The Forge Transformation

08/10/2026

Yesterday we touched on The Crone - both a powerful sovereign chthonic spirit and also a feminine archetype of wisdom.

Today, let's turn to the Wise Old Man - not spirit but a Jungian archetype. Like The Crone, the Wise Old Man is not necessarily an archetype representing age.

I am sure most of us have heard the term "Old Soul" or know of someone who appears much older than their actual age would suggest. The Wise Old Man, like the Crone, represents wisdom, a certain type of awareness and a "depth of understanding that can only be achieved by having journed through life's stages". For some of us that archetype becomes particularly profound in our later years, after the cyclical and both the actual and/or symbolic cycles of the Son and the Father have been completed. For others that ancient wisdom arrives much earlier, sometimes as a result of hardship or loss encountered earlier in life.

Beware of the shadow of this archetype. The Wise Old Man can be a phenomenal wise guide, sharing his wisdom freely for others to take, adapt or disregard as it is meaningful to them. In its shadow aspect the Wise Old Man, however, can become dogmatic, rigid and controlling. The Sage/Hermit versus the Hierophant.

This is a slightly longer video - just under 25 minutes - but well worth a listen if you have the time 🧙‍♂️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYBm7Vd924c

What if the wisdom you’ve been searching for… has always existed wi...

07/10/2026

"Perhaps the Crone is not someone we become.
Perhaps she is someone we remember.
Not an old woman waiting at the end of life,
but an ancient intelligence that appears whenever we stop asking
how to escape the darkness
and begin asking what it has come to reveal." 🖤

Take 6 minutes out of your busy life today to listen to this beautiful short video about the power of the Crone and how she is less an archetype of old age but a Way of Knowing 🔥

The Crone has long been misunderstood. Across Celtic tradition and ...

07/10/2026

Good morning beloved souls!

We are officially in spooky season, one of the favourite times of year as we walk towards Samhain, the end of the Celtic New Year and a major threshold 🎃

Autumn connects us with loss. Trees are losing their leaves. The loss of the warmth of summer. The loss of perhaps feeling more care-free as during summer we were able to go outside without coats, without socks, maybe even enjoyed a nice holiday somewhere warm and now we are back to worrying whether to take an umbrella, whether to turn up the heating, back in the office worrying about paying off the holiday debt.

It is also a reckoning - as we see if our labour from sowing the first seeds of our dreams in spring to the active care and tending of them throughout summer has yielded the desired manifestation as we come to harvest them. It is symbolic of course - we can sow our hopes and harvest our dreams at any point during the year - but the cycle exists nonetheless.

Throughout this month I want to focus on this change of the wheel and particularly on dealing with 3 things that connect very closely to chthonic work - aging, loss and death.

Modern white western society especially is not gracious about any of these things. We live in a world that continuously covets youth above aging, considers loss a failure and prefers to put Death in a locked cupboard and ignore his presence as much as possible. We have become so fearful of every single one of these three things that we have lost our connection with them. And as a result the connection with ourselves, our bodies, our mortality and our spirituality.

I welcome you on this chthonic journey with me as we move through these themes together throughout October. As always I would love to hear you thoughts and your stories. This isn't meant to be a passive page, where I preach at you, but a community. At the same time, I know that talking about these things is difficult for many people so please do not feel forced to share what you are not comfortable with. Your silence is as sacred as your words are 🖤

x Rowan

01/10/2026

Working with chthonic entities - those who inhabit the Underworld realms - means your consent is treated as sacred. Your comfort, however, is not.

They will disrupt, illuminate, confront, challenge, dare and test you.

Once you descend into the Underworld only what's true can remain.

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Message me if you are interested into learning to work with chthonic deities and spirits in a respectful, reciprocal and transformational way.

30/09/2026

Stop waiting for the day you will finally have all the things that will make you happy.

It's an illusion.

Instead look at the things you already have that make you happy today ❤️

WAITING FOR JOY

My happiness can wait
Till things fall into place;
I need a strong foundation for my smile.
I have to pay these bills,
I have to take these pills,
My happiness can wait there for a while.

I just need to know it's right,
That everything is tight:
No loose ends ever made me feel secure.
I need to work to live,
I don't have time to give,
Keeping busy is the only cure.

I'm too tired to be happy,
I'm sorry if I'm snappy,
But as soon as money lands I will be fine.
I have to think ahead,
I can't just lay in bed,
No space to rest, I'm running out of time.

I can't let people know
How much I have let go
To hold on to this sad and lonely mind.
I have to just keep going,
There's no good in them knowing,
They need to think that all of me is fine.

I can't take this anymore,
Always something to wait for,
It's time to stop my dancing with the dark.
This sadness makes me still,
And teases all my will,
I'm sat here like a dog without its bark.

Where did I go wrong;
When did happy just move on?
I wanted it to wait, not up and leave me -
I just needed extra time,
To get my life in line,
For then I would have all the joy I needed

But I never seemed to find
Any happiness behind
Each goal - as when it's reached I'd set another.
My need to get it right
Has been and stole my life.
I'm now lost - a lonely child without a mother.

