Hello, dear ones -

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We're entering the first round of eclipses and about to start a new lunar cycle so things might feel energetically charged in the next week or so. Old patterns may be coming up for a final release or transmutation. Whatever can't come with us into the next cycle will be under review. "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man" (Herclitus). Let yourself be different. Trust that the unknown might be better than the known.

These don't have to be big leaps and dramatic burn-downs. In fact, the older I get the more I experience that small steps, combined with intention, make those transitions easier.

Shed those last bits of the Wood Snake's skin and get ready to burn and move with the Fire Horse.

MID - February Updates:

I'm noticing that everywhere I look (including in myself), many of us are being invited to learn the lesson of honoring our true capacity and trusting that an honest "no" is kinder than a "yes" we can't sustain.

Seeing patterns in others can often help clarify what we're seeing in ourselves and vice versa. And I'm particularly seeing this in collaborations and partnerships of various kinds. So many good humans with big hearts and big visions are eagerly saying "yes" to every idea that excites them, every offering that aligns with the world they want to see. And they're burning out and/or burning bridges, doing it. Sometimes people do it because, whether consciously or not, saying "yes" gets them an outcome they want and they worry "no" might get them a different outcome.

In many land-based cultures, that kind of eagerness is understood to be the providence of youth - and part of the purpose of initiating the youth was to teach them what to do with hunger. Because that kind of saying "yes" to everything, even when well-intended, ends up becoming a form of greed (or in the case of using it to get certain outcomes, a form of manipulation). And it brings us out of balance in our relationship with other humans and with the land and our beyond-human kin. It erodes trust - inner and outer.

I'm sharing this because I've had to cancel so many offerings in the last few years (some of which I'd already told you about and some which never made it to the point of being shared) because of "yeses" that couldn't be sustained. I've also tried and dropped a lot of my own offerings for similar reasons. In the past, one of my patterns was picking up the slack in the partnership when the other lagged and making it happen anyway. Or, in the case of my own stuff, trying to keep is going past when I knew I needed to pause and re-calibrate. I was burning out on both those approaches (plus, how energetically icky to force something through "just because").

But one of the results of shifting my own pattern and letting the sparks die out, instead of trying to make every one of them catch, is that now a lot of offers I (and sometimes partners) have spent a great deal of time and care on die before they ever reach the people who might want and need them. And it sucks. But I'm also always thrilled whenever I feel what was becoming incoherent move back into coherence - inner and outer self aligned. To me, that feels better than any specific response and even better than pushing something through because "people are expecting it" or "we've spent so much time on it, we can't back out now".

(I will add for nuance's sake: there is a time and place for trying things out and then iterating as the offer comes clear through the trying. And letting things come to an end doesn't signify a failure. Somethings are only meant for specific moments and seasons. But that's different than these subtle patterns of greed and immaturity playing out when we try to say yes to everything).

Imagine how many fewer things would be saturating the marketplace if we created less, less urgently, and with more of our hearts and full integrity behind them. Imagine how much more progress we might make if we committed more deeply to one thing, rather than sample-plattering everything? Imagine how many families and relationships would flourish if we could spend more of our time and care there when needed. Imagine how much more we could trust each other if we were actually honest, not just afraid of disappointing someone.

It reminds me a bit of those lines in the poem "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer: "It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy."

So, I invite all of us, to see if we can pause before we say "yes" to something or take some new project on, no matter how shiny, how good, how aligned it is. And ask ourselves: can I sustain this "yes"? can I do the maintenance inevitably required once any commitment is made? is this really where my priorities are needed right now?

And if not - give a kind and honest "no".

(And sure - sometimes we don't know we're a "no" until after we've said "yes". That's part of learning. But then we get the opportunity to come clean as quickly as possible so that we aren't transgressing our own boundaries and setting others up to transgress, too. And we try to get better at discerning more quickly and accurately in the future).

Part of unlearning our internalized capitalism (which always wants us moving on to the next, new thing) is resisting the urge to chase the shiny in favor of deepening with the real. This is how we build better relationships and more meaningful intimacy.

