Hello, dear ones -

Today was moving day - I left where I’ve been for the last three and a half weeks in North Cork and headed to Dublin for a few nights in preparation for departing Ireland and heading back to the UK (Wales) early next week.

I remember when I was going through my vinyasa yoga teacher training, my teachers, Christen and Preston Scott, would remind us that one of the things we practice in vinyasa yoga is transitioning. Unlike many other forms of yoga, vinyasa encourages flowing from one posture to the other without pausing. In that way, it reminds us that transitions are just as important as arrivals.

A few years ago when I was on an extended road trip through the US, I used my frequent arrivals and departures to practice mindful and intentional endings and departures.

Rupture is inevitable.

Things will always be ending and leaving.

But it doesn’t have to be traumatic.

It doesn’t have to be rushed and frantic. It doesn’t have to be unacknowledged and numb. We don’t have to downplay the emotions that can accompany even simple leave-takings.

How we live life can be a practice for how we plan to die.

Preparing to die well can teach us to live.

Life-death-rebirth cycles teach us there is no separation between the two. They are two sides of the same coin.

So while I’ve been trying to get our beginning-of-the-month email out to you for a few days, I’ve needed to be honoring the pulling up my roots and the leave-taking of people who’ve become community to me in a relatively short while.

I haven’t always left relationships well. I’ve pulled away quickly. I’ve let the thought “no one will notice if I’m gone. I don’t really matter and they’ll get over it just fine” justify my own disappearance and clumsiness with the ritual of farewell.

But the older I get, the more I realize relationships are precious and sacred. I get increasingly familiar with my own capacity limits when it comes to how many relationships I can juggle well (that includes with “things” - animism reminds us our “possessions” are also sites for relationship with sentient beings).

So I’m using this nomadic time living out of a suitcase to practice tending relationships in meaningful and capacity-honoring ways. Fewer things. More depth. Moving at the pace of trust. Holding spaciousness as a priority.

So, now that I’ve arrived in Dublin, I’m using the few hours before I can check in to sit here and get caught up on some other relationships - my relationship with you all being one of them.

The card I pulled for us for the month of June is the Nine of Pentacles. I pulled from the Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and Barbara Moore.

I’m aware as I pull this that Saturn has moved from Pisces into Aries, Jupiter is about to move to Cancer, and Venus is moving into Taurus for the next month. So we’re all being invited to explore themes of: devotion to what we love, grounded sensuality, and the kind of joyful abundance that comes from being true to ourselves.

I see those themes in this card - lessons around, as Rumi says, “letting the beauty we love be what we do.”

Back over the winter, I spent six weeks doing a deep dive into the story of Sleeping Beauty/ Briar Rose with Tad Hargrave and Kakisimow Iskwew - looking for the embers of a more culturally indigenous Mother Europe in the story. Amazing richness was found. But one of the topics we sat with was that of Beauty.

We looked at our hang-ups around beauty - how beauty, for many of us, feels like a measuring stick we can never live up to and a cage for women (and men) to keep us seeking superficial approval rather than allowing us to experience true belonging.

Yet, if you look at indigenous cultures around the world, they all have beautiful clothing, jewelry, crafts, etc at their heart. Doing things with beauty in mind was considered important enough that even “merely functional” items were often done with a sense of beauty.

Beauty seems to be a foundational pillar of cultures with living, breathing cosmologies.

Perhaps because beauty is how we celebrate and honor the sacred gift of this life… and feed it in return. Perhaps because looking for beauty in the world around us and creating beauty in response is what helps us stay human.

So this card says: Look for the beauty. Sing it back. Be imperfect. But keep trying. We become masters when we show up and do our best and keep aspiring to more and more beauty (notice I didn’t say “keep aspiring to more and more perfection”). And for the love of all that is holy, PLAY! Life becomes more joyful, more prosperous when we play through the full spectrum of our emotions and humanity. Anything we’re doing, even raging, is worth doing beautifully.

Upcoming in June:

Online:

Sanctuary -

I know in my last email I said we were going to be starting Sanctuary back up again this month, but given how much real life is needing my attention right now; I’m practicing what I preach, honing the energy of sanctuary, and pushing it back one more month. Registration is still open, so you’re welcome to sign up for July’s session or any of the others after that. But we will NOT be gathering on Monday.

More: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/sanctuary​

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Sun, Moon, Fire, & Soil: Summer Solstice -

Saturday June 21st, I’ll be gathering with you online, live, (from where I’ll be in the Candleston Woods in Wales).

The exact nature of these gatherings is still taking shape, but we gather in ritual and ceremony to connect with the seasonal energy of the times.

Our gatherings: bring us into our body and sensory nature; deepen our sense of connection with ancestors and the natural world; tune into our inner world with nature as a mirror; and explorer how we can give something back through our own rituals and ceremonies - through being changed by our relationship with the world.

A recording will be sent out if you can’t attend live, though I encourage live attendance if you can.

Join us to honor the sun’s zenith and our ancestral memory of what the peak of summer means. This is the hinge point before we begin the slow descent back towards darkness.

More: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/seasonal-roundhouse​

In-Person:

The Elements Retreat - in Candleston Woods, Wales -

Over the summer solstice, June 20th-23rd, 2025. There are over 60 different offerings with different facilitators. A wide range of modalities and services on offer.

I’ll be offering part talk, part ceremony around shifting from Burnout to Aliveness. And I’ll be available for 1:1 work.

If you’re able to get yourself to Wales, there are some tickets still available and you’re most welcome.

More: https://www.zententevents.com/elementsretreat​

I’ll leave it there for now.

But sending you much love from Ireland where the hawthorns have fully leafed out, the cowslips are letting their blossoms go, the elder are in bloom, the dog roses are springing out on the hedges, and the grass has taken on the deep green of summer.

What a blessing to be alive and surrounded by an abundance we could never hope to reciprocate, only honor and honor again.

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Kate