On Being an Overcommitted Queen During Quarantine

On Saturday night, thirty-five readers gathered together for The Sovereignty Knot online book launch. Watch it here!

It was magical. And it feels like it happened last year some time.

Since then, the inner journey has been long and hard. The scenery hasn't changed since then, of course, but things look and feel different inside my mind and heart.

For the past few weeks, I've been pushing myself at just about every level. You've seen those social media posts about how it's not essential to use a pandemic to be remarkably productive? I saw them and kept going, certain that those ideas applied to everyone else but me.

My queen was on overdrive, you see. 

She saw those boxes of books in the hallway.

She thought about the storytelling course that begins April 14.

She thought about all the uncertainty in the world and how she needed to work harder to control what little she could.

Fortunately, I realized that my queen needed a time out before I totally burned out.

This week, I got back to my journal, to books I've longed to read, to being with the kids rather than managing them in between self-imposed deadlines. I cancelled any commitments I didn't have to keep.

I really didn't have a choice. My people (including my family in this house and accessible by Facetime, my friends on text, and my community of clients on Zoom) need me healthy and whole, not ragged and striving.

Getting my queen to share the burden (and the blessings) with my princess and my wise woman is a lifelong process, but I'm getting a little better at it every time I catch myself overpromising and overcommitting.

I become a little bit more Sovereign every time I say no, every time I limit the size of my realm.

During the book launch I promised a new webinar about using the archetypes of Sovereignty to tell your own stories.

Reality check: that's just too much for me right now.

Instead, I’ve called together a collection of resources that just might nurture you overcommitted soul as they have nurtured mine.

Good Read

During the book launch, I took you into the cave featured in chapter 2 of The Sovereignty Knot.

Briefly, I spoke of Mór, also known as the goddess Morrigan, and how she’s been a guide for me, particularly during these crazy time of disruption and fear. I’ve been staying close to her by reading Courtney Weber’s new book, The Morrigan: Celtic Goddess of Magick and Might. There’s nothing particularly “productive” about reading about Celtic deities right now. And that’s exactly what we need in order to get stronger and more connected to what matters - now, and in the new normal that’s waiting on the other side.

Good Listen

Goddess bless our public library systems with their extensive audiobook archives. When yet another spell of middle-of-the-night sleeplessness hits, I’ve been turning to The Magician’s Assistant by Anne Patchett. Written in 1998 and recorded back in the day when everyone listened on CD. There’s some terrible smooth jazz every hour or so and I imagine being a sophomore in college, driving between summer jobs, scratched discs all over the floor of my Ford Taurus.

An Invitation

There’s another reason I need to give my overcommitted queen a rest… there’s something big coming up in just 10 days. I am teaching Stand In Your Sovereign Story, an eight-week program designed to help creative entrepreneurs and transformation professionals tell stories that matter to them and to their marketing.

In some ways, it feels crazy to launch this right now, but it also seems like the perfect timing. If this feels like a time to focus on the stories you really need to tell and how to express them to the world, let's talk.

Initially, I conceived of this class as a way to "use the healing power of storytelling to discover your truth, share your authentic message, and build your world-changing business." Now, I see this course as existing to help us build world-renewing businesses. 

Dear Normal, I Miss You, But I’m Heading on the (S)Hero’s Journey

Last week, I offered the members of the Sovereign Writers Circle this writing prompt:

Write a Letter to “Normal”

As the world seems to change by the hour and things that were totally commonplace just a week ago seem like an impossible, distant dream, we are constantly being asked to adapt to a new normal.

Spend some time considering what “normal” is. What was normal then, what is normal now? What is this thing they call “normal” anyway?

One of our Sovereign Writers shared the most simple and true opening line:

Dear Normal, I miss you…

Amen! Isn’t that something we’re all feeling right now?

We miss “Normal,” but the greatest stories require us to leave Normal behind 

As is so often the way, you only see the real possibilities of your creation after you put it into the world and let people make it their own.

When the members of the SWC talked about various understandings of “normal,” I saw something totally new contained within that prompt of mine.

I saw the start of the Hero’s Journey.

If you’ve spent any time thinking about storytelling, you’ve probably heard about Hero’s Journey. The scholar Joseph Campbell compared ancient myths from around the world and found a common story across a host of cultures that described the individual’s process of “becoming.” This framework has been applied to everything from the creation of epic movie sagas to the development of brands and personal narratives.

As the Hollywood story consultant Christopher Vogler describes it in The Writer’s Journey, the classic Hero’s Journey begins with a Call to Adventure that causes the (s)hero to leave the everyday “normal” work and go on a great and dangerous quest.

The most well-known examples of heroes who trace this journey, of course, are Dorothy leaving Kansas for Oz and Luke leaving Tatooine to take on the Empire. Think of these iconic characters and their worlds we know so well…

“Normal” wasn’t necessarily perfect. Both of them hated their pokey old farms and longed for something more.

They didn’t make the leap just because they yearned for adventure, however. They answered that Call to Adventure only when faced with calamity. Dorothy got swept up in a tornado. Luke’s aunt and uncle were killed by storm troopers. They had no choice but to respond to a moment of great disruption.

At the conclusion of a the story, after many travails, and with the help of many allies, the protagonist returns to where the story began. They’ve changed in some fundamental way and are now armed with the elixir, the great wisdom or solution that will benefit everyone who stayed behind in the Ordinary World.

We are all at the same point in the Hero’s Journey

Before I go on, I want to mention the true heroes in this pandemic.

Hospital employees - from cleaning staff to receptionists to doctors to respiratory therapists - are saving lives and helping people transition. Volunteers are making masks at home and aid workers are delivering food and supplies to people confined without resources. Grocery store staff and delivery workers are keeping life going for all of the healthy, huddled masses. I recognize them and thank them all.

So, when I say “we” are all at the same point in the Hero’s Journey, I mean all of us who might have the time to sit down to write a letter that begins, “Dear Normal, I miss you…”

I am writing this post for those of us who are riding out Covid-19 on the couch, worrying about keeping the kids busy and keeping the business running. I am writing for those of us who haven’t been thrust out of “normal” by great calamity. (Yet.)

It’s my sincerest prayer that everyone who reads this will not encounter a life-changing, journey-defining event during this pandemic. Sadly, I think it’s inevitable that some of us will suffer great loss, but we’re not even at the middle of this crisis yet, and we just don’t know.

No matter what happens in the weeks to come, we are all at that point of beginning a great new adventure because we’re never going to be able to go back to life as it was.

We’ll never look at a supermarket aisle full of toilet paper or a full bottle of hand sanitizer in the same way.

When we’re back on Main Street again and the world is again open for business, we will undoubtedly see empty storefronts because beloved small businesses and restaurants will not be able to come back from.

People we love up close or admire from afar will die. We’ll all understand that life, society, and the economy are much more fragile than we imagined.

The Journey Ahead Will Be Terrible and Beautiful

Like Dorothy and Luke, we don’t have choice about leaving Normal behind.

If you want to be the shero of your own life - to stand Sovereign in your own life - you need to accept this call to step out of the reality that was and into the strange new world. (Metaphorically, of course. We’re not stepping anywhere except on a socially distanced walk in the sunshine.)

The way ahead is full of risk and loss and there’s no guarantee that New Normal will be as comfortable as the old one. It certainly won’t be as innocent.

But that’s how stories work. That’s how life works.

We are living the story right now. None of us knows quite what will happen next. Soon, we will begin to tell the story of how we survived - and even thrived - in 2020.

Can I help you tell your story as we all set out on this Hero’s Journey together?

The next round of Stand In Your Sovereign Story begins on September 30, and I would love to have you with us.

The Tension Between Keeping It Light and Keeping it REAL

I come from a long line of women who firmly believed in “keeping it light” - at least on the outside.

They even had theme songs.

My Nanna would tap her fingers and sing “Bingle, bangle, bungle, we’re so happy in the jungle.” (This one was especially useful when my sister and I were fighting.)

My Mom was a fan of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and tended to give me her best Bobby McFerrin whenever my teenaged angst hit fever pitch.

Of course, they drove me nuts at the time. I wanted permission to have my rage and my despair.

Both of them are gone now, but I know they would have tried to meet this pandemic with outward optimism. They would have tried to keep everyone cheerful - even if they were anxious as all hell on the inside.

Today, I’m putting the finishing touches on the material I’ll offer up during my virtual book launch on March 28.

I’m thinking of my Mom and Nanna as I plan an event called Sovereignty When the World Is In Knots: Personal Power & Collective Magic In a Time of Uncertainty.

It’s happening on a Saturday night in the midst of one of the toughest periods in living memory. With all the worry and the weight, shouldn’t I focus on keeping things fun and light?

Well yes, and…

And I also need to focus on keeping it REAL.

I want to create an online space for people that acknowledges the desire for some ease in the midst of the stress, but also give everyone a chance to look at what’s underneath. (If there’s one gift I wish I could give to the women who raised me it would be the permission to explore the whole spectrum of feelings.)

This is just one more way to walk the talk and live the book.

The kind of magic I talk about in The Sovereignty Knot isn’t about escaping reality or creating your own reality. Instead, it’s about seeing the world as it is and recognizing that you have the power to respond.

When we gather for some storytelling, meditation, and conversation, there’s going to be room for all the real feelings, from the longing for light to the truth of the shadow.

We’ll find room for big grins and deep sighs as we explore how the archetypes of Sovereignty - the Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman - can help us navigate the inner world and the outer world.

Will you join us? Will you invite your friends to join us for an evening that promises to help you find your way through the light and the shade?

Come as you are, wearing your jammies and sipping your favorite beverage. Don’t worry, Netflix will be there when you get back, but you may find you prefer to curl up with a good book when you’re done.

How to Access Your Inner Sisterhood of Sovereignty

At this moment, we need Sovereignty like we never have before

Set aside all those political connotations you may have for this word. 

Your Sovereignty is your sacred sense of self.

Your Sovereignty is your sense of agency and your ability to exert a healthy measure of control over your thoughts, your actions, and your destiny. Your Sovereignty is your inviolable right to physical, emotional, and spiritual freedom. 

Hmm… is it possible to feel “free” in a time like this, when state after state and country after country goes into lock down?

