I’ve taken this month to rest and reset, surrendering to the fertile darkness of the winter season. This quiet inward time is giving me clarity and I now have a vision for rebirthing Art of Sacred Living in 2024.
As you may have noticed, last year I struggled to find my footing, I didn’t host monthly gatherings on the regular as I once did, I didn’t show up in a public facing way as often either. In hindsight, last year was an incubation period. I used my time to explore and study, going back to my love of the ‘secret’ herstory of women, dipping my toes into Earth sciences and ecology, reading many soul stirring books; Rooted, Finding the Mother Tree, The Treeline, The Witches Herbal Apothecary, Plant Spirit Medicine, An Unlikely Peace at Chuchumaquic to name a few favorites, as well as beginning an herbalist apprenticeship. I took all those ingredients and began stirring the cauldron, slowly weaving a new spell.
Here's what I know so far – I love our beautiful community, it’s a balm to my heart and soul, so it’s a strong YES to hosting monthly in-person circles (if you live in the LA area sign up for my newsletter), to creating more inspiring content that's of value to you my beautiful reader, and to focusing solely on my Transformational Coaching and healing practices. And it's hard NO to trying to share everything I love, which is too vast, through my business. Focus + discipline (my word of the year:) is what’s come through to me. I will be making updates to the website to reflect and honor this new exciting direction.
I think one reason hosting the monthly circles didn’t really speak to me last year is because there was no defined shape. When I first began hosting a decade or so ago the circles I hosted were Full Moon gatherings, Moon Lodge, and we gathered only on the full moon. They were witchy, which I loved! Then they morphed into Sacred Woman Gatherings as I joined forces with a beloved friend, beautiful but also tamed down. When we parted business ways I couldn’t quiet find my footing, should I go back to hosting Moon Lodge...? That no longer resonated. Next I tried Ritual Circle, that didn’t feel quiet right either.
So after sitting in stillness, listening to my heart, and allowing myself to be guided by my Wild Woman intuition, what feels right in my bones is not only to acknowledge my true Wild Woman self but to act on her behalf.
Guided by the brilliant Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run With the Wolves – “To find the Wild Woman, it is necessary for women to return to their instinctive lives, their deepest knowing. So, let us push on now, and remember ourselves back to the Wild Woman soul. Let us sing her flesh back onto our bones. Shed any false coats we have been given. Don the true coat of powerful instinct and knowing. Unfurl the bandages, ready the medicine. Let us return now, wild women howling, laughing, singing up The One who loves us so.”
And so my beautiful Wild Woman sister, it feels auspicious to announce the birth of the Wild Woman Collective now and to celebrate with you in sacred sisterhood on Imbolc. I will be hosting an in-person gathering in the LA area on Imbolc, February 1st, to start our year off together reawakening our Wild Woman magic. If you'd like to come email me here. *And for my Wild Woman sisters who don't live in the area, I invite you to gather your coven wherever you are to celebrate. I will share some ideas for how to create a magical Wild Woman gathering in IG in the coming days. Be sure to follow me there @artofsacredliving_ for some support.
Why Imbolc you may wonder? It is an ancient holiday and means "in the belly of the Mother" in Old Gaelic, because the seeds of spring are beginning to stir in the belly of Mother Earth. It also celebrates Brigid, the Celtic fire and fertility goddess. It’s a time of quickening an inflow of divine vitality. To quicken is to make alive. It the perfect occasion to reawaken our Wild Woman nature!