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bio
Cherise Lily Nana is a Ghanaian/Scottish-Australian writer & editor based on 'the island of the gods' — Bali. Cherise is a lover of all things myth and magic. She has a particular interest in archetypal symbolism and rites of passage within fairy tales, folklore and mythology, and how these maps can guide us through contemporary initiations and life transitions. Cherise has had essays published in Dumbo Feather, Paradiso, and CosmoMuse. Five Rivers is her first collection of poetry. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Art History) and a Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing, and has undertaken further studies in Creativity Coaching, Ceremony/Ritual & Rites of Passage, and Counselling/Creative Arts Therapy. When she's not writing, Cherise spends her time working as a senior editor for an oracle/tarot card publisher, reading children's literature, dancing to 80s funk, and becoming acquainted with tree-frog folk and the poles of the Indian ocean and Mount Agung. |
ancestral threads
I give thanks to my ancestors, my people of Ghana and Scotland, to whose stories I am apprenticed. I also pay my respects to the ancestors (both human and more-than-human) of the land on which I live,
We are all the sum of our ancestors. We carry the layers upon layers of deep knowing and hidden gifts. We bear the stories of those who have walked before us, and in every moment we are weaving the tales for those who will tread in our footsteps.
I give thanks to my ancestors, my people of Ghana and Scotland, to whose stories I am apprenticed. I also pay my respects to the ancestors (both human and more-than-human) of the land on which I live,
We are all the sum of our ancestors. We carry the layers upon layers of deep knowing and hidden gifts. We bear the stories of those who have walked before us, and in every moment we are weaving the tales for those who will tread in our footsteps.
education & training
I am thankful for the privilege to learn from numerous wisdomkeepers and methodologies - formally and informally - over the years. Alongside those listed below, I also wish to acknowledge other teachers who I've not had the opportunity to formally study or train with, but whose work and offerings have nevertheless greatly influenced my life and work, namely Bill Plotkin, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Martin Shaw, Maureen Murdock, Joseph Campbell, Angeles Arrien, and Sharon Blackie.
Qualifications
+ Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing - Deakin University
+ Bachelor of Arts (Double major in Art History, Minor in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies, Minor in Studies of Religion) - University of Queensland
+ Certificate IV in Small Business Management - Coffs Harbour Business College
Professional Development & Training
+ Experiencing & Relational Presence - MIECAT (Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapies)
+ Embodied Awareness - MIECAT (Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapies)
+ Ceremony and Rites of Passage (Facilitator training) - Somatic Wilderness Therapy Institute & Nature Knows
+ Creativity Coaching - Eric Maisel
+ Foundations of Ritual - Ancestral Medicine
+ Animist Psychology: Earth, Ancestors and Mental Health - Ancestral Medicine
+ The Wisdom of Mythic Stories for Adult Identity Transitions - Center for Story & Symbol
+ Writing in Therapy - Center for Story & Symbol
+ Retelling Myths & Fairytales: Classic to Contemporary - Deakin University
+ Counselling Skills, Developmental Psychology, and Positive Psychology - ACAP (Australian College of Applied Professions)
+ Archetypal Tarot - Mariana Louis, Persephone's Sister
+ Evolutionary Astrology - Steven Forrest, Astrology University
+ Reiki Jin Kei Do (Level 1) - Sarita Carter, Original Nature
encounters with the muse
A number of years ago, I started hearing whispers from a muse in the middle of the night.
She met me on the page, asking me to write, write because the trees are begging to grow their limbs through your words and their foliage through your verses.
This call continued to reverberate throughout my dreams, and over time, I began to listen. I welcomed the muse; she was responding to my yearning to unlock my voice, to break free from the chains of the inner critic and demolish the barriers that dammed my self-expression. I sensed that buried somewhere in the mud of those waters I would find the key to my creativity.
What I didn’t anticipate from my conversations with the muse was a greater sense of meaning and a rite of passage that would ultimately guide me home.
Since that night, the muse’s presence has steadily grown in my daily life. Sometimes she brings me the sweet, sunlit perfume of jonquils in bloom and other times puzzle pieces of stories ferried from the uncharted waters of my unconscious mind.
She envelops my psyche in mythic poetry and draws my attention to the way the ocean’s tides mirror the rise and fall of the breath in my belly. I hear her murmurings in meditative insight and embodied revelations, and in wild and domestic encounters with the other-than-human world. She is also an emissary for my ancestors, delivering the wisdom found in the didactic rhythms of a talking drum or the depths of a highland loch.
It would appear that the muse accompanies me through not only the luminous voyages. During moments of anxiety and despair she has presented me with grace, reminding me that these experiences ask me to deepen my trust and soften my walls, so that I may converge with a love that is so much bigger than the tension in my heart.
In every one of her gifts, the muse continues to offer inspiration, beauty, and initiation into the life-affirming expression of the great mystery.
A number of years ago, I started hearing whispers from a muse in the middle of the night.
She met me on the page, asking me to write, write because the trees are begging to grow their limbs through your words and their foliage through your verses.
This call continued to reverberate throughout my dreams, and over time, I began to listen. I welcomed the muse; she was responding to my yearning to unlock my voice, to break free from the chains of the inner critic and demolish the barriers that dammed my self-expression. I sensed that buried somewhere in the mud of those waters I would find the key to my creativity.
What I didn’t anticipate from my conversations with the muse was a greater sense of meaning and a rite of passage that would ultimately guide me home.
Since that night, the muse’s presence has steadily grown in my daily life. Sometimes she brings me the sweet, sunlit perfume of jonquils in bloom and other times puzzle pieces of stories ferried from the uncharted waters of my unconscious mind.
She envelops my psyche in mythic poetry and draws my attention to the way the ocean’s tides mirror the rise and fall of the breath in my belly. I hear her murmurings in meditative insight and embodied revelations, and in wild and domestic encounters with the other-than-human world. She is also an emissary for my ancestors, delivering the wisdom found in the didactic rhythms of a talking drum or the depths of a highland loch.
It would appear that the muse accompanies me through not only the luminous voyages. During moments of anxiety and despair she has presented me with grace, reminding me that these experiences ask me to deepen my trust and soften my walls, so that I may converge with a love that is so much bigger than the tension in my heart.
In every one of her gifts, the muse continues to offer inspiration, beauty, and initiation into the life-affirming expression of the great mystery.
(The above is the also the opening of my lyric essay, Encounters with the Muse, featured in the Mysticism issue (no. 62, feb 2020) of Dumbo Feather magazine. Read more here.