Yes. My vision of Sovereignty has never had anything to do with that so-called American ideal of “rugged individualism.”

Your Sovereignty is at the root of your commitment to the collective.

In The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic I write…

Sovereign isn’t a synonym for solitary. It’s got nothing to do with isolationism. Though Sovereignty does have everything to do with independence, it has just as much to do with interdependence, too. Sovereignty is about relationships. Just remember that personal Sovereignty is an inside job and your relationship with yourself comes first. Always. Everything they say about “put on your oxygen mask first” and “you can’t pour from an empty cup” is true. The Sovereign woman does not lose herself in servitude when she serves others. Neither does she seek to rule in order to amplify her own glory. She does not do this work to get drunk with power. The mark of a true Sovereign is what she does to maintain her own energy even as she pays it forward, passing on her gifts in order to empower others to set out on their own path to Sovereignty. 

And yes, Sovereignty is more important than ever in this moment when one-third of Americans and one-fifth of the global population has been asked (or ordered) to stay home.

By submitting to the “control” of the state, and choosing to limit your own movements, you are embodying Sovereignty in a profound, necessary way.  You are using your power to root into where you are, supporting your community’s physical well-being in the only way you can if you’re not a first responder.

And what about your own well-being during this time of pandemic and isolation? How do you stay sane, strong, and focused in a time like this? How do you connect to those visions and ideals that were so important to you before so much of the world closed down?

(Because even though nothing will ever be the same, your dedication to bring more beauty and healing to this world remains unchanged.)

You commit to your own Sovereignty like you never have before.

You look to the Sisterhood of Sovereignty that always thrives within you.

In my book, The Sovereignty Knot, we “do” Sovereignty by understanding that we have the power to be the three archetypes of Sovereignty - the princess, the queen, and the wise woman. No matter how old you are, or how much you have achieved, you have all three of these forces within you. 

As I developed my ideas, I saw these parts of the self as part of a continuum, like the points of a trinity knot. These energies were present throughout my life and were part of my everyday. I grew to recognize when I was really embodying one energy or another or when I was unable to access the optimism of the princess, the power of the queen, or the peace of the wise woman.

In conversation with readers, especially during my visit to Michal Spiegelman’s Beacons of Change Community, it became clear that women saw the princess, queen, and wise woman as a Sovereignty Sisterhood.

And now, as we’re separated from our real-life sisters and the women who are like sisters who make up our lives - in the office, at the yoga studio, at school pick up - we look to this internal sisterhood to see us through…

The Sovereignty Sisterhood In the Face of Crisis

Three weeks ago when this Coronavirus was an abstract fear, I offered ideas about how to use the archetypes of Sovereignty to stand strong against the waves of fear that were washing against our shores.

Now that we’re in the midst of social distancing (with so much social media to fill in the gaps), we need to see the archetypes of Sovereignty in relationship to this changing landscape - both across our world and inside our own hearts.

The princess is hope. She is innovation.

The princess energy thrives in those who will come up with novel solutions to the shortages of medical equipment or disruptions in the food supply.

You are moving forward with your princess when you find new ways to serve and keep your business afloat in this economic crisis. Call on her to keep making beautiful things and moments despite the gloomy, discombobulated atmosphere.

The queen is leadership. She is managing the crisis.

The queen energy thrives in those who take to the podium and offer humility and useful information, even when so many of the details are still unclear.

You are leading with your queen when you get the supplies your family needs (but no more). Call on her as you you create a daily routine that sustains your household - at the body, heart, mind, and soul level.

The wise woman is calm. She is equilibrium.

The wise woman energy thrives in those who speak truth and offer counsel that rises above the noise.

You are emerging with your wise woman when you pause before you speak, even when you have cabin fever. Call on her as you you prioritize your own inner peace over obsessively listening to the latest news report or chilling statistic.

Let’s Make Sovereignty Real

Join me for a deep dive into the Sovereignty Sisterhood on Saturday, March 28 at 7 PM on Zoom.

This date was supposed to be the night of my first big book event in my hometown, but like everything else, that’s been postponed for the duration. And so, I get to invite the whole world to join me!

I’ll share some stories from the book help you embody your own archetypes of Sovereignty in this tangled time. I’ll be signing books and will ship them right out to you.

Be a Swan: How to Float & Fly When the World Turns Upside Down

This year, the Equinox has come earlier than it has in memory. It’s as if Mother Earth is doing all she can to remind us to take heart and remember that new beginnings are as natural as the tilting of the earth.

That’s wonderful, but it’s hard to really appreciate it when the whole world seems to be turned upside down.

Yesterday, I said a prayer for spring renewal as I wiped down an egg carton with diluted Mr. Clean. I found myself simultaneously wondering if I was insane to take such precautions and if a wet rag could possibly be enough to protect my family.

(What I’ve learned: you can get used to almost everything. That’s terrifying, in a way, but it’s also a source of comfort. As hellacious as it was to consider whether my kids could get sick from touching a cereal box, it won’t be nearly as strange or traumatic to do a prophylactic cleanse on the next round of groceries.)

It seems like a far, far cry from the first Spring Equinox ritual I remember… Exactly 20 years ago I huddled in the dark by the River Corrib with a handful of American sisters. We sang and chanted together, setting intentions and asking for blessings from whatever Celtic goddesses blessed that that fast-flowing Irish river.

Yesterday, I marked the arrival of spring by supervising my daughters’ cookie decorating project. I made soup. I dusted obscure parts of my house. I worked on a beloved client’s book.

And when I couldn’t keep up the smiling and the productivity, I went down to the basement treadmill to re-watch the first episode of Outlander. I marveled at how that cluttered storage space could all look so normal and the show could be so comfortingly familiar when everything above ground was so bizarre.

This was the first day I gave myself permission not to keep up appearances online. It was the first day I didn’t try to be insightful and inspirational to anyone except the people who depend on me directly.

If there’s anything I have learned in the week or so since this whole Covid-19 phenomenon became real here in upstate New York (besides how to efficiently disinfect bunches of bananas), it’s that we need to show up and we need to drop out from time to time.

Time is slipping faster than the waters in that distant river in its constant flow through Galway Bay and onto the Atlantic Ocean. As much as I’m an ocean girl with saltwater in my veins, we human souls are made of more than the element of water. We are more than a collection of slippery molecules with little to say about our speed or direction.

Instead, we need to be like the countless swans that live on the Corrib.

Yes, they move with the water, letting themselves get carried by the relentless current. But they also have the power to return to their nests to rest. And, of course, they never forget they can fly.

Those of us experiencing the extreme and beautiful luxury that allows us to write and read blog posts during a time of global catastrophe, those of us who have houses with hidden corners in need of cleaning, we are blessed to use home as place of rest and refuge.

We can use this security (and even this boredom and worry) and translate it into the strength and clarity we need to lead on the other side of all this social distancing.

And that ability to fly, that ability to use imagination, vision, and a faith in something greater than this present day calamity… it’s available to all of us if we can tune into our personal, creative, and spiritual Sovereignty.

This week’s Sovereign Standard puts an emphasis on just a few of the countless free and low-fee online events on offer right now…

Sovereignty Knot Online Book Events

My first big book event was supposed to happen at my favorite yoga studio in New Paltz on Saturday, March 28. There are four huge cartons of books in my front hallway, still sealed up and waiting to make their way to the hands of readers.

Clearly, it’s time to stop mourning these live events, put a little energy into imagining life on the other side of social distancing, and put even more energy into how to make these events happen in the virtual world.

On Thursday, March 26 at NOON ET I’ll be going live on Facebook to read a little from the book, talk about why Sovereignty is so important right now, and to give away a couple copies of the book.

And then, on Saturday, March 28 at 7 PM ET I’ll be offering a modified-for-the-times version of The Sovereignty Knot Performance and Celebration on Zoom.

Colleagues’ Online Events

So many of my remarkable colleagues are offering free online writing sessions and presentations for creatives and entrepreneurs trying to navigate this strange and difficult period.

Saundra Goldman is hosting a writing practice session on Sunday, 3/22. Find details at Write the Wise Way Home.

Jeffrey Davis is welcoming entrepreneurs and creatives to gather for How to Keep Creative Momentum in Times of Crisis: A Tracking Wonder Webinar on Monday, 3/23 at 3 PM ET.

Suzi Banks Baum will offer one of her Power Keg Sessions at 11 AM EST on Wednesday, 3/25.

Sara Eisenberg is holding space for Come As You Are: Take Refuge in Good Company at noon EST on Wednesday, 3/25.

Good Listens

The audiobook version of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine has been a wonderful alternative to listening to press conferences this week. I am deeply grateful to Diane Heart, my favorite Cape Cod potter, for recommending it.

And, I need to express my thanks to our public library system for keeping the entire family going with their digital offerings. Have your kids spent time with Neil Patrick Harris and his Magic Misfits book series? We’re listening to one and reading another aloud right now…

An Alternative Story for 2020's Very Strange St. Patrick's Day

This St. Patrick’s Day, when the pubs of Ireland, Boston, and New York are closed, travel from Europe is suspended, and the whole world is gripped in a terrible kind of uncertainty, I need to tell a story about the day I worked a magic spell while driving a tiny car down the left side of the road.

This story is proof that magic and Sovereignty are all around us, even when pandemic has disrupted life as we know it and we’re on the couch with a can of Guinness, wishing we were out at the pub with friends or taking a flight on Aer Lingus.

---

It was an indifferent sort of Irish morning, a bit of gray sweater weather that didn’t necessarily promise sunshine or rain. It was enough for us. We were tourists with a warm, dry car who’d just had a full breakfast, complete with black pudding, fried up for us in a big house in County Mayo. The hospitality was a blessing to be sure, but we needed to be in Roscommon by noon. I wanted to get out of this twenty-first century castle and into the wilds. Someone was waiting for us, and he promised to show us a place that was at once the birthplace of the goddess and the gateway to hell.

When my aunt, my twenty-something cousin, and my eight-year- old daughter finally got into the car, I was tight lipped and silent. Every part of me was on the move—except my actual body that had to sit in the driver’s seat as everyone wedged their American luggage into a European car. With about four days of experience driving on the left side of narrow roads, I was finally ready to drive the speed limit—and exceed it. But with all the twists and turns and crowded main streets that stretched between us and the village of Tulsk, I realized that no amount of white-knuckle speeding (and “Oh, Jesus, Marisa, that was close!” comments) could get us there on time.

