"Melissa is an incredibly gifted healer; her intuition and insight extends far beyond her years in age. I have been coming to her now for massage, energy work and spiritual guidance for many years. For Melissa, her dedication to her clients extends beyond the one hour session that they are in her treatment room. Melissa has a strong dedication to healing and to helping her clients get what they need from their sessions." -Karen Lacharite, Certified Firewalk Instructor, owner of Ancient Fire

You are a great creative inspiration Goddess!!

Blessings, Love ya!

Debby

As the owner of Crescent Moon Herbals and an active participant in Melissa's Goddess Workshops, I find her instruction to be not only informative but inspiring for me and for my highest good. Each workshop has allowed me to become more in tune with my deepest thoughts and emotions. She is a wonderful instructor, passionate about her work and creative beyond belief!

Mary Lavoie
Crescent Moon Herbals
Lebanon, Maine

�You looked beautiful tonight� said a sister Goddess, as the evening unwound from yet another splendid Melissa Potter event. Then I thought back and realized each of the Women was especially radiant that evening, filled with anticipation, excitement, curiosity, and an opportunity to face our fears and let them go� Who knew what adventure was ahead for our Goddess Souls.

Even though I came into the series midway, I felt as though I was a special part of the group. I learned and experienced a lot. Each of the sessions I attended seemed to be appropriately timed for what I was working on in my own personal journey. Thank you for doing what you do Melissa. Your energy, creativity, and enthusiasm really make the sessions healing and inspirational!
Dee


Hello Melissa,

I really wasn't sure what to expect from last night. It was truly wonderful. I have a renewed energy today...so much so my body is like: hey, slow down!
Very cool!
Thank you so very much for such a fascinating night!
I'll look forward to seeing you hopefully at next months Goddess workshop, if not sooner.

Brightest Blessings to you,
Lynn

Melissa is one of the most amazingly gifted healers I have met in my lifetime. She did in fifteen minutes what couldn't be done in over a year of other treatments. I was suffering from neck pain and had been to chiropractors, massage therapists, and occupational therapists for years with no relief. Melissa was visiting me one day and offered to do some massage on my neck for a few minutes. Not only did she locate the pain, but she was able to do some release work combined with coaching me to bring to surface what was subconsciously causing this pain. When she was done, I was dumbfounded. The pain was gone for the first time in years.
Not only is Melissa gifted in this way, but she is truly a wise woman who works with archetypal energy, chakra clearings, and shadow work. She shakes and clears the energy in whatever way spirit moves her to do. She is a priestess, a healer, a medicine woman in the truest sense of the word, and she is down to earth, human and someone I cherish and am honored to know.
~Oceana, owner of Kali Ma Healing Arts

Melissa ~

I really didn't have a clue how much different I would feel! ~EXPANSIVE~ is a good word. I feel like I have made a great discovery on a new frontier! Yet it feels internal & eternal. I know I have to do more - I am at the doorway & the view is quite ~EXPANSIVE! ~the word of the day!
T.F.

"As a Massage Therapist, Melissa is phenomenal. She really puts all of herself into the treatment and is very much in tune with her hands and her keen intuition. Melissa has a very strong presence as a healer and has tremendous wisdom. I am most grateful she is a part of our community!" -Holly M. Brown, Shamballa and Reiki Master/Teacher

Events

Workshops and Classes

Below you will find further information about the "Reaching Into The Heart of The Goddess" workshop series. If you wish to host one of these workshops, please contact Melissa. May you be inspired to join us some evening!

Full Information on the Goddess, Ritual and Healing workshops below!

The Mother Roots Workshop Series Presents...

Reaching Into the Heart of the Goddess ~
Goddess, Ritual & Healing

Come through the veils and enter The Mystery! Have fun!
Goddess has many forms and they all have something to show you about yourself.

Through ritual and ceremony, teachings, healing exercises, sacred song & chant and magical and beautifully adorned altars, we will create a healing temple of the Goddess each time we gather in circle together.

I will introduce a different Goddess each month. Through this process, you will deepen your relationship with yourself and with YOUR many aspects.

We will create the Spiritual Connection, the Magic and the Healing Energy so necessary to sustain us in this wild world of ours.

Come and step through the threshold of your own beautiful heart to experience everything that you are!

