This morning I wrote in my journal, What is the line between seasonal depression and a temporary dip? I get seasonal depression and have since I was a teen. These days I’m trying to parse apart the nuances of it, rather than writing it off as inevitable. For example, the last few days I’ve been experiencing grief that summer is over. It’s been harder to get out of bed, and I’ve felt sad.

Here in Raleigh, the cool breeze of early autumn has already made its debut. Has it where you are? This soft shift from heat to less heat has already got everyone commenting: friends share with me their delight, their surprise, their wariness. This tells me just how much we already live our lives in relationship with the seasons. There’s more there, if you want it: support in slowing down to nature’s pace, joy in relishing each seasonal moment for what it brings.

I kind of have two hometowns. I spent the most time growing up in Carlisle, Massachusetts, a small and beautiful town with farms, a general store (but no grocery store), and a lot of woods. In the summer, my parents and I went to a town called Chilmark, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Three years ago, someone I trusted told me I should work with a business coach. My response was, “Pff, I don’t need that.” I had figured out how to make a website, I had multiple offerings on the website, and I did not want to pay someone else to help me with shit I could figure out on my own.

In last week’s email, I wrote more directly to you than I have in the past - I revealed that I can see who opens these emails (hi), and that this helps me feel more connected to my readers as people I’m talking to.

The part of my work I like best is the time I spend talking 1-1 with people and helping them solve the problems of their internal worlds. My coach (I have one too! I’ve had several, actually, and will have more, I’m sure) calls this Technician Time, the time you spend actually Doing The Job.

We’re in the height of summer, and coming up on early august. August 1 is Lúnasa, or Lammas, a holiday celebrating the first day of the harvest season. I take this metaphorically as well as literally - it’s a moment of taking stock of what we’ve grown and created throughout the year since the winter solstice. We can pause, offer thanks and a prayer for a good harvest season, and then dive into reaping the fruits we’ve planted.

This morning I was meditating on my back deck when I realized the greatest peace was coming to me through smell. The air here is thick plant aromas and humidity. I tried to identify particular smells, and the two I could were pine and rain. Mixed in were several other scents, including a valerian-like perfume whose plant I’ve never been able to identify (it’s not actually valerian).

Learning to be vulnerable happens in stages. I can think I’m being vulnerable, even say to myself “this is a vulnerable share” as I speak with a loved one, only to realize later that my mind did something incredible: it kept me from even seeing the vulnerable truth, so that I couldn’t possibly put myself at risk by speaking it aloud.

Here are a couple phrases I’ve been saying / hearing lately: “The world is on fire”, “We just have to keep going”. Makes sense; shit is really scary.

Sometimes it takes going somewhere very different, and doing something very different, to realize how Same you’ve been doing things for a while.

I’m leaving for a trip in a couple days, so this week’s blog and newsletter is fun ~slideshow~ of some recent magical things. Enjoy!

I think judging other people is normal. “That’s not how I would have done it,” we think, watching someone else do it “wrong.” A lot of us harbor a secret belief that we would handle things better than just about everyone around us - even as we closely monitor ourselves for fuckups, because secretly we don’t trust ourselves to do things right. This is a hard way to live, and it’s one I’m actively working on letting go.

You know that feeling where you have so many tasks to track, so many jobs to do, and so many emotional works to work on that it feels like all these things are flying around you, batting at you and clouding your vision, and you cant wrangle them no matter how hard you try?

There’s a moment when I’m talking to someone and I can tell I’d be able to help them cross the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

This week I want to write about joy and how to experience it.

I am a village witch, and what this means to me is that the magic I make and the rituals I share are simple, accessible, and made for everybody. No secret rooms or hierarchies: village witchcraft is by and for the people.

In early April I left on a twelve-day voyage to Italy, where I spent almost every minute in motion: hiking, sight-seeing, listening to audio tours, eating amazing food, talking with my partner, and a thousand other things. It was amazing and stressful and exhausting and expansive.

I returned home six days ago and was immediately smushed into the ground by a feverish cold. Today I am finally beginning to feel like myself again.

We all have times when all is well, and we think we “should” feel happy and good, and still we do not. I am coming out of one of those moments now.

The moon in April is sometimes called the Egg Moon. This time of year brings baby animals, new life bursting out of the ground, out of the trees, in ourselves. This week is going to take a different shape from previous blogs / newsletters: I’m going to walk you through my process of dyeing eggs, along with why I do it this way and how the process itself is magic. This will be a picture-heavy week, so if you love books with lots of pictures in them, this one’s for you.