The Energy Vampires that Cross Your Digital Threshold on Cyber Monday

It’s a dangerous day in the inbox today.

The exclamation points convey urgency. The percent signs declare less is more. The barrage of messages designed to wear down our defenses and compel us to click “open.” 

It’s Cyber Monday in America (and everywhere in the world that is touched by our particular form of commodified culture), and my heart and mind feel battered. 

(Tomorrow, when the emails from a hundred different nonprofits start to roll in and you have to decide what charity is most worthy and what cause is most heartbreaking, it’s almost worse. But only almost. Let’s all give generously.)

Of course, I am complicit in all this. Those emails that keep piling up? I have done business with these brands or at least traded my email address for the chance of saving 10% off my first order.

If these corporations are energy vampires that feed off human need and the raw materials of the earth, I definitely welcomed the monsters across my threshold.

Full disclosure: I am a twenty-first century mom drowning in stuff, and I have definitely already taken advantage of those crazy good holiday sales.

And, of course, I myself run a corporation, though I like to imagine that the president of Marisa Goudy Inc. does business differently than the big guys who so famously put profit above people, passion, and the planet.

Yep. I am all of these things. And I just got distracted by an ad for a 25% off everything at Organic India (their tulsi teas fuel every afternoon writing session I ever have). I am a product of the consumer culture, and I find it damnably uncomfortable, even as I hold my breath and dive in for more.

This is all to say that I don’t really have an answer for this modern Monday dilemma.

Unsubscribing from those “fast fashion” brands that sell $8 leggings you’re going to hate in three months is certainly a good place to start. Clothing may not be classified as “durable goods,” but jeans are not meant to be disposable either.

Deciding that you’ll buy less stuff but be sure it’s well made and exploits neither workers or the environment is important, too. (But it’s also bloody hard. I was feeling good about my LLBean purchases and then started researching for this post… They don’t even begin to measure up according to Good On You’s scale that rates clothing companies based on their treatment of the earth, people, and animals.) 

What if the only solution for our consumer based present is to fix our attention on the past and the future?

I know, I know. This moment is a gift and that is why we call it the present. Blah, blah, blah. We are most likely to find happiness when we ground into our lives and bloom where we are planted, right in this instant. 

Even in our consumerism drenched modern lives, there are countless ways to exist (and thrive) for long stretches without getting swallowed whole by the big box stores and the online retail monsters. Libraries and public parks still exist, after all. Handmade ornaments and heartfelt poetry can make the perfect gift.  (During the course of writing this piece, my sister and I texted and agreed to send love and school pictures of our kids rather than trade gift certificates across the country.)

I realize one of the many reasons I am drawn to ancient mythology, especially stories of Ireland and the Celtic world, is the way their stories are so devoid of stuff. Oh sure, there was greed. There was wealth (often counted in cows). There was social stratification and even slavery. But heroes and goddesses weren’t motivated by the door buster holiday deals. They were connected to something more real that just about always had something to do with the health of the land, the survival of the body, and the journey of the spirit.

Of course, the flip side of having everything delivered to the front porch (the mail carrier just dropped three more boxes) was that hunger was always knocking at the door.

When you dare to look through the mists and get past the romanticism, you quickly realize that the past offers no shelter from struggle and strife. We wouldn’t want to wish ourselves back to some halcyon “simpler” time, even if we could. (And seriously: twenty-first century dental care is just worth the headaches of credit scores and insurance payments.)

But, what we can do is look to those old stories with their timeless struggles, weird plotlines, and wildly contemporary themes, and plot a new future in light of that past wisdom.

I cannot imagine a post-capitalist world. I am built into the walls of this master’s house and I will need to follow the lead of some brave, revolutionary thinkers to get free and find a new way. 

In the meantime, what I can do is track the myths, draw the connections, and share the old lore in hopes that it will inspire the revolutionary nature of my audience. 

This mad modern excess… It's a heady drug. And it’s gonna leave us with one hell of a hangover.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy some tea and brew another cup as I think about how I just keep turning the wheel of commerce and sit down to adapt a new story for the KnotWork Podcast. The Cailleach (the wise woman of the Celtic tradition) surely has a great deal to teach us about living close to the land, not close to your Amazon delivery hub.

Mythology, Violence, and Why I Can’t Stop Thinking About The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Horror is not for me.

The books and movies of the genre, the grown up haunted houses, and the Halloween “decorations” featuring everyone’s favorite axe murderer. No, thank you. Or really, just: NO.

Once we roll into November, my younger daughter and I take note of every household that has taken down their spooky-gross yard displays and breathe a sigh of grateful relief.

I know we need to plumb the mysteries of the darkness and even honor the sacredness of fear, but I would tell you that I don’t want it packaged up in someone else’s commercialized gory nightmare fantasy. Ever. 

The Movie You Never Knew You Never Wanted to See

This weekend, tired and deep in the ebb of energy that comes with a woman’s flow (a regular, natural event that popular culture frames as a kind of horror show), I found myself too weary to read, so I started movie hunting.

You know that strange slide that begins with half-remembering you wanted to see something and then finding it on the one streaming service you don’t subscribe to? That’s when you start following the algorithm’s recommendations, and things start to get weird. Welcome to modern life. I skipped and jumped until I think I fell down a Colin Farrell shaped rabbit hole.

Because Netflix told me to (now there’s a first line of a horror tale!) I started watching The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I had never heard of this film and I had no idea what I was in for, but how bad could it be? Nicole Kidman was in it, and she rarely leads us astray.

I studied a lot of drama, once upon a time, but I was inspired by a love of literature, not necessarily a love of theater. I had endured a lot of weird plays and was resigned to the fact that I would never be the type of person who actually enjoys or understands the modern stage. (I was raised on Guys and Dolls and My Fair Lady… I am no longer embarrassed to admit that it’s a rare play that works without singing and dancing.)

All of this is to say that I could immediately understand that the director Yorgos Lanthimos was going for something with the strange stilted dialogue that ran between the absurdly mundane and the insanely intimate. I could deal with the “oh, so this is ART” and vaguely remember what it was like to watch foreign films at the little cinema on Cape Cod with my mom when I was home in the summer during college. I could stop looking over at the Dwayne Johnson/Ryan Reynolds flick my husband was watching on his iPad and keep my eyes on my own bizarre “entertainment.”

I could. But that didn’t mean it was any fun at all.

When We Don’t Have the Luxury of Distance and Fantasy

Watching this movie reminded me of something important (besides remembering that “entertainment” doesn’t exist just to massage our pleasure points):

It’s a lot easier to watch horrible things happen if we can create distance between us and the story. 

When we wrap the story in mythic elements, call in the costume department, and have everyone enact the drama on a windswept moor or a primeval forest, we can imagine the darkest parts of human nature lurk only in a faraway land in a near forgotten time.

As I watched Killing of a Sacred Deer, I realized that the story felt so much bigger and older than the contemporary setting and the actors’ muted delivery could comfortably hold. 

That was the point, of course. Ratchet up the discomfort. Take away the distance that makes horrible things easier to bear. Set the story in Ohio in the lives of rich people and make us all wonder what’s happening under the exterior of “normal” modern life.

It Always Comes Back to an Ancient Myth

It turns out that The Killing of a Sacred Deer is inspired by the Greek story of Iphigenia, the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. When Agamemnon killed one of the goddess Artemis’s beloved deer, she commanded him to sacrifice Iphigenia to settle the score with the gods.

If we could see this story enacted by beautiful people in robes and laurel wreaths against a panoramic Mediterranean with some cool boat scenes, it might barely touch us. We would have been swept up by the glorious disorientation caused by great gaps in space time. Our unfamiliarity with that world would have insulated us from the heinous story at the heart of such a film. One would walk out of that theater (or snap shut that iPad) feeling like they had seen something intense, but the inclusion of cool special effects and other “gods gone wild” stuff could distract us from the filicide at the center of the plot.

Instead, watching Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman walk the corridors of a hospital in Cincinnati just made it all too claustrophobic and real - even though no one would ever speak like they do, even with the totally unexplained curse that sets the horror in motion.

The Horror Hiding Here, There, and Everywhere

On Sunday morning, I picked up Sean Kane’s Wisdom of the Mythtellers and tried to cleanse my brain of all the stark, maddening cruelty of a movie that many critics celebrated. As one reviewer said, “Like the Greek myth that inspired the film, it feels powerful enough to be timeless.” 

Kane’s book offers a brilliant analysis of mythologies around the world. What I find most fascinating is his reminder that myths are not meant to be psychodrama but are, at their original core, a way of understanding nature, relationships in nature, and the human relationship with the unseen world.

Kane looks closely at stories of the Haida people of what we now call British Columbia, the aboriginal people of Australia, and the Celts. Due to the way the stories were preserved and passed and a host of other factors, the Celtic tales are the most ridden with human drama. With my modern brain and lack of indigenous consciousness, it’s no coincidence that theses are the stories that touch me most deeply.

I found myself in the midst of the story of Branwen from the Welsh epic, the Mabinogi. It’s the story of the young woman who is married to her brother Bran’s greatest rival, Matholwch. I may find myself telling this story on the KnotWork Podcast sometime, but I mention it today because of one scene of particularly horrific cruelty that includes the maiming of horses.

Ugh. It was hard to type that phrase. I want to edit it out and soften the blow. Somehow, it is even harder to think of someone deliberately taking a knife to a herd of animals than it is to mention a father sacrificing his daughter above.

Of course, this is the trick of storytelling… I am appalled by what I saw in that movie, I am disgusted by what I read in that ancient Welsh myth, and I am quite sanguine when it comes to poor Iphigenia’s death. You know why, of course: the storytellers in the first two instances gave the audience something to see or imagine. 

The obituary style mention of the slain Greek girl is easy to handle because the mind can’t conjure something specific enough for the heart to contract.

Violence Chills Us When It Feels Too Close to Home

All of this has me thinking about the everyday nature of violence and cruelty. We know that death and abuse are part of the everyday - we see it in our movies and in headlines constantly. When against all odds, something truly terrible breaks through our jaded armor of distraction, it is doubly chilling. 

We respond to the packaging of death more than to the idea of death itself. We can accept the destruction packed into a fantasy epic and flock to it as mere entertainment. But then, we feel devastated by violence that looks like it could happen in the neighborhood up the street.

And, of course, we see these varying octaves of reaction in the real world, too. And it has deadly, horrible consequences. When Black or indigenous women go missing, the mainstream media is largely silent. You need to follow a very specific Instagram account to know. When a white girl vanishes, you get four People magazine alerts a day. In a culture that puts whiteness at the center and declares white as “the norm,” anyone whose identity places them outside of that circle can be viewed with enough detachment as to be immediately dismissed and forgotten. 

