Rachel Jackson

26/05/2026

Tacitus wrote of FEMALE DRUIDS while describing the brutal slaughter of the Druids by the Romans on the island of Mona in Wales. In his account, he speaks of women known as Banduri, female Druids, who defended the sacred island and cast curses upon the black-clad invaders.
Tacitus also observed that among the Celts there was no true distinction between male and female rulers, noting the formidable power and authority Celtic women possessed.

According to Plutarch, Celtic women were nothing like the women of Greece or Rome. They took part in the negotiation of treaties and wars, stood within assemblies, and acted as mediators in disputes and quarrels.
The geographer Pomponius Mela wrote of virgin priestesses living upon the island of Sena in Brittany, women gifted with the power of prophecy and foresight.

Famous Druidesses

Irish tradition preserves two principal names for Druid women: baduri and banfilid,
the female poets and seers. Yet the names of most Druidesses have long vanished into the mists of memory. One name that survives is Fedelma, recorded in ancient texts as a woman of the court of Queen Medb of Connacht, described as a banfili. She is said to have lived in Ireland during the 10th century BC.

Perhaps the most renowned descendant of a Druid woman was Boudicca, whose mother was believed to have been a banduri. Boudicca, queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe of Britain, rose in fierce rebellion against Rome during the 1st century AD, becoming an enduring symbol of resistance and sovereign feminine power.

The Worship of Goddesses

The Druidesses honored the goddesses through seasonal feasts and sacred celebrations woven into the rhythm of the year. Among the deities they revered was Brigid, whose presence endured long after the coming of Christianity, later transformed and adopted by Christian nuns as Saint Brigid.

She stands at the threshold of the sacred grove, sickle in hand, invoking the old powers beneath the shadow of the trees - one of the Banduri, feared even by Rome.

Art: Virginie Demont-Breton
Virginie Élodie Marie Thérèse Demont-Breton (26 July 1859, Courrières – 10 January 1935, Paris) was a French painter whose artistic path began remarkably early. By the age of twenty she was already exhibiting at the Salon, and only four years later she received a Gold Medal at the Amsterdam Exposition.

10/05/2026

The phases of the Moon reflect the Mother’s capacity to evolve and forgive.

Her capacity for both laser discernment and vast compassion.

Her ability to see without compromise and endless desire to serve love.

Her ability to create exquisite beauty and walk into crushing suffering.

She is both equal parts bloom and decay.
Life and Death.
Light and Dark. Fullness and emptiness.

She is the cycle and the circle in which all Life is contained.

And thus to work consciously with the Moon is to apprentice oneself to the way of the Mother.
To live, create, birth, die, destruct, and transform as She does.

The invitation is to live and transform consciously month after month.

The Moon & Mother
June 13, 2026
Online on zoom.
10 am Irish time
3 hours.

I’m offering this workshop because I’m currently revising and expanding my Wise Woman mentorship and this workshop will explain the new structures I have created for working with the moon phases.

The workshop will cover the moon phases and the correlating hormone phases with each moon phase. It will also expand into the underlying esoteric function of both the female hormones and the moon phases.
I will also discuss what is necessary for real sustainable change to take place in our psyche & our lives.

Contact me to book: [email protected].

Art by Shewhoisart.

25/04/2026

Nobody told me growing up that Mother Mary is literally crushing a serpent's head… unbothered, surrounded by rays of light. A mother. Makes sense doesn’t it? But somewhere along the way they swapped the warrior mother archetype for the weeping mother… who did that?

It happened sometime between the 11th and 14th centuries, when the Black Death wiped out a fifth of Europe. The Mater Dolorosa (Latin for “Sorrowful Mother”) image of Mary with a sword through her heart and tears on her face was amplified.. and generations didn’t get to see her in her entirety.

Exorcists have documented that demons react to her name with particular terror. Make of that what you will.

Both images are beautiful, but I can’t help but wonder why I never knew about this other side of her… seems deliberate.

Like something demons would do 💭

17/04/2026

St. George is not simply a saint who killed a dragon.

