Dear ones -

Happy Roman New Year and beginning of 2025!

As they say in Scotland: “lang may yer lum reek” which means “long may your chimney smoke” - a wish for long life, prosperity, and community (harking to the tradition of first footin’ and bringing coals to each other to keep the fire going after the bells ring midnight).

Being over here it’s been a pretty quiet holiday season for me, though not without the love of friends and family. There has been plenty of that.

I’m grateful to you all for your support of my business and the ways you keep supporting me doing what I’m doing: exploring, deepening, guiding, and expressing. May we continue to nourish and be nourished by our individual and collective hearts and humanity in the coming year.

A Card for 2025:

On that note - instead of a card for our little collective for January, I pulled one for 2025.

The card I pulled was the Hanged Man - from the major arcana, it’s a big archetype - a moment in the larger cycle of the Fool’s journey. In fact, it comes between the Justice card and the Death card. But the Hanged Man isn’t a victim, he’s not sentenced to be there. He’s chosen to invert himself, to pause between weighing the options and making the choice (which will mean death to the thing not chosen). In this pause, there is a surrender, possibly even a sacrifice. There’s the idea that we must lower ego below the heart, give ourselves over to the tree of life on which he hangs, and any other elementals. This deck seems to emphasize that while he remains human, he also remembers belonging with the forces of aliveness in the world.

That seems to be a potent reminder: when faced with choice, when it’s time to pass judgement, we need to check in with Aliveness; drop our preconceived ideas, surrender to wisdom not our own… and then make the choice and go through the consequences of our choices.

So in 2025, it feels like there’s an invitation for us to do things differently, see things differently, break out of our ruts. How things are done got us here. But we can change how things are done. And perhaps listening with humility and curiosity to Nature, to our beyond-human kin, will offer us new possibilities.

What we seek is seeking us. We are both the Lover and the Beloved. Our humanness is holy. There are larger forces at work in the world than our own personal ego. Our perspective often determines our experience. Play makes everything a little lighter.

We can always come home.

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Podcast Episode:

A few days ago on the new moon (the Black Moon, the second new moon in December), I dropped a solo podcast episode offering some of my thoughts on manifesting, intention-setting, burnout, and this time of year.

Are we manifesting? Are we practicing unattachment to results? Are we trying to create a new us, a better us? How do we even know what a better us might be or look like? Are we good enough as we are? If so, what’s the point, what drives us into any kind of action?

There’s a lot that feels confusing and overwhelming at this time of year. So I talk about the rhythms of planting, tending, harvesting, evaluating which are available to us at many points throughout the year.

I also muse about hunger and desire and some of the pitfalls we can fall into when we’re manifesting from our modern ways of perceiving and relating to the world, as opposed to more ancestral and animist ways of perceiving and relating (and how that can affect our burnout and purpose anxiety).

And I share a method that seems to be working well for me (hint - it’s not a word-based theme and I’ll also tell you why I suspect that didn’t work for me).

You're welcome to let me know what you think <3

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Offerings and Upcomings:

​Insight 2025 is still available for purchase until Jan 16th.

It’s your personal card pull for 2025, offering you insight, guidance, and an orientation tool for turbulent times of change, when you might want some support staying on course to growth and your most alive expression.

All the readings I’ve done so far have been so different. I love getting to feel the flavor of each person’s journey at this moment in time. It’s incredibly sacred and beautiful.

Delivered via email; you get

• a PDF with a picture of the your card(s), guidance on how to connect with it yourself, journaling prompts, and some ideas for other ways to embody or actively engage with the messages of the card.
• Plus, a voice note (usually approx 7-15min) with a channeled message from me on what I’m sensing the cards may be highlighting for you at this moment.
• And in December of 2025, you’re invited to a live Zoom call retrospective where we look over our cards from this moment in the year and reflect on what transpired.

Grab yours here.

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OracleFest - an online mystical festival

Created by Kate Graham (who was on my podcast - ep 40); I’m excited and honored to be one of the guest teachers.

Happening ver the Nature-based celebration of Imbolc at the beginning of February, this should be a jam-packed weekend of speakers and classes, community gathering and conversation spaces, a marketplace for mystical objects, etc.

I’m planning to offer my new Approaching the Roundhouse workshop. It’s an experiential exploration and re-imagining of how our longer-ago ancestors might have used story and ceremony to support wellness and harmony in the midst of the challenges of being human and alive. It’s an attempt to develop lost skills which would help us approach the modalities themselves in a more respectful and fruitful way; as well as a way of breathing air back into an almost lost but not entirely gone indigenous European culture.

If you’re excited by that offer, but not vibing with the online festival, no worries. There will be other opportunities to experience the Roundhouse. But if the festival sounds exciting to you, it would be wonderful to have you there.

There’s an interview Kate did with me on Oracle Mountain - a podcast-like format where she’s interviewing the speakers and organizers of the festival. You can check it out here.

And if you want to join us at the festival, there’s my affiliate link (which will let them know you heard about it from me and gives me a little bit of a kickback).

Or there’s a non-affiliate link (where you sign up and with no connection to me).

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Finally, I paused Wisdom Wednesday for December and January since it coincided with the holidays, but we’ll be back around the virtual hearth on the first Wednesday of February - February 5th. You’re most welcome.

And if you're feeling drawn to some 1:1 work, let me know. I have some availability.

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I'll wrap there for now, since that's already plenty.

May your remaining winter offer rest and dreaming.

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With much Love,

Kate

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P.S. I say "Roman New Year" because that's the calendar we're on. Our longer-ago ancestors would've honored a calendar more attuned to the rhythms of the seasons. In the Northern Islands (what we would think of as Celtic), they would've honored Samhain (Halloween) at the end of Oct/ beginning of Nov as the new year; because they knew that everything starts first as a seed, resting in darkness. Then they would have honored the quickening in early February at Imbolc, and the beginnings of things bursting forth in early May at Bealtaine.

They knew that new beginnings don't happen overnight - everything goes through a process of becoming.

So consider this your invitation to not rush into the New Year if that isn't feeling right. There's still time to rest and slowly germinate before beginning the push towards blossoming and fruiting this Spring and Summer. <3

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