This poem poured out of me one morning as I biked to work.

The realization that, no matter that we share a life and many experiences, my partner will never know what it feels like to walk through this patriarchal world as a woman.

His body doesn’t know the fear of walking through a parking lot at night, keys splayed through fingers for protection. His nervous system wasn’t trained to appease strange men in order to stay safe. He will never feel the assault of the headlines in the same way as the Patriarchy, in its death throes, wages its wars against women’s bodies1 and our rights, around the world.

This is messy, raw. Barely edited. I’d love to hear from women and femmes in the comments 💗

We live in two very different worlds you and I.
Though for many years we’ve shared a life, a home, a bed.

We are driving to the store when you say “boys will be boys”
and it hits me like
a punch in the gut.
You’ve uttered these words so
innocently, unaware of their impact.
Of the visceral response within my body.
All the things those four words have been used to explain away
tumble through my mind
and I want to lose myself to rage.

To throw rocks.
To throw a tantrum.
To throw myself out of the moving car,
howling.

I wish I could plug you
into my experience like
a USB stick.
Upload it into your body.
So that you might understand what is happening inside my body when I hear
“boys will be boys.”

And I think about…

The boy who follows me and my friend home from school every day
taunting, calling me fat.
Oh, the desperation I feel to get away,
to avoid those names.
And all the adults say - “he teases you because he likes you.
After all,
boys will be boys.”
I learn my boundaries don’t matter.
… I am 8.

We live in two very different worlds, you and I.
You say, “boys will be boys”
And I think about how
boys will be men.

I feel the expectation of gratitude oozing from the adults around me
as the old man at the BBQ
tells me over and over how pretty
my smile is.
As my stomach twists and my skin crawls, I can only
smile.
Thank him.
He is paying me a compliment after all
… I am 13.

You say, “boys will be boys”
And I think about how
boys will be men.

I remember the regular in my section at the restaurant.
Always so chatty, in that
uncomfortable sort of way.
Then he tells me I remind him of his daughter,
and I chastise myself for thinking
he is a bit creepy.
He has a daughter, he is be safe.
He grabs my ass as I turn to leave the table.
… I am 19.

You say, “boys will be boys”
And I think about how
boys will be men.

My body floods with adrenaline, fear coursing
through every vein
As the wagon driver, the one who speaks almost no english, says
my name
While proffering a pornographic image.
Just me, my friend, and this
leering man upon whom we are completely dependent
somewhere in the Rajasthani desert.
… I am 25.

You say, “boys will be boys”
And I think about how
boys will be men.

The tears I choke back threaten to overwhelm me,
I am
desperate to hide them
as my husband takes his need.
Morning and night,
my body recoils in revulsion
screaming its “NO”.
It doesn’t feel safe for me to listen.
It is so much easier to hide my tears,
to let my body scream,
than to live in the aftermath of
refusal.
… I am 31… 32… 33… 34…

We live in two very different worlds, you and I.
You say, “boys will be boys”
And I think about how
boys will be men.

I think about the boys in the UK and
the judge who
wanted to “avoid criminalizing these children unnecessarily.”
Think of their futures.
I think of their futures.
I think of the futures they will destroy.
I think of the futures they have already destroyed.

And I think about the pedophiles, and the rapists, and the abusers laughing
as they walk free.
You can grab them by the pussy, and
if you’re rich enough, they just let you.
Even if you’re not so rich they might…
and if they don’t
well, who will everyone believe?
She was drunk.
she was a tease.
she was asking for it.
it was my right.

You say, “boys will be boys”
and I want to weep.
Because I have suffered,
we all are suffering,
at the hands of boys who have become men.

We live in two very different worlds, you and I.

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June is a natural time of year to think about play. School is letting out and for most of us, our bodies remember the time when we were excitedly awaiting the long, freedom and play-filled days of summer. Days when we were allowed to sleep late, to run around outside, to build forts and concoct elaborate worlds with our friends. No school, no homework, no sitting still for long hours trying to focus.

Play is innate to all mammals. It is a part of us. Part of the way our brains are wired. The National Institute for Play shares that “a growing body of research, spanning more than twenty scientific disciplines, demonstrates that play is a fundamental biological, psychological, and social mechanism shaping how we learn, adapt, connect, and thrive across the lifespan.”1

Play in adults promotes resilience, emotional flexibility, and social connection. It can help protect us against, and heal from, burnout. And it has been shown to improve symptoms of depression and anxiety.2

And yet, for so many of us, play is something we don’t allow ourselves to do. It feels like a “nice-to-have”, an indulgence, something that we simply do not have time for in our busy lives full of adult responsibilities. We view it as childish and perhaps even unnecessary. But the science says otherwise.

