Year of the Dark Goddess: A Journey of Ritual, Renewal & Rebirth

by Lara Veleda Vesta

A guided journey of empowerment and healing through life’s difficult passages, with practical tools, including embodied rituals, writing prompts, seasonal self-care practices, and community creation.
 
The journey of the Dark Goddess is a natural part of any difficult rite of passage. These transitions are often thought of as negative—death of a loved one, job loss, home loss, chronic illness, divorce—but even so-called “happy” transitions, such as marriage, the birth of a child, or retirement, can come with unexpected instability, grief, and a need for integration. In our culture, we may often feel like we should "move on" or "get back to normal." In studying myth, however, we come to understand that the purpose of challenging life transformations is not positive or negative.
 
Year of the Dark Goddess provides an anchor and a roadmap for navigating the disorientation of life transformations and offers resources for embracing changes as initiations that strengthen us and make clear our purpose and power. The book is modeled on ancient rite-of-passage ceremonies and journeys to the underworld and is structured as a four-phase rite-of-passage Preparation, Separation from the Known, Transition-Initiation, and Return-Integration. The book provides readers with practical tools—embodied rituals, writing practice, seasonal self-care and community creation—to ground and empower positive transformations in times of challenging change.

Readers may use the book as both a linear guide through the initiation year, or a nonlinear tool for structuring their own unique rite-of-passage journey. Readers are invited to create personal challenges, reframe their rite-of-passage through myth work and sacred art, and create a potent and effective rite of passage ceremony to integrate their change.
 
The self-initiation process in Year of the Dark Goddess follows a ceremonial year, each quarter section is structured with the

Genres: Self Help, Witchcraft, Womens, Spirituality, Nature, Love, Grief

232 pages, Paperback

Published May 6, 2024

Reviews

[Darlene Pagán · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long follower of Lara’s work, I have been wildly grateful for her keen insights on the power of story and ritual to create, inform, and heal. Her work is rooted in ancient traditions, myth, and grounded research in folklore and rites of passage. It’s a much-needed balm to the grief that we’ve forgotten how to attend to in our lives. Grief must be given the space and the room necessary for us to learn from it and grow. The idea that we are meant to move on, move past, or ignore what grieves us is itself a sickness in our culture. Her work has helped me to articulate the power of ritual and myth in my life and helps root me into what is sacred. This is not the sort of book to be read in a single session or in the course of a summer; it’s a practice and like any other practice, it’s a book anyone can turn to and return to as needed. The pages remind me to honor the difficult emotions and events in my life as keenly as I do the joys and celebrations. All of it is fuel. All of it is bread. This book is a beautiful guide into our own dark passages into the light.

[Darlene M. Pagán · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long follower of Lara’s work, I have been wildly grateful for her keen insights on the power of story and ritual to create, inform, and heal. Her work is rooted in ancient traditions, myth, and grounded research in folklore and rites of passage. It’s a much-needed balm to the grief that we’ve forgotten how to attend to in our lives. Grief must be given the space and the room necessary for us to learn from it and grow. The idea that we are meant to move on, move past, or ignore what grieves us is itself a sickness in our culture. Her work has helped me to articulate the power of ritual and myth in my life and helps root me into what is sacred. This is not the sort of book to be read in a single session or in the course of a summer; it’s a practice and like any other practice, it’s a book anyone can turn to and return to as needed. The pages remind me to honor the difficult emotions and events in my life as keenly as I do the joys and celebrations. All of it is fuel. All of it is bread. This book is a beautiful guide into our own dark passages into the light.

[Melanie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really looking forward to working through a year with the dark goddess. Great writing and wonderful meditations. This is a great book for a young witch looking to move forward in her spiritual journey.

[Rebekah Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I did this year long journey, (still need to complete one more quarter but finished the book). I highly recommend this book. I learned alot about myself, the rites of passage we go through, and the medicine of each seasonal quarter.