There was nothing to do but practice some magic.

I’d tried this before when I was back home in the Hudson Valley. Then, I’d wanted to save my daughter from that dreaded feeling of being the last one left at the curb. Do you remember the waves of rage and fear of abandonment that used to wash over you before you had a concept of traffic or understood that your mother had more to do than wait for you to be done with school? Those kid fears still burn in me, and I’d do a lot to save my girls from such experiences, but my worries about their righteous indignation was nothing compared to what I was feeling here on the N60 road. We were speeding to the place I was most eager and most afraid to explore, and I couldn’t stand to miss it just because my family needed to graze a table heavy with bacon and eggs and have just one more cup of tea.

And so, I started working on the underside of time.

My hands were on the steering wheel, but my fingers were actually wrapped around the knots of energy that lay beneath the surface of the earth. I was trying to find the strands of time and space that are layered beneath our understanding of the moment. I was tugging at the fabric of the universe, and though I had no idea what I was doing, somehow I understood exactly how it had to be done. Clearly, I was messing with something bigger than me, something that would have consequences. Though I’ve long been someone who likes to talk about magic, I have rarely gathered the courage or the focus to risk the doing of it. That’s the tricky thing about believing in magic—you’re also wise enough to be a little bit afraid of it, or at least in awe of it. If “magic is the art of changing consciousness at will,” I need to admit that I’m both excited and terrified of change and the mystery of consciousness. But then, Sovereignty relies on recognizing your own power to shift your experience by shifting your perceptions. The real trick of magic (and Sovereignty) is simply in believing you know how and then giving it a try.

Was I actually altering the space-time continuum as we sped to County Roscommon? Was there any risk of changing the distant future or somehow shortening my own life as I attempted to stretch and fold time on this particular April morning? Or was I just soothing my own frustrations with fantasies that I could use the power of my intentions to slow the clock or move the ponderous truck to the shoulder of the road?

All I know is that it worked.

Moira at Rathcroghan in Co. Roscommon, April 2018

Because I focused less on worry and more on magic, my family was spared the nasty sounding “hurry up” that welled in my throat. Added bonus: I felt like a sorceress (and proved myself to be a badass “wrong side of the road” driver). Most importantly, we ended up beating our guide to the meeting point and we were set for a day that would change my consciousness in powerful, lasting ways.

If you want to credit our peaceful, timely arrival to my self-control, luck, and coincidence, be my guest, but honestly, I think you get more out of calling it magic. This “what you see is what you get” perspective on the world never explains all the miracles, synchronicities, and sacred experiences we witness every blessed day. Stubborn pragmatism labels these moments of wonder and connection as mere whimsy, delusion, or child’s play, but that approach robs us of the best parts of being alive. Sovereignty is about rooting into real life and transforming suffering, division, and oppression. Sovereignty, as I choose to define and embody it, is also about conspiring with your imagination to reach spiritual depths and mysteries unseen.

As you come to believe in your own inherent power and get to know the Sovereignty archetypes that dwell within, you’ll realize that talking to goddesses and focusing energy on changing your own consciousness in order to change the world is more potent than sheer practicality and planning alone ever could be. The magic that lets us manipulate time and space might not quite look like stepping through the standing stones and entering another century like they do in Outlander, but it looks everything like the life I crave. Real life is full of real magic and it’s available to all of us who dare to look for it, treasure it, and conjure it.

Want to find out where those Irish country roads took us? Get a copy of The Sovereignty Knot today.

This is an except from The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic.

You can get the ebook from Amazon.

Or, please consider supporting your local bookshop by asking them to order you a copy. You can buy The Sovereignty Knot from my local store, Inquiring Minds of New Paltz by calling 845-255-8300. (They’re offering free shipping through the US while they’re closed due to the Coronavirus).

Storytelling in the Time of Pandemic: Words Heal, Community Heals

This week, I came across the image of a sacred well in Rome, a great city in the midst of a country shut down by the Coronavirus. I posted it on Instagram with a version of these words:

And still we go to the healing well to wash away the fear and to become whole again...⁣⁣

This global illness, with all its fear and consequences, is asking us to fight and surrender all at the same time.⁣⁣

We fight with hand sanitizer and knuckles raw from washing.⁣⁣

⁣⁣We surrender to the closures and cancellations and the belief that distance is the way to maintain community.

Throughout it all, we are called to pull on our own wells of wisdom. ⁣⁣We are called to know when to refuse to fight and when to refuse to surrender.

⁣⁣Do not fight against a relentless tide that will only exhaust and stress you and compromise your immune system. ⁣⁣Do not fight against your own intuition that guides you, whether it urge you to stay away or to show up and offer aid.

⁣Do not surrender to the urge to hoard, to become suspicious, to lose hope. 

Do not surrender to the belief that contagion is inevitable, disruption is catastrophic, and use any of this as an excuse to stop doing your good work. ⁣⁣

⁣⁣We need you, the healer, the creative entrepreneur, the transformation professional now that ever. 

Care for yourself and your dearest ones. Keep showing up for your wider network to share truth and hope and compassionate good sense.⁣⁣

Play with the urge to fight and the need to surrender.

Soften. Release. Heal. Continue this quest to become Sovereign and whole.

⁣⁣In this second edition of the Sovereign Standard, you’ll find a small collection of don’t-miss (virtual) events,  meaning-filled articles, great listens, and important books that will help you live and tell a more powerful story in the midst of all this disruption.

Mark Your Calendar

Join the free, online community writing practice session coming up on Tuesday, March 17.

This is your time to “write it out as we ride it out.” Together, we’ll take to the page so you can get clear on what you're worried about, what you believe in, and what you need to do to be part of the collective healing and renewal.

Online learning will be more important than ever in the weeks to come. (See the note at the end of this message about how I am committed to making the Stand In Your Sovereign Story online program accessible to you, even though you might we worried about how the virus is impacting your economic situation.)

Flourishing Center CEO & Founder, Emiliya Zhivotovskaya is offering a free an online workshop on How to Create Online Workshops. Emiliya is an expert in positive psychology and has a remarkable knack for creating community.

Good Reads

COVID-19, Anxiety, and Other Contagions by Sara Eisenberg of A Life of Practice offers “fortune cookie and other wisdom for moving with life when ‘the new normal’ changes six times before breakfast.” It’s also a vulnerable look at our biases, against the body and against those who are labeled “other.”  

My post from early this week, Storytelling & the Art of Life-Changing Magic seems almost quaint now, as I share the story about rediscovering the performer within me after more than twenty years away from the stage.

As everything from St. Paddy’s Day parades to sports seasons are being cancelled, it’s unclear whether I’ll be putting on the Sovereignty Knot show as planned on March 28, but I keep reminding myself that this is a lovely concern to have since it’s so easily rescheduled to when the time is right.

Good Listens

I’ve got Glennon Doyle’s Untamed in my earbuds this week. It’s exactly the break I need from the NPR headlines. I’m worried I’m bingeing it and it will be over too soon. Then I realized that I totally have permission to listen again.

Good Book

I am immersing myself in Theodora Goss’s Snow White Learns Witchcraft. Right now, we need stories that are encoded into our culture that are all spiked with modern imagination.

Final Note on Staying Nimble in a Changing World

I know that just about all of our businesses will be affected by this Coronavirus. Clients will cancel and will be afraid to commit resources to anything that doesn’t seem “essential.” This becomes an important time to plant new seeds, turning inward for a time before we all emerge again.

Please know that I am committed to offering the Stand in Your Sovereign Story online program as planned on April 14. And, I also committed to including all who want to be there, even though the financial situation seems unsure.

If you’re curious about the program but have not felt ready to commit, please reach out to me and we’ll talk about a “pay what you can model” that feels doable and nurturing.

Storytelling and the Art of Life-Changing Magic

Storytelling is an act of reclaiming yourself across time

When you tell a story, you have access to:

• Your past: the power and potential that you once possessed

• Your present: the work you’re here to do and the people you’re here to touch now

• Your future: the vision of a reality that’s more more beautiful, bearable, and bold for yourself and all people

Storytelling is an act of time magic

When you tell a story, you are consciously bringing the past, present, and future together into an eternal now. 

While writing or speaking a story out loud, you are able to anchor fully into the present moment. You reflect back on events of the past, crafting the story of who you were and you who are so that you can transform the future.

If storytelling isn’t like casting a spell, then I have no idea what magic is. (And really, I have spent a lot of time thinking about creative magic, so I feel like I do have a pretty profound understanding of this stuff.)

How to make this past-present-future storytelling magic into something real

In the big story I’ve just put into the world, The Sovereignty Knot, I’m definitely reclaiming the narrative in my own life in hopes that it will inspire my readers to do the same. And there’s definitely a lot of time magic going on.

In the book, you meet the past, present, and future me. Writing this story gave me the chance to connect to all that I was, all that I am, and all that I would be, and integrate it all into one cohesive narrative. Into one cohesive life.

In The Sovereignty Knot, you also meet the archetypes of Sovereignty…

There’s the princess - she’s the one who embodies your sexy, brave, carefree parts

There’s the queen - she’s the one who embodies your capable, responsible, compassionate parts

Then, there’s the wise woman - she’s the one who embodies your still, irreverent, insightful parts

And here’s the most important thing about these archetypes of Sovereignty: you can (in fact you must) work with them and play with them throughout life.

The princess, queen, and wise woman are a vibrant alternative to that linear model of the maiden, mother, and crone. Rather than passing from one stage to the next and letting the doors slam behind us, I want all of us to keep dancing with all the energies these archetypes offer - the adventurous, the competent, and the wise.

Embodying all three archetypes of Sovereignty regardless of age or stage of life is a practice. The best way to get good at it is to explore your own stories.

Telling my story is enabling me to reclaim my original magic

This kind of Sovereign Storytelling Time Magic works. Not just on the page, but in the “real world” too. Telling a story can transform the way you show up everywhere.

I grew up on a stage. I learned how to be Sovereign on a stage.