This workshop is meant to provide sacred space for women to explore, share and release and express their emotions, their joys and their dreams through the help and support of Goddess and other women.

This will be a magical, beautiful and treasured experience for all involved.

Please bring your journal, a water bottle and a comfortable pillow or back jack to sit on. A *Bring List* will arrive in your e-mail basket during the week prior to the workshop with any special items you need for the altar or ritual.

Here are some writings on previous workshops to inform and inspire you!

Notes on the June 29, 2008 Goddess Workshop...

Stepping Into The Fullness of Summer
A Celebration of Summer Solstice and The Shining, Sovereign Self!

On Sunday, June 29, I facilitated a fun and joyful workshop, ritual and celebration of the Summer Solstice!

The sun has just waxed to its fullest point on the Wheel of the Year. This is the perfect moment to call upon and harness the power and energies of this most abundant time of the year! The powerful summer sun is an inspiration and guide for you to be your fullest, brightest, most wonderful self! The Queen of Your Own Life!

Here are some lines from one of my favorite writings about the Goddess...

"I, who am the beauty of the green earth, and the white moon among the stars, and the mystery of the waters, and the desire of the heart, calls unto thy soul. Arise, and come unto Me. For I am the soul of nature, who gives life to the universe. From me all things proceed, and unto me they must return; and before my face, beloved of all
humans, let thine innermost divine self be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite. Let my worship be in the heart that rejoices; for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. Therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you."

~The Charge of The Goddess

The loving message of the Divine Feminine Goddess is to celebrate yourself! The Goddess gives you permission to shine your light onto your life, onto your self and onto the people and things you love.

Sunday was a day of celebrating, creating beauty, standing in our power and joy, singing, and creating sacred space & ritual together.

We experienced the magic and inspiration of the Divine Feminine!

Notes from our March, 2008 workshop...

The Goddess Women came out of their winter caves this weekend for a Spring Equinox Playshop and Ritual!

At this workshop we celebrated the ancient festival of Ostara ~ Spring Equinox ~ and the Goddess of Spring, Eostara.

Sap is rising and swelling in the trees and down inside of women there is a stirring, a calling from deep within.

Holy dreams are rising up within our bodies for us to tap into, for us to make a sweet life from.

Women called out what they wanted to birth in their lives, from within themselves. What hopes do you want to plant the seeds of as the sun begins to shine more fully in its power?

See yourself stepping into the brightness of who you are.

Spring Equinox is a time of perfect balance and harmony.

Together, we harnessed this energy of balance to call in what we needed, what we need, to bring us to our true priorities and balance in life!

In sacred circle, we sang and we chanted, we danced, we laughed.

To represent our dreams, the women gathered in pairs to make masks of eachothers faces. The masks were decorated to symbolize a part of the woman that she wanted to birth this spring and summer.

By the end of the workshop, our beautiful spring altar was surrounded by a circle of the magical, creative expressions of each woman - a circle of masks!

We ended the evening with a ceremony of rebirth!

Notes from Hestia workshop on February 24, 2008

Loving & Celebrating Your Authentic Self Workshop

Merry Meet Dear Goddess Women!

This past Sunday's Goddess of Honor was Hestia ~ The Goddess of Hearth and Home ~ Fire Tender.

Hestia is independent and quiet. She knows who she is. She follows the path of her own true voice. This Goddess of hearth and home is the most gentle Goddess in the Greek pantheon ~ one who blesses our homes and empowers us through example to listen to the calm center of ourselves so we can follow our truest path.

With Hestia as our Divine Guide, we celebrated our authentic, essential self!

Spring is coming soon but there's still time in the quiet of winter's darkness and cold to hear the voice of your divine self ever so clearly! Be ready to blossom when spring finally arrives!

What do you love? How do you want your life to be? What will you give birth to this spring that will honor who you most deeply are?

Won't it be fun searching the treasure chests to find your inner gold!

At this workshop we decorated the altar with pictures of our child selves - the selves within us that remind us of who we are, what we dreamed of, what we have let go of that was once so important. We did several exercises that helped us to remember who our authentic selves are.

We laughed so much tonight!

We did ritual to reclaim lost parts of ourselves and to release the parts of us that no longer reflect who we truly are.

