A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

Usually I film these Creature Comfort videos outside, in the natural world. But this time, it’s a quick video from my “den” - my cozy space.

Many of us seem to have this idea that finding balance is finding some static homeostasis that doesn’t require maintenance. The tarot (and myth and other ancestral and animist wisdom traditions) reminds us there are different forms of balance, requiring different levels of maintenance and engagement. And that too much stability can actually become stagnancy.

What does this mean for the turning of the wheel of the year and seasonal cycles, specifically the Spring Equinox? What does this mean for us as a species going through a deep reckoning? This is what I share some of my thoughts on here.

(NOTE: I say in the video that it’s important to recognize, when we look at these times, that there’s nothing going wrong. I want to qualify that a bit here and make sure I’m clear - genocide is wrong. Empire is wrong. People and beyond-human kin being treated like resources to be exploited while being stripped of rights, of dignity, of life is wrong. But periods of upheaval which invite us to grapple with the results of our own (and inherited) actions and choices are not wrong. Those are natural. We’re meant to cycle through periods of quiet and periods of change.)

Whether you join me and OracleFest for Grounding the Charge or not, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Does this speak to your experience at all?

Feel free to share as a comment. I’d welcome hearing it.

And if you want to join us live on Mar 21, 2026 or find the recording later: https://oraclefest.com/grounding-the-charge/

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________________

P.S. I also have a monthly gathering called: Embodying a New Paradigm. It’s also designed to support us being the change we want to see in these times. The final Sunday of each month, our next one if you’re watching this when it comes out, is March 29th. Join us? https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/embodying-a-new-paradigm

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine (including bespoke 1:1 mentoring):

www.wildsacredjourney.com
https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

Coming to you direct from a dreamy new moon and mercury retrograde in Pisces, this video is not pithy. Sorry, not sorry (both my Sun and Mercury are in Pisces so you get what you get right now).

It’s an invitation to challenge where empire sneaks into wellness, spirituality, ancestral reconnection, and personal/ intuitive development spaces.

It’s a reminder that everything is relationship, not resource. That not all growth is linear and expansive. That it’s easier to break ourselves (and others) open than it is to know what to do with the fruitful discomfort of unbecoming.

But knowing what to do with the light that enters through the cracks, with the seismic shifts that want to uproot and upend us, is key to staying human. To making something of beauty with our lives. To letting our experiences - “good” and “bad” - become medicine for ourselves and the world.

Whether you join me and OracleFest for Grounding the Charge or not, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Does this speak to your experience at all?

Feel free to share as a comment. I’d welcome hearing it.

And if you want to join us live on Mar 21, 2026 or find the recording later: https://oraclefest.com/grounding-the-charge/

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________________

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine (including bespoke 1:1 mentoring):

www.wildsacredjourney.com

https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

A few weeks ago during the lunar eclipse, I “saw” a pattern that was playing out in my life more clearly than I’d been able to articulate it until then. I could feel that the frequency of the pattern was a better fit for the light waves of a shadowy moon. That particular type of light was necessary to get the clarity I needed.

A couple of days ago, I heard that a company in the U.S. is petitioning the FCC to launch mirrored satellites into space - enough of them to be capable of lighting up the dark side of the planet. They’re calling it solar-on-demand and claiming it will solve our energy crisis because we could power solar farms and light cities and streets at night, with as much light as three full moons.

To live in a creature body is to be responsive to the natural world. And light is one of those elemental Holy Beings who wears different faces at different times and carries different teachings, challenges, and supports depending.

What do we lose if we attempt to homogenize ourselves into perpetual, controlled light?

Those are some of the musings I unpack a bit more in this video.

What do you think?

Feel free to share as a comment. I’d welcome hearing it.

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________________

P.S. Embodying a New Paradigm is a new monthly gathering I’m offering to bridge our inner work with the outer work these times are asking of us. It’s a place to tend to where we’ve internalized the same forces that seek to sever us from our creature selves and benefit from us trying to live like machines. We’ll explore tending to this internalized empire so we can find our way back to our creature selves and embody that on a deeper level - sending loving kindness out into a hurting, lost, and confused world. Join us? https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/embodying-a-new-paradigm

P.P.S. I’m continuing to work on the Living as Creature, Not Machine course. It’s a process of letting it show me what it wants to become and it’s taking it’s time.

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine (including bespoke 1:1 mentoring):

www.wildsacredjourney.com
https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

I was surprised this morning, while checking in with friend and colleague Jenn Balijko of Always on My Way, to discover that the energy of this lunar new year and solar eclipse was different than what I had been imagining it might feel like. Still potent, yes. But I was feeling the potency in a very different way and different place in my body.

And that got me questioning everything.

Do we even know what the Chinese cultural context for the Fire Horse is, or are we adding our western pre-conceived ideas to it?

What lunar new year celebrations might I find in my own ancestral lineage?

And what might both Fire and Horse, as ancestors and teachers in their own rights, have to teach me beyond my post-industrial, empire-trained way of attaching meaning to them, imaging them, and relating to them?

Those are some of the musings I unpack a bit more in this video.

What do you think?

Feel free to share as a comment. I’d welcome hearing it.

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________________

P.S. I’m hoping the self-paced course I've been working on, full of practical exercises and skills, to support your journey back to being creature-not-machine again will be ready to go by the end of the month.