In a society that is experiencing increasing rates of burnout (anywhere from 40-75% of working adults report symptoms of burnout, with women leading men in this area),3 play is an incredible resource for collective healing. Unfortunately, it’s one that many of us don’t feel like we have access to for a number of reasons.

I want to pause here and ask you to reflect on the following questions. Maybe you even pull our your journal and take a few minutes to jot down what comes up here.

I shared a story in our mentorship call this week about an experience I had in about grade 5 or 6 that taught me that certain types of play were no longer safe or appropriate at my age. It had snowed all night and when school let out for break, my friend Anna and I piled into our snowsuits and out into the deep, pristine landscape, quickly becoming engrossed in our favourite snowy game… pretending to be husky dogs! We were romping around on all fours having a grand old time when a mocking voice cut across the field. Another girl from our class was laughing and calling us babies. To this day I can still feel the embarrassment flood my body, shame heating my cheeks, tears stinging my eyes. Anna and I got up and the magic of that winter day was gone. In that moment, I began to forget how to play without inhibition, without purpose, simply for the pure joy of it.

For so many of us, we don’t even remember how to play, let alone feel safe enough to do so. Play as adults doesn’t often doesn’t look the same as it does for children and many people never learned how to play as adults. As we grew up we slowly learned that creative pursuits, spontaneous fun, and restorative activities were rewards for a hard day’s work, not things we were entitled to. They were things we were allowed to engage in only if we first got everything else done. To play when there is dinner to make, emotional labour to perform, and work to accomplish is selfish and unnecessary. It feels risky.

For a nervous system that has been trained to seek safety and love by pleasing others, putting everyone’s needs before your own, and by being useful and productive, play can even feel downright dangerous.

I’m speaking about this to you today, and yet and I want to be very clear that I’m not teaching from the top of the mountain. I haven’t got this all figured out. I’m not frolicking around in play every day of my life. Something you’ll never find here, in these musing, or anywhere in my teachings, is me saying “I’ve arrived, let me show you the way.”

Instead I share what I know to be true in my bones, what I believe in, and the path that I am still in the process of choosing for myself every single day.

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I haven’t arrived at a place completely outside of the hustle and of tying my productivity to my worth. I don’t have a “foolproof method” or “6 steps to freedom” trademarked process. What I do have is the wisdom gained in the trenches of the day to day as I unravel and unearth all the ways in which this culture has conditioned me to believe that my worth lies in my productivity and my usefulness to others. That my lovability depends on me having fewer needs and taking up less space than those around me.

Knowing something intellectually, even believing it deeply, does not automatically translate into living it. We can hold a truth in our minds completely and still find ourselves unable to fully embody it. That gap between knowing and being is not a personal failing. It is the actual work. It is why we gather. It is why one conversation or one epiphany is never enough. It’s why I do this work.

You already know that you deserve rest. You know that play matters (if you didn’t already, you certainly do now). You’ve probably read the articles, listened to the podcasts, felt the resonance of those truths in your bones. And then life keeps life-ing. The dishes are still there, the grocery list still needs to get made, the work deadline looms, and rest and play feel impossible.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is not why is play important? You already know that. The question becomes what actually moves us from knowing into embodying? From dreaming into doing? What allows us to change the belief that lies buried in our nervous system telling us that play is selfish, indulgent, unsafe?

How do we rewrite the story underneath the not-playing?

The simple answer is, we practice.

We practice play. We experiment to find out what feels like play now as an adult, what we actually enjoy doing purely for the sake of doing it. We start small with micro-moments that allow us to tap back into the joy that we hopefully remember from our play when we were children.

Maybe you put on your favourite song while you do the dishes and that wooden spoon you’re washing becomes a microphone for a few verses. Maybe you’re at the park with your kids and you roll down that hill with them or try out a somersault or two. Maybe you pick up that paint-by-numbers that caught your eye and you carve out 15 minutes in the evening to lose yourself in the colours. Whatever play means to you, start small and practice.

And… while playing alone is valuable… it is when we bring play into our relationships, when we play with others, that the real magic happens. Playing together allows our nervous systems to co-regulate. To create safety in the group. To model play to others and by doing so give them permission to also let down their inhibitions and lean into the joy of being silly and of revelling in an activity with no apparent productive outcome.

If you have children of your own (or can borrow some!), they are a beautiful path back into play. So too are your animal kin (your dog never forgets how to play). And if it feels safe, connecting with your inner child is a pathway back to your own memories of play and what lights you up.

Choosing to play, much like choosing to rest, is indeed an act of rebellion in a system that profits from your exhaustion, your productivity, and your compliance.