(We can change this, you know. We all can amplify the voices of those who aren’t included in the popular narrative, and we might even save lives. Learn more about the Sovereign Bodies Institute.)

As Students and Weavers of Story, We Are Called to Bear Witness to the Most Challenging Narratives

I’m a creative who is heeding the call to work with ancient stories and bring them into the modern conversation. (That’s the mission of the upcoming KnotWork Podcast!) 

Standing at the intersection of the remotest human history and this contemporary moment when we’re trying to make sense of a relentless stream of information, I must decide what stories and elements I will bring to life. How will I bear witness, shape, and share stories that are often full of such terrible things, like killing children and torturing animals? 

Do I stick close to that declaration, “Horror is not for me”? Sharing only the “lovely” bits of mythology is disingenuous (and would make for a very short podcast season).

So then, how deep can I and should I go? For my own self preservation, for the sake of wanting to bring more beauty and wonder into the world, for the sake of those who might be triggered by the old stories that have all of the murder, rape, and inhumanity that shadow life today?

I am wise enough to know that this task of discernment will always be the hardest part of this project.

The Public Storyteller’s Sacred Task: Be Clear on the WHY of a Story’s Telling

As I watched The Killing of a Sacred Deer all I could ask myself was “why.”

Why on earth would someone make such a movie? Why would people who seem rather lovely (Kidman as well Farrell, who said he was “fucking depressed” after the making of the film) star in it? Why would anyone but the creepiest of creeps willingly watch it? Why would the snootiest film people purport to like it?

I kept watching even though I could barely stand the inner screaming, “why are you still sitting through this???”

And here I am, days later, now quite sure of why. 

It wasn’t just because I needed to satisfy my curiosity and know if he went through with it. It wasn’t just because I was trying to prove to the unseen critics that I too could watch something other than The Eternals and Jungle Cruise (both of which I also saw this weekend and rather enjoyed, by the way). 

It was because the movie asked questions we need to wrestle with, with the darkness we would prefer not to face. The specifics of the movie were awful in the moment and in memory, and could never be replicated in “real” life. But, the spectre of that which we do not want to face, the senseless cruelties that do still mark modern life? That is all terribly real.

Stories exist to help us explore, consider, and respond. 

Stories shape our minds and then enable us to reshape our realities. 

Stories cannot erase the very real violence of the past and the present, but they just might help us rewrite a future based on a more nuanced, sophisticated understanding of WHY.

How to Unlock the Wonder of Your Own Story

In a conversation about aging, a wise woman I know quoted her mother, “The good old days were only good because I was young.”

Nostalgia can be poisonous, especially when looking back to “simpler” times means celebrating the days when white, straight, and patriarchal culture went largely uncontested. 

And yet… looking back and seeking the gold hidden in the past can offer its own restorative magic. We can learn from our own history, just as we can learn from ancient mythologies and folklore. There were good days, and not just because we were free of all the adult responsibilities, had resilient joints, and an even more resilience in the face of a hangover.

Lately, some exciting future plans have me looking over my own 20 year-old shoulder. 

I am remembering what it felt like to spend hours of every day pouring over poetry and mythology, literature and history. I am tucking my 40-something self into that iconic Junior Year Abroad backpack and accompanying that younger version of me as she takes on that first year in Ireland. I am revisiting the years when I knew how to dance like no one was watching and could love like I’d never been hurt.

While I don’t have the luxury of reading all day and I don’t have a plane ticket in hand (yet), I am steeped in the energy and possibility of those days and realizing that it is possible to go home again, in a way. 

Have You Met Your Young Genius?

This year, I have the good fortune of working closely with author, branding consultant, and all around brilliant soul, Jeffrey Davis. His approach to entrepreneurship and maintaining creative focus is helping me establish the straight lines that will hold my spirals of creativity.

Jeffrey’s new book, Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity comes out next week. In it, he talks a lot about his concept of the “Young Genius.” 

“Genius is that force of character that wakes your up to your best character and work in the world--if you awaken to it.” - JD

Jeffrey invites us to look to our younger selves, when we were 6 or 7, or maybe a little older, and seek out the instances when we felt free and shone with our own unique, best light. Seeking the qualities that lit up that child can unlock our innovation, creativity, and unfettered energy right now. (And the research backs this up!)

My elementary school self was a reader and a writer who adored imaginary worlds, especially those conjured in brand new book fair purchases! That little redhead (who was really quite loud when she didn’t have her head buried in a novel) had a fiery love of language. She had her own elemental magic, but I find the Young Genius that truly inspires me emerged more than a decade later...

I am most drawn to the genius of the American college kid on the Aer Lingus flight, the no-longer-a-child who spent so many hours in university libraries, pouring over the footnotes to find the next book before she had even devoured the one she was reading. I want to walk beside that not-quite-an-adult who would close the books and take the first country lane out of Galway and walk until she worried the sun might set and leave her alone in the dark with the sheep.

She combined fearless moxie and bookish devotion in a way that I still admire. 

There’s a long story of how I lost track of that energy, but that is a story for another day (and one that I tell in The Sovereignty Knot, to some degree).

I wonder what your Young Genius traits are and what age you feel most connected to… Do check out the Tracking Wonder book as I know it will be an essential guide for all of us who want to bring more meaning and magic to our lives and to our work.

Announcing one of the KnotWork Podcast’s first guests!

It feels like no coincidence that this exploration of my Young Genius comes when I am actively courting that adventurous, intellectual spark that bursts forth when I indulge my passion for Celtic wisdom and Irish stories.

As you may have heard, the KnotWork Podcast debuts on 2/2/22. It’s a significant day because it’s the second birthday of The Sovereignty Knot and, even more importantly, it is Imbolc, the ancient festival celebrating the goddess Brigid and Saint Brigit’s Day. 

Brigid, in all of her guises across the pagan and the Christian centuries, has been my guide since my early teens when I took her name at confirmation. She has been a quiet presence throughout my life, and I have to believe she saved my Young Genius from herself more times than I might care to admit!

Yes, the “good old days” are continuing to seed the wonder of the present moment.

Kate Chadbourne, who was my first Irish language professor at Boston College, will be amongst the first guests on KnotWork. Kate is a deeply talented storyteller and musician, as well a writer and scholar of Celtic studies. A wise and compassionate editor, she helped make The Sovereignty Knot into the book it is. She’ll be coming to share some of her favorite Brigit stories in celebration of Imbolc.

Want a taste of Kate’s magic now? I highly recommend you check out her brand new ebook/audio performance offering, A November Visit: Poems, Stories, Company. 

Up in the northern hemisphere, these are the dark times. This November stretch between the mystery of Samhain (Halloween) and the return of the light at the Winter Solstice can feel leaden and bleak. I promise that a dose of wonder and a visit with Kate’s tales will be just the medicine you need to get through. (And then, when we're all truly sick of winter and so ready to welcome the spring, KnotWork will be here!)

Creative Originality, the Raven, and a Writing Prompt

This week in the Sovereign Writers’ Knot, our focus is on dreams.

As our group is made up of writers of all kinds--novelists, poets, bloggers, and memoirists--I invite members to approach prompts in either the first person, or as a character in their current work. I think some interesting things will come through as the writers play with their characters’ dream worlds and begin to wonder if their non-human story elements have dreams, too.

I want to share one of the prompts from yesterday’s writing practice session because I think it speaks to a question all creatives ask at one time or another: but what if someone has already said all this before?

Writing Prompt: A Brand New Dream

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before

- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

Is it possible to dream something no one has ever dreamed before? We might say, “Sure, that’s true if you are Edgar Allan Poe, but for the rest of us…? HA!”

Modern advice around creativity (which I often give myself) declares that there may not be any more “totally original” ideas under the sun (or in the darkness). Instead, it is our sacred task to call universal, timeless ideas, images, and emotions through our own beautifully particular lens of experience and wisdom.

If you’re someone who finds yourself tangled in the “but it has all been said before!” blues, I invite you to take on these demons and say, “maybe it has, but no one has said it like me!” And then, proceed to tell a story or explore an emotion in a way that is totally original to you.

It’s important to note: The Raven is actually just a poem about being unable to get over a lover and we have certainly all heard that one before!

(Would you like to write with us? We’ll be forming a new group for another 13-week writing adventure in late January. Learn more and sign up to join the interest list so you’ll be the first to know when registration reopens.)

Want some further proof that you don’t need a brand new dream, you just need your dream?

Pick up that copy of Big Magic you very likely have on your shelf. If you don’t have it, I highly recommend you ask a friend for her copy (honestly, you know someone who has this book), or just order it right now because it’s an important piece of the modern creative canon.

Elizabeth Gilbert says just about all the things about creativity I would like to say to you (she happens to say them in her way with the authority granted to her by writing a mega best seller and several other fabulous books). The way she talks about creativity gives us all permission to keep writing about creativity:

“If it’s authentic enough, believe me, it will feel original.”

She expands on that idea in this blog post too.

Speaking of New Creative Dreams… Have you heard about my new creative project?

It’s a variation on something that has definitely been done before, but it’s also a universe of ideas that has more than enough room for my own creativity and authenticity.

Debuting 2/2/22: The KnotWork Podcast: Untangling Our Myths, Reweaving Our Stories.

In this new show I’ll have a chance to reach back to my studies of Irish lit and Celtic mythology and shape it with all that I’ve learned in the twenty years since I last sat in a university classroom.

Each episode will begin with a story (mostly from Ireland in our first season, but we’ll reach out into the entire world of ancient tales as we go) and will be followed by a deep-dive discussion into why this myth still matters.

Want all the insider details as I do my research, line up my guests, and live the ups and downs of creating a new thing? Join the Facebook group and/or follow @KnotWorkPodcast on Instagram! 

To Communion and Sovereignty. To Community and the Collective.

“Only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others.” 

Last week, I started a yearlong journey with a new mastermind group of entrepreneurs, creatives, and thought leaders. 

I have known the facilitator as both a fellow parent and a colleague for nearly a decade. It turns out that I also knew three of the other four women in our intimate group of five, even though they are scattered across the US. 

That’s the nature of twenty-first century life, isn’t it? I haven’t learned the names of several of my closest neighbors, but I know a tremendous number of like-minded souls from around the world. I would venture to guess that your experience is much the same.

That quote above is from Parker Palmer in a book called The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. I admit I have never read it, but I trust my new coach and I feel the truth of my own lived experience echo through this single neat line: “Only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others.” 

