After navigating a season of loss, Nature has taught me to tune into and tenderly care for the heart. Especially a heart wounded by grief.

Tending to the heart is a practice in listening to the subtle messages that come not from the thinking mind, but from a quiet, deeper elsewhere.

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"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

- Unknown

Hello friends,

It’s been a couple of months. How have you been?

This is the longest (and only) break I’ve taken from writing the New Moon Newsletter. And honestly, it was a challenge getting back into writing it.

Sorting through the noise of life can be overwhelming on a good day, and the last few months have been not-so-good in navigating life after loss.

My head told me I wasn’t ready to return to writing. But thankfully, the New Moon Newsletter is instead a letter from the heart.

This season of loss has taught me to tune into and tenderly care for the heart. Especially a heart wounded by grief.

Tending to the heart is a practice in listening to the subtle messages that come not from the thinking mind, but from a quiet, deeper elsewhere.

Lately this practice has looked like:

Connecting to spirit: Praying. Meditating. Practicing compassion even in the hardest of moments.

Feeling the body: Naming emotions as they arise and feeling their sensations. Gently opening the heartspace through soft backbends and light tapping with the tips of my fingers.

Turning to nature: Sitting alone in the garden and just looking, listening, and enjoying the company of the summer blooms and their many visitors. Going for reflective walks around the river woods. Acknowledging the beauty of nature in all forms. Turning to the heart-healing wisdom of rose medicine. 🌹

By tending to the heart I have become more in tune with its wants, its needs.

I have become familiar with the infinite number of thin, silvery threads that emanate from it, attaching me to everything, everywhere. I have the choice to follow any of these threads in every next step. I am learning to discern which thread is glowing the brightest; to embrace the thread that calls to me like a beacon in the night, illuminating my path forward.

My head told me that returning to this newsletter was too big a step into the muddy waters of grief and loss. But in following the threads of my heart, I dove in and started writing.

So this letter comes to you from the heart this month, as it does every month, but with a touch more vulnerability.

I write to you from shaky foundations in the hopes that if you are also on shaky grounds that you remember you’re not alone.

I trust that my heart is guiding me towards healing. And I hope that you may learn to listen to and trust yours on your journey as well.

If you’d like to join me in learning to listen to the heart, perhaps you will try this practice with me:

Find a quiet space. Close your eyes. Take a few conscious deep breaths to calm the mind. Bring your awareness to your heartspace — the area of your sternum and chest. Feel your heartbeat. Feel sensations or emotions that arise there. Tune into your heart. Listen to its quiet messages. Follow those threads. Trust the path forward.

Listen, deeply, to your heart.

What does it say?

     happy new mooning,

          .:. EM

✨ FREE MEDITATIONS

      Elemental Meditations : connect with the 5 elements.

      Moon Meditations : connect with the moon phases

✨ WRITTEN WORKS

      New Moon Newsletter Archive

      Notes from Nature

✨ RITUAL CANDLES

      Etsy Shop

:: Rose — profound medicine for the emotional heart

:: Where summer, the heart, and the fire element meet

:: 5 heart-opening practices to stay centered

:: 5 herbs to comfort the heart

:: Eastern Redbud trees and their beautiful heart-shaped leaves.

:: The sacred geometry of the heart

:: EFT tapping for emotional release

YOUR DISCOUNT CODE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN:

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Hello friends,

A brief note from me this month to say that following the recent passing of my father, I am taking a break from writing the New Moon Newsletter to focus my energy on grieving, healing, and spending time with loved ones as we navigate this loss.

Perhaps the NMN will be back in your inbox next month, perhaps another month after that. For now, I will let time work its magic.

If you were looking forward to receiving your monthly note from nature, I invite you to check out the archive of every previous New Moon Newsletter here.

Thank you all for the love and support.

Wishing you the best and may you settle into summer peacefully.

     happy new mooning,

          .:. EM

✨ FREE MEDITATIONS

      Elemental Meditations : connect with the 5 elements.

      Moon Meditations : connect with the moon phases

✨ WRITTEN WORKS

      New Moon Newsletter Archive

      Notes from Nature

✨ RITUAL CANDLES

      Etsy Shop

YOUR DISCOUNT CODE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN:

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"Just as a gardener removes weeds and cultivates flowers, so should a wise person remove negative thoughts and nurture wholesome ones.”

- Buddha

Hello friends,

My mid-late twenties embodied a youthful naiveté that creating a garden would bring joy, beauty, and wellbeing to my life.

I wasn’t wrong, but nearly a decade later I now know that the garden gifted me much more. Namely, a steady practice in commitment, flexibility, dedication, observation, foresight, problem solving, and reflection.

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Your mind is like a garden.

To tend to a garden is to pay close attention. To observe growth and changes, the needs of each plant, and the needs of the garden as a whole.

To tend to your mind is also to pay close attention. To observe thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise and to discern which ones to nurture.

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"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

- Helen Keller

Hello friends,

After six beautiful years alongside our beloved Bloodhound, Toki, we mourn, deeply, his passing.

One moment he was there then in the blink of an eye he was gone.

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After six beautiful years alongside our beloved Bloodhound, Toki, we mourn, deeply, his passing.