It is an act of stepping into your power. It is a way of coming into connection with your inner wise wild woman. It is a pathway back home to yourself.

If this article struck a chord in you, I’d love to hear in the comments below. What do you do for play? What lights you up? What tiny act of rebellious play are you going to commit to weaving into your days in the upcoming weeks?

This is after all the perfect time of year to play.

Biggest Hugs,

💫 Eileen

**If you’d like to join me to celebrate the turning of the Wheel at Summer Solstice, our online ceremony will be taking place on June 19th at 7:15 pm MST. All the details can be found right here (and yes it will be recorded in case you aren’t able to join live).

If you have any questions or are curious about the Wise Wild Woman Mentorship program, please don’t hesitate to send me an email eileen@myluminouslife.ca or grab a time in my calendar to connect.

For a few years now, I’ve been saying that I feel lonely. Ever since my two best friends moved across the country during that first summer of the Covid pandemic, the feeling has been creeping in more and more. When one of those two friends and I had a falling out two years ago… and the other succumbed to her addictions and circumstance, becoming a shell of the human I had known and loved, the loneliness deepened.

My partner is amazing, and… there is nothing quite like female friendship. With the loss of those two women from my daily life I felt bereft.

While I make friends easily, and consider myself to be a bit of an open book, I’m recognizing more and more that I do not in fact let people close enough to really and truly see and know me very often. It takes time and the slow build of trust for me to do so. Heck, up until very recently (and who am I kidding, still today sometimes) I struggled to let myself know me in a deep and vulnerable way. Blame my Aquarius sun and moon placements… or simply my upbringing as a woman in a world that taught me never to be a burden and that big emotions were “too much”, but sitting with my flaws, my vulnerabilities, and my needs, has never been my strong suit. I’m an expert at holding space for others and making them feel seen and understood without judgement, but allowing others the chance to offer me the same thing feels deeply unsafe.

And so, since my two friends with whom I did feel comfortable letting my guard down and allowing all the parts of me be seen left the city, I’ve felt increasingly alone.

What struck me as I walked home on Sunday night from a gathering with four seriously incredible women, was that I am not alone.

As I reflected on my week I counted not one, not two… but six evenings where I had gathered in sisterhood, both in-person and virtually. Six evenings of connection and opportunity for relationship. My life is absolutely abundant with strong, courageous, loving women who have the capacity to hold and witness me, even as I hold and witness them. I simply haven’t been letting them do so. Instead I’ve been dwelling on the things that I am missing about those two old friendships – cooking and sharing food together, running errands together, keeping each other company while we do chores… the mundane tasks of life that feel so much less onerous when we are in company – rather than celebrating the richness of the friendships that I have today.

Spaces where we feel safe enough to show up as our full, messy, unabridged selves are precious. When I first began coaching, I knew how powerful a relationship with one trusted woman could be from my time as a midwife. In that career I witnessed firsthand how my belief in my clients had rippled into their beings, giving them a trust in their bodies that so many had lacked as they embarked on the journey towards motherhood. They shared with me the impact that my belief in them had as they navigated pregnancy, labour, birth, and those first tender and disorienting postpartum weeks. I was excited to be able to offer the women I worked with as I entered the coaching space that same sense of trust in themselves, only this time, in all aspects of their lives, beyond pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.

It didn’t take long however, for me to realize that individual support wasn’t enough. It was important. Immensely so. But the women who were coming to me for support, guidance, and healing were all feeling the weight of loneliness in their own lives as well. This was two years into the Covid pandemic and our entire way of being with each other had changed. Though restrictions had eased, new routines, new habits, new ways of spending our time had taken root. In its aftermath, even though so many women were feeling desperately lonely, the thought of going out and engaging with others, of making plans, of hosting, felt exhausting much of the time. On top of that, rifts that were formed in friendship circles and within families over peoples’ different responses to the pandemic had been left open and tender. There was a deep need for community… but safety within community was of utmost importance and it often felt scarce.

This is the need I observed in my clients and it’s the need that spurred me to begin creating spaces of safe community for women to gather. It began with the Wheel of the Year. That ancient way of noting the passage of the seasons, of connecting with the energies of the Earth that gave me so much solace when I discovered it. That wisdom had begun to work its magic within my own body and also gave me an opportunity to bring women together in sisterhood. To come together with the shared purpose of a deeper understanding of our intrinsic connection to the Earth and in that understanding, a deepening awareness of our entanglement with each other as Earth-beings was (and is) transformative. Some circles were quiet journeys where the women present were held in each other’s energies as they travelled inward to meet parts of themselves long buried but never quite forgotten. Other circles were spaces of vulnerable connection, of sharing and witnessing. These ceremonies, held 8 times a year, one for each turn of the Wheel, remain a magical place of connection and communion.