Dancing, acting, and singing… When I stood up there I gave myself permission to use my full voice, use all my energy, and to inhabit my full potential. My princess self was on a great adventure. Being that kind of brave in front of so many people was my kind of intoxicating.

In that high school auditorium, I was unafraid to take up space and take over the room. The curtains went up and I knew I was meant to be queen, all full of confidence and the power to captivate an audience.

Did the wise woman within me get up on that stage too? Well, I did play Ebenezer Scrooge (in a gown!) my senior year… But then came graduation, and I didn’t feel like I could compete with the “real” theater kids in college. I retired long before my wise woman ever had a chance to claim the spotlight.

Leaving childhood and those leading roles behind, I dedicated myself to learning other people’s stories. I earned degrees in English and learned how to analyze the hell out of a piece of literature. I worked in a library, taking care of a million other people’s books. Eventually, I’d become a writer-for-hire and then a coach, helping other people sculpt their own stories.

In the background, Sovereignty kept tugging at my sleeve. The archetypes showed up and wouldn’t go away. I had no choice but to set aside all the excuses and become the heroine of my own story again, writing about my experiences and stitching them together into a book.

The book, of course, is evidence that writing does give us the power to reach back into the past to understand ourselves more fully in the present in order to create a new future.

And here’s one more piece of evidence: I’m getting back on stage again.

I am putting on a show… 

I would love to have you there as I perform these archetypes of Sovereignty and tell the old Celtic stories that inspired them. 

Though I have only been on a stage a couple of times in the last twenty years, I am more ecstatic than nervous. I am so excited for this experiment in Sovereignty.

The princess in me can’t wait to see how brave and bold she can be. The queen is thrilled that I’ve got the skills and the presence to gather people together in the name of Sovereignty. The wise woman within me is so glad she’ll finally be able to be part of the act, offering her insight and her experience to this grown-up version of Marisa, the performer.

If you live in the Hudson Valley, I do hope you’ll join us at The Living Seed in New Paltz on March 28.

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Do you want to learn how to uncover your stories and how to craft and share them with the people who most need to hear you message?

Learn more about the Stand in Your Sovereign Story Program. The early bird registration rate is still available!

The Sovereign Standard: I’ll Tell You My Sovereign Stories So You Can Tell Yours

There’s a section in the first chapter of The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic called  “I’ll Tell You My Sovereign Stories So You Can Tell Yours.”

Ultimately, that’s the whole reason I wrote my book. It’s the whole reason I’ve been living out loud on the internet for so many years.

As a fellow creative and healer, as a sister Sovereignty seeker, there’s a good chance you’re motivated by something similar. You tell your stories in order to help others see themselves and open their own doors, too. 

A huge part of being a good storyteller is rooted in being a good listener and a conscious consumer of information. That means you listen to your own inner voice and to the voices of others. It’s about honing your intuition and honing your craft. It’s about bringing empathy and compassion to the forefront of everything.

Years ago, before I even dared say “I’m going to write a book that blends memoir, myth, and my vision for modern women’s Sovereignty,” I published a weekly newsletter I called The Sovereign Standard. It was one of many iterations of that combination of collecting, sharing, and telling stories.

It’s time to bring that back…

Each Friday, I’ll share a small collection of articles, podcasts, books, and events that will help you live and tell a more powerful story. 

Good Reads

Love Keeps Me Sober is a tremendously brave and important story from Washington DC area therapist, soul coach, and Qoya movement teacher Erin Nes. I’ve been grateful to call Erin a friend, colleague, and client, and it’s with absolute admiration that I share her Sovereign story here.

How to Stand Sovereign When the Waves of Fear Crash Against Your Shores offers insight into how to use the archetypes of Sovereignty - the princess, the queen, and the wise woman - to stay strong and centered in the midst of the coronavirus panic.

Good Listens

Discover Your Sovereign Story: In this episode of the Soulfilled Sisterhood Podcast, Nicole Burgess and I dive deep into the meaning of Sovereignty, the origins of the Irish Sovereignty Goddess, and my own journey to writing The Sovereignty Knot.

How to Find a Sovereign Space Within Yourself: It was wonderful to return to Elizabeth Cush’s Woman Worriers Podcast to talk about the archetypes of Sovereignty and how standing Sovereign can help you access the Warrior within - even if you're still dealing with anxiety and other daily challenges.

Good Books

I HIGHLY recommend Anne Lamott’s 2018 book, Almost Everything. I missed it when it first came out. It's balm to the soul right now. 

Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business by Kindra Hall is a great addition to any entrepreneur's library. 

Mark Your Calendar

Coming up on Saturday, March 28 in at The Living Seed in New Paltz, NY: the very first Sovereignty Knot book event! I am super excited (and more than a little nervous) to be celebrating the book’s release with a short performance. The archetypes of Sovereignty want to come alive beyond the page! 

This is all of the upcoming book events are here on my new events page.

Join us

Last item in this Sovereign Standard: about a quarter of the seats in my spring online program, Stand in Your Sovereign Story have been claimed by creative entrepreneurs and transformation professionals who want to use the art of storytelling to build world-changing businesses. We begin April 14. Get the early-bird pricing now!

How to Stand Sovereign When Waves of Fear Crash Against Your Shores

Sovereign isn’t a synonym for solitary. It’s got nothing to do with isolationism. Though Sovereignty does have everything to do with independence, it has just as much to do with interdependence, too.  

This passage from my new book, The Sovereignty Knot, is my modern feminist answer to that old bit of poetry from John Donne:

No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

It feels particularly important to explore this dance between the personal and the collective as the world reacts not only to the actual spread of Coronavirus, but also to the fear of what might happen next.

We are all part of one another. We are all involved in this great continuum of life. To think that anyone is separate - either because they are so good, so terrible, or so inconsequential - is a dangerous illusion.

And yet, this understanding of our vital role in the collective does not diminish the powerful need to claim ourselves as individuals with our own inherent sense of worth. 

Though our society does not yet fully believe in and invest in the dignity of all people, that’s the ultimate goal. One of the reasons I get up every morning is because I am dedicated to creating a world in which every person and every story is allowed to matter.

The Dance of Independence and Interdependence in the Face of Contagion

Right now, as every newscast leads with headlines about the demise of stock markets and the closure of borders, we need to get clear on what Sovereignty really means.

We need to recognize that we play a vital part in the whole. And, we need to practice robust, focused self-awareness and self-care, all at the same time.

Yes, that means staying home if you’re sick, both to protect others from infection and to allow yourself to heal. 

And yes, that means refusing to lose yourself in the growing fear that will only worsen the situation.

It means practicing a mind-body-soul kind of Sovereignty in which you understand yourself to be part of the vast continent of humanity as well as a distinct individual with your own needs and your own sense of self.

Sovereignty In the Face of the Greatest Infection: Fear

I am not afraid of this virus. According to emerging accounts, many of us may have already been exposed to it and assumed it was just another seasonal flu. To be alive is to be at risk of death, and the risks associated with this particular illness are spectacularly small compared to the hype.

Edit: Ten days later, I see the inherent ableism in this comment.

I am breathing (with my healthy, fortunate lungs) into the discomfort. Instead of deleting it, I will say that I have learned a lot from those with suppressed immune systems and other underlying health concerns who are put in serious jeopardy by “just another seasonal flu” (that is statistically much more deadly).

I stand by the rest of this article. When it comes to my immediate family and myself, I am not afraid of the virus. That said, I am concerned about other relatives and, when I think about them in particular, “to be alive is to be at risk of death” feels too cavalier to be my heart’s truth.

Ok, back to the post as written on March 2.

What I am concerned about is the viral contagion of fear.

This kind of fear of the unknown, of the improbable but not impossible, seeps in and erodes your sense of peace and security.

This is the kind of fear that causes your sense of self to fall into the churning seas, regardless of whether you see yourself as a tiny island or as bit of shoreline. You feel ungrounded and lose your connection to the earth. You might find you become part of the tumult of collective disorientation.

This is the kind of fear that quickly shows you the strength (or lack of strength) of your Sovereign foundations.

Right now, it’s all too easy to lose track of your spiritual center, your creative vision, and your professional drive. You find yourself scrolling through social media, tripping from doomsday scenarios to “Don’t Worry Be Happy” memes.

In such an environment of collective worry verging on panic and utter discombobulation, we’re all at risk of losing track of our own intuition and our own sense of truth and self-trust. 

Sovereignty Is About Doing the Inner Work, But It’s Not About Doing It Alone

If you’ve come across my new book, The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic, you’ve met the three archetypes of Sovereignty: the princess, the queen, and the wise woman.

We all have these archetypes within us and we all have access to them, regardless of age. And in moments of societal stress, we need to be able to embody all three with greater ease and grace than ever before.  

Especially now, when so many people are so confused and don’t know what to do with their anxiety.

Especially now, when we aren’t quite sure our health system is prepared to handle an influx of sick people or whether our social fabric is strong enough to care for those who might suffer in all the disruption. 

Especially now, when women will be the ones who will end up offering care, either for the sick or for those in emotional pain. 

A Sovereign Remedy for this 2020 Dis-ease

If you’re new to my work, you may associate the word “sovereign” with nation states and politics. That’s the common usage today, but this multifaceted word glitters with many definitions associated with ancient myth and modern feminism.

There’s one particular dictionary definition of sovereign that’s obscure, but especially important here: the idea of having the “generalized curative powers” of a sovereign remedy. Once upon a time, peddlers sold nerve tonics and other herbal potions that promised to cure all ills. Certainly, there are laboratories around the world trying to mix up elixir that can eradicate this disease, but in the meantime, I have another solution:

Be your own sovereign remedy.

Look to the archetypes of Sovereignty and ask them to guide you as you respond to the the growing fear about the Coronavirus and what turmoil it may bring.

You may find you gravitate to one more than the others or that your particular situation calls you to stand in one energy more than others. I invite your to consciously step into relationship with all three. Embodying the princess, the queen, and the wise woman archetypes will help you not only withstand this moment in history but will enable you to stand as a lighthouse that shines over the waves.

Explore with your princess... Within all of us is a princess who is brave, optimistic, and brimming with vitality.