Then - wow - it was right there,
Like the static in my hair,
This feeling wasn't hid behind a door,
It was in my daughter's eyes,
In the twinkle of the skies;
Everything that I'd been searching for.

No label holds the key
To this feeling within me -
This happy is a place I found within.
No goal I need to reach,
No plan I must complete,
My happiness it calms beneath my skin.

Always take the time
To find happiness in life -
Don't get lost around the need to label.
Your happiness will hide
Till you cast all fear aside,
And be thankful for what's laid upon your table.

Choose a life worth living;
Choose a love that's giving -
Choose to live a life with no regrets.
Be happy being you -
Not for what you have to do,
And then every tiny moment is your best.

Heather Lea

27/09/2026

As part of the ongoing rebranding of all of our chthonic work under a single Veythariel Flame banner, you will notice that the Forge landing page has changed 🔥

https://theforge-transformation.co.uk/

Veythariel Flame is more than The Forge. It is a bridge to the Underworld that branches into three interconnected thresholds.

The Forge offers two distinct but complementary guided pathways. One is a crucible of personal transformation through shadow work. The other guides you across the veil to work directly with the ancient spirits that inhabit these worlds.

The Shop is our devotional altar to the Underworld. Here we offer artisan handmade and fiercely curated tools for spiritual practice and shadow work, and for deepening your connections with chthonic entities.

The Sanctum is our school and community space.
It is the seat of the Veythariel Flame gnosis, where you will find our spiritual teachings, our living archive of holy provocation and self-guided path to sovereignty.

Welcome to the crossroads ✴️

Have a wander. Explore the three doorways and see where they take you 🔥 And if you get lost in its sprawling Labyrinth, drop me a message and I'll help you navigate the darkness.

27/09/2026

For my q***r followers especially, but this also applies to everyone else. And I have perhaps a slightly different view here than Amok, although I absolutely love them! -

"I'm working on it, I'm still working on loving all parts of me," isn't just a nice thing to say to yourself. It's part of the experience. It's part of your ongoing path of becoming.

You're not supposed to be a finished perfect product. You're not supposed to eventually love everything about yourself. You are both the sum of everything you are and can still become.

I've never come across a being who loves every part of themselves. Who doesn't carry parts that are difficult, that are hurt, even parts that are disturbing.

Sovereignty isn't about erasing those parts or pretending they need fixing in order to be whole.

And can we please stop pretending that enlightenment somehow means perfection, means only being left with the loveable parts of us.

Sovereignty means not being ruled anymore by the voice that comes with the parts we don't love. The voice that says we're too weird, too loud, too quiet, too other.

Enlightenment means integrating the parts of us we are not proud of, we don't love but we accept anyway as part of who we are as a whole person.

That's the ongoing work - acknowledgement, integration and acceptance. Not fixing. Not perfection. Not pretending to love every part of ourselves. Just being a whole, complex, flawed being and owning all of it.

I work with people from all walks of life, but q***r people especially. As a q***r trans man I bring many of my own experiences into this work and this is a safe space for whatever flavour of unique q***rness that is you.

If you'd like to know more about how my shadow work and/or spiritual guidance can help you navigate these choppy waters, drop me a message https://theforge-transformation.co.uk/contact/ 🔥

23/09/2026

Good afternoon, beautiful souls!

Today's card for the collective is all about boundaries.

Take a moment to sit with this card and ask yourself one simple question - where recently have I said yes, when I wanted to say no?

We are so conditioned in our culture that to acquiesce is to be nice. That to be liked, we need to be agreeable. That to say no it's unkind, selfish and inconsiderate.

You are allowed to say "No".

Without further explanation.
Without defence.
Without justification.
Without aggression.
Without confrontation.

Just "No".

If you're struggling to say No, try these positive affirmations -

NO is being kind to myself.
NO is being clear to everyone including myself.
NO is respect for my boundaries and theirs.

Have a gorgeous day today, my beautiful heretics!

Non serviam ❤️

16/09/2026

Hooray! 🥳

And thank you Karen Redpath for the lovely roses, what a thoughtful gesture 🌹❤️

Currently taking bookings from the first week in October onwards 🙏🏻

15/09/2026

Good afternoon, beautiful souls!

The Gateway card comes to us at a time of transition. A gateway signifies an entrance, a mile marker, the next stage of a process. Symbolically, it is a learning experience, a levelling up, the boundary between the past and the future.

You are about to cross into a new way of being. Prepare yourself 🖤

And for the shadow:
As you cross the thresholds of understanding, remember that you can seldom go back. The greatest choices often come at a price, and that is that you may never return to where you were before. Think carefully about what you are prepared to risk for your awakening 🔥

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This is a card for the collective, but it very much speaks to me today 🔥

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This card was drawn from the stunning Bloodlands Oracle deck, one of my personal favourites. Whilst the images were inspired by Amory Abbott's home of British Columbia, the wild landscapes, beautifully drawn in the style of charcoal drawings, remind me of the rugged Scottish landscape that I'm surrounded by.

If like me you feel drawn to the evocative images of nature's dramatic, wild and sometimes harsh playground, why not get your own Bloodlands Oracle deck, available in my shop -

https://veytharielflame.com/product/the-bloodlands-oracle/