Underground Magic: On Fallow Seasons and Sacred Growth

I’ve got that itch.

You know the one.

The one where you are hungry for green and growing things. Eager for hands in fertile soil and ground bursting with potential. Excited for daffodils and tulips and all those wishes you planted last fall finally finding the sun.

So you collect seeds and stare longingly at garden catalogs and dream about your garden. You add your compost and hay and not-so-patiently wait for time and the elements to do their work. This, perhaps surprisingly, is one of the harder parts of gardening and of soul tending.

We want the blooms.

The splashy spring flowers and the delicious snap peas, the red radishes and the orange carrots. We look for signs of growth in green shoots poking through the earth and snowdrops and grape hyacinths dotting our landscape. And why shouldn’t we? These things nourish the soil and the soul.

But here’s the thing: it’s also important to appreciate the fallow periods.

There are no flowers and delicious spring herbs without rest. We put our gardens to bed in the fall. We cover them in compost and soil amendments, mulch and TLC. It’s an essential part of any healthy growing period. The soil needs time to rest and revitalize. It’s unsustainable for it to always be producing. Even the bees and other beneficial insects overwinter in hollowed-out flower stems and dried-up seed pods.

It’s not glamorous, but it’s perhaps one of the deepest forms of magic: letting things be.

Allowing things to rest. Permitting time to do the work. Not pushing forward but rooting into the moment. I tell this to myself, repeatedly, as I grumble and ache for signs of growth.

In my garden. In my life. In the deepest of dreams, buried in soil like garlic and onion bulbs. But then I take a breath, especially on days like today, ones that tease spring, though surely we will get one more snow before the seasons fully shift. I remember that life—soul seeds and turnip seeds—cannot come into this world without a gestation period.

We prize green shoots that usher in a new season. But long before they appear in our garden beds, the seeds have been quietly resting, stratifying, and cracking open to deepen their roots. A whole winter goes by as they find a way to shake loose their husks and transform into something more. They learn what they can become in the darkness. Without witness and without visible progress.

A lot goes on beneath the surface, in other words, when we’re looking at growth.

Sometimes it’s a feeling. Sometimes, a shift in perspective. Other times, it’s a conversation that washes over your body, making you feel whole. Sometimes, it’s not overworking the soil in your desire to get things moving. These aren’t things we can easily explain or check off a list. The deeper work is often so subtle that we might miss that we’re doing it as we go about our day.

But isn’t that the magic?

Showing up, being present, and attending our daily tasks even if we don’t get the immediate gratification of visible results. Our time and care do the work.

Rest is important in a culture that values productivity. We are conditioned to push forward and manufacture success. But that kind of artificial progress isn’t sustainable and rarely leads to meaningful growth. Real change is almost imperceptible as it is happening. It takes over slowly, in the small acts and intentions we bring to our days, and we only know the change has rooted within us when we look back at what felt like a dormant period and see irises and crocus flowers in our wake.

So, as I gaze toward spring, I pause. I relish the remains of this fallow period, grateful for the darkness and the quiet that help us make our way toward the light in the spring.

What soul seeds have you been tending this winter?

Alt text: Seeds germinating in soil beneath the text "Underground Magic: On Fallow Seasons and Sacred Growth."

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

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The Art of Noticing

It is early in the morning. The house smells of cinnamon-laced coffee. I’m in my robe, enjoying a luxuriously slow Saturday morning. Heavy clouds promise rain or snow later in the day. The city feels hushed. My mind, settled.

The cats are following me from room to room, eager for breakfast. A stack of books on my nightstand beckons to me—an invitation for some lazy afternoon reading—as does a new recipe that requires nothing more than fresh ingredients and time to simmer.

The week was full of a variety of mundane tasks. Laundry. Cleaning. Grocery shopping (my personal favorite). Emails to check. Assignments to grade. Lessons to plan. Most people would find this month anticlimactic after the festivities of December. Me? I relish that slow transition into January. The return to routine. The soft unfolding of a new year. Yes, even down to taking down the decorations and cleaning the house at the start of the year.