Creatures live in coherence. Their insides and outsides match (it's part of why so many people chose "bear" in that "man vs bear" thing from a couple of years ago). The world doesn't need us to *do* more and perform *good* better. It needs us coherent and effective. And less is usually more when it comes to both those things.

"When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to elevate the entire system to a higher order.” — Ilya Prigogine

[end mini rant. for now.]

You might notice some things have moved off the "upcoming offers section". But I hope the resulting resonance of coherence will ripple out to you and support you.

Meantime, I'm still chipping away at (and making exciting progress on) my Living as Creature, Not Machine self-paced course. I'm hoping to have that ready by the end of the month... but let's not carve that into stone just yet. I don't want to scare the creative muses (who *hate* pressure). One step at a time!

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The "Wild Sacred Journey Podcast" and "Creature Comfort videos" (Recent episodes):

Again, just one since our last email.

"is your yoga mat a friendly presence? or are you just making it up to make yourself feel better? (on the difference between animism and anthropomorphism)" (7 min) - prompted by a conversation with a friend about a handful of months ago now, here I get briefly into the difference between animism and anthropomorphism. Ie the question: am I imagining this friendly presence here to make myself feel better or is there actually something here I can connect with and feel supported by? Understanding this difference and engaging in animism, not anthropomorphism also offers a great perception and behavior shift to help us get away from the stress and false comfort that living in a world of being “separate and superior” offers us as humans. Instead, we become more able to feel our deep belonging in the creature world. Which doesn’t always feel “good” but feels so rich and meaningful and right.

**the links above are all to Substack, but you can find the episodes on the Wild Sacred Journey YouTube channel, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many other podcasting platforms.

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Upcoming Events and Offers:

#1

ONLINE - Insight 2026 Lunar New Year Flash Sale!​

From Monday, Feb 16th through Sat Feb 21st I'll be re-opening the cart for an Insight 2026 tarot reading. Usually, I offer these readings early-Dec through early -Jan in honor of the midwinter solstice and Gregorian calendar New Year.

And since the cart closed and I finished this round of readings, I've heard from about half the people who got them how much they're finding their reading a lifeline in their lives and in these times. (One person told me they're referring to it daily. Another told me she's falling asleep to it at night because she finds it so soothing).

Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised and quite touched to hear they were landing so powerfully and providing such a compass in times of turmoil. That's certainly what I was aiming for, but perhaps even beyond what I hoped for.

So if you were busy over the holidays, or weren't feeling it then but are curious now about what kind of guidance a tarot reading might have for you for the year of 2026, now's your chance. Harness the energy of the Lunar New Year and get your tarot reading here.

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#2

ONLINE - I'm scheduled to offer a special workshop called "Ground the Charge" through OracleFest on Sat Feb 28th from 2-4pm ET. Registration is not up yet and I'll let you know once it is. More details will hopefully be forthcoming soon. But the intention behind it is to give tools and context supportive for sensitive and intuitive people:

• integrating after a peak experience (like a retreat, a plant medicine ceremony, a potent sound healing journey or yoga class, etc);
• trying to navigate the intense energy of these times;
• or when feeling overwhelmed by a download, intuitive hit, or creative burst

If that sounds like something for you, keep an eye out for upcoming details and maybe pencil it in on your calendar so you can join us.

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#3

IN-PERSON (Lorton, VA) On March 8th at the Workhouse Arst Center in Lorton, VA, I’ll be joining their Sunday Wellness Series to offer another Living as Creature, Not Machine workshop/ transmission. The event is 4-5:30pm ET. Cost is $35.

You can register for my workshop specifically here (and check out the other offers in their Sunday Wellness Series - they’re scheduled out through March and have sound baths, tarot reading, meditative movement, etc). You can also listen to Karen, the human behind the vision for the series, share about it on a local news station here.

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iNSPIRATION and Beauty:

In honor of Valentine's Day, here's a quote from Martín Prechtel on love and courtship (found in the book of quotes from his oral teachings, Rescuing the Light):

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with Big Love and prayers for wild mercy upon us,

Kate