Hmmm... His “communion” sounds a lot like my living definition of sovereignty. 

Being in communion with the self in order to connect to others is a lot like standing sovereign in your own being in order to fully participate in the collective.

Because, for me and for those who walk with me through The Sovereignty Knot, sovereignty is never a lone endeavor. We tend to our own inner sense of wisdom, passion, and worth so we can hold the door and hold hands with others who are ready to step onto their own sovereign path.

Communion Within Community: Now, More Than Ever

I have community on my mind (in the most sovereign sense) because the Sovereign Writers’ Knot had its first group coaching call of the season yesterday. (We write just about every week of our 13 weeks together and also have these monthly deep dive conversations.)

“Group coaching call” is a terribly bland phrase, isn't it? I also call them our Collective Story Healing Sessions, but even that may not fully capture what we share together.

Our most recent gathering felt more like… well, here is a sampling of the phrases folks offered at the end our 90-minute voyage into story, memoir, mysticism, poetry, and a healthy dose of sacred confusion:

• a golden thread being passed from hand to hand to weave a tapestry

• a portal to another dimension and way of knowing

• A relational circle united by a shared theme: what it means to be human

A couple of members summed up their experience (so deliciously overlapping) with “lifted and woven” and “we are women weaving.”

And this is from a group of sovereign writers who, by the very definition of what we commonly understand writing to be — sitting alone with a page, setting out one word after another in silent contemplation — might be considered somewhat solitary creatures. (As it turns out, even introverts need writing buddies and sisterhood after all! But, of course, we already knew that, right?)

All of this is yet another reminder of what we've learned across a lifetime but so often forget: strengthening our own individual vessel of self enables us to hold and be held by the shared cauldron of a trusting and trusted community.

I invite you to get curious about your own experiences with community.

Test this idea of “being in communion with yourself” as well as what it means to “stand sovereign” and consider how that influences your ability to experience true connection to others.

If we have learned anything in the last eighteen months, it is that community (or its lack) has consequences.

Community matters when we are isolated and we are bereft of connection.

Community matters when we recognize that our individual responsibility to attend to our health (and get vaccinated!) is vital to the health of the collective.

Community matters when we watch people coalesce around shared misunderstandings, conspiracies, and false narratives.

Community matters when we gather in compassionate, grounded circles and realize, together, that there is hope, even in the most divisive of times. 

---

Can you see yourself in a “Collective Story Healing Session” in the Sovereign Writers’ Knot? The current group is closed to new member, but we’ll begin a fresh season together at the end of January/beginning of February. 

Head over to my website to learn more and enter your email so I can let you know when I’m accepting applications for the next season.

Notes on the Harvest (Plus, Cool Stuff Offered By My Friends)

I realize that I often mention what's happening outside my window when I sit down to write a newsletter. Perhaps it's simply easier to begin a conversation by talking about the weather. I think there's more to it than that, though...

Telling you that the trees at the five-way crossroads where we live are whispering about the coming October with gold-flecked tongues seems important. I want to set the scene because strong stories depend on generating a sense of place. In fact, I think the land and the elements are actually characters in my daily writing, especially when I'm writing in my own voice and sharing what is on my mind.

And then there's the fact that I believe in the practice of land acknowledgement and naming the people who lived here before colonization.

The Esopus tribe, part of the Lenape nation, thrived upon this land before the French and Dutch settlers arrived. They spoke the Munsee language, but their name is all that is left here now. Those native peoples who survived wars and dislocation were forced to take their language, culture, and stories to Wisconsin and Ontario, far from the Hudson River they knew to be Mahicannituck. 

In light of this, it's interesting to think that my family actually lives in the town of Esopus, but the vagaries of mailing addresses and school districts cause us to tell folks that we live in New Paltz. The story of the colonizers shapes the story in one more small way.

The little that I do know of the people who would have hunted, gathered, and planted in the Hudson Valley comes from school field trips with my kids. It seems we always enter the replica wigwams and longhouses when the corn and gourds are being harvested.

There's a shared fascination with harvest time. There's an earthy truth that we need to acknowledge and celebrate (even if the modern harvest in the Hudson Valley looks like traffic jams caused by apple picking day trippers). We are creatures of the turning seasons, even if our pumpkin spice comes with orange dyed sprinkles.

A Rich Harvest of Ideas and Innovation

I'm so grateful to be standing in the midst of so many creative beings whose visions are coming to fruition right now.

Yesterday, we began a thirteen-week journey in the Sovereign Writers’ Knot.

As one writer put it after our group's first writing session (paired with art by Theresa Vee):  

Feeling EXACTLY like this painting after our session today!

And, as this special group of nine writers begins new projects or deepen their relationship with existing, in-process work, I'm so happy to watch other friends, colleagues, coaches, and clients out their creations into the world:

• Biz Cush, an alumna of my Sovereign Writers' community, is rebranding and relaunching her podcast. Perhaps hanging out with women who speak of the princess, queen, and wise woman had an influence on the new name?
  
  Awaken Your Wise Woman promises to be a great new show from this veteran podcaster, psychotherapist, and women's life coach. I had the honor of turning the tables on Biz and I got to interview her for her first episode. Listen to our episode and subscribe to the show!

• My former coach, KC Carter of This Epic Life is releasing his first book, Permission to Glow: A Spiritual Guide to Epic Leadership.
  
  I had a chance to reconnect with KC and soak up a few thousand jolts of inspiration this weekend. I'm excited to get my copy this Tuesday. And don't just take my word for it. Ani Difranco (yes, the singer who created her own label and is the voice of a generation of feminists) calls it: "Freakin' EPIC! This book teaches many of us how to lead, and all of us how to truly live."
  

• And finally, my current coach Jeffrey Davis is also releasing a book this week: Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity. 
  
  On Satuday, Jeffrey is hosting a free half-day online event this Saturday, 10/2 called The Wonder Summit. His guests include Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Danielle LaPorte. It would be wonderful to see you there. Register today.

To your harvest, to your stories, to your sacred relationship with the land on which you dwell,

Marisa

Words are Weightless. Words Shape the World.

Talk might be cheap, but we’ve built a global civilization on language.

We are constantly asking the little collections of letters that take shape in our mouths, on the page, and on the screen to make meaning for us. 

We ask our words to express and request, to convince and calm, to incite and invite. 

From captions to hashtags, from in-depth reporting to clickbait headlines, from books to blog posts, from vows to offhand comments:

Words cast a spell.
AND
Words are just noise occasionally studded with punctuation.

We’re always caught between the inestimable value of words and their inherent worthlessness. The question then becomes: how do we consciously ride those waves of paradox?

How can we imbue our words with wisdom, tune into sources whose words have meaning, and develop the discernment it takes to turn away from false prophets, the empty promises, and the bullshit artists?

It takes Sovereignty.
It takes Community.
It takes Practice.

Since 2018, I have been on a mission to help writers, healers, and seekers find a haven in the midst of the noise where they could gather and write.  Over the years, this group has been known as the Sovereign Writers Circle and the Sovereign Wisdom Circle.

The ongoing community has always been about more than “just” writing, however.  The goal has never been about word count or publication. Instead, I invite people to the page in order to meet themselves, to make meanings of their vast experiences, and wrangle their dreams into a vision that could shape the world. 

It’s about uncovering the story only you can tell. That’s your sovereign story, after all.

Coming together with a trusted community of like-hearted beings who value mind-body-soul over profits-fame-praise can change everything. You’re allowed to be vulnerable, to experiment, to write to heal and know rather than relentlessly earn and grow.

In the past, I marketed my writing group specifically to entrepreneurs since we need to tell compelling stories to call in the people who can benefit from our transformational work. Ultimately, we always returned to writing the stories of the heart. In the new iteration of the group which begins September 29, we’re going to let the words lead the way and ask the business stuff to take a back seat.

Finally, developing a resilient, insightful relationship with your own words takes practice. 

This particular collection of lines took me all morning and has resulted in this post and a longer something that may or may not ask to emerge in the world. Either way, there’s not a wasted word there because practice is essential to the writer’s process.

We’d love to have you with us in the Sovereign Writers’ Knot this autumn (or spring, depending on your spot on the globe). Learn more about everything I have planned for us over the next three months.

If you’ve been longing to make writing part of your life or want to make real progress on a project, this is place to be in the season to come.

What Story Is Mine to Tell Right Now?

Whenever I find myself spinning in circles and I have the urge to write,  I ask myself:

What story is mine to tell right now?

This is the essential question, whether my mind happens to be looping with anxiety or leaping with inspiration. 

(Have you noticed how they both tend to buzz at the same frequency? The nerves of worry and the nerviness of creativity are easily confused. When I ask this question, there’s a better chance of moving toward healing and productive cross pollination. That’s when the words finally start to flow.)

So Much To Say, So Hard to Find the Words

From my experience, “what story is mine to tell right now?” is the only place to begin when you feel the pressure to put words on the page and feel wordless at the very same time.

Here’s something we tend to forget when we’re overwhelmed and there is so much to say, either because the brain is swirling too fast with worry or soaring with new ideas: we writers can only set down one word at a time. 

“One word at a time” is the blessed miracle and the maddening flaw of language. 

We are forced to condense the immense and the ineffable into clusters of letters, limiting it all down to discrete, interconnected units of ideas. With time and focus, we spool a narrative. We can throw ourselves wide open to the expanse of sentences, stanzas, and stories. 

Here’s what might happen when you dare to ask, “what story is mine to tell right now?”

When I ask myself this question, I am almost always surprised. 

Sometimes, I need my journal and quiet hour. I must fill the page with rhetorical questions, nonsense sentences, and magnificent, revelatory errors of all kinds.

(When I wrote into this prompt yesterday, I definitely scrawled “when I know when I must right…” Cringe! But look what was revealed in that misspelling! Oh, my obsession with being correct, even on the uncensored pages of my own little green book)

Sometimes, the words take me to fairy glens and eighteenth century drawing rooms.

(Ok, so the novel got stalled in the transition between the endless 18-month summer and the uncertain fall, but there’s a book brewing, and it’s the story I was born to tell. When I give myself the freedom to describe a sacred well made of starlight and sphagnum moss or invent a whispered conversation between the countess and the peddler down the lane, I trust that I am making magic. You transform the very fabric of the world when you conjure and describe you own visions, stitch by stitch and word by word.)

Sometimes, the words come out seeking their place in the marketplace, issuing invitations to come play. 