There’s nothing more satisfying than tending your sanctuary.

Some might find this time to be a reminder of what didn’t happen the previous year, what they didn’t get, and what is yet unfulfilled in their lives. They feel a slow dread. Winter holidays and the new year, after all, are a natural time for reflection.

Too often, however, those reflections usher in Four of Cups energy.

This card centers a figure sitting under a tree. His arms are crossed and he gazes at the ground, discontented. There are three cups before him and another brought to him, as if from a benevolent spirit. But he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice the beautiful tree that offers him shelter and comfort, either. Or the vast sky or verdant earth. No, this figure is so stuck on what he doesn’t have—what is lost and what might never be—that he cannot see the abundance before him. Not one, not two—but four whole cups, upright, before him.

That’s the kind of energetic stinginess I like to avoid in life, one that can unconsciously fuel New Year’s resolutions: focusing on what you don’t have and creating unrealistic goals to get it.

I hate that energy! It feels forced and perpetuates a scarcity mentality.

Instead, I would ask for a shift in perspective—especially entering the new year. And, if you must make it a resolution, make it a gentle one:

Practice the Art of Noticing.

Take my morning. I savored the taste of that first cup of coffee (truly, there is nothing more divine than that first sip). I relished a clean house that felt spacious and light after the holiday décor was put away. I took comfort in my familiars—one warming himself on a windowsill after breakfast, bathed in sunlight, amber eyes glowing. The other, wrapping himself around my legs, unapologetic in his affection for me, green eyes radiant. I relish a weekend of writing and time spent with loved ones.

I imagined myself as the figure in the Four of Cups, picking up her head and noticing: the three cups, the tree, the sky, and the earth. I imagined a warm breeze tickling my skin and birds singing their life-affirming songs.

I pay special attention to the three cups before me, grateful that they are upright, and I imagine them brimming with good energy. I then turn my attention to the fourth cup, offered to me as if by a benevolent spirit—what unexpected magic does it offer? I look forward to finding out.

I took this energy with me into the day, the week, and I will take it into this month, this year.

This is the energy of the Four of Cups reversed. It is a card of gratitude and abundance, appreciation and grounded joy. It’s not about wishing you had more or regretting what is absent from your life, but celebrating what you do have and realizing you have rather a lot more than you realize. Perhaps nothing has changed outwardly, but you’d be surprised at what a simple shift in perspective can do.

Reversed, this card is an invitation to open to wonder, curiosity, and appreciation.

This is a particularly useful set of muscles to cultivate, given everything going on in the world. I always write about the magic of everyday life because that’s where the best medicine can be found. It’s easy to want quick solutions to difficult problems or to search for big transformations and big experiences to find ourselves. But the truth is, the magic is in showing up for life, every day, in small, gentle ways. In tuning in. Paying attention. And appreciating where you are and what you have.

Be open to synchronicity and possibility.

Don’t look for an outcome. Just be present. If you find yourself looking to the past or longing for an imagined future, stop. Breathe. Notice the world around you. Get out of your head and redirect your energy to flow through your body.

This year, I invite you to try the Art of Noticing.

Look for magic in the little things. Embrace routine. Find enchantment in the simplest of pastimes.

Notice, too, your proverbial three cups. What do they hold—and what does the fourth one offer you?

Alt-text: A tarot card scene with crystals, a candle, and the phrase "The Art of Noticing."

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

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Winter Solstice Story Magic

This post originally appeared in my November/December 2024 newsletter.

At the start of the year, I pulled The Fool in the tarot. The message was clear: time for a new adventure. I wasn’t sure if that meant a new job, a move, or what. But I’d forgotten what a trickster the deck can be! Often, the message is more poetic than the brick-and-mortar answers that we want to ascribe to this divination tool. At any rate, this has very much been a year of trying to relearn myself and all the joys life has to offer.

Somewhere around March, I discovered what The Fool had been trying to get me to see all along. I didn’t need a location change. I didn’t need a new job or even a new haircut. What I needed was a change in perspective. I need a deeper appreciation of my life and all I’d done to make it an abundant one—and the knowledge that I could keep growing and bringing light into the spaces of my life that needed more nourishment.

