Food and I have a new relationship. It used to be love-hate, but now it’s just love-love. I changed my deepest feelings about food, and that changed everything else. How it happened and how to apply this method to any area where you feel stuck. The Old I’ve been a lifelong dieter. Every day of my fifty-nine years, I’ve either been eating what I love and feeling bad about my body, or starving myself and being happier with my form, but feeling bad about depriving myself of thin

Our series of annuals has grown with the release of A YEAR OF BLISS, Volume 3. It’s on sale now in eBook format at Amazon for Kindle, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Kobo for Kobo eReaders, and GooglePlay for android devices. The Apple iBooks version is being slow, but it should be live there any time. It’s only in eBook for now, but there will be print copies eventually. We had a heckuva time figuring out how we could refer to 2020 as a year of bliss, but I think we managed to ha

In yet another moment of putting last year behind us, we have just ended the Year of the Rat, and are now fully in the year of the Ox. You dirty rat... Even if you didn’t know last year was the Year of the Rat, you probably knew last year was one ratty-ass year. I mean, really, what do In Chinese lore the animals were in a race to reach the emperor. The first 12 to get to him would be in the royal guard or something, but it didn’t matter because it was a small honor compared

It seemed like a small kindness, at the time, decades ago, buying a gift for some kids who didn’t have much. But the youngest one contacted me later. All grown up, she was spending her time working to give gifts to kids who didn’t have much. She told me that long ago gift had been magical to her, and had touched her deeply. It had stayed with her all this time, and made her want to help other kids who needed what she’d needed that year. It broke my heart with joy to know that

Everyone is talking about the humpback whale in New York Harbor, breaching and tail-slapping in front of the Statue of Liberty, and of course, being an everyday Mystic, I immediately wanted to explore the metaphysical symbolism. Whales in NY Harbor This is not a new thing. Whales get into the harbor from time to time and usually get back out into the open Atlantic again without too much trouble. This time, with so little traffic in the harbor due to Covid, there’s even less d

A group of friends and I have a tradition. We each choose a kind of a focus word for the new year. Usually it’s a word we think of as a goal. Something we want to do more of or do better Last year I chose “Balance.” It seems to me, at the end of 2020 as I look back at the year I’ve had, that the word we choose teaches us something. We don’t necessarily become more of our word, although sometimes we do. But sometimes, I think we just seem to inhale the word. We assimilate its

Blessed Mabon! Last evening, I captured the final sunset of summer. The Autumnal Equinox takes place at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time this very morning (22 September.) A time of balance? Some celebrate the equinoxes as times of balance, and use their energy to try to re-balance themselves and their lives. I’ve been mulling on this and coming to a new understanding, for me, that balance isn’t a real thing. It’s a passing illusion. The actual point of balance, the moment of the equino

There’s a method I’m using with great success at the moment, the method of distraction, which is a form of magic all its own. A person who is lying in a sick bed thinking about their illness, is going to suffer every bit of that illness. A person on a roller coaster is not going to feel any part of his illness. Unless he gets motion sickness, in which case… Okay maybe that’s a bad example. Did you ever notice that a great movie or book can make you forget you had a headache?

Repeat after me. All is well, and all is well, and all is well. Take a nice deep breath and open your mind to the possibility that everything is exactly the way it is. And be okay with it. Parts of it are actually very good. Most of it is good. Take another deep breath, and maybe one more. All is well. We have to be okay with what is, because it is as it is. In our lives, the longest, hardest times are what we call our Dark Nights of the Soul. They are a universal part of the

Gemma Teller Morrow, SOA My usual Mary Sunshine persona is currently in quarantine. My inner Gemma wants to be the focus of today’s post. I accept her as a part of who I am. I have written novels featuring the woman who is that side of me. She is Rhiannon. She is Rachel. She is Puabi. Perfection, I submit, is overrated. So since I’m taking a walk on the dark side, I thought I would share the journey. That’s what I do here. And I reach a really good conclusion, so please read