As I continued to deepen into the work, adding layers of knowledge around Celtic wisdom and the ancient wounds we carry with us, Unleash Your Inner Witch was born. Initially a way for me to share some of the life-changing tools I’d been learning, it quickly became something far more potent than what I originally envisioned. When I began to create community spaces for connection between calls, the real magic of Unleash became apparent. Women, coming together, learning a different way of moving in the world, and supporting each other on the journey of self-discovery and de-conditioning that this learning unlocked was where the real potency lay.

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What I realized last Sunday night on my way home from bookclub, is that I have been creating powerful spaces of connection and sisterhood for other women for years now… all while denying myself that same connection and sisterhood. I didn’t do this consciously. I kept saying how much I wanted to have that kind of connection in my life again… but I hadn’t been showing up to the relationships where that possibility of closeness existed in a way that would allow it to come to fruition. I had been cutting myself off from the love and community that was all around me out of a misguided perception of being “too different” to be understood.

Throughout my life I’ve often felt like I’m on the outside looking in. Like no one will ever quite understand me. Like my opinions and beliefs set me apart from others. Can I blame my Aquarian sun and moon for this again? Ha! In truth, the wisdom I needed was within my own teachings all along. How often have I said to clients and guests on my podcast that we are more alike than different if we just take the time to get to know one another, to let each other in?

I wonder… have you kept yourself cut off from sisterhood, from community, because you’ve felt like you were too different to be understood? Or perhaps because you are afraid that if you open up and share your true self with someone else they’ll leave? Or, worse, hurt you with that knowledge? The patriarchy has kept women in distrust of one another for too long, robbing us of the power we hold when we are united in non-hierarchical community. It has taught us to fear one another, to be suspicious, to cast others down in order to lift ourselves up… because in the patriarchy, life is a zero sum game and if someone else has something, that means there’s less of it for me. But this is a lie. A lie that has eroded our capacity for love, for trust, and for the connection that is so vital for a meaningful life.

What might it change if you allowed yourself to step into sacred and vulnerable connection with other women? What might shift if you let yourself explore a different way of moving in the world? One that exists outside of the hustle and grind and imperative to be endlessly “productive”? One where you remember, on a deep, soul level, that you are nature and that your body holds ancient wisdom just waiting for you to return home to yourself so that you can hear it? One in which you never feel alone because you are connected… not just to yourself, not just to other humans, but to the vast and animate world of the more-than-human?

What if you allowed yourself to Unleash Your Inner Witch?

If you are curious to learn more about joining us for the next round of Unleash Your Inner Witch, we begin on April 8th and all the details can be found on my website at the link above.

Regardless, I’d love to hear in the comments how this piece landed for you. Can you see yourself in my realization? Do you keep yourself “protected”? Are you always the space holder and never the held?

With love and biggest hugs, Eileen

In the past few weeks (since the beginning of Eclipse Season back in February) I’ve been struggling to prioritize my spiritual and self-care practices. Those very practices that I teach every day to women around the world. The ones that have changed the entire texture and cadence of my life in the most magical way possible and have shifted the trajectory of so many of my clients’ lives.

As I sat with my morning pages today it came through in my writing, as is so often the case, why I was struggling.

Even though I believe fervently that practice like getting out into nature and connecting there (even if it’s just the tree in my backyard), dropping into morning prayer and gratitude, writing my morning pages, and creating small and simple moments of ritual within my day vastly increase my well-being and ability to be generative… there is some insidious part of me that still views these practices as luxuries. As “nice-to-haves” rather than “need-to-haves”. Even though I preach high and low that tending to ourselves is not selfish, that we deserve to play and rest simply because we are human… there are deep roots of patriarchal and capitalist conditioning that I have yet to dig out (I go into more depth on this in my last article here).

As I walked through the wildlands, with this awareness held tenderly in my heart, I allowed the tears to flow. I allowed the grief of carrying all this pressure and shame in my body to release in streams of salt-water down my skin. I allowed the land to hold me without the need for any explanation. And then I sat down and spoke to the camera to share my morning realization, knowing that if I needed the reminder that I am allowed to tend to myself even when I haven’t done anything to “earn it”, when I feel like there is too much to do, or when I feel like I am not “succeeding”, that others needed that reminder too.

I didn’t expect the response that I got. I didn’t expect almost anyone to see it (a 2.5 minute video is a little long for the algorithm and our 47 second attention span these days). But within minutes, the comments started rolling in. Women who needed exactly this reminder, this permission to slow down, to prioritize themselves, to do the things that feel like luxuries because they are not simply nice-to-have. They truly are necessities if we want to live a connected, joyful, and fulfilling life. Without them, the point gets lost.

