Samhain Snow and Other Out-Of-Season Magic

We awoke to snow on the pumpkins in the Hudson Valley.

When my six year-old ran outside, all bundled up in a motley collection of hand-me-down winter clothes, she visited every flower and plant she had made friends with over the spring and summer. 

The marigolds are still shining under their white blanket, but the morning glories will never greet another day. You can almost hear the Montauk daisies’ teeth chattering from here and the milkweed is praying the monarch butterflies have migrated far, far south. I definitely missed my chance harvesting those last green tomatoes, and, unfortunately, those mandevilla will not be brought in to safely winter indoors

And then, the eleven year-old suited up in my parka and last year’s ski pants that almost still fit and proved she hadn’t outgrown the magic of winter in autumn. The sisters built a snow witch together. Afterwards, they slurped hot cocoa while they opened their laptops for another “school day” of distance learning.

Once they were settled in again and I was left with my coffee and a quiet moment, I watched a crow soar through the still swirling snow and settle on a branch to call out to the white Samhain sky. I’m left wondering if she was screaming at this cruel weather front or celebrating the surprise.

Unseasonable Magic During the Season of Magic

It’s the day before Halloween, the holiday we Americans crafted around the original Samhain traditions that Irish immigrants brought across the water.

Samhain marks the final harvest and it’s the time when the veils between the worlds are most thin. Those costumes we wear? Those pumpkins we carve? They were originally intended to ward off those not-so-benevolent spirits that might walk in the Celtic night. (Though the Irish carved turnips instead!)

Samhain is a night to prepare a feast for the ancestors and commune with our beloved dead. It is a night to gather round the fire, consult the oracles, and peer into the Great Unknown - the future and all that’s unseen in the here and now.

Halloween is also a night to gorge on sugar and booze and forget the spirit world completely as every superhero and Disney character walks the street and we all celebrate the stranglehold that corporate culture has upon our collective imagination.

Around here, we try to fit elements of both into the same night.

This blend, this paradox, these whispers of wonder and connection in the midst of the distraction, confusion, and chaos… It all seems the very essence of this year of disruption. And it reminds me of all the hope and possibility that is being born in the midst of the numbness and pain. 

Samhain is a Time to Reflect on the Year that Was

Samhain also marks the end of Celtic year, and those of us who know that witchcraft isn’t just an October hobby consider November 1 to be our New Year’s Day. This is a time to look back to the last four seasons, including the periods of planting, growing, harvesting, and the fallow times, too.

Last winter, I was mourning all I had missed in my children’s lives. They were growing so fast and I had spent years telling them “Just give mama five more minutes to finish this paragraph!” I was trying to make peace with the passage of time, but regret kept sneaking in around the edges.

All it took was a global pandemic to solve that. All it took was a school system that never quite managed to open its doors this academic year. Suddenly, I’ve had all the time in the world to be with them. Magically, they get a chance to savor snowflakes on their tongues on the Friday morning before Halloween. 

When I’m fully entrenched in November, back to the struggle that so many parents know -- trying to figure out how to get the work done, how to get back to the writing, how to tend to the scream in my own soul -- I’m going to try to come back to this particular morning. 

I am going to remember that the sweetest fruit is that which you savor out of season. And I’m going to take off my pumpkin spice colored glasses, too. 

In this house, we can pull piles of clothes out of the closet, play outside, and then strip down to start again. We have been healthy, and have the resources to remain that way. Too many are vulnerable to the changes in the weather, in the economy, in the political storm. 

Samhain is a time to celebrate life, and it is a time to look into the shadows. It is a time to be with what’s real as well as the mystery. 

As we step into this next season, into this new year, let’s try to remember that the story is constantly seeking to be rewritten and refined. 

I am going to remember that I am an author, but also a reader and a character, too. 

I am going to remember that old line, “we cannot direct the winds, but we can adjust the sails.” This, after all, is one more way to define Sovereignty. (Though, I just realized, I never did use that line in the book.)

What about you? What do you see when you look back on the last four seasons? There’s surely a great deal of magic hiding in the midst of all that disruption, madness, and pain...

PS: Don’t forget that one of the important American stories is being written right this moment. Please vote and encourage everyone you know to get to the polls!

