Woo Woo is the Way!
Dear Friends,
You don’t need me to tell you there’s A LOT going on out there! We’re standing at an unstable threshold, if not a dangerous precipice. It can be challenging to remain anchored and focused when so much is at stake and at risk socially, politically, and environmentally.
As our social structures and institutions teeter, it’s easy to feel rootless, even helpless. These feelings of disempowerment and dysregulation are actually the goal. We see that those in power here in the States are acting in reckless and unprincipled ways. They’re manufacturing chaos and pushing our systems to the brink on purpose. It seems their aim is to create a sense of powerlessness in the general population. Yet, we need not cow to this deliberate assault on our humanity and personal agency. We can resist by finding ways to cultivate joy and meaning in community, and through our solidarity with those who are now so vulnerable.
I say this as someone who has already experienced great loss and was able to rebuild my life with a new vision and hope in solidarity with those who find themselves on the margins. In 2019, I went into a state of shock and anxiety after reading a book titled The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming by David Wallace-Wells. The book painted a very stark and horrifying picture of how compromised the lives of my teenaged daughters will be as they grow into adulthood in a time of unfettered global warming. The images of the future were so shattering, almost too much to bear as a mother. I didn’t know if we’d be able to stop or slow down the climate catastrophe, but I knew I had to change my life.
Like so many who find themselves heartbroken by the state of the planet, I looked back to ancient ways for guidance. At the risk of sounding very white lady woo woo, I’ll tell you that I learned how to call on the guidance of my ancestors. I sat in ceremony with Indigenous elders from many cultures around the world, making art and speaking from the heart.
Recovering my mother tongue, I even started to study and speak a bit of Irish— a language that was outlawed for centuries in Ireland. The British forbade the language with good reason. So many words and phrases in Irish are infused with poetry, magic, and spiritual meaning. The language contains the warm earth-honoring essence of the indigenous Irish mind. Learning Irish has helped me to live in much closer alignment with the cycles of nature and the life force that moves through all sentient beings here on earth.
It’s a bit of cliché, but I can genuinely say that my climate grief has been a gift. It reoriented me in radical ways and this shift within feels like a form resilience.
Most Indigenous peoples have already experienced an apocalypse of their culture and way of life. Recognition and reparations are long overdue. Yet despite the many almost unspeakable injustices, many Indigenous wisdom keepers generously offer their knowledge on how we can navigate great change, grieve losses, and sustain love and new growth in a time of near-constant strife.
This year I’ve begun to braid this learning into many of my workshops and seasonal circles at The Meadow. Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of hosting a Circle that celebrated Imbolc, a season of growing light on the Celtic Wheel. As the days grow longer, we’ve emerged from the stillness of dreamtime in Deep Winter. New possibilities are now taking root deep in the soil.
Imbolc also happens to coincide with the Feast of Saint Brigid in Ireland. It was an honor to feature storyteller Marisa Goudy from The Knotwork Podcast at our Imbolc Circle. Marisa is an anchor for Brigid here on Turtle Island and she shared her understanding of Brigid’s magic and power with the sweet group that gathered at The Meadow on Saturday. I’m deeply grateful for Marisa’s generosity and happy to share her offering with you on my newsletter. As a local scholar of Irish mythology here in New York, Marisa helps keep the old stories alive.
If you’re curious about upcoming workshops at The Meadow, please check out our Winter Offerings page. This coming Saturday from 2PM to 4PM, we’ll be running another Botanical Printmaking Workshop with fun geli plates, custom papers, high quality pigments, and fresh botanicals. This popular workshop was recently featured on Good Morning America during an interview with our collaborating partners Alex Harper and Grace Sacro of Women of Culture.
We have a few spots left in this printmaking workshop and you’re warmly welcome to register. This activity is appropriate and rewarding for all ages. So feel free to bring your kid to The Meadow for an afternoon of creativity and connection.
With love and solidarity,
Julie
Thank you so much, Julie, for sharing your personal experience at this time of horrific devastation., we need to build a community of authenticity and creativity. This article does that, simply by telling the truth which we can still recognize, despite the smoke screen of lies surrounding us. We cannot allow ourselves to be taken down by very disturbed people who happen to have a lot of money because of cleverness, but without heart. The fight is not just about specific things, it is about a worldview that is threatened, a way of being. For people like us, artists, creatives, lovers of humanity, and generous servants of the people, our community is our power. This is a mythic struggle we are engaged in now, and the way forward is created with courage, community, faith, and sacred activism.