Every Little Thing She Does: Magic through the Eyes of the Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman

🎵🎶 Every Little Thing
She Does Is Magic 🎶🎵

You know that song by The Police? It’s still one of my favorites. I was stunned to learn it came out when I was two years old, but then it feels right: this song just feels like part of life’s soundtrack. 

It’s a song that has grown with me. It’s a song that the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman in me still sings. Even if all the lyrics don’t exactly suit every age and stage, it’s a song that holds all the magic.

It’s time to roll the windows down and blast our favorite songs. And, because there’s a 7 Magic Words Challenge coming up on June 1, I have magic on the mind. 

Before we go on, have you met the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman? The Archetypes of The Sovereignty Knot live inside of us, throughout our lives. Learn about the qualities of each Sovereignty Archetype here. 

The Faces of Magic: Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman

Let’s explore how the Princess, the Queen, and the Wise Woman experience, embody, and make magic.

When you think of how the different aspects of you experience magic, you’ll begin to see all the ways that magic is working its way through your life right now. 

The Princess Believes In Her Magic When Someone Else Sees It

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who desperately wanted a man to see the magic in her. She knew she shined with a special something, but she spent a lot of time hoping the right guy would see it and tell her that she turned him on.

Ok, so this “young woman” was me. 

I was a quintessential romantic who really wanted a slightly younger version of Sting to be her boyfriend. Though I was smart and brave and talked a great feminist game, I also longed for someone to sing this song to me. 

I thought I would be a little more real if I saw my magic reflected in someone else’s eyes.

Oh, the heartbreaks that came from that need to be seen. Oh, the wild nights and love stories, too.

And because that Princess part of me is still allowed - and invited - to live and thrive, I admit that I still seek out that spark in my marriage. I cannot begin to imagine that my husband thinks every little thing I do is magic, especially when I wander the house, unable to find my car keys or one of my six pairs of glasses, but our relationship is about seeing the magic  -- in each other. 

When I’m standing in the healthy princess-aspect of myself, I allow myself to believe in romance without the desperation, to ask to be adored by my partner without living for his devotion. 

The princess can get excited to conjure up magic with the dress she wears, the way she does her hair, and the unexpected wonders she’ll find along the way.

The Queen Sings the Magic Into the World

Now that I am living the life of the Queen in so many ways, taking care of the family, the castle (such as it is), and managing all the things (except the whereabouts of my glasses), I hear the song in a new way. 

“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” sounds more like the love I have for my children and the love they had for me when they were very small. It’s an intoxicating, fleeting kind of closeness that comes with the new romance of being alive, welcoming someone into this world, and raising them into the person they’ll become.

My girls are a little older now, and while we are still madly in love with each other, the first blush of babyhood is far behind us. I have raised strong, healthy girls who feel safe enough to despise me from time to time. 

And though my love for them is stronger than ever, we’ve all gotten to the place of “I love you to the moon and back, but I wish you would spend the weekend there so we could all have a break.”

When my Princess is satisfied, when she can see herself for all of her magic and possibility, the Queen in me can step forward and see the magic in other people.

(This, by the way, is the essence of Sovereignty. As I say in the book: The mark of a true Sovereign is what she does to maintain her own energy even as she pays it forward, passing on her gifts in order to empower others to set out on their own path to Sovereignty.)

And even as the Queen offers her care and attention to others, she keeps on believing in the generative power of her own delicious magic. She knows that the magic isn’t in being seen and celebrated, but in the joy of creation.

The Wise Woman Sees Magic In Everyone and Everything

My Sovereignty work is all knotted up with my spiritual work, just as my life stories are all knotted up with my journeys to Ireland and my mythical reference points are all knotted up in Celtic lore.

The Wise Woman is the one who sees the interconnected nature of all things, from the cell to the soul, from the individual heart to the great collective heartbeat of the universe. 

The Wise Woman knows magic. She knows she is magic, and she always has been throughout life.

And when she hums “every little thing she does is magic” she just may be singing of the muse, of Mother Earth, of the great divine feminine force that births us all into being.

