Registration Is Closed

A 2024 (un)Training

~ Registration Closed on March 8th ~

Some stories are wicked. Some tales are beastly once-upon-a-times that disturb our dreams, stalk our sweetness, hunt our hope, and bite our bitter selves into being. These are the wonder stories that sleep in our marrow, waiting for an initiatory moment to stir them awake. These are the stories that cast a spell upon the teller’s tongue, that crack open the red door and usher us over the threshold beyond all certainty. These are the stories that sting us alive.

The Witching Hearth is a 3-part (un)training for anyone who feels called to join. Space is limited to 30 participants. This page will be marked “sold out” once all spaces are gone. Together, we name 9 old and “wicked” stories medicine, oracle, and teacher, following the plotline of our own personal myths and allowing our own unique recipe of archetypal medicine to find us and mark us with our new secret name. Here, as we circle ‘round the midnight fire, we become the wicked stepmother, hungry hag, feared mage, and warrior-shepherd, inviting the stories to trouble us in just the right places.

Each of the three levels includes supplemental instruction for circle-workers and those who weave story-keeping into their healing practice; this includes ritual, rites, council ceremonies, and spellwork. When we tell a story, we ask to be met in the wild place. We tend the tale, having a fidelity to its old bones, and we share it in order to transform self, other, and world.

The Witching Hearth Level I

Behind the Red Door: Shadow, Poisoned Thorns, and Fairy Tale Death

March 23^rd, 2024

11am ET- 12:30pm ET: The Wicc’d Witch Storyteller ~ In this first, foundational session, participants will name their “storyteller’s ecological position” the lore they were born to. We will befriend our “teller’s trinities,” our key lenses we work with throughout the training, and sense the monsters that lurk behind key, mythic, shadow images common in wonder stories. This first session essentially provides an overview of the full (un)training, reviews key (minimal) materials, and offers various pathways for incorporating the work into both the participants’ personal healing practice as well as facilitating this work for others in circle.

1pm ET-2:30pm ET: Ashes, Bleeding Keys, and Silver Trees ~ In the second session, participants will dive deeper into dark and bright shadow work. Working with our first, three, guiding stories as medicine, we will meet several “shadow archetypes” and walk with them for a time. Participants will learn and adapt three storytelling techniques to their sacred work practice, considering the ritual containers they wish to create and their personal calling as teller and/or healer.

Interim Work: There will be a few, optional invitations between Witching Hearth I and Witching Hearth II. The practices focus on working with our first, three guiding stories in a personal ritual of story-keeping, including a self-designed daily “rite” and strange, oracular writing practice. The interim practices are for honing the storyteller’s ear and opening the “red door” to a “poison story’s” healing powers.

The Witching Hearth Level II

The Story-Keeper’s Box of Shadows: Secrets, Rites of Passage, and Trickster Encounters

April 20^th, 2024

11am ET- 12:30pm ET: The Red Secret ~ In the first session for Level II, participants will frame a “fairy tale” as a box of shadows where the old magick was hidden, tucked away just for them in a time long-gone and yet, strangely, still here. This session traces rites of passage and other forms of initiation in fairy tales, opening participants to discover, animate, and amplify the rituals they see inside stories. Danielle will share our 4^th “Night Hearth” story here, and each participant will consider a ritual practice for carrying the medicine of the story forward.

1pm ET-2:30pm ET: The Otherworldly Road ~ In the second session, we will discuss the trickster archetype as existing on the fringes of what is acceptable. Here, in these peculiar borderlands between who we are and who we are becoming, we will consider what it means to walk the otherworldly road, to leave offerings at the crossroads and work with a story as an oracle. This session includes recommendations for designing initiatory ceremonies for self and others, for allowing a story to be a bridge to a seership practice, and for inviting the “vision to participate” and therefore shape the present moment.

Interim Work: The interim work between Witching Hearth II and III focuses on “seeing” and otherwise sensing the wisdom within our fourth, fifth, and sixth story. The “Teller’s Wheel” reflection practice guides participants toward a personal ritual of poppet work, and those who feel called to facilitate this work will soften to the possibilities of offering this ritual to others.

The Witching Hearth Level III

The Beast Without: Ritual Storytelling, Dream Drama, and the Hidden Passage

May 25^th, 2024

11am ET- 12:30pm ET: The Found Pelt ~ Level III begins by discussing the weaving of ritual with story, including the possibilities, boundaries, and necessary creative work involved in this particular form of story-keeping. Participants will design a ritual that meets a specific intention, based on either one of our Night Hearth stories or a story of their choosing. Participants will be invited but not required to share during this session.

1pm ET-2:30pm ET: The Teller’s Underworld ~ Our final session is a ceremonial ever-after, as we come to our timely end. We will move through our final tale in a ritual that amplifies our vision work and animates the spirit. Danielle will end by discussing possibilities for carrying the work forward, for continuing to add to the “teller’s story bundle,” and for tending to our nine stories ‘round our Witching Hearth. May we keep these fires burning, from now until forever.

Other Details

All will be recorded for those who cannot join live and/or wish to revisit the work later. The three levels of the program are cumulative and should be moved through in order if possible. Because this program includes both experiential and presentational components, space is very limited. You will receive a confirmation upon registration and the invitation to our “Witching Hearth” course portal where some introductory work and recommended reading list live. You will receive an email reminder before our course begins on the equinox of March 19^th.

Please be sure to enter your email address correctly upon registration. If you do not receive the email invitation to the course portal after registration, please check your spam folder (1) then reach out to us at [email protected] (2).

Tickets and Registration Options: 

~ Registration is Closed ~

Please note that all fees are non-refundable. If you choose the payment plan option (available only until 1/20/24), you will be asked to sign a promise-to-pay agreement. The first payment will be charged upon registration and the subsequent two payments will be charged monthly on the same date until the tuition is paid in full.

Please read our complete policies here.

MAQs (Might-Be Asked Questions)

Q. I am unable to join all/some of the sessions live. Is this okay?

A. Yes. All is recorded for those who cannot join live. You are encouraged to view the recordings of any Part I sessions missed before moving on to Part II of the program.

Q. I’m shy. Will I have to speak out loud during the live sessions?

A. No. There will be several invitations to share, but it is not necessary you do so.

Q. I participated in The Bone-Keeper Stories. How is this different?

A. The Witching Hearth is different from Bone-Keeper in that we are working with nine specific stories in-depth and focusing on ritual storytelling as a practice for self and others. In Bone-Keeper, the focus was on collecting your own stories. Around our Witching Hearth, we will all be tending the same nine tales so we can go deep with them.

Q. I’m not very techie. How techie do I need to be?

A. Not very. When you receive the invitation to the course portal, the links to join the live session through Zoom are there. You will simply click a link and enter the secret password. Once the sessions have ended, the join-live links will be replaced by the recording links. You will simply click to view these.

Q. How long will the recordings and information be available after the program ends?

A. For at least one year (Until June of 2025), but you can download the sessions and keep them forever.

Q. Will you do this again?

A. I don’t know but don’t plan to.

Q. My question isn’t here. How do I ask it?

A. If it’s about the content of the program, reach out to Danielle at [email protected]. If it’s about payments or anything else, reach out to The Hag School manager Lynae at [email protected] and be sure to mention “The Night Hearth” in your query.

May we write the words that want to be written. May we tend the tales we're meant to tell.

Beneath this wild moon, we see what we must see. We know what we must know. We are who we must be.