This resonance and the connection I immediately felt to everyone who found my video exactly when they needed it buoyed me up by reminding me why I carry on with this work. Why I carry on offering my medicine to the world. Not book medicine, or guru medicine, but lived experiential wisdom. Wisdom that is still being hard-earned on the ground, which is why I feel equipped to share it. It gave me a renewed sense of excitement and purpose as I look toward the beginning of Unleash Your Inner Witch knowing the sense of connection, community, and permission that is always created within that magical space.

If you feel the call to walk in community, to create more ritual and purpose in your days, to practice unlearning the guilt that accompanies so many of us when we slow down and tend to our sweet beings… you are invited.

(see the very bottom of this post for details)

And even if that path isn’t calling you, I genuinely hope this piece of writing has given you permission to indulge in the spiritual, creative, and nourishing practices that fill you up and create more meaning, beauty, and joy in your life.

This week on The Woo Curious Podcast I’m talking about what coming home to yourself actually means.

A lot of people (including myself) use the term all the time, but what does it actually, tangibly mean? Tune in on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or your favourite podcast platform to listen.

If you like the episode, it helps ever so much if you take a few minutes to leave a rating and review (or like and subscribe on YouTube).

AND

Last week I was a guest on the Women Waken Podcast with Whitney Walker where we had a great conversation about witchcraft, the divine feminine, and our dreams for the future of the world. Have a listen to our conversation on Apple or Spotify.

If you are craving a community of like-minded souls to journey with through these times, the invitation is open to step into Unleash Your Inner Witch.

Before enrolling in Unleash Your Inner Witch, I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure if I could fully embrace and trust my intuitive side, or if I had the time and energy to commit to deep personal growth amidst my daily responsibilities. Additionally, the idea of being called a “witch” felt a bit scary—it brought up fears of judgment and misunderstanding, as it was a word I wasn’t entirely comfortable owning for myself. After attending the first week my first thought was “This feels like coming home to a piece of myself I didn’t know was missing.

- Miranda Sunderland

Until March 31st you can use the code COMINGHOME200 for $200 off your tuition.

The fleeting nature of this balance between the light and the dark feels potent to me. A reminder that balance is not some static point, but an ever-shifting landscape within our lives.

I have been grappling with the idea of balance in my own life recently. Unearthing ancestral patterns of overdoing and over-giving that are embedded deep within the marrow of my bones. A relic of the witch wound and of being alive in a woman’s body on the Earth today, I suppose. The question I am continually asking myself these days is: What does balance look like in this season of my life? Building a business up from nothing is no small task and all the models I see around me involve a whole lot of hustle and pressure. I know that there must be a different way, but finding the balance between work and rest (and play!) is a task that I often feel ill equipped to do. In full honesty, I vacillate between long days grinding at my desk and absolute inertia with a perceived inability to do anything.

The conditioning I have grown up with, the belief that lives well below the level of my conscious mind, is that to be valuable, loveable, and worthy… I must be useful and productive. I may preach the value of rest and play and tending to our sweet human selves, but I struggle to uproot the tenacious weeds of good girl syndrome and hustle culture from within my own being. Anyone who has ever tried to eradicate creeping bellflower from their garden (without the use of chemical weed killers) will know what I mean when I say that every time I feel I have finally dug it all out, that little root tip I missed deep in the soil of my body begins to grow again.

(Creeping bellflower sends down deep tap roots from which thin filament-like roots spread out. In order to eradicate it, you must remove the whole tap root. Leaving even a half inch in the ground will allow it to continue to grow and thrive.)

I once wrote that the Patriarchy is like creeping bellflower. Every time you think you’ve rooted it out of your system it pops up somewhere new and entirely unexpected. In so many ways, the conditioning that I am struggling with – and that the vast majority of the women I know struggle with as well – is the product of patriarchy. The legacy of the witch wound. It is deeply internalized and invasive.

It calls us lazy when we dare to rest without “earning” it. It calls us undeserving of success if we haven’t sacrificed our bodies and our souls to the attempt. It calls us bad mothers or partners if we choose to tend to our own beings in moments where anyone else needs anything of us. And even if we don’t believe it in a conscious (cerebral) way… our bodies still believe it.

Yet… more and more of us are doing the work to eradicate the weeds that this culture has sown within us. And it shows.