… And, of course, this is only the beginning of the Princess, Queen, and Wise Women’s Stories 

The Princess isn’t just a lovestruck teenager waiting to be someone’s muse. This adventurer can take off to distant lands all on her own without a care for anyone’s approval or appreciative eye.

The Queen isn’t just a nurturer. This make-it-happen powerhouse can sing the magic to the multitudes, trading motherhood of a few humans to be mother of a movement or head of a company.

The Wise Woman… Well, she knows that magic belongs at the beginning, middle, and ending of every story and she is always going to spy it everywhere (even when she’s telling you that she’s been baked into pragmatism after a long life of struggle and love).

Want more magic in your life? Join the 7 Magic Words Challenge, the free creativity project that begins on June 1!

Want to explore The Sovereignty Knot? Get the book and sign up to receive the exclusive meditations about the Princess, Queen, and Wise Woman.

Permission to Make Magic. Permission to BE the Magic.

“I just need to get through these practical things so I can give myself permission to market the magical stuff.”

“I have to be able to appeal to the people who want the data and the outcomes, but really, I want the people I can talk magic to.”

“I was trained to be an academic, and I know how to do the intellectual side really well. Spirituality and magic are always at the core of everything, but I am afraid to let people see that.”

These lines from three separate conversations with three different healer-writer-seeker-mytics who are certified in different forms of coaching and psychotherapy.

Each one glows with her own remarkable sovereign wisdom and each one has the ability to make deep, lasting change in the lives of the folks they work with. 

They all might define “magic” a little differently, but it has something to do with the vast unseen, the sacred unknown, and the connections that flow between All That Is. They know that their work is sourced by something greater, some universal creative force that makes the body, mind, spirit, and all of creation come alive. 

They feel all these forces at work and know it’s at the core of all they do, and yet, they often can’t trust themselves to speak it loud and clear…

Why do we hide our unique brilliance and stop ourselves from saying what really matters?

These women, like me, like just about all of us, have been raised in a patriarchal society and trained by a capitalist system. 

We’ve internalized some version of: “Lead with the facts, with the measurable results, and with the stuff that appeals to the pain points established by the marketplace. All the feelings, stories, and (god)dess talk might work for some, but what really matters is the credentials, the quantifiable, the sale.”

They - we - all hide their magic for fear it will be diminished, misunderstood, and twisted by those who would dismiss their silly, ungrounded, uncontrollable “woo woo” ideas. It’s safer and easier to lead with the easily digested steps to success, the “click now” jargon, and the peer reviewed approaches.

What if we were unafraid to lead with our passion, our truth, and our magic?

Well, that’s the sorceress’s greatest question.

If healers, sovereignty seekers, and creatives found the courage to lead with their own authentic passion, truth, and magic, the whole world would change.

That change would start with the individual. When one person stands sovereign in her power and purpose and then offers it to her readers, her clients, her family, her community… Eventually a single act sends forth ripples that shift everything. It’s just like magic.

It all sounds pretty idyllic, right?

Name your magic.
Speak it aloud.
Call in the people who speak your language.
Transform one life and keep going til you’ve bettered the universe.

But tell me again, why aren’t we doing this wonderful thing all the time?

That same patriarchal capitalist world that chains us to the practical also conspires to silence the mystery. Plus, our own human fears of being vulnerable to ridicule and judgement tend to shut us down before we even begin to explore unknown territory.

And it’s not just the societal pressures and individual fears that seal our lips and stifle our stories. Magic spells have always been bound by secrets, only to be shared with the initiated, in a moment of great need, or when the stars and moon align.

It can feel downright wrong to share our magic in the marketplace.

Modern digital life has a way of commodifying hallowed ground, and we can feel like part of the problem when we stick a “for sale” sign on the intimate, sacred truths that ground our lives and spirits.

And yet, there are brave and brilliant writers and thinkers who manage to send their magic into the world in a way that doesn’t seem icky or opportunistic. They launch their words and ideas into the ethers and touch the hearts and minds of readers and Instagram scrollers. 