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Do you want to tell new stories in this new year? Do you need the time, space, and support to get the writing done? We’re welcoming new members to the Sovereign Writers Circle now. Apply to join us!

What It Takes To Put Your Healing Work Into Words

There’s a part of what you do that’s beyond, beneath, and before the bounds of language.

As a healer, you know that the color, the sensation, the texture of an emotion carries meaning that the English language often can’t begin to touch.

If you’re a coach, you know your clients’ success doesn't just depend on a clear to-do list. Instead, results flow out of that combination of energy, attention, and devotion that runs deeper than even the most comprehensive, well-articulated plan.

And, if you’re a therapist whose work is based on talking through thoughts and problems, you know there’s something you do that transcends words. As you hold space in the silences between thoughts you create the invisible bonds of relationship that allows the healing to happen.

Your work transcends words, and yet is bound by words

The transformational work you do often feels impossible to describe. It has to be experienced to truly be understood.

I get that, I do. I have walked beside hundreds of transformation professionals - healers, therapists, coaches, and spiritual teachers - and there’s almost always a moment when language can’t quite express the magic you access or the ways you serve and touch the people who need what you do.

And yet...

If you have the power to change lives, you have the power to say how

So, how do we do that?

We tell stories 

Storytelling is, in itself, a magical act. 

When you tell a story, you’re taking the raw materials of your experiences, struggles, and worries and turning them into narratives that speak truth and spread wisdom. 

That’s a powerful transformation. That’s alchemy. 

And, from experience, I can tell you that turning your pain into healing stories is more valuable (and reliable) than turning lead into gold.

Join the Alchemy of Story:
A free training for transformation professionals
September 21, 2020 at 7 PM ET

Stories matter to me because I am a lover of myth and fiction. 

Stories also matter to me because I have been helping healers, therapists, and coaches promote their businesses for over a decade.

Copywriting and marketing strategy are important, but nothing is as enduring and meaningful as the stories you tell and the bigger story at the heart of your work.

Let’s explore your stories and talk about what makes a story work in the next free training I’m offering, The Alchemy of Story.

During our 90 minutes together you’ll have a chance to uncover the stories you most need to tell and learn what makes a story of transformation work.

The Alchemy of Story: Write to Heal Yourself and Your Reader

I don’t teach writing. I teach alchemy.

I don’t coach writers. I coach transformation professionals ready to make magic with their words.

Part of me rolls my eyes at what sounds like a bit of hubris and exaggeration from a writer who has taken the thesaurus too far.  

But there’s a wiser part of me that waves her wand and smiles. It’s ok to make such wild claims when they’re true. The Word Witch in me remembers that I have seen this alchemical transformation happen more often than I can count. 

What if Alchemy Isn’t Just for Fantasy Novels?

The ancient alchemists were devoted to changing base metals into gold. 

Those magician-philosopher-scientists were also interested in the transformation of the self. They were on a quest to liberate the human ego and open themselves to the limitless potential of the enlightened soul.

Since a well-written book or article that speaks to the dreams and fears of a reader can translate into new business, writing can surely be considered an alchemical act that turns passion into livelihood. Good work becomes gold. 

And, since the people I work with are in the business of healing the mind, body, and spirit, that sacred spiritual alchemy is always part of the mix, too. Words are medicine for the soul.

Creative Alchemy & the Magic of the Self-Focused First Draft

When we work on a piece of writing, we’re also performing an act of creative alchemy. 

In its simplest form, “creative alchemy” describes the movement from inspiration to manifestation. You turn a jumbled collection of ideas into a flowing, finished story. This is what you might think of when you move from what Anne Lamott calls the “shitty first draft” to a piece that you’re proud enough to publish.

I frame it differently for my Sovereign Writers. Rather than using a term that speaks to the quality of the writing, we think about the kind of feelings that get poured onto the page. We talk about the “self-focused first draft.”

The self-focused first draft describes that welter of words the writer puts on paper for herself. This draft includes your personal details, digressions, backstory, and burdens. You’d never want to publish the majority of it, but it needs to be put on the page. Think of this like the buried foundations of a house: they’ll never see the light of day, but they are utterly essential to the strength and endurance of the structure.

