Today we’d like to introduce you to Elyse Welles.

Hi Elyse, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
In my work, I help people learn how to connect to land spirits and sacred places. I’m a multicultural person, with three nationalities (Greek, Egyptian, and American) and I have lived on three continents – but it’s my connection to spirits of place that keeps me grounded, and I seek to share that with everyone I work with.

It’s a calling I received early in my life – when I would get home from school, I’d go outside and ask the birds for help on my math homework, or the trees for signs of what subject to write about for an English assignment. I grew up in Pennsylvania, a state known for its woodlands and nature, so I never questioned it or thought it was unusual. But when I was fourteen, my family moved to Bahrain, a desert climate with hardly any nature and destructive behavior towards the land and sea – reclaimed land, and the oil industry’s destruction of the land were all around me. It was then I realized that there’s different elements to land, and the land we live on often needs more healing than we can know. As an adult I learned there was much healing needed in PA as well, for the Native Americans who suffered on that land and the many battlefields surrounding the valley I grew up in.

Fast forward to 2020 – I had begun the Magick Kitchen Podcast, reaching out and connecting with other witches, pagans, and spiritual practitioners, and I was enjoying the time to connect to nature during quarantine. I went back to those same trees that nurtured me as a child, quarantining at my parents’ house for a few weeks at the start of the pandemic. It was there that I realized I was at a fork in the road: do I stay living in a big city, doing a job that drains me? Or do I follow my spiritual calling to connect with the land? I didn’t know at the time what that would end up meaning. I did a ritual in the woods and asked the Goddess and those dear and beloved trees: What do I do? How do I step onto the path I’m meant to walk? And the answer was clear: ‘move to Greece.’

It sounded left field. Wild. Impossible. But the more I sat with it, the more it seemed possible. In 2021, after 18 months of saving and planning, my husband and I moved to Greece, where we live now on Artemis’ temple lands. We have a cat colony that found us here – I call them the emissaries of the land spirits! – and I have begun Seeking Numina, my business in which I lead a community online and mentor others in connection to land. I also have begun running pilgrimages to sacred sites (numina in Latin) here in Greece, including my first ever retreat, the Know Thyself retreat to Delphi, coming in April 2025.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When we follow the path, there’s always the assurance that things will work out. But that doesn’t mean there’s no challenges! The biggest challenge for me was finding the means to share my authentic self, including very vulnerable moments of magic, with the public. The internet is a hard place to shield and protect your energy from the wrong people. It’s public in a way nothing ever has been before. I’m grateful for the push out of my comfort zone, and I’m especially grateful to guides like Apollo and Aphrodite for helping me know how to navigate the self-confidence and love I need to share.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a teacher, spiritual facilitator, and writer Everything from faeries to waterfalls, from frame drumming, to meditating at the beach leaves me inspired. My writing includes sacred poetry, articles for witchcraft magazines like Witchology, Witch Way, and the Wild Hunt, and I have two books releasing in 2025.

My writing is for anyone – as a multicultural woman, who has lived on three continents, I find myself having perspectives a bit different from my peers who are often from the US and have only lived in one country. My clients and students tend to fit into this category, and I think it’s my unique perspectives, paired with my direct and approachable teaching style, that sets me apart from others in this field.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My goal in this life is to wake up every day happy to be living the life I am. In this way, the best answer to what makes me happy is the life I live! I love being near the sea here in Greece, and I love when I visit the US to be so close to trees and the forest. Taking care of the cats of Greece and my two indoor cats. And helping my clients and students find their true magic and learn to trust their inner guidance gives me the greatest joy of any “job” I could ever have. This is more than a business, it is a calling I feel so blessed every day to do what I do.

Pricing:

• Online Community and Resource Library $10-$55/mo
• Mentorship $100-120
• Private Day Retreats $555-$666
• Online Community and Resource Library $10-$55/mo
• Tarot Readings $40-120

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.seekingnumina.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seekingnumina/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seekingnumina/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@seekingnumina
• Other: https://www.threads.net/@seekingnumina