As a result, the folks in the audience receive those ideas and see themselves and their world in a new way. They share the insight and the new way of being with others, and that starts new conversations that can lead to action. And this goes on and on until we start seeing real change, whether it’s in de-stigmatizing mental health issues, exposing systemic racism, or respecting people’s pronouns.

That’s how magic is made real. 

Magic flows in moments of realization, in instances of connection, in the building of relationships. In the sense of, “YES! A new way is possible! Let’s try it!”

We still need to call on our own deep powers of discernment, to decide what’s too intimate and in fact too sacred to share, of course. That’s an important topic for another day, however.

Are you longing to lead with your magic and make it real?

Those comments at the start of this piece about longing to make their magic real are part of longer, broad-reaching conversations.

Each woman wants to offer her healing work to the world and tell stories that matter, and each is going it in her own way (of those clients I quoted above, one is seeking a sustainable, satisfying approach to marketing; one is developing her website and a new framework to teach her ideas; and another is writing a book).

Though those women are working on different projects and hoping to speak to very different people, the awareness of and desire for that real but ephemeral thing called magic is the common ingredient. 

I’m offering these individual clients specific support to get them closer to anchoring into their magic and making it real. Each one is blessed by the hard-won belief in her own magic, her own medicine, her own sense that she has something to share with the world.

(Check out my writing coaching and Story Illumination Sessions if you’re interested in working one-on-one!)

Their next step is to give themselves permission to embody that magic in a way that feels authentic, safe (but not too safe), and true to the work they wish to do in the world.

That permission comes through writing practice, through honest conversation, and through a recognition that the spiritual work and the magic making is every bit as necessary and practical as getting better at crafting sales copy.

What about you? Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in your OWN magic?

On June 1, the 7 Magic Words Challenge begins.

This free, weeklong online event will help you uncover and name your own magic. It’s open to all - whether your a creative entrepreneur, a healer or coach with a private practice, or a sovereign soul in search of a new way to see the word and express your own wisdom.

A Healer with a Pocketful of Wild Violets

It was a pretty rough one at the Goudy house. I had major dental surgery on Friday and my husband realized he had Lyme the night before. 

Suddenly, there were a million prescription bottles on the counter and someone was always asking “did you remember to take your antibiotics?” 

We were the walking wounded, though neither of us should have been walking anywhere. My husband is notoriously terrible at taking it easy, while I am rather skilled at shutting out the world and taking to my bed when I’m sick or need to recover from something as massive as a 2.5 hour tooth extraction. 

Nonetheless, we got through and we’re somewhat less pathetic now that it's Monday morning. (Though it’s still tough for me to talk for more than a few minutes. It's like my face is recovering from an ultramarathon I didn't train for.)

Fortunately, we had a healer on call

Seeing her parents weren’t themselves, our seven year-old took it upon herself to start making remedies. 

A neighbor, a consummate garden witch, had told our daughter that the little purple flowers that grew wild in the spring grass were edible.  

So Mairead scoured the yard (a marvelous collection of wild plants and useful weeds we mow and call a lawn) and filled her pockets with wild violets. Turns out, they’re very high in vitamin C, but she didn’t know that when she started to forage.

My husband and I each got a glass full of water and a healthy handful of the sweet purple flowers. She came in at regular intervals to be sure we’d drunk our healing elixirs and she was always ready with refills.

(After I texted my friend and verified that the plants were both non-poisonous and actually beneficial, I actually started to take a few tentative sips rather than surreptitiously pouring the love-drink down the bathroom sink!)

When I wasn’t utterly obsessed with my own aching jaw I could see the healer blossoming in this girl.

She has grown up in the house of an energy healer, after all, and she knows we’ll treat a sickness with both an herbal tincture and a drug from the pharmacy, when necessary.

The light in her eyes made me realize it was more than nurture, however. She has the nature of a healer and is offering skills and insight that she has gained over lifetimes, not in a mere seven years.

And she’s dedicated. Before she got ready for school today she made sure to set up my day’s tonic. I’ve got to make sure that my husband and I appear to have taken our full doses before she gets home!

Why am I telling you this story?