P.P.S. In the meantime, and in honor of Lunar New Year, Insight 2026 is back again briefly and available to purchase for five days only. It’s tarot divination for you and your 2026, to offer you some spirit-led guidance and orientation when navigating uncharted territory or you know you can’t continue with “business as usual” but aren’t sure what to do next. People who got theirs back in Dec and early Jan are reporting it’s been soothing, affirming, and helping them a lot. Once this week is up, the offer won’t be back again until 2027).

https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/insight-tarot-for-2026-lny

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine:

www.wildsacredjourney.com

https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

Is there a difference between animism and anthropormorphism and why does it matter?

I would submit: yes - there is a difference.

One maintains stories human supremacy and offers a false sense of comfort, a way of trying to tame the world down into something as small as we are.

And the other… well, the other acknowledges how small we are, how challenging the world can be. But it also offers a deeper sense of belonging and kinship.

One holds us as not-creature. The other helps us be creatures.

By this point, you can probably guess which I’ll choose!

What do you think? Can you feel the difference?

Feel free to share as a comment. I’d welcome hearing it.

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________________

P.S. I’m hoping the self-paced course I've been working on, full of practical exercises and skills, to support your journey back to being creature-not-machine again will be ready to go by the end of the month.

P.P.S. In the meantime, I’m also running a five-day flash sale of Insight 2026 (divination through tarot cards to give you something to orient by through the coming year) in honor of the Lunar New Year. Feb 16th-21st. If you’re wondering what guidance the Otherworld has for you at this moment in your life and our shared history, this might be just the thing.

https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/insight-tarot-for-2026-lny

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine:

www.wildsacredjourney.com

https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

We find ourselves at the cross-quarter threshold between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox - the beginning of the light half of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Celtic tradition, it’s marked in a harvest celebration known as Imbolc (Imbolg) which translates out to “in the belly” - a nod to the beginning of the lambing season and the stirrings beginning in the pregnant belly of the Earth. It’s also a time to celebrate the transition (or, in some stories, the rebirth) from the Cailleach of winter to Brigid - the goddess of the light half of the year and the one to offer healing, protection of hearth and home, protection of lambs, and guidance in poetry and smithcraft. (And - I forgot to say this in the video, but she’s also credited with being the one to bring keening - the lamenting sound of grief and praise - to the Irish and Scottish people.)

There are many folk traditions you can probably find from your ancestral traditions to ritually mark this time of year. But here are some of my thoughts, not necessarily on specific traditions, but more on the spiritual and symbolic significance of this moment in time for our creature selves as we aim to shift to a more ancestral, animist perspective on the world.

Any thoughts or impressions in response to this video? You’re welcome to drop ‘em below!

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine:

www.wildsacredjourney.com
https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

A "Creature Comfort" video to affirm, inspire, give context to, and, yes, comfort your creature self as you unplug from burnout and the life of a machine and remember how to be *alive* again.

I really hadn’t gotten how funny the moment was until I said it out loud. And I often take life (and my spiritual practice) waaayyyy too seriously. But I’m aiming to laugh more.

What’s your relationship to humor? To Tricksters? What do you think about the idea that life is both deeply meaningful and also totally ridiculous and a giant joke all at the same time?

(And I meant to say this in the video and forgot - but if you’re involved in a spiritual practice or school where the teacher can’t laugh about things…get out now. It’s probably not a liberatory space)

Any thoughts or impressions in response to this video? You’re welcome to drop ‘em below!

If this spoke to you, it helps me immensely if you could take a few moments to help spread the word by liking, sharing (either publicly or with a friend), commenting back, etc <3

__________________

[for more ways to work with me in tending your creature self, particularly after burning out from trying to be a machine:

www.wildsacredjourney.com

https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/]

For this conversation (the first after a long pause from recording), I’m joined by Stephanie MacKay - a mythologist, wilderness guide, and cultural craftswoman devoted to the long, slow work of remembering how to belong - to land, to lineage, to story, and to each other. (And someone whose approach to myth has changed my life and work and who I respect and admire greatly - like, I was buzzing after this convo from a combo of the channeling that seems to happen through me in these conversations and my own fan-girling).

Like the myths themselves, this conversation is one of complexity and layers.

Like the myths themselves, there’s an awful lot of wisdom here, stated simply and casually enough that if you aren’t listening for it (or maybe not quite ready for it), you might miss it. You might want to listen more than once.

In it, we wonder about what is lost or being lost in our modern non-culture while holding the truth that all is not lost. We wonder about the richness and messiness of the human experience and also about the Great Oneness - the holiest of Holys - and how to hold both at the same time. We wonder about belonging and how to locate ourselves through ancestral lineages of dislocation.

And through it all - the lives we both have lived, the teachers we have apprenticed to (human and not), and the deep work Stephanie has done with myth - all drop bits of guidance for our human hungers, loneliness, modern cultural poverties, and the tensions we find ourselves feeling stretched and reshaped by.

This conversation is sobering and hopeful. It points unflinchingly at our wounds, at the immensity of the task before us as a species in these times; and also offers some possible direction, some balm.

Join us around the fire? You’re most welcome here.

(If you listen to this episode before January 17, 2026 or Feb 21st, 2026 and something in you sparks with what you hear - I highly recommend joining us for Stephanie’s online myth club:https://stephaniemackay.ca/myth-gatherings. Even if you miss those dates, you can look for others, online or in-person, at the same link.)

As always: liking, commenting, sharing with folks in your circle, following and/or becoming a free (or paid on Substack) subscriber all help the seeds of this conversation spread so hopefully those who are seeking it will find it. My deepest gratitude for whatever ways you help feed this conversation on your end. <3

Find out about Stephanie’s work:

https://stephaniemackay.ca/

You can find Kate:

Website: www.wildsacredjourney.com

Email – kate@wildsacredjourney.com

Substack: https://wildsacredjourney.substack.com/