When plants are stressed they work extra hard to propagate themselves, ensuring the continuation of the species as a whole. If you pay close attention you can witness this firsthand in your environment as our weather patterns become more and more extreme. I recall three summers ago when the entire city I live in was covered in a thin film of burnt-yellow dust… pollen from the pine trees that were thirsty enough they feared they would not survive another season. The trees themselves appeared misshapen, their bulbous tops weighed down with the sheer volume of pinecones they had produced in an effort to save their species.

I see this playing out both internally, in my own personal growth story, and externally as the system of Capitalism, White Supremacy, Colonialism, and Patriarchy that we exist within (modernity, if you will) is cracking under its own weight. As modernity senses its own death, it is lashing out, grasping for power and control in a desperate attempt to save itself. And it its attempts, we are all being subjected to the worst case of seasonal allergies anyone in our lifetimes has experienced (how far can I carry this metaphor?!).

And yet there is hope.

Hope is not a state of passivity. It is fierce and tender. It requires us to pursue it actively, to hold it even when it feels impossible. It is the force that keeps us moving, one step at a time, even when the way is dark and we cannot see where the path is taking us.

For me, spring brings with it an embodied sense of hope. Of renewal. Of rebirth. Of growth after the long dormancy of winter.

Tapping into the energies of the Earth at this time, I am deeply comforted. After death, life always comes again. We may not know what it will look like, but life will prevail. At this moment in planetary history, with humans wreaking so much havoc on each other and the Earth, remembering our intimate interconnectedness with all of the more-than-human world is essential. Not only does it help to put this moment of time into perspective, to de-centre ourselves from the narrative, but it quite literally helps us heal and find resilience within ourselves.

Connecting to nature’s wisdom and her cyclical ebbs and flows of energy has been the most powerfully transformative piece of my own journey of healing from the conditioning I’ve received simply by growing up within modernity. Returning to her body… literally walking upon the land, speaking to the trees and the birds, and stopping long enough to truly listen… this is what supports me during times of uncertainty, upheaval, and turmoil.

Practicing this communication with the land on the solar days and cross-quarter days within the Wheel of the Year feels extra potent to me.

If you are still reading this, I encourage you to go out and be with the land today. Even if that just means the tree in the berm outside your apartment building. Better if you can get to a park or a wild space… but not necessary. Not by any means. The Earth is there waiting for you. She waits in abandoned lots where the “weeds” push up through cracks in concrete, tenacious and resilient. She waits in the robin returning to your neighbourhood after a long winter. She waits in the sunlight as it lengthens day by day, no matter what we do here in our own small and precious lives.

On this day, the world pauses in the breath between light and dark.

And in that breath, the promise of life waits.

With love and reverence,

Eileen

If you are craving a community of like-minded souls to journey with through these times, the invitation is open to step into Unleash Your Inner Witch.

Unleash your inner witch with Eileen is a step through a portal back to your magical, curious self. Eileen guides you through the layers that unlock our beliefs about what it means to be a witch and invites reclamation of ritual, alchemy and devotion. Never judging or pushing, Eileen meets you exactly where you are with gentle warmth and openness. She cultivates a space where you are exactly right just as you are and there is room to dream into more expansion. I highly recommend this gift to yourself as a way to realign with your own magic and spark joy through curiosity and creativity.
- Meg Aris

Until March 31st you can use the code COMINGHOME200 for $200 off your tuition.

“I’ll get this up on Substack to share for February 17th”, I decided (lunar Imbolc this year). And then… February 17th came and went and I didn’t share.

I didn’t share for many reasons, but after sitting with it for a while I recognized that the main reason for not sharing was that I didn’t to bombard my email list (you) with too much from me. I was writing every few days about the free Witch Wound Masterclass I was holding on February 18th and it felt like a lot to land again in your already full inboxes. I second guessed myself. Held back.

What’s become really clear since beginning to write on Substack a few weeks ago is that I’m holding myself back in general out of that fear of being too much. Of taking up too much of your time. Of you deciding to unsubscribe if I share too frequently.

During a potent session with my current mentor this week, she helped me see that every time I share my work, there’s an alchemizing that happens within me also. Yes, I’m teaching and guiding about subjects that I have sat in deep communion with and have done ample healing and integration around… and…

… each time I teach about the witch wound, another layer of it shows itself in my life. Each time I offer Unleash Your Inner Witch… I too must recognize where I continue to keep myself leashed within my own life.

So. This is me deciding that I’m not going to let that ingrained patriarchal wounding stop me from showing up and sharing. And if this space isn’t for you, that’s very much okay! Please freely unsubscribe from my Substack, my newsletter, or both if you are feeling overwhelmed or unaligned with what I am sharing. I’m not going to keep track of who stays and who leaves. I bless you and release you if you choose to go.