In part, it’s because I couldn’t possibly focus on anything else as my body tries to recover from the trauma and my mind tries to integrate the insanity that is having a dentist spend a morning in your mouth.

As I am finally coming back to myself and feel able to sit up and type, it was either tell the story of the moment or say nothing at all.

Plus, it’s part of my job to model how all the little real life moments - the painful experiences and the sweet love - can be and want to be part of your stories.

As a healer - or as a creative entrepreneur or transformation professional whose work makes like a little more beautiful, bearable, or bold - you’re here to meet people in the midst of their struggles. 

As a writer, you’re here to tell authentic stories, either from your own life or from our gorgeous, terrible world. You guide people toward you and your life-renewing work based on the stories you tell.

You're a healer with a pocketful of stories.
You're a storyteller with a pocketful of tales.

A rough weekend at our house gave our girl a chance to offer her empathetic magic. And on Monday morning, that floral concoction gave me just what I needed: the bit of beauty and hope that makes a story worth telling.

Next Monday at 7 PM ET we’ll be visiting the Story Source. In this free workshop I will be offering a series of exercises to help you find your own source of inspiration so you can tell more of the stories that have meaning for you and your audience.

Join us for the free workshop.

What are you doing with your Monday evenings this May? This free workshop is a preview of the storytelling course called Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand I am teaching next month. 

What's Illuminated by the New Moon?

Last week, I devoted myself to making my desk a sacred space for the writing to flow. I was reconsecrating the surface where the creative visions, the healing ideas, and the practical-magical business messages could come through.

All along, I knew that I would soon need to lavish my attention on the space beside the desk where my “actual” sacred space was supposed to be.

Do you have a sacred space for meditation and spiritual work?

Over the last year, my altar has sprawled from its intended corner and taken over a third of my office floor. Rather than making this room feel more magical, it just made the place seem more cluttered.

Nowhere is a sanctuary when “maybe everything” is a sanctuary. (Plus there was cat hair in every unvacuumable “sacred” nook.)

And so, I pulled everything out, even taking apart the heating register. (Note: those Himalayan salt lamps are lovely, but when they sweat they can destroy your metal baseboard heater!).

There are crystals and beach rocks, statues of goddesses and rosaries from Rome, packs of oracle cards and countless candle stubs stacked in boxes on the couch. All of those objects are precious in their own way, but taken together in a small space that also doubles as a creative entrepreneur’s office, they’re just a bunch of unholy clutter. I haven’t figured out quite where all those treasures need to live, but I know I cannot and do not need to see them every day.

Now, I have this consciously laid sacred space beside my desk. Carefully chosen and laid out for this new moon in Aries, it vibrates with new life and asks me to set a whole new series of blessed intentions.

This New Moon in Aries is a Particularly Potent One

My own new moon practices are inspired by Astralore:

Have two candles available. Light the first to represent yourself, as you are right now. Light the second candle as inspiration for the change you want to create during this cycle. Take a moment to focus on your intention as you light each candle. Imagine drawing the change you desire toward you as you physically bring the two candles closer together. When you are done with the ritual blow out the candles, you will come back to them to perform the same ritual each day for two weeks.

At the Scorpio Full Moon on April 26th, you will bring the candles together where they will touch for the first time. Now you see clearly and acknowledging what you have created.

I found that my intentions for the month were informed by the Chumpi stones.

These stones, modeled on ancient artifacts found in the Peruvian Andes, are each imbued with meaning and represent a different facet of human consciousness. These concepts are part of the healing system called Chumpi Illumination that I have studied for nearly 15 years under my mentor, Eleanora Amendolara. I call on these stones and their unique energies whenever I offer a Story Illumination session for a client. They are constant companion in all of my own spiritual and creative work, too.

This new moon morning I was drawn to three of the Chumpi stones. Stone two, which represents Balance. Stone five, which represents Harmony. And the seventh stone, which represents Wholeness.

My New Moon Wishes: Balance. Harmony. Wholeness.

Balance

I wish to find Balance between my various worlds. (As a quintessential Gemini, this is always the quest!)

My new fiction project balances the stories of two different worlds. Plus, I am called to balance this evolving imaginal world with the aspects of everyday life that want to be nourished by my own creative awakening. 

