New Stories... and seeking wisdom

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Friends, I am sinking into new stories this year and am looking for some ideas and your wisdom...

I need creative outlets and writing is at the top of my list, next to photography, watercolors, gardening, and moving my body.

For my fellow writers out there, how do you feel about Substack? I started sharing some writing back on Blogger back in 2010, then moved pieces to my website. I am now looking for another solid way to share in a user-friendly format - both for myself and for those who are curious to tap in. Any other platforms out there nowadays you recommend? Also, what has drawn you to what I have shared through writing? I'm curious and open to where the energies move us.

Thank you from the top of my head to the bottom of my tippy toes for those of you who have have joined me on the creative path through the years. The Energy Experience is one part of this. I have met many of you through energy and consciousness work through the last two decades. What an incredible blessing!

Life truly is energy: how it comes together, how it is expressed, how we heal, grow, connect, worship, transition... this all is a deeply creative act. This takes a village too, and I have to say the village and circles I am blessed to be a part of are magnificent. Let's create more, shall we? Let's make this year truly one to remember in all the right ways

*Photo taken by David last spring while we were engaged in sacred community work in Glastonbury, England. In this particular moment, David, our friend Brad, and I were practically getting blown off of the Tor by the gale force winds. The ancient tower held us a bit more intact before venturing back out. What a day to be alive and creative!

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Sacred Winter

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For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we are reminded of the dark days of winter and the promise of the return of the light. I cherish this dark time of year and the winter season yet to come. This is when I get very quiet, rest, reflect, and breathe forward new possibilities into the spring season.

This time of the year holds more than 20 different sacred holidays and observances around the world between December and January. The path my heart follows is rooted in a dedication to honoring the rhythms of the Earth, and the Divine Feminine and Masculine as spiritual and grounding practice. For as long as I can recall, I have been deeply inspired by the traditional weavings of the ancient people who I come from and honor the homelands of what we now refer to as Germany, Scotland, England, and Northwestern Europe. Following the seasons helps me feel close to them. Embodying my own sacred Feminine and Masculine qualities helps me embody the contrast of polarity and nonduality. This solstice season will be set aside with new understandings as I am now our eldest still embodied within our immediate lineage, with both of my parents now sitting with our ancient people. I envision this to be a special time.

As we each lean into our own practices of faith and spirit and remembrance, may we all be reminded of the one common thread that runs through us all: connection. May you feel warmed by the fire of your heart and hearth and honor the connection we all share to the greater mystery of what it means to be an eternal being held within a temporal shell on this magnificent planet of ours.

(Image above of the black ebony statue of Madonna and Child, from when I visited Truro Cathedral in Cornwall in 2022)

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Self-Cultivation

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This will be my 14th annual cycle of dedicating a word/theme for the following year. Inspiration for this comes between the last new moon of December and the Winter Solstice, and I have found the 13 previous words essential to help carry and support me daily. My theme for the coming year is self-cultivation.

Being a gardener and working the soil for as long as I can remember, the idea of cultivating is not new to me, yet the idea of cultivating myself is. I am leaning into some good resources to better learn how to cultivate my inner and outer world more completely. This delights me, and I look forward to honoring this inspiration much, much longer than just one 12-month cycle.

If you chose a word or a theme that can carry you for the coming year, what would it be? Feel free to share and/or to keep it to yourself. I have found this a much more powerful practice when shared in community so we all can support each other with more capacious wisdom and care.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Midwinter

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There are more than 20 different holidays and observances celebrated this time of the year around the world (most likely more... please share as I love learning how individuals and cultures celebrate). The one that rings most true to me is the Winter Solstice today.

I began last night with the moon who was showing off a bit between the cloud cover. This morning the day began in the darkness, and then with a lit candle at my writing desk. Then, a gentle walk before dawn through the forest with my kitty over to the neighboring field where we could take in the light show. I tucked myself in at the edge near the trees, sat on the Earth, and connected with a dear WomanSister who celebrated the sunrise with me from afar.

I am ready to tuck myself in for a season of rest, reflection, and instinctive creativity. I am ready to relish in the quiet, deep cold air as it enters my lungs while I move outdoors.

Here's to the contrast of light and dark, and to the interconnectedness we all share no matter where we find our hearts on our precious planet today.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

The Magical Use of Words

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Where would we be without the magical use of words, and where would I be without my journals and pens? Today is International Fountain Pen Day, and in honor of my very favorite writing instruments, I'm sharing an image of my sexy journals that are in the current rotation along with one of my best friends... my pen.

It is said the pen is mightier than the sword, and oh my I find that more and more to be true. Let's bring our minds and hearts together. Let's bring empathy, compassion, connection, critical thinking, and quality conversation back. The world needs healing and peace and art and creative action. We certainly have what it takes to do it. Who's with me?

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Crossroads of Change

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I am welcoming my Self into these Autumn energies by deeply embracing creative needs. I am playing with inks and paints and pens and brushes again. I am writing every day. I am receiving support from mentors and bodyworker-healers. I am investing deep time offline and enjoying the process of hearing my own voice and heart. I am embracing more closely the cycle of life and death, the sun and the moon, lightness and darkness, the change and pace of seasons... and the greatness of it all. I am working with my amazing partner to reconfigure space in our home to suit our needs for family and creativity and work. I am deeply enjoying this powerful, creative, soft feminine way of being in the world.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.