On January 20, 2008 we had our first gathering of the new year in a workshop and ritual to Sheela na Gig. In this workshop we talked about The Shadow, the phenomena of projection, and about reclaiming who we are deep within us. The women in circle participated in several exercises that were designed to reveal the hidden shadow aspects of themselves ~ the lost, disowned, rejected parts of ourselves that, when revealed, owned and integrated, can liberate vast amounts of our life-force energies. One of my favorite parts of this workshop was the ritual. Part of the healing ritual involved entering the womb cave of Sheela na Gig, the Hag of Winter, the Archetype of new possibilities and openings. Sheela's cave was formed by flowing fabric, birch bark and winter jewels! Within, women visited Her candle-lit altar and received spirit gifts to remind them of the balance of light and dark ~ within and without. We closed the evening with a sacred chant to empower us as we continue forward in our every-day lives.

On December 1, 2007, we honored Hecate ~ Goddess of the Triple Crossroads ~ She who sees past, present and future! We had a beautiful ritual and ceremony to her and did work and ritual to release the things that no longer serve us.

On October 21, 2007 we gathered in sacred circle in the Temple of Inanna where women prepared themselves for the journey to the sacred inner realms. Autumn is a deeply transformational and magical time and it is a time to ready ourselves for the slow and steady descent to the Underworld for healing and connection to our essential natures.

It is a perfect time for releasing that which no longer serves us and for opening up to the ancient wisdom of the Root Women, deep within us.

Under the light of the full moon with leaves swirling about and magic in their hearts, women passed through the seven gates to the Underworld. The rest is in the Mystery but do know that the ripples of their healing journey are spreading far and wide!

September 9, 2007

After a long, beautiful summer, our group circled up again for our first workshop of the fall this past Sunday. We gathered around one of the most beautiful altars I have ever seen. It was decorated in sunflowers and harvest fruits; acorns and candles bright. We listened to the heartbeat of the Earth as we celebrated Demeter and Persephone and the ancient mysteries of autumn. We grieved what needed grieving and balanced this with deep gratitude for the harvest and for all that we have received this past season. Our evening culminated with songs and an initiation ritual to help us prepare for the long dark days ahead.

On June 3rd was our Artemis Workshop. Artemis is the fiercely independent Warrior Goddess, Lady of The Wild Hunt, Lady of the Moon. Women journaled, shared their stories with each other, sang empowering songs, did boundary exercises, and danced the Night Woman Warrior Dance. It's hard to put into words what happens to women when they are in sacred space together. It is transforming, healing, moving. My solar plexus, my energy center, my sense of self was strong and vibrant this week. I feel grateful for who I am and honored to be doing this work in the world.

On Sunday, May 20, we explored our Mother Earth as the living archetype of love, nurturing, fertility, safety and abundance, that she is for us. We sang earth-honoring songs together in circle. The women journaled and accessed clarity. We did a shamanic journey and shared grounding exercises that deeply connected us to our selves and the Earth. It was an honor to be among this sacred circle of strong, tree women and to celebrate Mother Earth so whole-heartedly.

On April 23, 2007 we had our fourth workshop in the Goddess, Ritual and Healing series.

I am truly having the most amazing time creating these workshops and rituals for you and I am so grateful for the presence of the women who have attended them so whole-heartedly.

Here is some information on our Sedna/Skeleton Woman workshop, who was the Goddess we learned about on April 22...

Far in the icy north lives the Goddess Sedna of the Sea, the Seal Goddess, Skeleton Woman. She was betrayed by her own father who cut her fingers off as she desperately tried to climb back aboard their sea vessel. Sedna fell far, far below the surface of the water. Her fingers turned into the beautiful creatures of the sea; The whales, the seals, the dolphins, the fish. She lives in the Inuit Underworld where she suffers horrible wounds of anger and betrayal. The shaman of the tribe must journey to her in the watery depths to comb her hair and offer her rituals of affection. In return she provides the sustenance and nurturing the people desire. There is more to this story of course...

During this workshop, we had the opportunity to learn about the Goddess Sedna together. Sedna is a water Goddess thus representing our deep unconscious, our intuitive nature, our emotions and psychic senses. She lives in the cold, icy, far-away, deep waters which represent the deep, frozen-off parts of ourselves. This is the place where I believe we hold our deep pain as well as our inner golden treasures that we wanted to protect.

