Hello, dear ones -

Lunar New Year, Power, and Folk Traditions:

Perhaps you've seen memes in more recent years reclaiming the number 13 as a number, not of bad luck, but of the divine feminine...?

What these memes may not make clear is that part of the reason 13 is associated with the feminine is there are 13 moon cycles in the year, as opposed to 12 solar months. So the new year celebrated yesterday on the new moon, by those who follow the lunar calendar, marked the end of the 13th lunar cycle and the beginning of the next round.

While the moon is often associated with the feminine because of the connection with menstruation cycles, lunar calendars are also folk calendars. It's much easier for the average person to track the moon moving through its phases than it is to see the subtler and longer interval shifts of the sun in the sky. This is not to say our longer ago ancestors didn't track the sun, but to do so generally required sun dials or... giant stone formations. This may be part of the reason that for many cultures it's actually the cross-quarter nature holidays that have the most folk traditions surrounding them.

And we see this tension between the solar and lunar calendars show up in some myths and fairy tales. In the Grimms version of Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose, when the king throws the big feast to celebrate the birth of his and the queen's longed-for child, he wants to invite the 13 wise women, the 13 grandmothers, to celebrate and bless the child. But he only has 12 golden plates. So he has to leave one uninvited and it's she who casts the curse that might actually be a blessing.

These old stories always teach and share their wisdom through multiple layers of meaning, but one of the ways to read this moment (within a story which is, culturally, about the fertility of the land and how to stay in right relationship with the growing world) is as a moment of tension between the solar and lunar calendars and ways of keeping time - and the importance of both.

Which might be a great lesson for us to take to heart at another time in our human history when we're holding the tension between power of the people (folk power), and power of the mighty few (monarchs, emperors, and fascist leaders often use gold to symbolize their reigns and liken themselves to "sun" kings and solar deities).

(quick shout out to Tad Hargrave, Kakisimow Iskwew, and Stephanie MacKay for being some of the most influential figures in my coming to understand these more cultural layers of old myths and fairy tales. If you're interested to hear a bit more about this concept of understanding the cultural, not just psychological, layers of the stories, I've had some great podcast episodes with them you could check out: ep 54 and ep 60)

People-Power vs Empire-Power in the Spirituality and Wellness Worlds:

So why share this about folk traditions and lunar calendars?

Partly because I find it fascinating. And timely.

And partly as a, perhaps, slightly clunky transition to share a bit more about Insight 2026 and how I see these tensions between people-power and empire-power playing out in the wellness and spirituality worlds.

Much like how our long-ago ancestors held the tension between solar and lunar calendars as they traveled through the growing year and attempted to live in harmony with the Otherwordly forces and Holy Nature Beings; they held the tension and benefits of folk wellness and spiritual practices *and* professional services and ceremonies.

Through witch trials and the slow eroding of our trust and valuing of both folk practices and the land-based medicine people (we often use the term "shaman" as a blanket term, though that steals it from Siberia and erases the terms non-Siberian medicine people would've had for themselves in their own languages), both now reside in our collective shadow and so, a with anything in our shadow, we can't see importance of either one clearly and often struggle to know when we need to reclaim power and "do it ourselves" and when we might benefit from some outside support.

There's a lot more I could say on this, which, for the sake of some level of brevity, I won't right now. But I will acknowledge that we've probably all experienced being burned both ways - by trying to do things alone when we actually needed help, and by seeking help in wrong ways or from wrong people and retreating back into individualism as a result.

These are real hurts. And real challenges. And I don't see any easy answers.

But I do know there's a time and a place for both. Just like if you wanted to, say, start a business and you're debating developing your own website. You could do it. You could learn to program and design, or use a template to get you started, and you could build your own. And there might be good reasons for doing that. But it will also take you a really long time, most likely. (Just ask me! hahaha - this example is not random, friends). And the result, while not bad, might also not be quite as good as if you hired a professional who has spent years honing their craft and can now probably get you speedier, high-quality results than you might get on your own, with less experience under your belt.

Can you feel the difference in that example between hiring someone to do something you could do but are choosing not to because it might be better to share the load vs hiring someone to do something because you're desperate for them to save you?

One is sharing power and the other is giving it away.

And it goes both ways. You would also probably benefit from hiring someone who wants you to feel empowered enough to work with whatever they've done for you, whether they're around or not. Someone, in the above example, who would show you how to do basic edits to your website or make sure you were able to still play an active part in design choices and process. They're sharing power with you, not asking you to give yours to them.

It's not so different with divination and other intuitive skills and spiritual practices.

There's a time when a practitioner can get you somewhere faster, with perhaps more clarity and potency, than you could on your own because of their years of skill development and the depth of relationship they've cultivated with the Otherworld. But you still want them to empower you in whatever ways are appropriate. We will always have blind spots we could use some help seeing. And we will always be the most knowledgeable about our inner worlds and the unique meeting point of experiences we hold.

I aim to walk that line in all my work - guiding without controlling, supporting without carrying.

And Insight 2026 is no different. I'll share more in one more email on the structure and what's actually included in the offer, but I'll say for now that getting a card reading from someone, like anything, can often:

• affirm what we were sensing but may not have fully let ourselves believe or admit;
• hold us gently accountable when we're trying to hide or not see something;
• and illuminate the things we can't quite see yet ourselves.

It's a different beast than doing one for ourselves. (Especially if we've gotten it from someone who isn't trying to hold power over us as they're doing the reading or who doesn't have their own self-worth or need to feel special wrapped up in the offer. I am human so I can't claim to always have my shit together on that front. But it is something I track and work on constantly).

So I'll leave these thoughts here for now, adding only that if you, like me, appreciate paying attention to the ebbs and flows of the seasons and nature's cycles, you might also really like that as a new addition to Insight 2026, I'm sending out emails on the solstices and equinoxes with prompts to stay connected to your card reading through the year. I've actually already drafted them up and they're pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

I'll send another email in a couple of days with a bit more about what's included in the offering itself and some of the thought process behind it, but if you want to read more now or are ready to grab yours, you can do that here.

Power to the humans.

with Big Love and prayers for wild mercy upon us,

Kate