This balance looks like daring to share my excitement about this new project. It means I am opening conversations with my family about what I am learning and modeling what it means to be excited about this next magical thing, thereby giving them permission to find their own magic. 

It also means that I am finding ways to balance my desire to create and my need for time and space to imagine with the needs of my family. When my new project is real to them (and believe me, the stacks books about druids and archaeological studies of bodies found in bogs have made mom’s new obsession quite clear), then I have the freedom to show up for both

Harmony

I wish to find harmony as I hold a number of professional projects. (A creative entrepreneur who teaches and coaches, writes and edits, heals and holds stories… harmony is always the goal.)

This month, I am calling new folks into my Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand program as I continue to support my community of clients through 1:1 work and my Sovereign Wisdom Circle. 

There’s a beautiful blending here that feels a bit like that song my daughter sings at Girl Scouts: “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”

Just as I hope I show my family what it means to be excited about a magical, creative project and stay fully present in the rush of everyday life, I hope I can embody the kind of harmony we creatives and healers need to thrive in the marketplace. 

We may be in business to build a livelihood, but we’re motivated by the desire to build and maintain relationships and help transform the world for the better. In our desire to show up fully and authentically, we craft  and share the stories that have meaning - both to us as the creators, and to the audience. We seek to find that harmony between work and love, service and support, leadership and connection.

Wholeness

I wish to call in a sense of wholeness when it comes to healing my body and the old stories that it carries. (I mentioned being a quintessential Gemini? Unfortunately, I am a super-adept air sign who does a fine job of forgetting I have a body until it stops working.)

I have been trying to unravel this persistent neck pain for nearly a year. Recently, I’ve been working with a goddess of an acupuncturist who also offers ancestral healing and has helped me find the roots of issues with my neck and shoulders that have lingered since… forever. She helped me begin to unlock the grief and isolation I experienced as a thirteen year-old and the coping patterns I learned : if I am sick and frail, I can hide away in safety; I need to break (or at least appear broken) in order to get a break.

As I come back to wholeness and remember that I am a fully embodied being (not just a free-floating mind and spirit), then I can be more present in all the things - as a mama and partner, as as writer and a creative, as an entrepreneur and a leader.

How is the new moon filling your sky? 

How about you? What qualities or energies are tugging at your sleeve this new moon? What wishes and intentions would you like to see come into your world in the weeks and months to come?

If you’re interested in a healing session that can help you tap into the springtime, new moon energy that’s flowing through your life consider a Story Illumination Session.

Not just for writers, these sessions call on the wisdom of the Chumpi stones and other energy healing practices to help you clear the creative blocks and see your stories in a new way.

And if you’re an entrepreneur who is interested in using your personal stories to grow your world-renewing business, check out Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand.

Make Your Writing Desk a Sacred Space

In the early 1980s, a woman drove north from Massachusetts, crossing the Canadian border and continuing on until the little red Datsun reached the ferry terminal. She and her parents and her small daughter, only a toddler, boarded the boat to Prince Edward Island.

This family, always growing, shrinking, and changing according to the dictates of time, had been driving up to the Maritimes to go “home” to see the relatives since the first generation emigrated to Boston in 1949. We still do (or rather, we will as soon as the word reopens).

I always miss the Island, just as I miss my mom, my grandparents, and the great aunts and uncle we used to visit every summer. Usually, those feelings intensify once June rolls around and I can sense, even from hundreds of miles away, that the lupines are filling the ditches and the water in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is almost warm enough for swimming.

Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash

Right now, though, my PEI memory cup is overflowing. I’m imagining one particular road trip when I would have been in a car seat and mom purchased “the desk.”

The desk was - and is - a converted organ that was bought at an auction or some cattle barn that was converted into an antique shop when the farmers stopped working the land and corporate agriculture came in. This lovely old thing sat at the bottom of the formal staircase at my aunt and uncle’s 19th century farm house for two decades. 

It was always “Jeanine’s desk” even though this wasn’t her home and it seemed like she’d never claim it. Finally, Mom and I rented the perfect sized minivan and brought it back with us the summer I got my first apartment.