He is one of the oldest archetypal myths humanity has ever produced, found in nearly every culture on earth, thousands of years before Christianity.

The dragon is not an animal.

In every esoteric and psychological tradition, the dragon represents the primitive forces within the human being. Fear. Desire. The unconquered instincts. The unexamined darkness of the unconscious. Jung would call it the Shadow. It is the heavy, untamed weight of our lower nature, the part of us that devours, hoards, and destroys what it cannot control.

St. George is not an external hero.

He is the part of the human being that has chosen to awaken. That has chosen consciousness over automatism, virtue over animal impulse, spirit over instinct. His battle does not take place on a battlefield. It takes place within.

The princess he rescues is the soul, the anima in Jungian terms. That inner, luminous part of the self that is held captive by the dragon of unconsciousness until the hero finds the courage to face what lives in the dark and free her.

This is why the myth appears everywhere. The Babylonians told it as Marduk slaying Tiamat. The Egyptians told it as Horus defeating Set. The Greeks told it as Perseus and the sea monster. And then the Christian tradition gave it the name we know today.

The story is always the same.

Every human being contains the dragon. And every human being contains the saint who can slay it.

15/04/2026

Anything other than this is just a glorified form of avoidance.

12/04/2026

the intellectual center loves to discuss concepts it has never embodied.

this is one of the most dangerous traps on the path.

gnostic psychology makes a sharp distinction between two types of knowledge:

episteme: knowledge about something.
gnosis: direct experience of something.

episteme can be accumulated infinitely. you can read every book. memorize every teaching. quote every master. debate every doctrine.

and remain completely unchanged.

Samael wrote it directly: "theory by itself cannot bring about anything except an intellectual enjoyment on the part of those who understand it."

intellectual enjoyment.

that is what most spiritual discussion actually is.

the pleasure of understanding. the satisfaction of being right. the dopamine hit of having the answer.

but none of that is transformation.

here is how to tell the difference:

1. episteme makes you more articulate. gnosis makes you quieter.

2. episteme accumulates like a library. gnosis strips away.

3. episteme can be held by someone who has done zero inner work. gnosis cannot exist without direct experience.

4. episteme describes the ego. gnosis catches the ego in the act of running.

5. episteme makes you certain. gnosis makes you humble.

6. episteme can be taught without living. gnosis can only be transmitted by someone who has it.

and here is the esoteric warning most people never hear:

teaching what you do not embody creates karma.

not metaphorically. actually.

when you transmit knowledge you have not verified through your own being you are creating a debt. you are speaking with authority you have not earned. you are pointing to a path you have not walked.

the ancients understood this. real teachers were tested for decades before they were allowed to speak. not because knowledge was secret. because false transmission damages both the teacher and the student.

the teacher accrues karma for every confusion they create. the student receives words without substance. and both remain asleep thinking they are awake.

this is why the path emphasizes practice over theory. application over discussion.

it is not anti-intellectual. the intellect has its place.

but its place is to serve transformation. not to replace it.

the question is not how much do you know.

the question is how much of what you know lives in your body. moves through your actions. shows up when you are tested.

anyone can discuss the ego.

who can catch it in themselves the moment it activates?

anyone can explain the centers.

who can observe which center is speaking right now?

anyone can talk about non-identification.

who can actually remain present when triggered?

that is gnosis.

and it cannot be faked.

stop collecting knowledge that does not change you.

start testing what you already know against the living laboratory of your own psychology.

the gap between what you understand and what you embody is the only distance that matters.

🔥

12/04/2026

“A healthy mind is a castle that cannot be invaded without the will of its master; but if [evil spirits] are allowed to enter, they excite the passions of men and women, they create cravings in them, they produce bad thoughts which act injuriously upon the brain; they sharpen the animal intellect and suffocate the moral sense. Evil spirits obsess only those human beings in whom the animal nature is preponderating. Minds that are illuminated by the spirit of truth cannot be possessed; only those who are habitually guided by their own lower impulses may become subjected to their influence.”

Paracelsus -- De Ente Spirituali

11/04/2026