Rather than getting mired in the fear that shuts down the body and erodes your sense of connection, go out and play.

Put on a dress and go dancing. Grab your yoga mat and get to the studio. Be out in the world, refusing to be controlled by the monster that almost definitely does not lurk in the shadows.

(Edited to add: if the infection rate has increased so much that public gatherings just aren’t happening, put on that dress and dance in the new spring grass.)

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Follow your queen… Within all of us is a queen who is capable, responsible, and ready to manage any situation.

Rather than feeling helpless and paralyzed by your own concerns about what might happen if they really do close the schools and limit access to public spaces, make your plans.

Stock up on rice and beans and frozen kale. Make arrangements to work from home. Get real about how you will handle the financial hit that might come from this kind of widespread disruption.

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Listen to your wise woman… Within all of us is a wise woman who is still, insightful, and able to see the big picture.

Rather than feeling like the world is lost in some dystopian plot and deciding to turn your back on the world, remember your spiritual practices and your belief in a Greater Reality.

Get on your meditation cushion and say the mantras that make you feel centered. Kneel before your altar and send prayers to those who are on the front lines. Focus your healing energy on those who are besieged by the disease. Trust that your spiritual contribution to the collective energy field does make a difference.

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Learn How to Stand Sovereign In Your Life & Work

Want to know more about how to use these archetypes of Sovereignty to meet the challenges of everyday life?

If you’re a creative entrepreneur or a transformation professional who wants to know how to use the elements of Sovereignty to develop self-knowledge, share your message, and build your world-changing business, you belong in the Stand in Your Sovereign Story Program.

I Never Knew Writing My Story Could Heal This Hurt

Right now, I am looking back on the years of writing that went into The Sovereignty Knot because I'm talking with the Sovereign Writers Circle about the long process of writing, editing, and rewriting that goes into a book.

I’m going through years of files, looking at all the free writes and false starts. (This process of reviewing and revisiting is the perfect Mercury Retrograde activity, by the way.)

There were so many words needed to be written but did not need to be in the book. These were the stories I needed to heal.

And since it's the new moon and my body bleeds when the sky is dark, I find myself in that place of tender rawness, that place of being so empty and so full all at once. In this state, it is possible to open up and hold space for these old stories, this old pain. I can root my feet into the earth and turn my face to the sun and let my womb drain and let these old wounds matter until they too can dry and heal.

Yes, it’s the perfect day to fall into this web of “old words and old wounds.” Not to get stuck, but because it's important to visit the spaces within that have been healed. It's an inner galaxy that feels intimately true, but, at the same time, it’s as if all these pages were written some ancient ancestor.

The five year process of writing The Sovereignty Knot (which actually began as an attempt to write a trilogy of fantasy novels) changed me.

It changed me so much that the passage I’m about to share no longer describes my reality. And yet, the pain I described is still an important element of the story I’ve lived. I share this bit from my archives here to honor my own healing process and because I know there’s a woman out there who needs to hear them.

Someone needs to watch a sister write her way through the old pain because there is hope on the other side.

It’s hard to put an exact date on this writing, but I am guessing it’s from at least two years ago. Like I said, it feels like they came through in another lifetime, written by a version of me who yearned for Sovereignty, but who couldn’t quite believe Sovereignty was meant for her...

A Story that Cried Out for Healing

I left my body.

Not on my deathbed, the operating table, or even in a moment of horrific trauma. No, I left my body in a thousand little moments…

The first kiss that felt so icky and just seemed to go on forever. 

That time my dance teacher ordered me an extra large costume, and it hung off me so I felt like a baby elephant wearing her mother's skin while all the other tiny ballerinas looked like tropical birds.

The days I just had to ignore the searing pain in my cervical spine as I scooped up a toddler and just tried to keep moving despite the agony.

If I get back into my body, I might start screaming and never stop.

I might find a rage there that burns so bright I will burst into flames from the inside.

I might remember all the slobbering kisses, sour with beer and the lack of any actual human regard.

I might remember the scattering of times I put my finger down my own throat and how I almost envied the girls with the strength to do that again and again and again.

I might remember what it was to love so much and give so much and feel so depleted as I tried to fill little hands that always, always, always reached out for more.

Living in a body. Really living in a body. I don’t have any idea how.

But I used to be a dancer. And today, I danced around my office.

And I felt phenomenal. And nauseated. And like I was doing something I had denied myself for so, so long. 

And I want to be dancing right now, but I am also so grateful that I am trapped in a car waiting for my girls (who, of course, are at their own dance class) so that I can only write about dancing. I can ignore that there’s no good way to wedge a laptop between myself and the steering wheel if I want any freedom to type. I can think about having a body and all of the ways I left if so that I do not have to do the dangerous, deadly work of getting back inside this skin of mine.

Looking Back from the Other Side of a Healed Story

It’s easy to forget the sad old stories once they’ve been healed.

Now, I can look up from these old pages, held frozen in time on my hard drive, and I can see how much has shifted for me.

I can be deeply grateful for how much more free and powerful I feel than I did just a few years ago. I can marvel that getting back into my own body was gradual and gentle, not dangerous or deadly. I can see that this change wasn’t the result of forcing myself into an exercise routine, but by being honest about the stories I was telling about my own experience of being embodied.

So much was healed in the writing of The Sovereignty Knot. This happens whenever you give yourself the time, space, and permission to write something true. Birthing this book allowed me to truly become Sovereign in my own body and in my own life.

It’s important to note that I barely talk about “body stuff” in the book. It’s there on the edges as I talk about my reproductive story, mention my home birth, and remark that the whole idea of Body Sovereignty that deserves a book of its own. Instead, I dive deep into spirituality and grief and marriage. These are the parts of my life I had healed enough to explore in depth. The issues with body image and shame and chronic depletion… Those wounds only began to heal through the writing process and I am only just now able to speak about them on the public page and in the public gaze.

And I have proof.

At the end of book launch week, I was still dancing. I danced around my living room. I danced like I remembered all the steps and like I was completely at home in my skin. I danced and I posted it online because I needed my readers to see that Sovereignty is about being brave and delighting in music and movement that frees the soul. I needed to show the world that I was bringing my whole body into this process, and that was possible because I had spent so much time in my own head writing The Sovereignty Knot.

I didn’t know that I needed to write a book so I could dance again, but here on the other side, it seems perfect and inevitable. 

Finding your Sovereign Story has a way of healing the past and, yes freeing the princess, so that you can fully embody your magic.

Can I help you dive deep and tell your Sovereign Story?

Learn more about the new 8-week group program that will help you heal, discover, and share the story you must tell.

Want to continue the conversation? Join The Sovereignty Knot Readers’ Community where we’re exploring 40 Days of Sovereignty together.

Liminal Spaces For Celts and Creatives

The Celtic people speak of the thin places, the liminal spaces, the times and locations when the veil between the worlds is the most permeable.

This could mean the time around Samhain (what you might call Halloween). It could mean the area surrounding a sacred site, like a holy well, a stone circle, or a fairy tree. 

Over the last few months, I’ve come to understand a thin place as the time and space an author must occupy between when her book is deemed “complete” and when it is birthed into the world.

Finally, The Waiting Is (Almost) Over

The sun rose into a peach pearl of a morning and convinced the sky to try blue. The snowy ground stretched beneath the last glimmer of a crescent moon. Warm and snug by my bedroom window, I held The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic in my lap. 

I held my book in my lap. 

After a year and a half of writing and decades of dreaming, I was holding a book that has my title emblazoned on the cover, my name stretched up the spine, and my world imprinted upon each page.

Those years of writing and dreaming were long and hard, but, somehow, the three months of waiting to share this book with the world often felt longer and harder than anything that came before. 

For me, a lover of Celtic myth and Irish folklore, liminal spaces have always sound so alluring and mysterious. I’ve always wanted more chances to wander in the mist and hear the Otherworldly voices. It has been disappointing to realize that the liminal space between the creation and release of something as big and meaningful as a book is both fragile and clumsy. 

Waiting for that link to go live on Amazon (launch day is 2/4/20!) is at once too damn lonely and quiet and too bloody noisy with shoulds and doubts and fears.

How I Navigated the Post-Book Slump

Turns out, the post-book blahs are normal.

My mentor, the wise, seasoned writer Elizabeth Cunningham who has written many books, including The Maeve Chronicles (and also the foreword to The Sovereignty Knot) described this as the “postpartum period.” As she watched me wrestle with anxiety and depletion and the sense that I was endlessly called to do something even though I could barely get off the couch, Elizabeth offered me the exact guidance I needed:

Ask the book what she wants.

It took me a while to quiet the ego and release my need to control everything and take this advice, but when I did, I could breathe again. I could see again. I could trust myself again.

The book reminded me that I was tired. It was the hard earned kind of tired that you recover from with the help of long walks, long novels, and a long break from the screen. 

Ever so gently, the book also pointed out that I was scared of what might come next (or what might not come next) once it was out in the world.

And, the book reminded me that I needed to ask for support from forces that are much more powerful and enduring than a collection of printed pages. To get through the liminal space between the book’s private formation and public birth. I needed to rely on the forces that helped me write it all in the first place: 

My goddess guides. 

The trinity of Celtic goddesses who speak to me and through me are imprinted into every line, but you’ll really get to meet them when you get to Chapter 12 of The Sovereignty Knot. 

Telling their story is another step on my lifelong spiritual journey. Ever since I found the section of the bookstore that offered me Celtic spirituality and the secret of the sacred feminine, I have been seeking out these goddesses, begging them to come closer, and learning how to dance with them in the dark. 

More often than I have wanted to admit, however, I’d lose track of their divine presence. In the face of all that divine yearning, I couldn’t recognize that my goddess guides were always right there waiting to be noticed the moment I stopped fretting about why I didn’t feel divinely inspired.

To get through this weird period between “I wrote the last word!” and “Come buy a copy!” I needed, to quote my coach KC Carter, to “double down on the spiritual practice.”

I needed to get quiet, to listen closely, to open my heart wide. I needed to remember that I wasn’t supposed to get through this all by myself. I was never supposed to figure it out all by myself. I needed to talk to them.

