Hello dear ones -

A few days a ago, I sent an email beginning to make a case for restoring more beauty and meaning in our holiday celebrations.

But I’m aware that “beauty” is a word that comes with a lot of baggage for many of us.

I wrote a Substack post addressing this (you can read the whole thing here), but I'll recap it a bit here:

I was in a multi-week exploration of the story of Briar Rose, aka Sleeping Beauty, with Tad Hargrave and Kakisimow Iskwew when I first started unpacking what "beauty" meant to me, alongside the others who were in the group. Most of us had pretty negative connotations of the word.

The baggage we brought to the idea of “beauty” ranged from "superficial" to "threatening" to "impossible standards" to a "weapon" and/ or "safety."

In my own life, there were many years where I rebelled against the idea of being beautiful and tried to be the opposite. Partly because to be beautiful seemed to mean attracting lots of unwanted attention (and even abuse in differing levels of severity). Also because some part of me was afraid I wasn’t beautiful (not by society’s standards, anyway) and it was easier to not even try so I couldn’t “fail” at it.

But in large part it was also that beauty somehow had become the “least” of what a woman could be - it was what was outside, it was appearances that fade, it was “superficial”. Narratives said was far better to be smart, or kind, or funny, or spiritual. I mean, yes, all those were better if you were also beautiful (though also unaware of your beauty - the basic premise for every rom-com out there, of course). But somehow to be considered beautiful was now to be acknowledged just for your looks.

But stand at the edge of an ocean with the sun making a trail of light across the water as it rises or sets. Watch the northern lights dance across a star-flecked sky. Stand among ancient forests, covered in moss. Or perch yourself on a cliff top watching birds ride air currents or heat lightning crack in the distance. Or watch a deer silently watch you back, or the fireflies rise up out of the grass and twinkle in the tops of trees on a mild early Summer evening…

Do any of those things and you’ll meet the Holy.

You’ll meet the Holy because those things are beautiful and Beauty has the capacity to crack your heart wide open, fill you with wonder.

So before Beauty become something to control or minimize women (and sometimes men, too); before it meant privilege and access to resources or not; before it meant becoming a target of violence; before it meant superficiality and the opposite of depth or seriousness or even spiritual superiority and asceticism… it was how the Holy expressed itself in our lives. How we communed with something beyond ourselves, with wonder and open-heartedness.

Which means to center Beauty in all we did became a form of prayer, a way of maintaining our relationship with the Holy.

To practice making beautiful things in beautiful ways and dressing beautifully was a spiritual practice.

In the last few months of being back on Turtle Island (the U.S.) after so long away, I've been struck by how much ugliness and anti-Beauty we're surrounded by every day. So much so that I'm not even sure we're aware of the absence of Beauty - true Beauty. But we're hungry for it. And we'll keep trying to satisfy that hunger in all kinds of weird ways if we don't get the foundational premise for our hunger right - if we can't see what the actual problem is.

Could it be a hunger for Beauty that fuels greed, obsession, many of our buying and consuming habits, and the never-ending chase for power and safety and belonging? Could those all be misguided attempts to find the Holy?

So how do we start to change any of that?

In my experience, it helps to understand that Beauty is the face of the Holy. It's one of the ways the Holy expresses itself through Life. Which means Beauty, like the Holy, like what is wild and Alive and untamed. It's a rare creature. One that can't be bottled or controlled or forced into doing anything. Instead, we court it. We invite it by creating the conditions where it might want to come closer and stay for a bit.

There are a lot of ways to celebrate the holiday season. But few of them seem to operate on this premise - this premise of doing things beautifully so Beauty might appear and the Holy might bless us and nourish us with its presence.

But that just might be the key. To go through our holidays with more intention, yes, but more intention for Beauty.

Intentions for Beauty in our offerings and gifts, for Beauty in our conversations, for Beauty in what and how we eat and drink and practice hospitality (whether as host or guest). For Beauty in our rituals. And Beauty in the balance and flow of our days. For what we do to leave Beautiful footprints on the Land and its resources. For what we create and consume to be a continuation of Beautiful ripples - coming from Beauty, being enhanced in some way as we hold it, and passing on from us Beautifully, too.

What might change if we did this? What kind of world might be the end result?

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

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And if you'd like to take me up on the invitation to join me for one or more of the offers I have going right now, just know you can trust that I'm holding the intention for them to serve you, yes, but really to serve Beauty.

How?

With Insight 2026 (divination through tarot cards to support the journey of your becoming in the year ahead), I practice a divination that's not about answers or control, but about curiosity and questions. I leave much of the power, responsibility, and exploration in your hands; while offering some guidance on how you can weave the mythopoetic images on the cards into your daily life and any magic or ritual practices you want to try as a way of honoring the new year.

(Insight 2026 is on now until Jan 6th and won't be back again until next December)

With Sun, Moon, Fire, and Soil (online seasonal gathering to tend the turning of the wheel of the year), we aim for simplicity, alignment, the slow and gentle tending of presence. We tune into the natural world where we are, we listen to a story, and then we use the wisdom of the story to explore bringing more animism, more mysticism and beauty, into our daily lives.

(Sun, Moon, Fire, and Soil is happening this Saturday, Dec 20th at 2pm ET on Zoom. This will be the last one of this year)

And with the in-person Winter Solstice ceremony (to rest in the beauty of the season and honor the darkness and the light), we'll gather around flame and altar; opening ourselves to and tending our relationship with the Otherworld. We'll be enacting ceremony as a way of feeding the Holy. We'll be directly practicing Beauty as a form of nourishment for all Life.

(This ceremony is happening in Winchester, VA. Registration closes on Friday the 19th and ceremony happens on Sunday Dec 21st at 9:30am)

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Whether you feel called to join me for any of these offers or not, I'm sending warm winter blessings to you by the flickering of firelight.

May what's tender and Beautiful within each of us be fed in the ways it needs to blossom in the light of the days to come.

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with Love,

Kate

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