It’s not to say that quality isn’t important - the writing coach in me always wants to help writers make their way to clear, elegant prose. But I always want my clients to remember: when you’re in the business of transformation, “good copy” is useless if it lacks your own signature transformative magic. You might write a series of perfectly crafted sentences, but if they don’t come from the heart and soul, it’s just noise.

The Self-Focused First Draft Is More Than Just a Journal Entry

Wait, first take the “just” away. Journaling is an art unto itself and it’s vital to our becoming. We’re talking about a slightly different practice here, however.

When you’re sitting down to produce a self-focused first draft, you’re not there to unload your brain or make a written confession.

When you sit down to pen a self-focused first draft, you come with clear intention.

You’re devoted to that alchemical work of transformation. You’re on a mission to take the raw materials of your experience, including the frustration and the pain, and make some sort of lasting change. Once these raw sentences do their work—the transformative magic that heals you, the writer—then it just might be time to polish things up and press publish.

In fact, for the Sovereign writer who also happens to be a transformation professional—a healer, a therapist, a teacher, a coach—that next step into using your words becomes almost inevitable. 

You write to heal yourself and you write to heal your reader. These two goals weave round one another and inspire you to go deeper for yourself and for the people you serve.

In the midst of all the extraneous details and detours of your private story, you’ll find a whole lot of universal truth. The lessons you’ve learned. The strength you’ve gathered. The reasons you do the work that you do.

If you’re doing any public writing at all as an entrepreneur or private practice owner, this is what you want to express to your readers. This is part of the gold.

The Self-Focused First Draft Is the Foundation of Your Sovereign Story

Amidst the tangle of “small s” stories that catalog our hurts and fears and failures, there are the Sovereign Stories, the stories you must tell. 

Your Sovereign Story emerges when your own preoccupations and passions intersect with the needs and interests of your readers. And every Sovereign Story begins with a self-focused first draft.

Not every Sovereign Story is a magnum opus. You have countless stories like this within you. Your Sovereign Story does its job when it brings a smile to someone’s lips, helps them see they are not alone, or casts new light on a problem so they understand that there is a solution on the other side. 

What is a Sovereign Story?

A Sovereign Story is your truth and you share it to reveal the truth within your readers.

A Sovereign Story conveys a truth and makes a connection with a narrative that only you could weave.

A Sovereign Story is the core narrative that integrates the essential parts of who you really are. 

A Sovereign Story communicates your mission and message to people who want to work with you and grow with you. 

A Sovereign Story is a declaration of what matters to you. To tell one is a brave and beautiful act.

You Never Know What Form a Sovereign Story Might Take

I teach the structure of story and help people uncover and craft their stories in my class, Stand In Your Sovereign Story. There, we talk about website copy, blog posts, and how to be authentic (or, you might say, “how to stay gold”) on social media.

This Sovereign Storytelling work is about so much more than smart, well-constructed marketing copy though.

These days, Sovereign Stories are emerging as poems, too.

A few weeks ago I had a chance to do a 1:1 coaching session with a member of my Sovereign Writers Circle named Dawn. Each Wednesday, our online community gathers for writing practice. We do the kind of “alchemical” writing that is intended to support the work of transformation.

One writing prompt asked the circle to really examine and answer the question “how are you?” Dawn’s response came out in the form of a poem. Her self-focused first draft was from the heart and spoke to what it meant to watch her life and livelihood change due to Covid. She was fine and not fine.

The poem was honest, but that first version only kissed the surface of all Dawn had to explore and say. Shortly afterwards she brought the poem to one of our group coaching calls where we reflected what we heard and offered the sort of gentle, conscious workshopping that makes our community so special. Then, two of us revisited it in our session together. A few weeks later, she brought the piece back to the group during another SWC coaching call.

I think there was a part of Dawn that simply couldn’t believe she was still working on that collection of stanzas. The wiser part of her—the Word Witch within—who had grown accustomed to the alchemy (and the time) that’s involved in telling a Sovereign Story was there for the ride, showing up to question, to wonder, to craft and re-craft.