Brigid, The Goddess of Liminal Spaces 

In my book, you’ll get to know Brigid, the Irish goddess turned saint who has been my guide since I was a fourteen year-old trying to get through my confirmation so I could finally escape the Catholic Church.

Though I have had a relationship with Brigid for more than half my life, I need to admit that I have long been afraid to fully enter into a relationship with her. Somehow, I was always waiting to be worthy of her, to feel chosen by her, to have her appear more fully in my life. 

(Maybe, foolishly, I thought Brigid needed me to publish a book before I was enough of an “expert” to get her attention. Hot Tip: Goddesses don’t operate that way, and no human being worth knowing operates that way either.)

She is the goddess guide who has been waiting in this particular liminal space with me, holding the torch that guides the way. All along, she has forgiven me for covering my eyes, for being unable to see her in my quest to hide from the unknown. Brigid trusted that I would eventually look up and stand tall when it was time to enter through the doorway into authorship.

“Brigid lived her life in the liminal space between Heaven and Earth. The Celts perceived liminal spaces as “thin places” where the supernatural world and the visible world could meet, allowing beings to pass back and forth from one to the other. Throughout Brigid’s life, she held a thin place within her own self. She was rooted in the practical everyday world, but she could also see the world of angels and spirits. Her life was lived on the threshold.”

— Kenneth McIntosh in Brigid’s Mantle: A Celtic Dialogue Between Pagan and Christian

Now that I can hear her and feel her presence in my life again, I can trust that she is guiding me and she is guiding this book into the world. 

It’s no accident, of course. I deliberately chose the book’s release date to coincide with the energy of Brigid’s Day, of the Imbolc festival and her saint’s day, that happen over February 1 and 2.

Over the next couple of weeks as the book launch week (February 4 - 8) approaches, you’ll hear a lot more from me about Brigid, about why this goddess of fire and water, of poetry and family, of smithcraft and even beer is a guide for Sovereignty seekers like us. 

We need her to help us navigate these liminal spaces as creatives, as caregivers, as beings who need more self-care. 

And, considering I am an American who calls her energy to me all the way across a vast ocean, I think there’s something to say about how she can help us as we navigate these liminal spaces as a country and a global community, too.

Be sure to follow me on Facebook to dive deep into Brigid’s magic.

To get email updates about the book and all the Brigid material, visit this page and leave me your address.

A Wise Woman's 2020

A Visit to the Wise Woman’s Dwelling…

This offering is inspired by my upcoming book, The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic.

I am also grateful to Maya Luna and Sarah Robinson whose end-of-year reflections offered me so much to consider and integrate.

How to use this meditation & the accompanying prompts

First, listen to the meditation that will open you to receive all three gifts from your Wise Woman self: the gift of desire, the gift of support, and the gift of a plan.

Then, try the writing prompts to dive deeper into everything you saw and all that you hope to manifest in 2020.

Writing Prompts

The Gift of Desire

What do you desire in 2020?

Oh desire is a powerful, tricky, heavy word. There are so many ways to frame - and to feel - desire. Today, we’re not going to be able to crack the code of desire - it’s so contradictory and complex.

You may not necessarily feel ready to complete a list of the three things you most desire in life or even in 2020. Release the need for such certainty.

But when you go back to the meditation and consider what you found inside that box in the wise woman’s dwelling, there’s a good chance you will feel more comfortable wandering in the spectrum of desire. You don’t need to be certain. You just need to begin.

• First, what do you know about your story of desire?

• Describe what you saw in that box. It doesn’t need to be the perfect answer. It just needs to be the beginning of an answer that you will live into throughout this new year and beyond.

• What showed up for you when the Wise Woman gave you the gift of desire?

• How can you set the table for that which you want to make manifest in the year to come? Consider your desire from the perspective of the feminine rather than the masculine. How can you be as welcoming as the wise woman’s little cottage and call in that which you desire? How can you be with your desires, not in the energy of pursuit but with the spirit of sacred, safe surrender?

The Gift of Support

• What tools do you have? Make a list of your assets including but not limited to your personal abilities, connections with others, material assets, and spiritual and physical practices.

• What tools do you need? Be honest with what’s lacking… and be even more honest about what kind of support you need in 2020 to make up for any perceived deficits. 

The Gift of a Plan 

The gift you received in the wise woman’s dwelling is a real one, but it’s not something you can use until you put it on paper. First, just write into what you saw when you opened that box…

Now, begin to break it down…

1. Sketch out what you know is coming in 2020. What big events, both personal and professional, are part of your year? What big offerings do you know belong on the calendar. Break your year into months or seasons  and fill it in accordingly.

2. List out the things that you want to do/hope to do/imagine you might do. Dream big here, but also keep in mind whatever message came through in the wise woman’s gift… Your goal is to craft a plan that is both magical and practical. Check in with what you know of your own desires as you go.

3. Explore the “how” of these dreams with particular attention focused on what you understand of the gift of desire and support, and also based on the 2020 calendar.

4. Set a date. This is only the beginning of formulating a plan… Come back to this in a few days (perhaps Thursday, 1/2 and Monday, 1/6 would be good days to set aside 30 minutes to keep working the plan?).

5. Plan the micro. We close our session with a specific focus on your daily and weekly writing practice…. What will you commit to in the first quarter of 2020: how often will you sit down to meet yourself on the page? 

What’s Next?

I pray that you have a year that is marked by freedom, empowerment, love, and magic.

Want to talk more about how you can make writing and the Wise Woman’s Way part of your new year? Let’s set up a quick chat about how I can support your creative journey.

This meditation is part of a 90-minute coaching session I led for the Sovereign Writers Circle.

We’re currently welcoming new members!

You have until 1/7/20 to apply to be a member of the online community for healers who write and writers who heal.

Blessings from a Goddess in Peach

I don't remember this goddess or why I needed to paint her.

About seven years ago, she was birthed onto a toothy paper page in a blaze of acrylic glory. I cannot guess what season brought her to life, but regardless of whether it was sweltering or frigid, it would have felt like a more painful and more peaceful time.

I was a new mother who stayed up long after bedtime, finding a remedy for grief and loneliness and confusion in the mixing of colors and the creation of icons, heroines, and guardians. 

My world felt rough and narrow and impossibly sweet. Those were the days when I was mourning my mom’s death, figuring out how to build a business, and learning how to raise up a little girl.

And yet, when I look back, it seems like a simpler time.

Way back in 2012, politicians seemed sane, cultural divisions seemed manageable, and the environmental catastrophe seemed far off and avoidable. (Of course, “seemed” is the operative word since our society, our democracy, and our infrastructure was built on foundations that would prove to be all too vulnerable and flawed, but such is the nature of innocence before its inevitable collision with reality.)

The Goddess Chooses Her Time

As our world was changing, our family was growing, and I was awakening to new realities and healing old hurts, this mysterious goddess was there waiting in the darkness.

She was waiting to be needed, waiting to be found.

That little baby of mine is ten years old now. Yesterday, she spent her snow day making holiday gifts for her circle of best friends, so I pulled my abandoned craft bag from the basement in search of some special art supplies.

And there she was, a dark-skinned, green-eyed creation tucked amidst the carefully hoarded paint tubes and ink pads that had long since dried up.

My girls weren’t nearly as awe-struck as I was, and they were rather disappointed that the paint was useless, but what can you expect from children who haven’t yet learned what it’s like not to make art daily?

This goddess didn’t appear for these children who are insulated from the headlines and free of all the economic, existential, civic worry that comes with being an adult in America today.

In the middle of this darkest week of the year, wrapped in a cloak of yellow-orange beneath a kaleidoscope sky, this goddess appeared for me.

She appears for all of us grown-ups who watch the news and feel more and more devastated each day. She’s here for all of us who barely have time to throw on a jacket before heading into a world that often feels unjust, uncertain, and just plain cruel.

She appears for all of us who know that the first day of winter is just a few days away but who know we’ve been in a long, cold political winter for years now.

Where Will You Find Your Light In the Darkness?

The painting is propped against my computer monitor now.

For a while, I tried to figure out who she was supposed to be and what I needed from her all those years ago. I wondered if she answered those now-forgotten prayers of mine, but then I realized…

I uncovered a goddess in peach colored robes the day before the House impeachment vote.

I realize that I just might have painted her all those years ago because I would need a source of light on this unimaginable day when abuse of power is real, lies are currency, and the American dream has worn pitifully thin..

For now, I’m calling her Lady Peach, and this is what I’ve figured out so far…

She speaks to every activist who is exhausted by their work for voting rights, for reproductive rights, for LGBTQ rights, and on behalf of the children in cages and knows that every victory takes them only an inch closer to the end of the marathon.

She speaks to every creative who worries that their words and brush strokes are not enough in a world that’s broken and burning.

She speaks to all of us who want to keep making love, making art, and believing in magic but who want to heal the brutal realities we live in, too.

She whispers to all of us that there is light in the darkness, and that even when we forget, she’ll keep shining and waiting.

Lady Peach Offers Her Blessings

Happy Solstice, beloveds. Here’s to another run around the sun and to the one thing we can always count on: the return of the light.

And here’s to strength in the face of all the bullshit and the bluster coming out of Washington. Here’s to all the courage and patriotism, too.

Here’s to hope and here’s to the vote and here’s to a belief that we’ll rise from the ashes of all this with more clarity and compassion and a whole lot less of the white supremacist patriarchal control.

---

The #7MagicWords Challenge returns 1/7/20!