That was seventeen years ago. 

This desk has moved with me a few times. It has moved around our current house, too. Though I love it, it’s far from ergonomically sound, so it has become something of a storage chest and dumping ground.

But then, I started a new project. 

My new novel is set in the Ireland of two thousand years ago, in the time of the druids, with bits of 18th century Dublin woven into the story, too. As I begin what is bound to be a mammoth undertaking, I’m digging through college lecture notes, combing through genealogical records and ordering scandalously heavy boxes of new books. 

The past feels more present than ever before.

And, even if my new writing project doesn’t involve my ancestors in particular, I am feeling the presence of thrice great grandmothers I have never met as surely as I am feeling my own beloved, more recently departed relations.

We Are Called to Create Our Own Sacred Spaces

Rather than spending the Easter holidays at mass as all my Catholic forebears would have, we devoted our days to shifting furniture and sorting family papers. I have emptied my office, my shelves, my altar, and am still in the long, slow process of putting it all together.

I wasn’t called to find holy sanctuary in a church. I never really have felt that call. Nature has always been my cathedral. And now, I am re-sacralizing my own office as my sanctuary.

It feels so natural, and yet, so new.

Unconsciously, I had always understood this as a sacred creative and healing space. Whether I am working on my own fiction, pulling tarot cards for a client who is trying to find her creative direction, or helping an entrepreneur find the words to describe their own sacred healing work, something special happens when I close the door and devote myself to this kind of writing and conversation.

Now, I realize that I need to create my creative workspace in a deliberate, sacred way.

After this year when our workplaces have changed so much, when we’ve lost access to the libraries and coffee shops that once were our intellectual and creative refuge, it’s more important than ever that we have our own sacred spaces to draft and craft and brith something new.

How Will You Create Your Own Sacred Creative Space?

How will you create your own sacred creative space? I have no idea! I do hope you’ll send me a note or tag me when you share photos of the place where you’re currently making magic or will soon be making the next wonderful thing.

Here are a few ideas that may help you get started...

1. Keep it simple. The goal is to find clarity and inspiration and then start making something magical, NOT to get distracted by the endless details of redecorating. (Making a space beautiful and liveable is a deeply creative act, of course. Just be aware of whether you’re using “I need to make this the perfect sacred space” as an excuse that keeps you from getting to the page and spinning out your stories.)

2. Consider what direction you’ll face. Factor in the light and the warmth of the room, as comfort is an essential part of the sacred creative experience. Also think about whether you’re someone who writes in the morning or at the end of the day. Do you want to face the rising sun (even if you can’t see it)? Is it important that the full moon would shine on your desk at a certain point each month?

3. Make re-sacralizing easy. If you use this space for many activities, from paying bills to doing work for clients, can you shift the energy in the space to call in that certain sacred, creative energy that the most personal projects require? Maybe you light a certain candle or purposefully clear the space of the detritus of the day before you begin.

4. Be comfortable. The reason I was really able to bring this storied desk back into my office and work at it full time? There has been a revolution in home office supplies and I had a million options to choose from when it came to adding a keyboard tray to this piece of furniture that used to be a musical instrument. When I had tried to use this as a desk ten years ago my husband rigged something from scrap wood. There was so much love in those rough boards, but damn, was it ugly! When you (re)create your space, value comfort as much as you value sentiment. 

5. Listen for guidance and look for signs. Part of my quest involved suggestions from an ancestral healing session. My grandmothers from Limerick and Mayo wanted me to call in the family heirlooms as I set the scene for my next book. Your guidance may come from the ancestors, your spirit guides, or the call of the birds. Dare to tune in and heed your intuition.

We Can Write Together, Each In Our Own Sacred Space

In the Sovereign Wisdom Circle, the online community for healers who write and writers who heal, we gather to write together twice per month. We also gather to learn and laugh and share and explore.

Through April 7, we’re welcoming new members to the group. If you’ve been looking for a community that can support you as a healer, a writer, and an entrepreneur, this is the group you’ve been hoping to find.