(I’ll be the first to say that the “real writer” in me rolls her eyes at this naked display of capitalism, but then I remember that we live in a both/and universe. As the Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins says, “poetry doesn’t pay,” but the mortgage still comes due. And so, I ask my words, as they emerge one letter at time, to call in the writers, the healers, the dreamers, and the sovereignty seekers who will hear my song and use these ideas to add to their own. So, next time you see my images on Instagram, do read the captions, too. They’re lovingly crafted by a writer trusting the story that wants to be told.)

Sometimes the story is a text to a friend. Sometimes it’s an email to my grandpa. Sometimes it’s a note I stick in the lunch box in case second grade feels hard today. 

And sometimes the story that is mine to tell must be silently pounded into the pavement or held by the trunk of a beloved tree. Sometimes the story that is yours to tell is not yet speech ripe and will not come no matter how fine the pen, how quiet the room, how inspirational the view.

Trust the story. Trust the moment. Trust yourself.

The words will come in their own time, as they always do: one at a time, in a jumble or a flow. They will carry you onward to the story you must tell.

“What story is mine to tell right now?” is just one of many questions I pose to the dreamers, healers, and seekers who long to build a writing practice and birth their stories into the world.

In the Sovereign Writers’ Knot, the newest incarnation of my online writing community, you can find the the space, time, and company that will help you bring your words into the world.

We are welcoming new members through September 29. Learn more and apply now.

Untethered and (Dis)Connected: How to Return to Your Creative Path On Your Own Time

That crunch.

You know it. I know it. Everyone who has owned a ridiculously fragile electronic device that goes everywhere and is relied upon to do almost everything knows it.

The crunch that you hear when the screen hits the floor.

On Labor Day Monday Monday, I felt that sinking dread when my Apple Watch slipped from my fingers and fell face down on the tile.

For over two years, that little piece of wildly powerful technology has been securely fastened to my body. It’s own tracking data will show you that I would wear it for well over 12 hours per day. And, if you don’t have access to the app, you can see it in the pale strip on my arm where the freckles have faded after years under cover.

Now it’s Thursday, and though I am fully clothed, I feel naked. 

I have no idea how many calories I have burned, whether I got a text in the three minutes since I picked up my phone, or what the temperature is outside. It will take me more than two taps to figure out exactly when my next menstrual cycle begins. If you call me and I don’t have my phone on me, I will not be able to answer you by talking to my wrist like Penny in Inspector Gadget.

I am realizing the depth of my addiction to that tiny glass square. Well, the glass was just the vehicle. My real addiction was to quantifying the success of each day based on my move goals and the illusion of constant connectivity.

At this point, I am not sure if I am uncomfortable because I feel so disconnected or if I’m uncomfortable because I have to reckon with being so addicted to machine that monitored my every move.

Either way, this is not how I planned to land post-Labor Day.

I am untethered. I am lost. I am free.

Of course, I am more than my history of shattered Apple products. It’s also the first week of school. And I am suddenly realizing that after eighteen months of certain uncertainty, the prospect of five days a week of school is immensely challenging.

This return to “normal” is what we’ve been yearning for. Why is this so hard?

Sure, there’s the chance that schools will close or either of the kids could be quarantined for weeks. There’s a chance that Covid could be more than a mere inconvenience as we see infections rise in children. It’s hard to get excited about the new routine when a stray cough could bring the whole fragile arrangement crashing down.

I am so dazed and unfocused. I can’t seem to shake the “I need more tea and then some chocolate and then some pretzels before I answer this next email” state of mind.

It’s more than vicarious first day of school jitters, though. 

Instead, I realize it’s immense pressure that comes with “Psst, Mom! It’s finally quiet. Go be outrageously successful and accomplish every single one of the professional and creative things right now so you don’t fail at post-pandemic reentry!”

Back in the old days (like over the weekend), my watch could help me track when anxiety would set my heart racing. I don’t need the heart rate monitor to tell you that there are too many stress hormones in my system right now. (Oh, hey, maybe I’m already learning to live without that device!)

There are too many stress hormones in our collective emotional system right now. While we have a lot to be stressed about, some of that pressure is self-imposed and truly is optional. Like the pressure everyone puts on themselves during new beginning moments, like the end of summer and the return to school.

So, if you’re a parent and are feeling the press of “I should get my business/creative practice/self care routine up to 117% because the kids are finally back where they belong,” I see you. I feel you.

Regardless of whether we have kids in school or are going to class ourselves, September is a chance for many of us to begin again. We can all use a little more self-compassion right now since it’s far from easy to get back into the post-Labor Day routine.

I’m holding hands with all of the writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who are staring into the next season wondering how on earth you’re going to find the energy, focus, and confidence to get out there and make the next thing.

Here’s what we’ve learned (since March of 2020 and throughout our lifetime as sovereignty seekers, word witches, and all around weirdos):

• The old rules don’t apply any more.

• The old structures cannot support us.

• The old routine can’t be revived in the same old way.

If the timepiece that used to help us make sense of the world cracks, we need to find a new way to navigate our lives. 

In this early September moment if you can’t quite find your center, find your muse, or find your pen, remember this: your lack of inspiration, motivation, or imagination is not the problem.

What if it’s the relentless press to be productive and commodify every free moment that’s the problem? What if it’s the equation of busyness and self-worth? What if we must finally, once and for all, smash the foolish belief that everything is going to feel “normal” again just because we landed on a certain date or reached some artificial milestone?

What if you didn’t have to start today, but you trusted yourself and believed that in your own time, you’d settle into a new cycle of being, making, doing, and creating?

---

When it is time to set off on your own creative path — as a writer, as an entrepreneur, as a seeker looking to understand your own story in a new way — I’d love to help.

The Sovereign Writers’ Knot, the new iteration of my online writing community, opens again on September 27.

The Story Illuminations Sessions are a great 1:1 option if you’re trying to figure out just where to start and need to heal some of the old wounds that hold you back from stepping forth on your creative path.

It's Time to Tell Stories That Are Rooted In the Earth

Last night, I helped my dad put together a slide presentation for his condo association. He’s passionate about bringing in solar power to fuel their community energy needs.

This past weekend, my husband and I looked out on our beloved backyard and wondered together about how we could make our family’s life more sustainable. We’re thinking about changing the way we buy and use electricity, how we can change our eating habits, and what food we can grow in the years to come.

As headlines about ecological catastrophe and systemic climate change vie with the latest Covid spikes and variants at the top of every newscast, these conversations seem inevitable and necessary. 

We all need to talk about our relationship with the land, with our resources, with survival, with creating a world where our children and their someday children can thrive.

Right now, I don’t know how to tell a story that isn’t rooted in the soil, soaked in the rain, singed by the fires, and aware of the climbing temperatures.

I may not be writing about the climate directly, but I find I am always in conversation with the Mother, with the Earth, with all the unseen interactions between humans and nature.

When we were visiting Maine last week, my aunt gave me three plants. 

A white sagebrush from my mother and a periwinkle from my grandmother that grew beside the houses on Cape Cod where I grew up. Both homes have since been sold. And then, a primrose that my great aunts grew on Prince Edward Island. That place is still in the family, but it’s not possible for us to cross the border to see the Canadian cousins right now.

Three plants from forbidden gardens, from patches of land that have become inaccessible for one reason or another. 

Three living beings that I can tend and touch, cultivated by beloved gardeners I can only visit in my memories.

Three delicate root systems I can protect and pray over, that (hopefully) will help me keep my family history alive.

How’s your relationship with the plants and soil that surround you?

I find myself wandering between my flower patches right now. I talk with the trees that have been here for decades longer than our house. I check on the perennials I have planted in my time here. I welcome these new plants and celebrating the bittersweet legacy of growth and change they represent.

This sense of finding solace and purpose amongst the blooms and blossoms is new to me. I’ve tried to make the place look pretty for the thirteen years we have lived here, but I usually tend to lose interest by August. Luckily, when September rolls around I can stick a new crop of mums in the ground to cover all the worn summer blossoms.

It’s different this year, however.

My new devotion to this rocky soil and the flowers I coax from the dry earth is inspired by my increasing awareness that our global environment is in trouble, surely. There’s something more to it, though. Something more personal and even more primal. 

It was my husband who helped me see another dimension of the story. During our conversation about the future of the planet and how we can be better citizens of Earth, I marveled at how my relationship with our nearly two acres of garden, lawn, and forest had deepened over time.

“Isn’t that part of becoming the crone?” he asked. “The wise woman?” (Why yes, that guy I married has read—most of—my book.)

I write about the way we’re princess, queen, and wise woman through life in The Sovereignty Knot, of course. I write about how the concerns of the queen shift to encompass the awareness of the wise woman. The story becomes most true as you live it, however.

As my girls grow older and my business matures, I find myself switching gears. I don’t have to engage in constant mothering and I’m finding I’m less concerned with being the in-control queen. At 42, though I certainly have lots of queen energy in my life (and princess energy too), I am consciously moving into the wise woman’s sense of being present and receptive, into the crone’s sense of conscious care and divine surrender.

This planet needs us all to step into our wisdom in new, beautiful, challenging ways.

We’re being called to live a bolder, wilder, more compassionate story. We need to focus on the plants outside our door as we think about the ecosystems that enable us all to breathe. We need to set down the old ways of being and open our arms wide to a new devotion to the world as-it-is.

We’re going to need to get more centered and more Sovereign than ever so we can make the choices that support the human and the non-human collective. 

As I’ve said before in many spaces, Sovereign is never meant to be a synonym for selfish. Instead, it’s an interconnected system of sovereign selves that can transform and heal this world.

Let’s be sovereign beings for the beautiful, burning sovereign world. One seed, one story, one wise act of creation at a time.

Every Little Thing She Does: Magic through the Eyes of the Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman

🎵🎶 Every Little Thing
She Does Is Magic 🎶🎵

You know that song by The Police? It’s still one of my favorites. I was stunned to learn it came out when I was two years old, but then it feels right: this song just feels like part of life’s soundtrack. 

It’s a song that has grown with me. It’s a song that the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman in me still sings. Even if all the lyrics don’t exactly suit every age and stage, it’s a song that holds all the magic.

It’s time to roll the windows down and blast our favorite songs. And, because there’s a 7 Magic Words Challenge coming up on June 1, I have magic on the mind. 

Before we go on, have you met the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman? The Archetypes of The Sovereignty Knot live inside of us, throughout our lives. Learn about the qualities of each Sovereignty Archetype here. 

The Faces of Magic: Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman

Let’s explore how the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman experience, embody, and make magic.

When you think of how the different aspects of you experience magic, you’ll begin to see all the ways that magic is working its way through your life right now. 

The Princess Believes In Her Magic When Someone Else Sees It

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who desperately wanted a man to see the magic in her. She knew she shined with a special something, but she spent a lot of time hoping the right guy would see it and tell her that she turned him on.