Transitions are hard, aren’t they? I’ve been noticing how hard it is every year going through the transition from winter to spring, and how it feels, here where I live, we go two steps forward and three steps back over and over again. I had a glorious Sunday outside, with sunshine and nearly 70 degrees. Then yesterday it poured and the wind blew and today the sun is bright but the high temp will not get out of the forties. We had an overnight frost. And I feel like throwing a

Okay, so I was meditating, and this happened. So I just started typing and let it go. Afterward, I did some formatting, and felt moved to add the Goddess gifs by Nina Paylee. So you can see Her dancing while you read Her message. I am the Goddess. I am the Universe. I breathe. I inhale all you experience…all I experience through you. All you sense through your eyes and ears and skin is my breath. All you do and be and see and wish for is my oxygen. All you suffer, I inhale.

Today is the vernal equinox of 2020, and the first official day of spring in the northern hemisphere. The energy of the holiday focuses on nature’s annual reminder that life is eternal. Even after a long period of darkness and apparent death, the sun grows strong again, melts the snow, calls forth the life from underground. Everything is reborn. Everything is growing and thriving, just like before the snow. As above, so below When we see a pattern in any part of nature, we ca

I know it’s early, but I’m an eternal optimist. (Or as my grandsons would say, “Optimus”.) We’re more than halfway through February. There are only 5 weeks until the Vernal Equinox! That’s spring, so my spring cleaning is already getting underway. Starting with the DECLUTTERING. Decluttering 101 I am doing a major purge this year. All those clothes I’ve had for years, the ones on the hangers I push aside while muttering that I have nothing to wear–those are going. All the sh

Wishes are thoughts Thoughts are things. Thoughts exist. They have vibrational wavelengths. Everything that exists was once a thought. An idea. A notion. A daydream. Thoughts that are spoken, or written down, have already become a physical thing. A physical representation of themselves. It’s only one more step to become the very thing they are about. Everything is energy According to science, we’re made up of energy, and there’s more space between our atoms than there is phys

I promised in my last post, IMBOLC: The Quickening, that I’d post a ritual soon. So here it is. To review, Imbolc falls on February 4th, this year. It is the ancient Celtic holiday halfway between the Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox, and symbolizes the life stirring awake in the womb of the earth. It’s a fire festival, sacred to Brigit, Goddess of the Forge, inspirer of creators, poets, writers, and artists of all kinds. You’ll need: * A flameproof dish or cauldron * Sev

Aside from being Groundhog’s Day, February 2nd is also the traditional date of Imbolc, or “Imbolc Brigantina” also known as St. Brigit’s Day. The actual high holy date falls precisely halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal or Spring Equinox, which this year is on February 4th. Brigit or Brighid is the Celtic Goddess of the Forge, and on her day, she awakens the sleeping earth with her power of creative fire. She’s known as the inspirer of poets and writers and art

Mystics and sages have always known the power of the in-between. The most powerful times for magic, for example, are in-between times: dawn which is the precipice between night and day, and dusk, between day and night. Midnight is the fulcrum between today and tomorrow, noon the tipping point from morning to afternoon, and so on. In nature, swamps are in between earth and water, fog is in between water and air. Doorways are in between rooms and are always considered potent pl

This is my second Winter Solstice post this year, but I felt inspired, so here you go! It's Winter Solstice What you'll need You’ll need a small fire. You can make a bonfire outside near sunset, or use your fireplace if you have one. You can use an iron cauldron or other fireproof container in a room without smoke detectors or outside. Write down the things you want to be rid of-not in too much detail. One or two words. “The accident” or “the incident” or “that person.” You’l

Briefly: What is Divination? Divination, according to the dictionary, is “The practice of seeking knowledge of the future by supernatural means.” Well, that’s off. First, it’s seeking knowledge, period. Not just knowledge of the future, but all sorts of knowledge. Most importantly, knowledge about your own inner being, your own connection, your own baggage, focus, goals, and pathways to reach them. Second, it’s not “by supernatural means” because there’s no such thing as supe