And… if you enjoy reading my words, then you can expect to receive more of them as we journey forward together (likely in fits and starts - my version of consistency is cyclic, just like my body and the seasons).

Today I want to share the short love letters I wrote both to Brigid and to the Cailleach back on February 10th. Even though I told myself that I missed the opportune window to share these words because Imbolc has passed, that really isn’t my lived truth. Where I write to you from (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), we are just emerging out of a week of well below freezing temperatures and lots of snow. The season is still liminal. We are still dancing in Imbolc energies. Still welcoming Brigid and celebrating her return while being buffeted by the Cailleach’s storms. So the timing is perfect. Don’t you think?

A love letter to Brigid and Spring

Dearest Brigid,

I anticipate your return with eagerness. Though my body relinquishes the dark and the stillness of the Cailleach’s days somewhat reluctantly. Still, my heart rejoices at the returning light, the swelling pregnancy and promise of the land, and the anticipation of all that is yet to come. I am doing my best not to rush towards it all. To linger in this liminal space between the darkness and the light a little while yet. To hold myself in stillness here long enough to uncover the wisdom, the lessons, the promise of this time.

I am glad to feel your warmth returning, Brigid. The Cailleach is a wise teacher, but softness is not her method. There is a tenderness about you. A warmth emanating from your hearth fire that my heart is oh so to receive. I am excited to see where your light and energy helps my creativity to bloom as the world around me begins to do the same.

Welcome, Bright One. Welcome, Lady of the Forge, The Flame of Ireland… Mistress of the Mantle.

A love letter to the Cailleach and the retreating Winter

Dearest Cailleach,

You who sees me as no others do or can. Who sees through all of the layers, the masks, the stories I’ve worn like armour all my life… thank you.

Thank you for your fierceness, your unwillingness to leave me in “peace”. Thank you for insisting I slow my frantic onward rushing long enough to drop down, down, down into the darkness with you. To come face to face with parts of myself so long buried that I didn’t even know they existed.

Thank you for the softness of your snow, insulating those tender parts I’ve found from the noise and the cold and harsh winds buffeting the world, allowing me to explore them in reverence. Thank you for the silence and the darkness that my body and soul crave more and more with each passing year.

And… it feels important for me to acknowledge that even as I love you and the gifts that you bring, I still fear and resist you. I resist your wisdom, I resist the pull to slow down, I resist the descent. I fear what I might discover if I surrender to you. As I bid you farewell until your return at Samhain next, I wish to set a seed of intention in your wizened hands. To surrender a little more to you next season than I did this one… and a little more again the season after that.

Farewell oh Beira, oh Veiled One, Queen of Winter. Wishing you pleasant dreams as you return to your slumber beneath the hills and may you hold my own near to you for safe-keeping also.

Thank you for being here with me. If you are interested in my 12-Week Course “Unleash Your Inner Witch” our first live class begins on April 8th. You can find all the details on my website (and if you happen to be reading before the end of day on March 31st I’d love to extend $200 off to you with the code COMINGHOME200). Any questions? I’m right here to answer 💗

Today we celebrate this Celtic fire festival on February 1st… but that is a modern date. Our ancestors may have celebrated at the celestial midway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox (or 15 degrees of Aquarius) - which, this year, places Imbolc at February 3rd. Or perhaps they celebrated on the second New Moon after the Winter Solstice, following the lunar Coligny calendar and lining up with Chinese New Year - this year, February 17th. Or perhaps, they simply celebrated when the land told them it was time. When snowdrops pushed their way bravely up into the world and the grasses began to grow again. This is why I’m not too concerned that this article didn’t get published “in time” for February 1st.

(At least, I’m telling myself that to soothe the part of my brain calling me out for not getting it written sooner.)

Imbolc arrives with the light, if not with the warmth. Though where I write from it is quite warm… unseasonably so. Distressingly so if I’m being honest, as the seasonal weather patterns I’ve known my whole life continue to shift. While my body is grateful for the warmer weather, the scent of petrichor rising up from the ground as the last of the snows melt, at the same time, it wakens a dis-ease within me. This false Spring, confusing not only my senses, but those of my more-than-human kin as well. A worrisome and increasingly frequent occurrence.

I recently learned of a bit of Scottish folk wisdom that says if February arrives cold and stormy it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter will end soon. If it arrives warm and fair however, it means she is out gathering firewood and we are in for a long winter ahead. This echoes what my mother always used to say about March - in like a lion, out like a lamb (and vice versa). I know we are likely in for more cold and snow, and quite a bit of it, but I only ever remember February arriving cold and ending cold, so I sit with my dis-ease and hope for seasonal weather - even if I’m ready for Winter to end.

But enough of this gloomy talk!