Ok, so this “young woman” was me. 

I was a quintessential romantic who really wanted a slightly younger version of Sting to be her boyfriend. Though I was smart and brave and talked a great feminist game, I also longed for someone to sing this song to me. 

I thought I would be a little more real if I saw my magic reflected in someone else’s eyes.

Oh, the heartbreaks that came from that need to be seen. Oh, the wild nights and love stories, too.

And because that Princess part of me is still allowed - and invited - to live and thrive, I admit that I still seek out that spark in my marriage. I cannot begin to imagine that my husband thinks every little thing I do is magic, especially when I wander the house, unable to find my car keys or one of my six pairs of glasses, but our relationship is about seeing the magic  -- in each other. 

When I’m standing in the healthy princess-aspect of myself, I allow myself to believe in romance without the desperation, to ask to be adored by my partner without living for his devotion. 

The princess can get excited to conjure up magic with the dress she wears, the way she does her hair, and the unexpected wonders she’ll find along the way.

The Queen Sings the Magic Into the World

Now that I am living the life of the Queen in so many ways, taking care of the family, the castle (such as it is), and managing all the things (except the whereabouts of my glasses), I hear the song in a new way. 

“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” sounds more like the love I have for my children and the love they had for me when they were very small. It’s an intoxicating, fleeting kind of closeness that comes with the new romance of being alive, welcoming someone into this world, and raising them into the person they’ll become.

My girls are a little older now, and while we are still madly in love with each other, the first blush of babyhood is far behind us. I have raised strong, healthy girls who feel safe enough to despise me from time to time. 

And though my love for them is stronger than ever, we’ve all gotten to the place of “I love you to the moon and back, but I wish you would spend the weekend there so we could all have a break.”

When my Princess is satisfied, when she can see herself for all of her magic and possibility, the Queen in me can step forward and see the magic in other people.

(This, by the way, is the essence of Sovereignty. As I say in the book: 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 even as the Queen offers her care and attention to others, she keeps on believing in the generative power of her own delicious magic. She knows that the magic isn’t in being seen and celebrated, but in the joy of creation.

The Wise Woman Sees Magic In Everyone and Everything

My Sovereignty work is all knotted up with my spiritual work, just as my life stories are all knotted up with my journeys to Ireland and my mythical reference points are all knotted up in Celtic lore.

The Wise Woman is the one who sees the interconnected nature of all things, from the cell to the soul, from the individual heart to the great collective heartbeat of the universe. 

The Wise Woman knows magic. She knows she is magic, and she always has been throughout life.

And when she hums “every little thing she does is magic” she just may be singing of the muse, of Mother Earth, of the great divine feminine force that births us all into being.

… And, of course, this is only the beginning of the Princess, Queen, and Wise Women’s Stories 

The Princess isn’t just a lovestruck teenager waiting to be someone’s muse. This adventurer can take off to distant lands all on her own without a care for anyone’s approval or appreciative eye.

The Queen isn’t just a nurturer. This make-it-happen powerhouse can sing the magic to the multitudes, trading motherhood of a few humans to be mother of a movement or head of a company.

The Wise Woman… Well, she knows that magic belongs at the beginning, middle, and ending of every story and she is always going to spy it everywhere (even when she’s telling you that she’s been baked into pragmatism after a long life of struggle and love).

Want more magic in your life? Join the 7 Magic Words Challenge, the free creativity project that begins on June 1!

Want to explore The Sovereignty Knot? Get the book and sign up to receive the exclusive meditations about the Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman.

Permission to Make Magic. Permission to BE the Magic.

“I just need to get through these practical things so I can give myself permission to market the magical stuff.”

“I have to be able to appeal to the people who want the data and the outcomes, but really, I want the people I can talk magic to.”

“I was trained to be an academic, and I know how to do the intellectual side really well. Spirituality and magic are always at the core of everything, but I am afraid to let people see that.”

These lines from three separate conversations with three different healer-writer-seeker-mytics who are certified in different forms of coaching and psychotherapy.

Each one glows with her own remarkable sovereign wisdom and each one has the ability to make deep, lasting change in the lives of the folks they work with. 

They all might define “magic” a little differently, but it has something to do with the vast unseen, the sacred unknown, and the connections that flow between All That Is. They know that their work is sourced by something greater, some universal creative force that makes the body, mind, spirit, and all of creation come alive. 

They feel all these forces at work and know it’s at the core of all they do, and yet, they often can’t trust themselves to speak it loud and clear…

Why do we hide our unique brilliance and stop ourselves from saying what really matters?

These women, like me, like just about all of us, have been raised in a patriarchal society and trained by a capitalist system. 

We’ve internalized some version of: “Lead with the facts, with the measurable results, and with the stuff that appeals to the pain points established by the marketplace. All the feelings, stories, and (god)dess talk might work for some, but what really matters is the credentials, the quantifiable, the sale.”

They - we - all hide their magic for fear it will be diminished, misunderstood, and twisted by those who would dismiss their silly, ungrounded, uncontrollable “woo woo” ideas. It’s safer and easier to lead with the easily digested steps to success, the “click now” jargon, and the peer reviewed approaches.

What if we were unafraid to lead with our passion, our truth, and our magic?

Well, that’s the sorceress’s greatest question.

If healers, sovereignty seekers, and creatives found the courage to lead with their own authentic passion, truth, and magic, the whole world would change.

That change would start with the individual. When one person stands sovereign in her power and purpose and then offers it to her readers, her clients, her family, her community… Eventually a single act sends forth ripples that shift everything. It’s just like magic.

It all sounds pretty idyllic, right?

Name your magic.
Speak it aloud.
Call in the people who speak your language.
Transform one life and keep going til you’ve bettered the universe.

But tell me again, why aren’t we doing this wonderful thing all the time?

That same patriarchal capitalist world that chains us to the practical also conspires to silence the mystery. Plus, our own human fears of being vulnerable to ridicule and judgement tend to shut us down before we even begin to explore unknown territory.

And it’s not just the societal pressures and individual fears that seal our lips and stifle our stories. Magic spells have always been bound by secrets, only to be shared with the initiated, in a moment of great need, or when the stars and moon align.

It can feel downright wrong to share our magic in the marketplace.

Modern digital life has a way of commodifying hallowed ground, and we can feel like part of the problem when we stick a “for sale” sign on the intimate, sacred truths that ground our lives and spirits.

And yet, there are brave and brilliant writers and thinkers who manage to send their magic into the world in a way that doesn’t seem icky or opportunistic. They launch their words and ideas into the ethers and touch the hearts and minds of readers and Instagram scrollers. 

As a result, the folks in the audience receive those ideas and see themselves and their world in a new way. They share the insight and the new way of being with others, and that starts new conversations that can lead to action. And this goes on and on until we start seeing real change, whether it’s in de-stigmatizing mental health issues, exposing systemic racism, or respecting people’s pronouns.

That’s how magic is made real. 

Magic flows in moments of realization, in instances of connection, in the building of relationships. In the sense of, “YES! A new way is possible! Let’s try it!”

We still need to call on our own deep powers of discernment, to decide what’s too intimate and in fact too sacred to share, of course. That’s an important topic for another day, however.

Are you longing to lead with your magic and make it real?

Those comments at the start of this piece about longing to make their magic real are part of longer, broad-reaching conversations.

Each woman wants to offer her healing work to the world and tell stories that matter, and each is going it in her own way (of those clients I quoted above, one is seeking a sustainable, satisfying approach to marketing; one is developing her website and a new framework to teach her ideas; and another is writing a book).

Though those women are working on different projects and hoping to speak to very different people, the awareness of and desire for that real but ephemeral thing called magic is the common ingredient. 

I’m offering these individual clients specific support to get them closer to anchoring into their magic and making it real. Each one is blessed by the hard-won belief in her own magic, her own medicine, her own sense that she has something to share with the world.

(Check out my writing coaching and Story Illumination Sessions if you’re interested in working one-on-one!)

Their next step is to give themselves permission to embody that magic in a way that feels authentic, safe (but not too safe), and true to the work they wish to do in the world.

That permission comes through writing practice, through honest conversation, and through a recognition that the spiritual work and the magic making is every bit as necessary and practical as getting better at crafting sales copy.

What about you? Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in your OWN magic?

On June 1, the 7 Magic Words Challenge begins.

This free, weeklong online event will help you uncover and name your own magic. It’s open to all - whether your a creative entrepreneur, a healer or coach with a private practice, or a sovereign soul in search of a new way to see the word and express your own wisdom.

A Healer with a Pocketful of Wild Violets

It was a pretty rough one at the Goudy house. I had major dental surgery on Friday and my husband realized he had Lyme the night before. 

Suddenly, there were a million prescription bottles on the counter and someone was always asking “did you remember to take your antibiotics?” 

We were the walking wounded, though neither of us should have been walking anywhere. My husband is notoriously terrible at taking it easy, while I am rather skilled at shutting out the world and taking to my bed when I’m sick or need to recover from something as massive as a 2.5 hour tooth extraction. 

Nonetheless, we got through and we’re somewhat less pathetic now that it's Monday morning. (Though it’s still tough for me to talk for more than a few minutes. It's like my face is recovering from an ultramarathon I didn't train for.)

Fortunately, we had a healer on call

Seeing her parents weren’t themselves, our seven year-old took it upon herself to start making remedies. 

A neighbor, a consummate garden witch, had told our daughter that the little purple flowers that grew wild in the spring grass were edible.  

So Mairead scoured the yard (a marvelous collection of wild plants and useful weeds we mow and call a lawn) and filled her pockets with wild violets. Turns out, they’re very high in vitamin C, but she didn’t know that when she started to forage.

My husband and I each got a glass full of water and a healthy handful of the sweet purple flowers. She came in at regular intervals to be sure we’d drunk our healing elixirs and she was always ready with refills.

(After I texted my friend and verified that the plants were both non-poisonous and actually beneficial, I actually started to take a few tentative sips rather than surreptitiously pouring the love-drink down the bathroom sink!)

When I wasn’t utterly obsessed with my own aching jaw I could see the healer blossoming in this girl.

She has grown up in the house of an energy healer, after all, and she knows we’ll treat a sickness with both an herbal tincture and a drug from the pharmacy, when necessary.

The light in her eyes made me realize it was more than nurture, however. She has the nature of a healer and is offering skills and insight that she has gained over lifetimes, not in a mere seven years.

And she’s dedicated. Before she got ready for school today she made sure to set up my day’s tonic. I’ve got to make sure that my husband and I appear to have taken our full doses before she gets home!