Things may look bleak as all hell right now (because even if we’ve been fighting to get this guy out of office from day one, we never, ever wanted to be in this mess in the first place), but I have some medicine for that…

#7MagicWords is the the free online challenge that inspires your creativity and invites you to uncover the power of your words. It just might inspire your activism too…

Rest, Heal, Rearrange

My well - of energy, of words, of vision - has been running dry for weeks. I've tried to fake it, and from time to time, I pulled it off. Inside, I have been feeling parched, barren, and exhausted.⁣

This week, I started over.⁣⁣

I've been living in the in-between place that comes after a great big project is completed and before the next push really begins. It's a hard place to be, all full of self-recrimination about how I "should" be planning more, earning more, speaking more. ⁣⁣

Ultimately, I knew I needed this trough after the huge wave of energy and creativity that was the final sprint to finish my book, but it was hard to settle into that truth. I'm too well programmed to equate the push with success. I'm too accustomed to beating myself up for being lazy and playing small.⁣

I finally got the physical and spiritual support I needed to figure out why I've been feeling so drained and depressed. (Thank you, Eleanora Amendolara of the Sacred Center Mystery School for your healing wisdom! Thank you for seeing that the problem was my thyroid and my adrenals as well as a struggle to step through the portal into a new phase of spiritual expansion.)⁣

With that wisdom (and some powerful herbs and nutritional supplements), I gave myself permission to stay quiet for a few more days. I watched those phenomenally impressive Americans speak truth to Congress. I read ⁣Meggan Watterson’s book about Mary Magdalene and reconnected with one of the most powerful spiritual foremothers. ⁣

And then, I started moving all the furniture around.⁣

I needed my space to reflect that my spiritual furniture has been completely rearranged by the writing of The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman's Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic. I needed this room where I do my work to look like an author's study rather than a mompreneur's cluttered office. ⁣

It's still in process, but there's a new flow to this space. This room feels like it wants to hold the mystery, the growth, and the new connections I'll be making in this next phase of personal, professional, creative, spiritual becoming.⁣⁣

Where are you right now?

Are you riding the wave, doing the work, and making it happen?
Are you sliding down into the doldrums because you need to give into gravity for a little while?
Are you struggling, thinking you should be riding or resting in a different way?
Are you ready to rearrange the furniture on the inside and do the healing work?
Are you ready to rearrange the furniture in the office because you're ready for a new phase?⁣

Wherever you are, I invite you to pause, to look around, and to take some notes. Capture this moment on the page so you know what it's like to feel wildly free or in gentle recovery or in the dark place in between.⁣

And if you need help along the way as you try to sort out just where you are and what to do next, call on me. ⁣

Book a Tarot & Intuitive Healing Session or join The Sovereign Writers Circle.

⁣

On Book Writing, Tarot Reading, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Ten years ago, I gave birth to a daughter. Now, on another gold-blue October day a decade later, I am in the midst of another long labor. This time, I am birthing a book. 

The book isn’t here yet - the release date for The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic is set for February, 2020 - but today is the day I must say, “It’s done.” I’m going over the proofreader’s changes and, in just a few hours, I will declare an end to years of writing, rewriting, editing, and polishing. No more additions or subtractions. These two hundred pages of prose must tell the entire story. (Until the next book!)

I feel both empty and full. All emptied by exhaustion and filled by hope. Such a combination of love and depletion has a way of making you feel so heavy and so flimsy at the same time - especially when you realize you have so much more to give.

There is still much to do (both as a mom and writer!), but now that the latest big project is complete, I am left to wonder: where my mind is meant to wander?

This is my moment to breathe before I dive into the book promotion and marketing, which will be its own tremendous emotional and creative undertaking. This is also my moment to contemplate motherhood before I need to prep the gifts, the cupcakes, and the candles.

And so, I give myself permission to do exactly what I invite my Sovereign Writers to do when I see myself at a creative and emotional crossroads.

I sit down to write.

The Writing Coach Gets Writer’s Block, Too

But where do I begin now that the project that has occupied my attention for so long is finally finished? What requires or deserves my attention?

Should I try to recapture the emotions of the day I birthed my first growing girl? Is it important to review the decade that stretches back to that stunning moment of her arrival? Should I fill a page with tales of my daughter’s power and potential, weaving prayers that her courage will blaze more brightly than her fear and that her sense of Sovereignty with outmatch the bastards who will inevitably try to get her down?

Or, can I just watch the falling leaves litter the page and savor the sweetness as a ladybug alights on my moving pen? Can I just let the day mother me as I trust that my creations, both human and literary, can make their way through this day without my worry nor intervention? 

Can I just be in this moment, tired and proud, overflowing with gratitude and apprehension? Can I put aside my worries for just a little while and meet myself on the page during this perfect October afternoon? 

The Medicine I Take When the Words Won’t Flow

And this is when I realize that, even though I know writing is the best medicine, sometimes it requires a big old spoonful of sugar first.

You need to get centered and refocus your inner vision before you can just dive in and meet yourself on a blank page.

When this happens to me, I do something that I’ve been doing since long before I became a mother or an author… I look to the cards. 

This might be my first child’s tenth birthday, but it’s almost my tarot deck’s twentieth. In 1999, I was an American college student living in Galway, Ireland. On Samhain - that’s probably “Halloween” to you - I bought Caitlin Matthew’s Celtic Wisdom Tarot at the Hawkins House Bookshop. I’ve called on these cards for guidance and assurance ever since.

I never cease to be surprised and gratified by the messages that come through when I take the time to consult the cards. (And I never stop saying, “You can’t make this shit up!”) As I saw the cards arrayed before me on this particular autumn afternoon, part of me sighed “of course” and part of me gasped “thank you.”

The cards that come up for my daughter and my book offered layers of blessings and hope. The card that represents me showed me how much I am struggling to accept all the goodness and all the possibility being lavished upon us right now.

Inside My “What Needs My Attention Now?” Tarot Reading

I came to the cards knowing that I both my daughter’s milestone birthday and the birthing of my book were competing for my attention. I also knew that I was confused about how to hold myself in the midst of all this creative magic.

Though I didn’t know what to write about in my journal, I knew just what to do with the cards. Intuitively, I laid two cards for my daughter, and two cards for my book. I placed one card for myself at the center.

Of course, the first card to represent my daughter is a 10. The 10 of Art (the suit of Cups in a more traditional deck) is a sign of joy, harmony with the earth, and lasting happiness. The other card is the 1 of Knowledge (the Ace of Pentacles), which indicates Sovereignty and “the touchstone of self-realization.” It’s a perfect way to describe her own next decade, the one in which she will begin to make her own choices and learn how to work with the princess within so she can crown herself queen of her own life.

As for my book, the first card is The Fool. In the Celtic Wisdom deck, it’s called The Soul. The wide-open wanderer is just starting out on the great quest. This card is followed by the 1 of Skill (or the Ace of Wands) and is another potent symbol of beginnings, enterprise, and creative initiatives. I know I am meant to understand that the publication of this book is just the start of the adventure.

Finally, there is the card that represents me at the center of my two most vivid concerns, motherhood and authorship.

The 6 of Art (again, that’s the suit of Cups) is the only card that is out of sync with all these 10s, 1s, and 0s. It depicts a student poet in one of Ireland’s ancient bardic academies lying with eyes closed in “the house of memory.” This is where the storytellers would go to compose poetry and commit to memory the great sagas that preserved and connected the culture.

I smile because I am a storyteller and I love this card. It is the only card in the spread that is reversed, however. When a card is upside down, I understand that to mean that its energy is available to me, but it’s blocked or impeded in some way. I want to be the bard, but I’ve been so caught up in wanting it that I couldn’t see that I already am.

Finding a Way to the Page

Seeing my own story re-told before me through a series of symbols and myths loosened my grip on “can I? and “should I?” and released me from all that self-imposed stress. I was able to soak up the sunlight and simply be with the big moments that are ten years of motherhood and the birthing of a book.

Thanks to the cards, I was able to get to the page to tell this story, a story that matters to me as a mom and an author who wants to recall this important moment of becoming. I was able to perform what I call the Alchemy of Story and take my own wonder, worry, and experience and use it to tell a story that just might help a reader like you.

There are so many ways to access the stories within you. I have a feeling that the cards can help you as they’ve helped me.

Whether you’re a writer hoping to get clarity on your next creative project of your simply someone who finds herself asking “what needs my attention now?” I would love to share the cards with you.

Learn more about how a Tarot and Intuitive Healing Session can help you live and tell a more powerful story. (Book a session by October 31 and save $50!)

Insights for Healers Who Write and for Writers Who Heal

When you do something seventeen times, you start to know what to expect. When your work is creative, intuitive, and interactive, you know it’s not going to be just like the last time, but you trust the rhythm.

But still, even after leading seventeen writing coaching and story healing sessions in the Sovereign Writers Circle over the last year and a half, I always get butterflies before we begin.

Our group sessions are a totally unscripted ninety minutes, but I know the nerves don’t come from lack of preparation.

By nature, I thrive on improvisation. I’ve spent years  all offering healing to writers and writing for healers, so I trust I can hold the space and respond to the questions that come up. Plus, getting to spend time with my closest circle of clients is always a highlight of my week.

I feel all the feelings in my belly because I’m anticipating how I’m going to be surprised. My only fear is that we won’t stretch in a totally new direction during our hour and a half together.

But something magical and unexpected always happens. Every. Blessed. Time.

How Do Support Someone Else’s Creativity? How Do You Support Your Own?

Last week’s Sovereign Writers Circle writing coaching and story session was special from the very beginning.

We started with a question about how to support someone else’s creative process. (This isn’t necessarily shocking in a group of healers, coaches, and therapists, of course. It’s such a valuable question for all creatives to ask.)

One member’s partner was thinking about writing a book. Because this particular individual is a psychotherapist who is brilliant at framing at questions, she didn’t ask “how should I help them?”

Instead, she asked her sisters in the group: “what kind of support do you need to make your own creative intentions a reality?”

What helps you consistently show up to the page, the canvas, or the crafting table? (Yes, we’re a writing group, but this is a multi-passionate collection of transformation professionals who express their creative energy in many ways.)

Damn, that was a good question. And it was all the richer because I, the group facilitator, didn’t ask it.

Free and fresh to the idea, we explored the fragile nature of our creative lives.

As I look back, the entire conversation was about how to build resilience and commitment into the creative process. (Quick answer: consciously plan out and protect your creative time, but practice compassion when you cannot make it happen.)

When One Voice Articulates the Collective Wisdom

Another member of our circle, Dawn, was unusually quiet, but I could see she was deeply engaged and taking notes. I asked her where she was wandering as we spoke. It turns out she was outlining her own creative process of a Sovereign Writer.

And it was perfect.

As Dawn described it, she was pulling together the group’s answers to: “what do you need and want when it comes to how to support your creativity?”