I came here to write of Imbolc. Of the slow awakening of the Earth and our bodies. Carmen Spagnola calls this the season of Winterspring and that name feels very apt. These first weeks of Imbolc are not a full-fledged launch into activity and growth. They are a gradual thawing out after a long dormancy. A quiet lengthening of roots unseen. A subtle swelling of buds perhaps. Springs full expression will not arrive until closer to the Equinox (or even later in many places)… but still… The pulse of life can be felt, both without and within.

Even though, frequently, much of the land is still blanketed in snow at this time, there is a faint hope in the air. The earth pregnant with the promise of new life, new growth, just around the corner. Imbolc means “in the belly”, likely referring to the heavily pregnant ewes at this time of year and there is a sense of late pregnancy about this time. The seeds we planted back at Samhain, the dreams we tended to all throughout the long dark, they are ready to begin their push towards the light.

But first… First they must grow roots. If you feel yourself not yet ready to bring those dreams, those plans, those intentions out into the rising light, I encourage you to heed that inner wisdom. You are not behind, you are tuned in to the energy of this moment. Have you nourished the root system that you will need in order to sustain your dreams? Growing roots can feel like doing nothing. We can’t see them as they branch beneath the ground. We can’t hear the mycelial networks quietly communicating. We can’t show the growth to others. But if we get still and we get quiet, we might just learn how to sense these things.

As we welcome Brigid, goddess of smithcraft, poetry, and healing, goddess of the hearth and of liminality, we welcome the energies she brings with her. Imbolc is indeed a liminal time. Not yet Spring, not quite Winter anymore. In fact, the more I sit with the seasons and tune my body to the rhythms of the Wheel of the Year, the more I feel that both Spring and Autumn in their entireties are liminal times. Transitioning from one state to another, not quite ever settling into one thing before shifting again.

And so I am embracing this liminality, allowing myself to move within it, calling on Brigid for guidance and support as I go. Perhaps you’d like to as well?

I’ll be performing a quiet ritual that I learned from a wise guide of mine, Jen Murphy of The Celtic Creatives. No matter that February 1st has come and gone. Maybe I’ll do it on the eve of February 3rd, perhaps not until the eve of February 17th. Or maybe I’ll simply do it when the time feels right. I trust that my bones will know when that is.

If you’d like to join me in this, I’ll link Jen’s lovely post about it here for you.

Blessed Imbolc beautiful humans. Thank you for reading along on this meandering journey.

I do not claim to be wise, though I do have some wisdom. I do not claim to be fully wild… though no one would call me tame. I am on a journey, an ongoing path of becoming these things. And on this journey I am sharing what I learn as I go, that I might shine a guiding light for others and serve as a wayfinder of sorts. This space invites you to explore with me, to uncover the wisdom that lives within you and the wild that has always existed in your heart and in your bones.

I’m actually feeling quite nervous as I put proverbial pen to paper in this space for the first time. Substack has been calling me for a few years now… but I always felt I wasn’t ready. My thoughts were not clear enough, my words not polished enough. Who was I to call myself a writer?

In truth, these feelings are still present, but I’ve decided that it’s time to simply do it anyway.

To begin.

Messily, imperfectly, but to begin regardless.

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Life is full of beginnings. Some are marked loudly, celebrated — the birth of a child, the beginning of a union between two souls, the day of your yearly solar return. Other beginnings occur all the time with barely a though given — the start of a work day, the onset of a woman’s monthly bleed, the first stitches in a new knitting project.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tending to beginnings lately as I prepare to run my yearly Sacred Start workshop, which is all about this tending. I’ve been thinking about how simple, yet potent, it can be to mark every new beginning with awareness and intention. To bring a sense of ritual to these moments, infusing life with more magic and meaning.

I recently learned from Jen Murphy of the Celtic Creatives here on Substack that the Irish word for ritual, deasghnátha, can be translated as “to make the ordinary beautiful” and it struck such a chord in my heart. Yes! This is it! This is why ritual has been calling me deeper ever since I set foot on my current branch of the path I’m walking in this lifetime.

And so, as I embark on a new beginning here with you on Substack, I do so with intention and a sense of celebration. Intention to finally indulge my love of words and long-form after 3 years of trying to cram my thoughts into algorithm-friendly reels and captions. Intention to share without the need for it to be perfect and polished. Intention to connect and create a sense of real community in this space (please do say hi in the comments!). Intention to deepen and expand the ripple of change that I dream of even further out into the world.

I suspect that my writings here will be occasional to begin, but I will be following the pull of my heart and leaning into this space as we grow together.

Thank you for being with me on this journey. It is my deepest joy and honour to walk with you for a time.