Hello, dear ones -
In the Gaelic tradition there are stories of epic battles between the Cailleach (the old woman of winter and creator of the land) and Bride (youthful goddess of summer and the love the fosters all growing things). It's part of how the ancestors of those lands were in relationship with this Spring period where the weather swings back and forth between icy snow and howling winds... and warm sun, moist soil where green shoots start appearing, and the smell of decay and new growth.
We're certainly experiencing that battle right now.
In fact, the last few weeks I've been tending a house and pets up on a mountain where I can see the clouds rolling in to blanket the mountain and deposit enough moisture to freeze on each branch. But by tomorrow it will start feeling like summer. I'm needing two totally different wardrobes.
Uncertainty has always been part of life. And we can mock our longer-ago ancestors for their "silly" myths and sense-making around uncertainty. But that only seems to serve the idea that being better at controlling things is the optimal evolutionary path.
And yet, here we are, just as not-in-control as ever, and, it seems to me, with fewer tools and skills for holding uncertainty without being uprooted by it.
If we're to live as creatures again, it seems we need to find a different relationship with uncertainty and change. It might serve us to stop holding consistency and linearity as signpopsts for trustworthiness and "healthy functioning".
That certainly seems to be some of the energy of late February - early March...
March Updates:
Once again there have been some changes on the offerings list and timings. You might notice below that a couple offerings have been pushed back.
I was making good progress on the Living as Creature, Not Machine course and then paused for my birthday, received some beautiful energy and body work, and needed some creative fallow time to integrate and re-calibrate.
As I was working on the LACNM course, I realized there was a calling for a healing circle to tend our collective shadow - things like greed, exploitation, disconnect, and inhumanity - where the potential for them lies inside each one of us. And so Embodying a New Paradigm (a free, monthly healing circle) was born. More below in the offerings section, but I want to name that I feel excited and vulnerable announcing it to the world. May it serve us well.
The "Wild Sacred Journey Podcast" and "Creature Comfort videos" (Recent episodes):
"When you hear “fire horse” what image comes to mind? (an exercise in checking cultural bias, internalized empire, and animism vs anthropomorphism)" (15min) - some reflections on internalized bias and how we can begin questioning and unlearning the meaning we attach to the natural world in order to encounter it in a more animist way - as ancestor and teacher in its own right. Prompted by the lunar new year and the Chinese Zodiac new year of the Fire Horse.
**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.
Upcoming Events and Offers:
#1
IN-PERSON (Lorton, VA) On March 8th at the Workhouse Arst Center. Due to low enrollment, this has been postponed for the moment. We're exploring alternate dates and whether it still feels right to proceed. I'll keep you posted.
#2
ONLINE - (through OracelFest as part of their new Special Focus Workshop series): Grounding the Charge (The Empath and Oracle Edition).
We've had to change dates a few times but the official date is now Saturday, March 21 - just in time for the Spring Equinox. The workshop runs from 2-4pm ET. Exchange is $88 CAD (which works out to about $64 USD or £48 GBP)
You can register here. (When you register you can either choose to just attend my workshop as a single event. Or you can become a STAR All-Access Member which gets you admission to my workshop, as well as admission to all online OracleFest events that occur while you're a member, plus replays of all past events).
About the workshop:
Sensitive and intuitive people often carry more charge than they realize. They experience rapid energy expansion without integration. Signals without containment. A mental world that feels louder than ever.
And many intuitive people are opening quickly in these times, which is very exciting. More awareness. More subtle perceptions opening. More emotional and energetic data coming in.
But without nervous system literacy, this can also feel like:
- Overstimulation
- Wired-but-tired states
- Collapsing after peak experiences
- Difficulty setting boundaries
- Absorbing collective charge
Your gifts most likely do not need to be dimmed or turned down. They may just need some grounding.
Grounding the Charge is a two-hour, practical and active workshop dedicated to helping you ground that charged-up experience into your body.
This workshop spirals through three core challenge points many sensitive beings encounter:
1. Integrating After Peak Experiences - How to metabolize expansion after retreats, ceremonies, festivals, or spiritual breakthroughs so your body comes with you.
2. Staying Grounded as Intuition Deepens - How the nervous system and physical body interact with intuitive gifts. How to receive more without overwhelming your system.
3. Navigating a Charged World - How to remain coherent and resourced while living inside a world that carries intensity.
You'll leave feeling more aware and skilled when it comes to understanding your own patterns as it relates to "charge" and how to stay steady in your sensitivity, even in these times.
Registering inclues:
- live access to the (experiential) workshop,
- a downloadable intergation workbook sent out after the event,
- and lifetime access to the replay.
#3
ONLINE - * NEW OFFER* Embodying the New Paradigm. Because the outer world is a mirror of the inner and we need to be the change.
A *FREE* monthly gathering.
- Part group energy healing, part loving-kindness meditation.
- To humbly participate in transmuting the collective shadows of things like greed, disconnect, and exploitation from where their potential lives inside each of us.
- While practicing being the Love we want to see in the world.
On the final Sunday of each month at 1pm ET (10am PT || 6pm UK time)
For 60-90min, depending on how large a group we have.
Perhaps what feels most vulnerable about this new offer is that it's based on my view that genocide, ecocide, gross inequity, housing and cost-of-living crises, surveillance states, unethical AI use, the Epstein files… these are all evidence that systems and people willing to pay the price of power, industry, capitalism, technocracy, empire, etc with other human and beyond-human lives are everywhere.
And while that might be shocking, it's also not news. What might be tougher to swallow is my sense that the people perpetrating and benefiting from these crises aren’t aberrations or outliers and we lose our own effectiveness at creating change if we spend our time and energy trapped in "me = good, them = bad" paradigms.
What if, instead of being super-villains, they’re the naked-faced, inevitable outcome of an inherited trajectory, made up of 800-ish years of choosing machines over creatures, empire over kinship, and profits over stewardship?
And what if we’ve all inherited the same potential, internalized the same propaganda? What if the patterns of exploitation, extraction, and harm (perhaps less fully-realized but just as possible) lie inside each one of us?
I offer that we’re facing a collective reckoning, an initiation of sorts and an invitation back to our humanity. And along with it, the chance to do some deep repair work in our relationship with our creature-selves, with each other, and with our beyond-human kin.
If we can let ourselves encounter this moment, be changed by this moment; if we can approach repair with humility, curiosity, and courage; I see the possibility of a totally new paradigm - less surviving, more thriving; fewer machines, more creatures; and above all, Love and care for all life.
And so that's what we're practicing embodying in this monthly gathering.
These are interactive sessions, guided by me but co-created in real-time by the energies and experiences of those of us who gather. But they’ll follow the same bones: part inner work, part group shadow work and grief ritual, part loving-kindness meditation to begin bridging the inner work with the outer world.
They're freely offered and free to attend, though each month I will also offer a different call to action of some kind. These are not mandatory - just one more way of making love tangible, if you feel resourced enough and called to act.
Join us for the first one on March 29th?
iNSPIRATION and Beauty:
I've been privileged enough to see Karine Polwart perform live two times. Her ability to distill the messiness of the human experience down into something elegantly simple and beautiful never ceases to move me.
"The Path That Winds Before Us" by Karine Polwart and Dave Milligan:
with Big Love and prayers for wild mercy upon us,
Kate