Why am I telling you this story?

In part, it’s because I couldn’t possibly focus on anything else as my body tries to recover from the trauma and my mind tries to integrate the insanity that is having a dentist spend a morning in your mouth.

As I am finally coming back to myself and feel able to sit up and type, it was either tell the story of the moment or say nothing at all.

Plus, it’s part of my job to model how all the little real life moments - the painful experiences and the sweet love - can be and want to be part of your stories.

As a healer - or as a creative entrepreneur or transformation professional whose work makes like a little more beautiful, bearable, or bold - you’re here to meet people in the midst of their struggles. 

As a writer, you’re here to tell authentic stories, either from your own life or from our gorgeous, terrible world. You guide people toward you and your life-renewing work based on the stories you tell.

You're a healer with a pocketful of stories.
You're a storyteller with a pocketful of tales.

A rough weekend at our house gave our girl a chance to offer her empathetic magic. And on Monday morning, that floral concoction gave me just what I needed: the bit of beauty and hope that makes a story worth telling.

Next Monday at 7 PM ET we’ll be visiting the Story Source. In this free workshop I will be offering a series of exercises to help you find your own source of inspiration so you can tell more of the stories that have meaning for you and your audience.

Join us for the free workshop.

What are you doing with your Monday evenings this May? This free workshop is a preview of the storytelling course called Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand I am teaching next month. 

What's Illuminated by the New Moon?

Last week, I devoted myself to making my desk a sacred space for the writing to flow. I was reconsecrating the surface where the creative visions, the healing ideas, and the practical-magical business messages could come through.

All along, I knew that I would soon need to lavish my attention on the space beside the desk where my “actual” sacred space was supposed to be.

Do you have a sacred space for meditation and spiritual work?

Over the last year, my altar has sprawled from its intended corner and taken over a third of my office floor. Rather than making this room feel more magical, it just made the place seem more cluttered.

Nowhere is a sanctuary when “maybe everything” is a sanctuary. (Plus there was cat hair in every unvacuumable “sacred” nook.)

And so, I pulled everything out, even taking apart the heating register. (Note: those Himalayan salt lamps are lovely, but when they sweat they can destroy your metal baseboard heater!).

There are crystals and beach rocks, statues of goddesses and rosaries from Rome, packs of oracle cards and countless candle stubs stacked in boxes on the couch. All of those objects are precious in their own way, but taken together in a small space that also doubles as a creative entrepreneur’s office, they’re just a bunch of unholy clutter. I haven’t figured out quite where all those treasures need to live, but I know I cannot and do not need to see them every day.

Now, I have this consciously laid sacred space beside my desk. Carefully chosen and laid out for this new moon in Aries, it vibrates with new life and asks me to set a whole new series of blessed intentions.

This New Moon in Aries is a Particularly Potent One

My own new moon practices are inspired by Astralore:

Have two candles available. Light the first to represent yourself, as you are right now. Light the second candle as inspiration for the change you want to create during this cycle. Take a moment to focus on your intention as you light each candle. Imagine drawing the change you desire toward you as you physically bring the two candles closer together. When you are done with the ritual blow out the candles, you will come back to them to perform the same ritual each day for two weeks.

At the Scorpio Full Moon on April 26th, you will bring the candles together where they will touch for the first time. Now you see clearly and acknowledging what you have created.

I found that my intentions for the month were informed by the Chumpi stones.

These stones, modeled on ancient artifacts found in the Peruvian Andes, are each imbued with meaning and represent a different facet of human consciousness. These concepts are part of the healing system called Chumpi Illumination that I have studied for nearly 15 years under my mentor, Eleanora Amendolara. I call on these stones and their unique energies whenever I offer a Story Illumination session for a client. They are constant companion in all of my own spiritual and creative work, too.

This new moon morning I was drawn to three of the Chumpi stones. Stone two, which represents Balance. Stone five, which represents Harmony. And the seventh stone, which represents Wholeness.

My New Moon Wishes: Balance. Harmony. Wholeness.

Balance

I wish to find Balance between my various worlds. (As a quintessential Gemini, this is always the quest!)

My new fiction project balances the stories of two different worlds. Plus, I am called to balance this evolving imaginal world with the aspects of everyday life that want to be nourished by my own creative awakening. 

This balance looks like daring to share my excitement about this new project. It means I am opening conversations with my family about what I am learning and modeling what it means to be excited about this next magical thing, thereby giving them permission to find their own magic. 

It also means that I am finding ways to balance my desire to create and my need for time and space to imagine with the needs of my family. When my new project is real to them (and believe me, the stacks books about druids and archaeological studies of bodies found in bogs have made mom’s new obsession quite clear), then I have the freedom to show up for both

Harmony

I wish to find harmony as I hold a number of professional projects. (A creative entrepreneur who teaches and coaches, writes and edits, heals and holds stories… harmony is always the goal.)

This month, I am calling new folks into my Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand program as I continue to support my community of clients through 1:1 work and my Sovereign Wisdom Circle. 

There’s a beautiful blending here that feels a bit like that song my daughter sings at Girl Scouts: “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”

Just as I hope I show my family what it means to be excited about a magical, creative project and stay fully present in the rush of everyday life, I hope I can embody the kind of harmony we creatives and healers need to thrive in the marketplace. 

We may be in business to build a livelihood, but we’re motivated by the desire to build and maintain relationships and help transform the world for the better. In our desire to show up fully and authentically, we craft  and share the stories that have meaning - both to us as the creators, and to the audience. We seek to find that harmony between work and love, service and support, leadership and connection.

Wholeness

I wish to call in a sense of wholeness when it comes to healing my body and the old stories that it carries. (I mentioned being a quintessential Gemini? Unfortunately, I am a super-adept air sign who does a fine job of forgetting I have a body until it stops working.)

I have been trying to unravel this persistent neck pain for nearly a year. Recently, I’ve been working with a goddess of an acupuncturist who also offers ancestral healing and has helped me find the roots of issues with my neck and shoulders that have lingered since… forever. She helped me begin to unlock the grief and isolation I experienced as a thirteen year-old and the coping patterns I learned : if I am sick and frail, I can hide away in safety; I need to break (or at least appear broken) in order to get a break.

As I come back to wholeness and remember that I am a fully embodied being (not just a free-floating mind and spirit), then I can be more present in all the things - as a mama and partner, as as writer and a creative, as an entrepreneur and a leader.

How is the new moon filling your sky? 

How about you? What qualities or energies are tugging at your sleeve this new moon? What wishes and intentions would you like to see come into your world in the weeks and months to come?

If you’re interested in a healing session that can help you tap into the springtime, new moon energy that’s flowing through your life consider a Story Illumination Session.

Not just for writers, these sessions call on the wisdom of the Chumpi stones and other energy healing practices to help you clear the creative blocks and see your stories in a new way.

And if you’re an entrepreneur who is interested in using your personal stories to grow your world-renewing business, check out Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand.

Make Your Writing Desk a Sacred Space

In the early 1980s, a woman drove north from Massachusetts, crossing the Canadian border and continuing on until the little red Datsun reached the ferry terminal. She and her parents and her small daughter, only a toddler, boarded the boat to Prince Edward Island.

This family, always growing, shrinking, and changing according to the dictates of time, had been driving up to the Maritimes to go “home” to see the relatives since the first generation emigrated to Boston in 1949. We still do (or rather, we will as soon as the word reopens).

I always miss the Island, just as I miss my mom, my grandparents, and the great aunts and uncle we used to visit every summer. Usually, those feelings intensify once June rolls around and I can sense, even from hundreds of miles away, that the lupines are filling the ditches and the water in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is almost warm enough for swimming.

Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash

Right now, though, my PEI memory cup is overflowing. I’m imagining one particular road trip when I would have been in a car seat and mom purchased “the desk.”

The desk was - and is - a converted organ that was bought at an auction or some cattle barn that was converted into an antique shop when the farmers stopped working the land and corporate agriculture came in. This lovely old thing sat at the bottom of the formal staircase at my aunt and uncle’s 19th century farm house for two decades. 

It was always “Jeanine’s desk” even though this wasn’t her home and it seemed like she’d never claim it. Finally, Mom and I rented the perfect sized minivan and brought it back with us the summer I got my first apartment.

That was seventeen years ago. 

This desk has moved with me a few times. It has moved around our current house, too. Though I love it, it’s far from ergonomically sound, so it has become something of a storage chest and dumping ground.

But then, I started a new project. 

My new novel is set in the Ireland of two thousand years ago, in the time of the druids, with bits of 18th century Dublin woven into the story, too. As I begin what is bound to be a mammoth undertaking, I’m digging through college lecture notes, combing through genealogical records and ordering scandalously heavy boxes of new books. 

The past feels more present than ever before.

And, even if my new writing project doesn’t involve my ancestors in particular, I am feeling the presence of thrice great grandmothers I have never met as surely as I am feeling my own beloved, more recently departed relations.

We Are Called to Create Our Own Sacred Spaces

Rather than spending the Easter holidays at mass as all my Catholic forebears would have, we devoted our days to shifting furniture and sorting family papers. I have emptied my office, my shelves, my altar, and am still in the long, slow process of putting it all together.

I wasn’t called to find holy sanctuary in a church. I never really have felt that call. Nature has always been my cathedral. And now, I am re-sacralizing my own office as my sanctuary.

It feels so natural, and yet, so new.

Unconsciously, I had always understood this as a sacred creative and healing space. Whether I am working on my own fiction, pulling tarot cards for a client who is trying to find her creative direction, or helping an entrepreneur find the words to describe their own sacred healing work, something special happens when I close the door and devote myself to this kind of writing and conversation.

Now, I realize that I need to create my creative workspace in a deliberate, sacred way.

After this year when our workplaces have changed so much, when we’ve lost access to the libraries and coffee shops that once were our intellectual and creative refuge, it’s more important than ever that we have our own sacred spaces to draft and craft and brith something new.

How Will You Create Your Own Sacred Creative Space?

How will you create your own sacred creative space? I have no idea! I do hope you’ll send me a note or tag me when you share photos of the place where you’re currently making magic or will soon be making the next wonderful thing.

Here are a few ideas that may help you get started...

1. Keep it simple. The goal is to find clarity and inspiration and then start making something magical, NOT to get distracted by the endless details of redecorating. (Making a space beautiful and liveable is a deeply creative act, of course. Just be aware of whether you’re using “I need to make this the perfect sacred space” as an excuse that keeps you from getting to the page and spinning out your stories.)

