deeper self below. We'll explore the wounds that echo through your body, your nervous system, through the ancestral line.

Using tools like parts dialogue, tarot, ritual, and constellation to map what is here — and to call back what was lost.

If something stirred in you as you read this piece, it may be the beginning of a return.
Not to a better version of you, but to the authentic one you’ve always been beneath the performance.