Do eclipses affect us spiritually and creatively? And other post eclipse affects
I yearn to learn the language of rain, how it pours out itself, and joins other bodies of water, how it then evaporates, and then pours down again. I am shown that through rain, time is always cyclical, but never uniform. The swelling and releasing of the clouds are different every time, sometimes sudden and sometimes gradual, and how they are distinct from each other. How sideways rain is rain being defiant and unrelenting. Spring thunderstorms are so enthusiastic. Summer mists tease and smell so good. Fall showers are heavy and thick. Winter’s heaviness, rivers on dry land, in cities, and when it cools right down, right down to zero, how they crystalize and turn to snow. How snow is a different kind of rain, one that rocks and hushes the land beneath. Snow as comfort, snow as delight, and sometimes, snow as treachery.
SKIN CARING: Your Skin is Your Largest Psychic Organ
Did you know that caring for your skin also enhances your intuition and psychic senses? This is because skin is our largest psychic antennae. Our skin is always taking in information - some obvious, some more subtle or hidden. If you look to ancient and folk traditions, spas, baths, herbs, and caring for our skin have always been linked to connecting with Source and the more-than-human.
What Does It Mean When We Say That Tea Is Not A Drink?
Still, modern humans regard Tea as a beverage, passive and inanimate, something to be consumed and reduced to a nutritional summary of polyphenols, that limits our ability to relate with her (and other plants), and the natural elements with consequences. These consequences of reducing Tea is a form of objectification, a fetishizing, a symptom of domination where we claim we “know” Tea, based on her list of beneficial compounds. Substituting "Tea" with "friend" challenges our anthropocentric view, highlighting our tendency to prioritize self-interest as humans, where we believe we are the main character of the narrative. It prompts reflection on genuine friendship and our role as participants.
How to Drink Tea As An Animist: What Is Hui Gan?
From Mandarin, Hui Gan (回甘) translates as “returning sweetness”. It’s the finish (much like what’s experienced in fine wines) that is both a sensation and a flavor that is left on the palate after Tea is consumed. With Teas with strong Hui Gan, the finish can be sensed beyond the mouth, and can spill over onto your entire body. In my animist work, I see Hui Gan less as a “finish” or aftertaste, and more as an afterglow, or simply how the specific Tea says until we meet again.
What’s the difference between Clock Time and Elemental Time?
There’s clock-time— linear, homogeneous, mechanical, always depleting, a commodity or resource. There’s also elemental time — mutable, oblique, multipliable, full of life force, alive and intelligent. Clock-time is found outside of us. Elemental time is found within our ourselves — our bodies, our dream states, where our voice and our personal land is found and accessed.
How Words Can Create Reality
The Black Holes Birthing Stars series is both a creative writing and magical word-crafting series. Where language is approached as a tool of consciousness.
Ethical Business Practices and Examples within Wellness
I list some questions that we can keep top of mind when we audit our decolonizing practices within our spiritual practices and how it shows up in business decisions. These prompts are meant to help you ask yourself with discernment and honesty how you approach spirituality, wellness, and business, in an ever changing world, and presents intersectional decolonization approaches.
It's International Women's Day, and yet…
It's International Women's Day, and yet, many of my personal frustrations, depletions, and wounds have been sustained from women.
IS OUR APPROACH TO ETHICS HURTING US?
Ethics and spirituality is not a way to judge who is good or bad. Ethics and spirituality is not about creating a 'worth table' for yourself or others. While I do think it matters what we say or don’t say, what we post also does not determine our worth. Policing others also does not signal worth for the signifier. Our worth does not change. Our worth is non-negotiable. A worn $5 bill has the same value as a mint $5 bill.
You Are Raising A Teapot
The liquid from this rinse step is not consumed, and is discarded, before the first “true” steeping is made and then enjoyed. As my mother gifts me the chahu, she says that this one was made from the regional Taiwanese clay, which most producers increasingly use less of, as imported clays improve the bottom line as Taiwanese clay can require more steps and massaging to yield a desired finished result in the earthenware.
Save the rinse, she says, pour it over the chahu; always offer the chahu its first yield. She continues, 你在养茶壶; you are raising a teapot.
MAGICK WORDS
In my animist practice, and extended in my witches’ coven, Homing Coven, words not only REFER to energy that course through all things (living beings, colours, planetary bodies, money - which are very much all conscious and alive)), words ARE energy. Work with the words directly as living beings, which are both the bridge to and the literal Unseen, where words and the silence of space between them, are part of the spells we can cast.
ALLIES THAT HELP US LOVE BETTER
Despite the challenges of Resentment, Boredom, Frustration, and Rage, relating them as beings instead of mere emotions open us to receive their invaluable gifts that remind us we truly matter. And intriguingly, when we live in animistic ways that reinforce that we matter, these allies tend to visit us less.
3 MOST COMMON CHINESE NEW YEAR GREETINGS
In Mandarin, the most common Chinese New Year greeting is Xīnnián hǎo (新年好), meaning 'New Year Goodness'.
WHY CREATIVITY THRIVES IN MYSTERY
Magickal work and creativity begins during the dark, watery phase of the Winter, or if not the calendar Winter, certainly under the shade of a personal Yin season. Too often, we give credit to the fruits that glimmer under the direct sun of Yang, as if our work appears out of ‘nowhere’ (have you ever wondered how our culture is addicted to the myth of ‘overnight success’?
THE BENEFITS OF A WITCH’S COVEN
Witchcraft is not seen as a “possession”, rather, a shared experience, where each member expresses the whole, belonging with humans, more-than-humans, both the living and the beyond. Spells are often more powerful when performed because it draws on and nourishes the energy of all involved. Let’s not overlook that Pluto is in Aquarius (where groups / collective are emphasized).
CAN SIGILS BE LUCKY?
We are in the midst of the Lunar New Year season, welcoming the Year of the Dragon, where many cultures in East Asia use sigils as a spell for good luck and health. I share why sigils can be lucky, as well as what folks who come from cultures outside of Asia can practice sigil work and celebrate the soon to arrive Wood Dragon with respect.
HOW TO CARE FOR ANCESTRAL ALTARS WHEN TRAVELLING
Before you leave for travel, approach your altar and share with the spirits that you will be away. Place a larger than usual, water offering that will sustain them for a longer period of time.
WHAT IS SOUL LOSS?
The past is not always in the past. It can be with us and ahead of us. Many who spirit travel / shamanic journey understand that linear time doesn’t really exist, and that everything is happening in the now. Time perpetually emerges.
HOW DOES TAOISM IMPACT THE WORLD TODAY?
t's a different perspective from the Western notion of opposition; in Taoism, it's about acknowledging differences while contributing to the collective whole. Each part, though distinct, is essential for the existence of the other—a beautiful and symbiotic relationship.