2. Consider what direction you’ll face. Factor in the light and the warmth of the room, as comfort is an essential part of the sacred creative experience. Also think about whether you’re someone who writes in the morning or at the end of the day. Do you want to face the rising sun (even if you can’t see it)? Is it important that the full moon would shine on your desk at a certain point each month?

3. Make re-sacralizing easy. If you use this space for many activities, from paying bills to doing work for clients, can you shift the energy in the space to call in that certain sacred, creative energy that the most personal projects require? Maybe you light a certain candle or purposefully clear the space of the detritus of the day before you begin.

4. Be comfortable. The reason I was really able to bring this storied desk back into my office and work at it full time? There has been a revolution in home office supplies and I had a million options to choose from when it came to adding a keyboard tray to this piece of furniture that used to be a musical instrument. When I had tried to use this as a desk ten years ago my husband rigged something from scrap wood. There was so much love in those rough boards, but damn, was it ugly! When you (re)create your space, value comfort as much as you value sentiment. 

5. Listen for guidance and look for signs. Part of my quest involved suggestions from an ancestral healing session. My grandmothers from Limerick and Mayo wanted me to call in the family heirlooms as I set the scene for my next book. Your guidance may come from the ancestors, your spirit guides, or the call of the birds. Dare to tune in and heed your intuition.

We Can Write Together, Each In Our Own Sacred Space

In the Sovereign Wisdom Circle, the online community for healers who write and writers who heal, we gather to write together twice per month. We also gather to learn and laugh and share and explore.

Through April 7, we’re welcoming new members to the group. If you’ve been looking for a community that can support you as a healer, a writer, and an entrepreneur, this is the group you’ve been hoping to find.

A Visit to the Ancestors This Saint Patrick's Day

My family has listened to A Celtic Sojourn, a show on Boston’s GBH Radio, since I was a child. 

Because of the pandemic, my girls and I have been able to watch live streams of both their Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day concerts. These online events haven’t replaced big family gatherings or filled the gap left by my eleven year-old’s cancelled Irish dance performances, but those nights, all filled with music and dancing and poetry, glow a little brighter than all those other evenings spent on the couch over the last year. 

I love the way Celtic Sojourn host Brian O’Donovan describes this season: “It’s March, the ‘high-holidays’ for Irish culture around the world.”

This year, of course, the celebrations are all muted and permuted. 

I’m not chauffeuring my dancer to perform at corn beef and cabbage dinners all across the county, like I should be. Instead of heading to hear the local Irish-ish band, we’ll crank up the stereo, open the windows, and shiver as we raise a glass with friends on the back deck. 

And yet, bits of unexpected magic keep finding us, even without the parades and proper pours of Guinness.

Healing the Wounds of Another Year When March 17 Didn’t Happen

This morning, I had a session with a client who shares my love of Ireland. In fact, we both studied in Galway as juniors in college and missed each other by just one semester.

She originally hired me as her writing coach, copywriter, and online marketing consultant, but our relationship has shifted and grown. Now, I am her story healer, too. We begin each session with a simple question, “do you need the practical or the magical right now?”

(Actually, that is never a simple question, is it? The pragmatic “writing for work stuff” is always infused with the work of the soul, especially for healers, creative entrepreneurs, and transformation professionals who pour their hearts and souls into their work.)

Today, it was clear that she needed healing and support. She needed help detangling the knots of everyday life and this sense of being tossed from one crisis to another. Like so many, she was feeling the weight of this one year anniversary of The Great Pause. Perhaps there was a sense of mourning, of “I can’t believe we’re missing another Saint Paddy’s Day,” too.

A Whisper From the Ancestors

I called on my most trusted tarot cards - a deck that found me back in 1999 during my first year in Ireland. Following their lead, we were called to step out of the modern-day snares and endless b.s., away from the stress and the strain of keeping a business growing and a family happy in the midst of the long drawn out disruption.

We were called to visit her ancestors in a wild place just outside of Galway City. 

And so, I led her through a journey back to those rocky shores, back to the lands of her grandmother’s grandmothers. We were in search of a story, a message, a blessing.

With permission, I’ll share it with you here…

“You’re fine,” said a woman from deep in the past on a small patch of land in a place called Connemara where the Atlantic wind and waves never cease. 

That was all she had to say. And that was all this granddaughter of her heart needed to hear.

Returning from that journey across the miles and years, we talked through the layers of meaning in that simple phrase. We talked about the deep, deep blessing that this ancestral grandmother offered.

May You Have Fine Saint Patrick’s Day

We moderns have weaponized “fine” into shorthand for “not good enough.” If someone asks you how you have been and you say “fine,” that answer offers something between “absolutely terrible” and “you don’t really want to know.” 

“Fine” implies merely surviving in a world that declares you’re not really living if you’re not thriving.

What if we could liberate “fine” from all that judgement and disappointment and the sense that things should be better?

What if we remembered that fine wine, fine art, and finely-woven cloth are to be cherished and prized? 

What if we could hear the voice of the ancestors as they took in a deep breath of sunshine and salt air and sighed “‘Tis a fine day”?

There was a message, a blessing in this for my client, a woman who strives to care for all the people, the animals, and the details as she strives to care for herself, too.

There’s a message and a blessing here for all of us, I think.

Perhaps it’s the gift of perspective. (When we strip away all the 21st century stuff and focus instead on the people, the land, and the animals in our lives, wouldn’t life be the right kind of fine?)

Perhaps it’s the permission not to endlessly quest for the epic and the awesome. (Which isn’t sustainable anyway… we’re not meant to live in a constant state of peak experience and we really don’t want every day to be a holiday because that too would run thin.)

Perhaps it’s simply a blessing.

You’re a fine one. Have a fine day. Sure, if the sun rises, it will be fine tomorrow.

Let yourself be fine, just for a moment, and then see if you’d like to be fine for just a minute more. When you hold this sense of “fine” within yourself, might it become just a little easier to face the next crisis and embrace the next moment of ecstatic joy?

Can I help you unlock the stories and untangle the knots? During a Story Illumination Session we can follow the calls of the ancestors or wherever the energy wants to take us.

Want more stories of Ireland? Get a copy of The Sovereignty Knot today. Order  from your preferred bookseller or get a signed copy from me!

Celebrations and the Power of the Princess Within

They say things come in threes. 

• Luck, both good and bad.

• The human predilection for pattern recognition that makes us love lists of three. (There's poetry in "this, that, and the other thing" and "here, there, and everywhere.")

• Triple deities from around the world.

By design and sacred accident, I've built my own trinity of magic right here at the start of February (a time when we northern hemisphere dwellers in the higher latitudes surely need some sparkle and uplift):

• Imbolc, the day that we celebrate Brigid, Ireland's goddess and saint

• My daughter's birthday (she just turned seven!)

• The release of my book, The Sovereignty Knot (she just turned one!)

Our Struggles With Celebration

All of these early February events are cause for celebration. But...

It's all too easy to transform the wonderful into the stressful and get tangled in the attempt to make all the parties perfect. I admit it has been easy to feel a bit breathless this week.

That's when I remember to go back to my own words and take my own medicine...

In The Sovereignty Knot, you meet the Archetypes of Sovereignty: the princess, the queen, and the wise woman. We are always all three at once, though some of us are more comfortable working with the energy of one more than the others.

For many women who pride themselves on "holding all the things," embracing the princess within can feel regressive. We're supposed to get past all that foolish pink and naïveté, right?

Actually, I believe that we need to recognize and treasure the princess energy within at every stage of life. In part, we need the princess because she knows how to party. She's the one who is always ready to dance like nobody's watching.

So, as I try to quit trying to control everything and just enjoy this week with all of its abundance of celebrations (and all of its snowbanks), I invite you to join me and get (re)acquainted with your own inner princess magic.

Call on the Archetype of the Princess (even when - especially when - you're too old, too busy, or too important to do so)

An excerpt from The Sovereignty Knot:

Once upon a time, I wanted to slay the princess. I wanted to entomb her in my early twenties and make her stay there with all my unexamined regrets. But to do so would rob me of the ecstasy and adventure that the princess wants to enjoy her whole life through.

The princess within knows how to laugh, how to flirt, how to set aside the worries and the deadlines to simply be here in this moment. The princess knows how to sneak in the backstage entrance and how to stay up talking until dawn. She knows how to stay up all night long making love, too. You probably need her more now than you did at twenty-one, when the whole world was designed to invite you to the party.

You’re invited to consider how you might celebrate the princess you once were. This is also a chance to allow the princess that’s always been within you to bring more lighthearted energy into your daily life. What do you need to celebrate right now?

Did you know that you can get the ebook version of The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic for free on Amazon RIGHT NOW?

Through midnight ET on Friday, February 5, the Kindle edition is free. Please download your copy now.

Already read it? Please leave me a review!

Brigid, Imbolc, and a Sense of Renewal, Wherever You Are in the World

It’s the evening before Brigid’s Day.

As she does every year, Brigid pulls at my sleeve and asks me to tell our shared stories. All too often, I’ve been too busy or felt like these were not my tales to tell. This year, I’m not going to push her away.

On the first days of February, we mark the Celtic festival of Imbolc. If you’re in Ireland, on Brigid’s home turf where she walks in all her forms, you feel the first signs of spring and the snow drops prove there’s hope upon hope of a blossoming season to come. 

We’re called to celebrate the rebirth of both the earth and the spirit. (And conjure the optimism and faith that warmer brighter days are coming, even if you’re on a part of the earth still wrapped by the mantle of winter.) 

Meeting Brigid, Goddess and Saint

If you’ve read my book The Sovereignty Knot, you’ve met this divine woman of Irish mythology and Christian lore. Brigid (or Bridget or Brigit or any of the various spellings) is at once goddess and saint. Fertility and birth, fire and creativity, healing and hospitality, poetry and smithcraft… She blesses all these facets of life and holds all our prayers and spells and intentions. 

Oh, and she has the power to turn water into beer. (Apparently, it’s a great cure for lepers. And thirsty people of all sorts.)

Brigid called me to her when I was a Catholic kid on Cape Cod with little connection to Ireland beyond a vague awareness of my great-great-grandmothers. Inspired, I took my confirmation name in honor of the saint (and one of those grandmothers). Throughout high school, I strained to feel Saint Bridget and understand what she saw in the prayers and the mass that had sustained my family for generations, stretching back to the old country and time immemorial, but it always felt like a strange way to spend an hour that could otherwise be spent walking the beach or curled up with a good book.

When I did start to feel some sort of stirring of the spirit, it came in an unexpected way. I believe I was hearing the whisper of the goddess Brigid when, in my mid-teens, I was always overcome with dizziness sometime between the gospel and communion. I fled to the church gardens where I could address my prayers and questions to a sacred grove and a wide open sky. In college, I’d find the poetry, the books about the goddess and neopaganism, and the translations of medieval manuscripts that would create a structure for all my longing and wondering.  