Dawn has been learning from herself and from her own process, seeing the depths that were held inside the common words, choosing new images that got her closer to the story she needed to unfurl, the Sovereign Story she longed to tell.

It has been an honor to hold this process and have a front row seat for the entire transformation.

Dawn is still working on her poem, asking what more it has to reveal and who most needs to hear it. She’s making choices about which elements to emphasize and all of this is helping her decide where she’ll submit this labor of love. I do hope it will be published someplace. People need to read it. I trust that she’s already experienced the alchemy, however, and her healer-poet’s pockets are already lined in gold.

 You understand that transformation professionals are writing because we want to heal ourselves first and then we want to share our stories to support others in their healing.  We want to touch the heart and soul to make a difference in the world.  It is about the process/journey,  not about performance or notoriety.  The magic and medicine you offer is the encouragement, support and challenge to venture into  new areas with our writing so we can confidently and skillfully express and communicate our work out in the world.

• Dawn Goforth-Kelly, Writer & Reiki Master

What about you? Are you an alchemist seeking the space and the support to uncover and develop your own Sovereign Stories? If you want to learn the art and practice of storytelling in order to build your world-renewing business, consider joining us for the Stand In Your Sovereign Story Program that starts on September 30.

Are you trying to build a writing practice in support of your professional practice or to get a big project into the world? We’re welcoming new members to the Sovereign Writers Circle through September 1.

A Song for the Accidental Digital Creatures Caught in the Medium

Beyond the blessed curse of connectivity
Beyond the broken codes and unwritten rules
Beyond these modern innovations too convenient to question

There exists a realm larger than the screen
Vaster than the newsfeed
Mightier than the network

Will you meet me beyond the metrics and the algorithms
In the hinterlands
Where the programmers of truth and the arbiters of worth can’t reach?

They say that “the medium is the message”
That the delivery is more important than the essence of the idea
Perhaps, once when this mediascape was new,
This phrase left room for wonder, creativity, flow

But now, we’re subdued by relentless cycles of “see me” strategy
Our voices reduced to characters
Our character distilled to brand
Our brands diluting the power of story

What if we’re called to embody rather than perform,
Generate value rather than profit,
Serve the entire spectrum rather than our addiction to one box of light?
What if we recognize, celebrate, and transcend the medium all at once?

I claim myself as medium, as storyteller, as seer. Could you?

As medium, you're here to speak what you see
Expressing what’s beautiful and terrible
In the heart, the mind, the union, the whole

At once holy witnesses and dancers in the dance
We can thrive along the edges,
Just outside the reaches of the boundaried infinity of our digital den

Channel the shadow as well as the bright
Cry out from the gut
Open lips wide and eyes even wider

Live without fear that anarchic laughter looks like a scream
That honesty looks like anger
That the sacred looks too much like the profane

Vision sharper than any camera lens
Fingers freed from their constant communicative claw
Tear your narrative from the hem of a dream cloak
Woven of the stuff more real than pixels and bytes

Remember you're here to rattle the world
And you can't always do that with a phone in your hand

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The Story Behind the Poetry

I wrote this poem for us, for all the creatives, healers, artists, and entrepreneurs who, even after all these years, are still navigating the love-hate relationship with our digital world. O wrote this for all of us who are grateful for the connective magic that’s never more than an arm’s length away, but who also know these devices and networks are changing reality and warping the narrative.

These words flowed through when I started to gear up to once again promote and lead my Stand In Your Sovereign Story course.

At first, I was frustrated. To do online marketing “right,” I needed to show you the power of story and tell neat little tales that revealed former students’ and current clients’ results. I needed to embrace and display everything I know about captivating my readers and using the digital tools to draw new eyeballs.

Instead, I found myself spooling out lines of ambivalent verse as I pictured the “push-me-pull-you” relationship I’ve always with the internet and social media.

There’s power in this paradox, of course. Good stories rely on tension. The world I know and the material I teach is always grounded in the both/and - the real as well as the virtual, the struggle as well as the solution, the work as well as the love.

Part of my power - as writer, a healer, and a teacher - comes from being able to hold your hand as we leap between the personal and the professional. Together, we realize it’s all soul work.