The stress of the pandemic—personally and professionally—had narrowed my vision and made me tight and tense, always looking for the next battle or foe. Worse, the stories I told myself about my life got rigid and hard, like some highly-touted but thoroughly depressing piece of literary fiction…in other words, it was brittle and boring! It was time for a reset.

Enter The Fool who asked me to open my heart—and my eyes—to the wonder all around me. It was time, in other words, to rethink my story and get rid of the plot threads that weren’t doing a darn thing but bogging down my narrative flow.

There are precisely two ways to effect positive, lasting change in your life. Trust me. I’ve learned from experience. The first is through hope. I know it sounds trite, and perhaps what not many people want to hear with all the traumatic world events right now. But ACTIVE HOPE—where you firmly believe that there is a better way of being in the world and work towards that—is a powerful thing.

The second is through storytelling.

Stories give us hope. Stories give us glimpses into different lives and worlds and ways of thinking. They offer us medicine and wisdom. We find ourselves in stories—what we read, what we watch, even the stories we tell about ourselves. It should come as no surprise, then, that hope and storytelling go hand in hand.

I often ask myself, when I get stuck and my thinking gets rigid, “Is this interesting narratively?” Or, if it seems like there’s no solution to my problems, I ask, “What’s a good, generative plot twist here?”

This helps me get perspective and space from the doom and gloom that’s easy to sink into when old ghosts and negativity come knocking on my door. I wonder…is it interesting to be consumed by that darkness and end up like a long-suffering protagonist in a dry-as-dust but supposedly “brilliant” literary treatise on human suffering? No, not really.

I’m no stranger to the lure of darkness, but I’d much rather be a gothic heroine!

So here is another, more interesting narrative path: Take a beeswax candle. They are the best for warding off negativity and purifying the air, after all. Set it in an old brass candle holder. Light it. And use it to find your way down that darkened corridor beyond your door. Ideally, you should be wearing a long, flowing white gown, though you need not necessarily run through this haunted house.

Brave the darkness, certainly. Face those ghosts. But do not let them consume you. And for goodness sake, keep your heart open to brooding strangers with a mysterious past and a future that is as bright and loving as the one you wish to conjure for yourself. What is a story without romance? A boring one, and as my familiars will tell you, we simply don’t have time for boring.

Sound foolish? Perhaps. But The Fool says there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, we both think getting a little foolish now and then is a marvelous idea!

That’s why I’m indulging now in one of my favorite holiday pastimes: immersing myself in the world of storytelling. When the world seems dark and the way forward unclear, I sink into the realm of the imagination, a place where archetypal energies and mystic forces are always at work, showing us a more profound way of working magic in the world. Stories take us beyond the dust and build-up of everyday living and remind us that there is wonder all around us, endless possibilities, if we stay open and curious, like The Fool.

So this holiday season, whatever you celebrate and however you celebrate, may you leave room for stories that terrify and shock, that heal and cleanse, that revitalize and inspire. Indulge in the Christmas tradition of reading ghost stories. Find yourself in terrifying folklore and mistletoe-strewn romances. Revisit old friends (a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon or a rewatch of The Holiday, anyone?) and find new ones (do yourself a favor and go see Wicked—I promise it is the magic we all need right now!). May you leave room for hope and light on these darkest nights, as well as good stories. Above all, tend your own story—what wild and vibrant plot twists would you wish for yourself in the coming months? Invoke that Main Character Energy! It’s all The Fool asks of us.

I will see you in the new year for more magic-making, tarot know-how, and bookish enchantments. Until then, remember, true magic is in the everyday…and a good story!