And then, I followed her to Ireland and spent a couple of years seeking out her holy places, her ancient stories, and her modern translations. 

Though it was never the plan, I left academia and Irish Studies and ended up coming back home to build an American life that had little to do with Ireland’s poetry or holy folk. Though I stepped away from the scholarly stuff with its footnoted versions of a peer-reviewed world, I held Brigid and her goddess kin within my heart for more than half a lifetime.

Eventually, of course, I brought those stories back to the center of life when I wrote of Brigid, the Cailleach, the Morrigan, and Medb and spoke of the kind of Sovereignty that comes from the ancient, timeless spirit of the land, not from the mad world of modern politics…

The Season of Imbolc, The Birthday of a Book

The Sovereignty Knot was published a year ago. It’s hard to believe, since she was essentially birthed into another world.

Elsewhere this week, I’ll be writing about how strange it has been to author a book about being sovereign in a time when that word is often associated with the toxic individualism of the anti-mask, anti-vaccination, conspiracy theory set. For now, however, it is time to speak of Brigid and rebirth.

Celebrating a Holiday Thousands of Miles from Its Sacred Ground

There’s always a question of how (and if) one can celebrate a holiday or a deity rooted in a distant part of the planet when the power your honor comes from the land itself. That’s yet another question for another day, but for now, I’ll say that I’ve maintained the connection even when I went 14 years between trips back to the place I have called “my heart’s true home.”

Place matters. Being able to fill every sense with the specific magic of a piece of the earth is essential. And yet… experience has taught me, and the past ten months in particular have taught us all, that it is possible to build and maintain connections across the miles. All it takes is some passion and imagination. The right information and some technology help too, of course.

I am deeply grateful for my favorite form of technology: the little black journals I have been filling for over twenty years. They let me step back to what it was like to wake up in Ireland on Imbolc morning in 2000 when I was in Galway during my junior year abroad: 

This morning when I stepped into the grey air that was, nevertheless, fresh and tinged with warmth, I felt more alive than I can remember. Alive in my own right. Awake not for others’ company or a lover’s hands (as sacred as those both can be), but because I was that much closer to the tune of the universe, to the breath of the Goddess. 

Am I making all this up? Can I really feel her in the air?

Why should I doubt this sweet taste of waxing beauty? This morning the birds sang more clearly that I remember on any winter day, for this is Brigid’s Day… The turn has come. Rebirthing. Spring is asking to dawn.

Tomorrow, on Imbolc of 2021, I’ll wake up to a Hudson Valley snow storm. I’ll wake up twenty one years older than that girl who wanted to know if she could trust herself and her sovereignty, who wanted to see the sacred in the earth and in herself. (I’ll also wake up fully healed from the ridiculous break up that filled most of the rest of that 2/1/2000 journal entry with drama, thank the goddess!)

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and trust that on this journey, as wide and meandering and far from the source as I have been, I have never been alone.

I’m curious… do you feel a particular connection to Brigid or to a deity who springs from a different part of the earth than you call home? Tell me in the comments.

 How am I marking Imbolc this year?

• re/reading books about Brigid and the stories of her life and legacy as goddess and saint including this one, this one, and this one.

• Leaving my winter cloak, my favorite scarf, and my summer wrap out on the porch for Brigid to bless as she passes by. Is it strange to imagine that a goddess tied so intimately to the land of Ireland and Scotland is jumping over the pond to spread her love to the splintered pieces of the diaspora? All I can say is that there is magic and meaning the ritual and I think there’s still a touch of her hand on that winter cloak that I hung out the window of a dorm room overlooking Galway’s River Corrib.

• Maybe weaving a Brigid’s Cross. Rather than rushes we have some dry grasses collected from the hollow at the back of our land we call Blackthorn Alley. I think it’s a lost cause, but it may make for some snow day fun?

• Celebrating the first anniversary of The Sovereignty Knot by making the ebook free on Amazon from Tuesday - Friday of this week. (Look for emails on Tuesday with a reminder to download the book for free. You could always buy a copy you can hold in your hands right now!)

In America, the Sun Still Rose This Morning

Yesterday at noontime here on the east coast, the Sovereign Wisdom Circle gathered together to write and talk. We spent our time exploring the concept of “wisdom.” Once again (as I do every week), I fell in love with this group of wise, wise women. As their insights intertwine and flow together, I feel like we’re all held by an endless horizon of possibility.

Politics only entered the conversation when I declared we needed to change an upcoming meeting. We always meet Wednesdays, but on Wednesday, January 20, we all needed to see a peaceful transition of power. The Inauguration wanted our attention and we all needed to see Kamala become VP.

And then, once the call was done, my quick check of the New York Times live stream to see how the Electoral College certification was progressing turned into multiple screens showing multiple scenes of the growing chaos in Washington…

As afternoon turned into evening, I didn’t have any public words. I kept saying “did you see this?” to my husband as we watched reports from across the news spectrum. I texted family members and discussed what wine pairs best with an attempted coup (and drank a beer called Warlock to honor Reverend Warnock of Georgia because wonderful historic events happened yesterday before the horrible things happened). I reassured our 11 year-old that it would all be ok, even as we let her see the reality of how bad it all could be. I watched The Muppets with our 6 year-old because she proudly wanted nothing to with “people who don’t want Joe to be president.”

This morning, before I checked to see if our republic had made it through the night, I woke up thinking about the woman who stands on top of the Capitol dome. Beneath her feet, terrorists broke windows, waved Confederate flags, invaded offices, and attempted to destroy the national religion of democratic process. 

The Statue of Freedom, US Capitol Building

She is the Statue of Freedom and she has watched over the US Congress since 1863. 

Crafted in Italy, calling on symbols from Rome and the French Revolution and even wearing feathers that nod to the native peoples of America (as an honor or a symbol appropriated by gloating colonizers, you decide), she’s very American in her mix of traditions…

And she’s very American in that though she represents freedom, she was completed thanks to the labor of an enslaved man named Philip Reid.

Yesterday, we saw how words that are supposed to be “good” - like freedom - can be weaponized and subverted. Actions in response to a cowardly, delusional man’s words can weaponize a group of people and nearly subvert democracy. 

“Words mean what I say they mean and will be used to support the ideology I support” isn’t a new concept, of course. The whole country was built on high-minded ideals and elevated language for all, but it’s also built on the idea of freedom for some, on full humanity for some, on safety and protection for some. Regardless of the aspirational script, the United States has never been all that good at ensuring everyone has the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Seeing the contrast in the police response to the Black Lives Matter protests and the law enforcement response to an insurrectionist mob of angry white people shows us this absurd and deadly paradox.

But let me come back to the flash of an image that got me up this morning… I didn’t know the story of that twenty foot statue, but I half-remembered what a tour guide said when I was a high school kid on a field trip. I knew it was a woman who faced east and greeted the rising sun.

I checked the weather in Washington DC this morning. It’s sunny.

So, beyond language, beyond the original intent of the artist, beyond the circumstances of her construction, there was a mighty feminine being standing over our government this morning and she was touched by the light.

Let’s hold on to that image and keep trying to tell a new story of legitimate, full freedom for all and peace for all here on the ground.

My Cats Have Fleas and Other Unexpected Routes to Wisdom

I spent the majority of my weekend vacuuming. When I wasn’t vacuuming, I was washing blankets, asking everyone to keep their clothes off the floor, and spraying everything with this stuff that smells like cedar wood and herbal medicine.

Last night, I tore apart the couch - again. I made sure I got the skinniest vacuum attachment in all the cracks between the cushions.

Tonight, my husband will take on the bedrooms again. Tomorrow, I’ll vacuum the couch again and go along all the baseboards downstairs. We’ll be doing this for weeks. (Fortunately, I’m in a marriage that bucks the trends and does not lay the vast majority of domestic tasks at the female partner’s feet.)

My house has never been more clean. It’s never felt this vile either.

Our indoor cats have fleas. In the winter. In the middle of a pandemic.

This is not the kind of disruption our already disrupted lives needed.

As I vacuum every crevice and revisit every place an 11 pound cat or a minuscule beastie might crawl, I am getting to know this house in a more intimate way.

Everything they say about the house as a metaphor for self seems to be true. You have a lot of time to think when all you hear is the whine of the Kenmore and you’re using a headlamp to survey the territory under the bunk beds...

What emotion am I noticing most? 

Shame.

I was surprised to realize how vulnerable and foolish I felt for having the kind of home that could be infiltrated by something as gross as blood sucking insects.

As a woman who makes her way in the world talking about sovereignty, magic, and wisdom, I felt I couldn’t tell anyone but my closest cat owning friends about our infestation. It was too icky and mundane. 

There was a sense of failure, too. If I wasn’t so busy chasing myths and creativity, maybe I would have done a better job tending what matters most: ensuring that our home was a safe, comfortable place where we could play, work, create, and love.

Anyone who knows me knows that housekeeping is at the bottom of my list of skills and interests. The fact that this minor calamity has felt so unsettling is rather shocking.  

There are bigger stories to explore here. A lot of them are about security and the way things are “supposed” to be. There are stories about living in the extremes, particularly how this has been the best and the worst of times for a family like mine. A lot of my stories are about releasing what’s worthy of my time and attention and simply being in the present, meeting the needs of reality. And, of course, I get to look at why I could feel such paralyzing, silencing shame for experiencing something that could happen in any home that’s inhabited by furry creatures. 

Somewhere along the way, vacuum wand in hand, this ridiculous experience has taken me a little closer to wisdom and self-knowledge. It has also helped me find the reading glasses that fell behind the bed.

And it gave me a chance to remember that this is one reason I founded the Sovereign Wisdom Circle.

(You may have heard of the SWC. For the last three years we called it the Sovereign Writers Circle. I just renamed the group to reflect our understanding that writing is the vehicle that takes us to sovereignty and wisdom. The creative entrepreneurs and transformation professionals in this group are growing and changing. The community that supports them must grow and change, too.)

In our online community, we explore the biggest ideas around the nature of self and soul. We explore and craft stories about the most pivotal moments in life. We also have space to consider the significance of something as small and annoying (and potentially life changing) as a flea infestation.

Sovereignty, wisdom, creativity, and magic depend on the vastest truths and the tiniest revelations.

Perhaps you’re looking for a community and a guide who can help you make space and make meaning of the sacred and the mundane and everything in between?

We’re accepting new members into the Sovereign Wisdom Circle now.