The kind of storytelling I offer invokes your passion, your pain, and all you’ve learned along the way so you can create a bridge that connects you to the people who need you most.

A Sovereign Story heals the writer as well as the reader. These are the stories that transform lives and build livelihoods as they communicate, teach, and inspire something true.

Maybe it’s time for you to uncover the stories that mean the most so you can continue to build your world-renewing business. Maybe it’s time for you to stand in your Sovereign Story? I’d love to have you with us when we begin in September.

For Those In Need of Rest: A Formula, A Prayer, A Spell

I just want to go back to the womb cave and listen to endless drumming until I feel stars inside my skin.

…This sentence came through when I was texting a friend this week.

Her response — “THAT” — made it clear that I am not alone in this longing. 

So many of us feel the urge to curl back into some vision of The Mother. Exhausted by all the doing, worrying, and waiting, we just want to get quiet and be held by an elemental heartbeat. We long to devote ourselves to beingness. 

What would it be like, we wonder, if we simply feel like we were part of creation? What if we didn’t have to please, prove, make, and strive our way to worthiness?

What if, just for a little while, you could go back to the womb cave and listen to endless drumming until you felt stars inside your skin?

But… is it OK to want to turn inward and just be nourished right now?

It feels crazy to want to keep incubating and hibernating after all these months of social distancing. 

It feels selfish to long for some sort of spiritual safety when so many are perpetually unsafe due to the color of their skin, the economic losses from the pandemic, or the host of other monsters that keep people from feeling healthy and secure. 

When there are so many things to fix in the world and so many things to achieve, nattering on about starry skin just seems tone deaf.

Crazy. Selfish. Tone deaf.

That self-judgment (paired with occasional bursts of public shaming) is exactly why that womb cave is calling. I think we all need to pause, to tune into how the body, the nervous system, and the soul are straight up weary and need an intergalactic kind of break. 

Even if you can count your blessings and tally your various privileges, that urge to set it all down and curl up for a nice long time is real. And it’s necessary.

It’s ok to admit you’re tired — even if you “shouldn’t” be so tired. You’re tired because layering the shoulds and shouldn’ts over your own experience is exhausting in itself. You’re tired because honesty is exhausting and because being dishonest about your wants and needs brings on even more fatigue.

A Writing Prompt About the Authentic Need to Rest

Perhaps you’re on the upswing right now. Your creativity is flowing. Your activism is aligned with your intentions. Your relationships are strong and you’re able to both give and receive.

That’s awesome. You can imagine what it’s like to crave a trip to the womb cave.

If you’ve gotten this far, however, I think you feel a bone-deep listlessness and you’d like to book a cozy spot in the cave, too.

Even better? Use your sensual imagination to describe exactly what you need right now.

You’re invited to describe what it is you really long for. This is an invitation to authenticity. This is a chance to speak the truth that always exists beneath the obligations and the “ought-to’s.”

Where do you long to be right now?

What do you long to hear?

What do you long to feel?

Think of it as writing a formula. A prayer. A spell.

You might be called to answer each question with one magic word. Perhaps you’ll write a page in response to each question.

No matter what, write about something you truly want. (No one is watching. This isn’t about proving how hard you’ve been studying or how much your willing to sacrifice for the greater good.)

Maybe you want to be on a cliff in Ireland with the song of the mermaids in your ears and the salt kiss of the north Atlantic on your face. 

Maybe you want to be in a beach cabana listening to the laughter of your children back when they were small enough to curl up in your lap. 

Maybe you just don’t know right now and you’ll borrow my vision until you have the strength to imagine your own healing haven. 

There’s room in the womb cave. The Mother’s arms can carry us all and that heartbeat is never going to stop. There, we’ll realize that we’re truly loved to the stars and back, no matter what. And sometimes, that’s just what we need.

Rest in this space you’ve imagined. Stay a little while. Stay longer than you think you can.

The world will be waiting when you return. The good fight will still need to be fought. The kids will still need to be fed. The deadlines will still need to be met.

Trust yourself to imagine solace and healing. Trust yourself to come back when you’re ready. When you’re something closer to whole.

Are you looking for a writing community that explores ideas like these each week?

Get your copy today.