Image of a cozy reading nook with festive winter decor framed by a window that overlooks a snowy landscape. A book is open across a warm blanket.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

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Winter is for Sacred Simple Pleasures

It’s a cold and cloudy day, a perfectly cozy winter’s day, promising much-needed snow and quiet time. I’m sipping cinnamon and anis-laced coffee this morning, gazing out the window above my writing desk, and relishing the cozy warmth of my home. It’s strewn with twinkle lights and smells of beeswax and more cinnamon. It’s filled with books, herbs, and all the things I love, including my two familiars gazing out the window beside me. It’s a comforting and warm antidote to the brewing storm outside.

Truly, it is the perfect day to indulge in self-care. There’s something about this heavy weather that invites us to slow down and take care of ourselves. Maybe indulge a little.

Honestly? I’ve always said magic is a hard, gritty thing. It takes work. You can’t just light candles, say positive affirmations and then expect the universe to drop miracles into your lap. You’ve got to work for it. Stay grounded but hopeful—and always, always be proactive in cultivating a magical life. Self-care is like that. I mean, you can light candles (again), say positive affirmations (again), and…expect to feel reborn. Sure, light your candles. I love my beeswax candles because they cleanse the air, smell like honey, and are just plain pretty. Affirmations can be powerful spells that help you grow. Candle magic is a thing. You see, magic and self-care have a lot in common—I mean, we think of candles and affirmations for both, right? 

In fact, seasoned witches know that radical self-care is the backbone of magical living.

It means slowing down and feeling hard feelings. It means talking with those you love to find a way forward. It means pinpointing a place in your life where the energy is stagnant and then working through things so the energy can be free-flowing. Sometimes, it means you need to reimagine your life. Things that were once generative and inspiring for a time can become sour and toxic if we hold on too long. Energies change, and it’s time to move on—it’s life’s way of making sure you keep growing. It’s also about being able to acknowledge and celebrate the moments when your life is flourishing and where energy flows. And yes, self-care is also about exercising, eating right, sleeping well… basically treating yourself like a small child who needs a lot of TLC.

But here’s the thing I’ve discovered: that work can be exhausting.

It takes a lot to face hard things, to sit with those feelings, and to map a way forward. It can be hard, too, when you experience joy because sometimes you realize you haven’t allowed yourself to experience enough of it. Who hasn’t been stingy with their joy from time to time? All this to say that sometimes, as we stay steady, conjuring change through our routines as rituals, we need a breather. 

And that’s where the fun—and ever so important—part of self-care comes in. 

I admit it: I like my candles and positive affirmations. I’ve spent the afternoon making cinnamon, orange, and peppermint bath bombs so I can indulge in festive bubble baths and share them with loved ones. I’ve also become obsessed with “fussy” skincare routines of oil cleansing, honey face masks, and painting my nails. I’ve added touches of glitter to, well, everything. These silly things—so often the things we think of when we think of self-care—are just as important as all the other hard stuff you have to do to really take care of yourself. There’s nothing like brewing a pot of mint chocolate tea, curling up on the couch in a pile of blankets (and cats), and going down a Pinterest rabbit hole to learn about the best tips for face care or what the heck latte makeup is (what I normally wear, as it turns out). 

Or there’s the pure gothic delight of listening to ghost stories while knitting by twinkle light, or, yes, watching a cheesy holiday movie for a popcorn and pizza movie night. Sometimes, it’s taking a day to go to the salon and indulge in holiday shopping. Or cozy up by the fireplace and do nothing but daydream and snooze. See what I mean? It’s frivolous and fun…and so absolutely necessary.

Choosing joy is when we let the magic in.

It’s when we allow all we’ve worked for and conjured to settle and take root and manifest in the way that is healthiest for us. It’s the fallow time when we reset and rest and let nature do its work. We can’t always be go-go-going. In fact, it’s a good way to clog up your energy and inadvertently sabotage your conjurings! All good magic is a hard, gritty thing, true. But it’s also a soft thing, a thing that needs energetic flow and divine receptivity to balance out the dirty business of cleaning up our lives.

The holidays are the perfect time to slow down and indulge in sacred simple pleasures; the sillier and more joyful, the better. All the better, in fact, to conjure magical living this year and in the next…

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

Want even more inspiration to make your dream life a reality?  Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and  Instagram.  Thanks for following!