This is what healer who writes and a writer who heals needs to know

It was veritable symphony of influences crafted by countless creative beings. Her own lived experience. The wisdom of the collective. A few phrases that I know I have offered from time to time in my coaching and teaching. The practical knowledge that comes from years of writing, exploring, making, and sharing.

The Sovereign Writer’s Creative Process

1) Get clear on the why of your writing

Ask yourself: “Why am I writing or doing whatever creative thing I am doing? What does it do for me?”

Here are three powerful reasons to pick up the pen

• To heal

• To explore who I was, who I am now, and who I hope to be

• To share with a wider audience at some point

When you know what motivates and inspires your writing, you move on to the next essential question…

2) Decide what you actually want to write

Follow Dawn’s lead and ask yourself, “What form does my creativity want to take? Does it want to be a bit of poetry or a story? It might be that I am going back to the writing I started with one of our prompts from last week or starting something new. ”

I’d add that other Sovereign writers are also deciding between blog posts, website copy, and book chapters.

3) Once clear on the why and the what, set small, simple goals for yourself each week

Again, credit to the SWC’s Dawn: “I tend to overwhelm myself and nothing gets done, so I set something doable, like come back to the writing I started during our last writing practice call.”

You don’t add “write a book” to your to do list. You don’t add “create content every week” either. Instead, you set initial goals related to simply sitting down and meeting yourself on the page.

4) Plan tomorrow’s writing time the night before

“I try look at the next day and find the pockets of time I do have to write. I make a list of the creative projects I have and decide what I would like to make progress on and where I can plug those in.”

This is so important… It can be hard to stick to daily writing dates at the same time each day, especially when you’re an entrepreneur who wants to be available for client sessions. Instead, look for white space on your calendar and fill in your creative time twenty-four hours before.

And then, thought she didn’t say this in these exact words, she offered us a fifth element that’s really the most important…

5) Practice permission and forgiveness

“I’d like to be making greater progress,” Dawn said, “but what if I just write a paragraph this week and that’s good enough right now?”

If you want to write a book or blog regularly, a consistent one paragraph-a-week habit isn’t going to work for you, but if it happens now and again all you can do is forgive yourself and give yourself permission to try again next week.

And there’s one more element that came through as she credited the group for helping her come up with this list...

6) Stay connected to community

“It was through everyone’s sharing that I was able to map that out for myself. It’s so beautiful because we all created this together. It feels like we’re all at the same place together, not just with our writing, but with our creativity. How do we support ourselves and the people we love and each other in our creativity. As each one of you spoke you were like a voice inside of me…”

We’re welcoming new members to the Sovereign Writers Circle through the first week of June.

Writing Prompts for Creative Warriors

Every Wednesday at noon ET the members of the Sovereign Writers Circle gather to write. There’s something magical that happens when you sit down to the silence of a blank page while knowing you’re supported by a community of like-minded, like-hearted creative from around the country.

We come together to write into the two fresh writing prompts I create for the group each week. They’re designed to get everyone to go deep on a personal level and also potentially develop professional content too.

Just about all of the Sovereign Writers Circle members are “transformation professionals” - therapists, coaches, healers, teachers. They know that diving deep and really understanding and healing their own stories helps them become stronger healers themselves. And the stuff they write in our group can become the blog posts, course material, and book chapters that really build their vision, brand, and business.

Here’s a special sneak peek into this week’s Sovereign Writers Circle prompts!

Writing Practice 19, May 22

Prompt 1: Carry On, Warrior

There are two ways to carry a sword. You can hold it before you, ready to fight and defend. Or, you can strap it to your back, lining it up against your spine to remember to stand tall and stay firm.

When we look at the sword this way, we realize that we all have the option to be warriors. Even when we know ourselves to be pacificists, even when experience shows us we tend to run away from a fight.

Write into your relationship with being a warrior, to showing up for battle, to learning how to handle a sword.

Prompt 2: It Wasn’t Supposed To Go Down That Way

Sometimes, endings just don’t satisfy. The relationship that just dissolves. The vacation that never takes you somewhere new. The book or television series that just ends in “meh” or “how dare they???” Sometimes you end up feeling hollow after such dissatisfying conclusions. And sometimes you feel angry.

Write into the feelings around an ending that didn’t go the way you wanted or that didn’t leave you feeling fulfilled. And if you need to explore your feelings around the finale of Game of Thrones, permission granted.

I’d love to know what came up for you in these prompts. Please tell me about your warrior story and your thoughts about unsatisfying endings in the comment.

Learn more about the Sovereign Writers Circle Summer of Session.

We’re welcoming new writers to join us for June, July, and August when we most need the community, accountability, and structure to stay committed to the writing and the creative process.

Sovereignty In the Midst of the Chaos

I have been up since 4:15 am.

It wasn't because I've set an ambitious writing schedule or that I'm into sunrise meditation. No, I was escorting a five year old to the potty and then sharing my pillow with her. As is so often the way these day, she woke up with "a scary dream." And - happy spring - there's no chance she'll fall sleep once she hears the first bird announce the dawn.

And so here I am, utterly exhausted on another Monday. The details of my sleep deprivation story only differ only slightly from any other I've told over the last decade of motherhood.

But here's what's different: I am waking up today to tell a story of sovereignty.

In the past, my Monday story has often been about pushing through the exhaustion to be a nice enough mom, turn in decent work for clients, and try to serve something other than frozen pizza for dinner.

But this Monday, I realized I can do it differently. My responsibilities as a mama, partner, and entrepreneur look fairly similar from the outside, but there's a shift in me.

It's a shift toward stillness, toward sitting with what is rather than the way it "should be." In part, that's because I've developed a daily meditation habit (just not at sunrise!). In part, it's because I have spent enough time reading and writing about sovereignty that I have actually made it part of my life and way of being.

To be sovereign is to acknowledge reality with all of its disruptions and injustice, with all of its loss and inconsistencies, and to still remain rooted in who you are.

To be sovereign is to be able to respond to the day, not matter when it starts.

When you embody your own sovereignty you're going to have a very different experience than when you're in reactivity mode, lost in the details and tossed about by the craziness around you.

Today, I look like someone's tired mom, a weary woman making extra coffee and snarling about the noise and making it quite clear her patience is at a premium.

But I am also know myself to be the quiet, confident ruler of my own life who can find herself on the other side of a short, frustrating night. I know myself to be sovereign in this reality of mine, despite the chaos.

Because of the chaos.

What about you? What threw you off your rhythm last night and today? What practices help you root back into your own power and presence?

Perhaps you'd like to get to know your own sovereign self a bit better so you can handle the next round of chaos that life will inevitably throw your way. Join us for Your Sovereign Awakening, the program that inspires you to awaken your own magic, your own self-worth, and your own power.

We begin on Monday, May 13. Get the details here: 

Forget Your Deadlines, We're On Sovereign Time

Time.

It is what it is, right? Relentless and uncaring. Immutable and inevitable.

We can lose ourselves in time travel fantasies. (Who else is an Outlander fan?)

We can agree that time flies when you’re having fun and that it crawls when you’re stuck with a task that you dislike. 

But really, we just have twenty four hours in a day and the calendar pages will constantly flip and we’ll all be another year older when May 2 comes around once again.

And yet… Is this all there is? Could there be an alternative? What if we didn’t need to buy into the relentless progression of time and those killer deadlines we live (and die) by?

Our Life-and-Death (Mis)Understanding of Time

Funny that we’ve all signed on to honor our deadlines - especially since none of us were soldiers in the American Civil War.

What was a deadline exactly?  “A line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.”

The folks at Merriam Webster are certain of the 19th century bloody origins of “deadline,” but they’re pretty vague about how, over the next one hundred years, we collectively agreed that this term was about time management rather than inmate management. The dictionary doesn't say much about why we went on to co-opt this dire word to describe all sorts of mundane tasks either.

But then it makes perfect sense that “deadline” emerges from the language of war. We’re constantly in a battle with time, right?

Let's End Our Punishing Relationship With Time

Presumably, the men in those prison camps who were hellbent on survival would do everything they could to distance themselves from that line in the turf, but here we are, planning our lives around deadlines every damn day.  

Honestly, what is up with that?

There really is another way.

I recently rediscovered a French philosopher I studied in grad school named Julia Kristeva. She coined the term “Women’s Time.” It's a powerful, viable alternative to the relentless linear nature of time that rules our culture has completely capture my attention. In Kristeva's essay, Women's Time is about syncing ourselves to the cycles of nature and the sweep of eternity. 

I agree. And, for me, I take Women's Time further into being about creativity, flexibility, and giving ourselves permission to grow and connect in a way that's nurturing, not punishing. I want time to be about the moments we spend living, not a countdown for dying.

Let’s think about what it means to move according to Sovereign Time

These ideas are magical. And they're tricky too. We still want to live and serve in the real world, we still want to make commitments that count and be there to support those who need us. And yet we want the freedom to breathe and dream and let things unfold naturally. 

I'm dancing with all this. I'm weaving the contradictions into my book-in-progress, The Sovereignty Knot, every time I sit down to write.

And - here's what's even more exciting right now: these ideas about Women's Time and Sovereign Time are already influencing the way that I work, coach, and teach.

Last month, I conceived and launched a brand new program based on my forthcoming book. I did it in record time because it just seemed right. (At the time.)

But then I realized that my rush to plan and promote and launch wasn’t necessarily divinely inspired. Instead, it was inspired by the stuff of deadlines and chronic overcommitment.

The good news? I didn’t need to cancel the whole thing and call it a huge, embarrassing mistake. Instead, I just needed to pause and breathe and give the project and the people who are excited to join it a little bit of space.

I’ve given us all the gift of time. I’ve pushed the start date for Your Sovereign Awakening back to May 13.

Why did I make the change? Because Women's Time. Because Sovereign Time. Because the "deadline" I set was too tight both for me and for the women who needed to work out childcare and move evening meetings to be there. Because we don't have to always live and die according the calendar. Because it's ok to be vulnerable and admit the initial timing wasn't right.

You Still Have Time to Join Your Sovereign Awakening

The program empowers you to free the princess, crown the queen, embrace the wise woman, and establish a totally new relationship with time. We'll meet on five Monday evenings from 7 - 9 PM beginning May 13. 

Can you shape your time and your schedule and be there with us?