I am honored to offer women healing and inspirational workshops in which they can experience the Divine Feminine through myths and stories and more importantly, to experience themselves as the Divine Feminine as well. Through teachings about each Goddess, music and singing, drumming, writing exercises, meditation and journeying, magic and ritual, we create this sacred space for women to learn and grow closer to themselves and others.

So many of us carry within us deep wounds of anger and betrayal. Sedna offers many lessons about this for us. Oftentimes these feelings are mysterious in their origin. Other times we are well aware of where they stem from. I believe that our feelings, no matter what they are, need to be felt, honored, witnessed. I believe that in honoring myself through allowing my feelings to arise is the key to my happiness and joy.

In this workshop we journeyed, like the shaman, to the Skeleton-Woman, Sedna of the Sea, Ourselves, to the Underground chambers within us. We combed each others hair and did what was so difficult for us to do as women - We loved the un-beautiful within us.

When we gather in sacred circle around the beautiful altars of healing, with other women to do our inner work, we're transformed, layer by layer. We're healed, layer by layer. We're witnessed, and this witnessing softens our hearts.


April 1, 2007

This workshop experience has been so healing and inspiring for all involved. During our first month we explored Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of Prosperity & Love. We did work around our limited beliefs and did a purely beautiful abundance ritual. We chanted and sang as we sat in sacred circle around a magical altar dedicated to ourselves and Lakshmi. It was so colorful and beautiful and inspiring.


In February we studied Brigit of The British Isles and had a deeply healing and magical ritual to her and for our own healing as women.

We gathered at Brigit's sacred well, we drank from her well, surrounded by her healing mantle and offered our pain and deepest desires to her cauldron of transforming fire. We made Brigit Girdles which the women will use when they heal in the name of Brigit.

We sang her songs. We gave healing to one another. We gathered in sacred circle to learn about one of the most beloved and worshipped Goddesses of Ireland and beyond - Brigit.

Being the Goddess of Healing, (among other things) We journeyed to her for deep nourishment in these cold times. Her healing mantle covered us in safety and warmth as we released the things that have been calling for attention from deep within us through breath work and visiting one of her (symbolic) sacred wells.

Into the fires of her transforming energy, we offered them and we drank from her healing wells for wholeness and freedom. We chanted to her, honored her, celebrated the magic, celebrated ourselves!

On Sunday, March 4, we bathed in the Love & Healing energies of Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattava of Compassion, Mercy & Forgiveness.

We released our secrets and our regrets. We blessed ourselves. The journey is long but the clearing away has begun.

Walking The Labyrinth

The information below is from the website www.mountainvalleycenter.com. It's a beautiful, non-profit Labyrinth Park in Otto.



LABYRINTHS: The universal mystical meaning of the labyrinth form is as a symbol for the journey into the world of spirit and the return, a leaving of one state and a rebirth into another.

The Classical Seven-path Labyrinth is not a maze within which to get lost, but rather a single winding pathway in and out again.

Labyrinths are known as sacred gateways and have been found at ancient sites around the world. Often found at the center of subtle earth energies these temples enhance, balance, and regenerate both the auric field and the Earth itself.

Labyrinths have been associated with ancient pilgrimage routes and rituals of self-discovery. They were worn as a form of protection and ornamentation and were often carved on doorways to bless a dwelling.

Labyrinths are time windows, portals where time stands still. They confirm our unity with the cosmos, awaken our vital force, and elevate our consciousness. They are known to facilitate altered states of consciousness and have parallels with reincarnation, initiation, prosperity, and fertility rites.

The Classical Seven-path Labyrinth resonates with the vibration of "seven" and has a direct correlation with the primary Chakras, Tones in the scale, and colors of the rainbow. It is believed that the action of "dancing" a labyrinth magically activates its inherit powers!

The Labyrinth is equated with the brain, and many cultures believe that the Labyrinth could cure illness. The action of moving through the Labyrinth produces a sense of well-being and balance through a type of vestibular stimulation, accessing both left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Reading Recommendations

Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith
Wheels of Light by Anodea Judith
The Sevenfold Journey by Anodea Judith
Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Four-fold Way by Angeles Arriens
The Roots of Healing by Deb Soule
The Family Herbal by Rosemary Gladstar
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Spiritual Bathing by Rosita Arvigo

There are a million more I will put on here some day in the (hopefully) near future!