The cycle of life and death is the most natural process in the world — one that everyone and everything must undergo.

But the grief of losing what you love can be excruciating. In the pain of that grief, we can find something beautiful:

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"The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.”

- Harriet Ann Jacobs

Hello friends,

The magic of Spring is here. The blanket of winter lifts, unveiling the stirrings of life beneath its cover.

The first few Spring greens have pushed through the ground — tulips, irises, bluebells. And a few more have already blossomed — daffodils, camellias, crocuses, hyacinths.

Mother Earth rubs the sleep from her eyes, waking from her slumber. And I awake alongside her.

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The magic of Spring is here. The blanket of winter lifts, unveiling the stirrings of life beneath its cover.

Mother Earth rubs the sleep from her eyes, waking from her slumber. And we awaken alongside her.

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Hello friends,

Winter recently graced my community with bitterly cold days and a thick layer of ice on the ground.

It feels a bit desolate.

But mixed into the muted Winter palette of whites, browns, and evergreens, there stands out another color — bright red.

A beacon. A signal. A lifeline.

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Mixed into the muted Winter palette of whites, browns, and evergreens, there stands out another color — bright red.

A beacon. A signal. A lifeline.

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"The bare trees reveal the architecture of the sky.”

- Robert Macfarlane

Hello friends,

Winter is in full swing despite what a few spring-like days may tempt me with. The bareness of the landscape is a dead giveaway that it’s still winter.

The gray sky. The barren garden. The naked trees.

The trees have been particularly inspiring lately.

With leaves, fruits, and blooms gone from their branches, the bones of the trees reveal secrets once hidden within summer foliage.

The winter trees show me their shape against the sky. They reveal birds perched and foraging along their trunks and bundles of squirrel nests resting in the branches.

The simplicity of a naked winter tree offers a complex reminder to return to the essence of my own self. To focus on the core, the root of my being. Just as a tree does in shedding its leaves.

To return to what makes me me.

As I start this year, I have shifted my focus from the external to the internal:

Taking time for quiet, reflective moments. Moving on my mat. Focusing on my breath. Spending time fully present with my children. Connecting with my husband. Practicing philosophy in action. Working with plants. Volunteering and advocating for nature. Going for long walks in the river woods.

Prioritizing the actions that my soul requires to move through my days with strength, compassion, and confidence.

Your path into another new year is as clear and barren as the winter trees.

What are your soul’s simplest needs? The bones of your being that need tending to?

There are so many possible avenues ahead of you into 2026.

Each path is bare and waiting for you to cultivate it.

     happy new mooning,

          .:. EM

MOON MEDITATIONS

I’m releasing a new FREE Moon Meditation series to honor the first full lunar cycle of 2026.

Meditations will drop on the date of each moon phase:

     🌑 1/18: New Moon: Grounding Energy
     🌓 1/25: First Quarter Moon: Calm Clarity
     🌕 2/1: Full Moon: Gratitude & Love
     🌗 2/9: Last Quarter Moon: Rest & Release

Each meditation explores themes of the phase and guides you through an embodiment practice. They will be evergreen so you can return to them year-round as you journey through the lunar phases.

Listen for FREE here on Insight Timer

✨ IN PERSON CLASSES

      Guided classes with Pyre Sauna

✨ FREE MEDITATIONS

      Elemental Meditations : connect with the 5 elements.

      Moon Meditations : Coming Soon!

✨ WRITTEN WORKS

      New Moon Newsletter Archive

      Notes from Nature

✨ RITUAL CANDLES

      Etsy Shop

:: Is A River Alive? An Interview with Robert Macfarlane.

:: Explore the magic of winter photography

:: How to simplify your life by going back to the basics

:: Winter sowing - a complete guide on sowing seeds in winter

:: The Great Backyard Bird Count is soon! How many birds will you count?

YOUR DISCOUNT CODE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN:

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Winter is in full swing, complete with a bareness of the landscape.

The gray sky. The barren garden. The naked trees.

With leaves, fruits, and blooms gone from their branches, the bones of the trees reveal secrets once hidden within summer foliage.

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Hello friends,

I write this letter in the quiet stillness of an afternoon snowstorm. It’s not Winter yet but it sure feels like it.

Winter Solstice occurs just two days after this New Moon, but the reach of Winter’s embrace is already upon us.

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Take a moment to notice Winter’s embrace.

The trees are bare, the days are cold, the nights are long.

Winter’s rhythm is peaceful. It is quiet and it is still.

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Hello friends,

I recently returned home from a trip to Egypt, spending nearly two weeks with family and friends exploring Cairo.

The landscape and lifestyle of the desert sent me home with a fresh perspective.

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I recently returned home from a trip to Egypt. Cairo is old. It’s messy. It’s chaotic.

This quick glimpse into a bustling desert life was a reminder that everything happening around us is outside of our control.

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Hello friends,

As the darkness of fall creeps in deeper, it brings with it dramatic change to the garden colorscape.

Fewer are the warm tones of the summer garden. Replaced instead by the cool browns of dead stalks and rich blacks of spent blooms.

At first glance a garden coated in a brown gradient may not inspire positive sentiments, but look deeper and you’ll see the true beauty of life in the fall garden.

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The darkness of fall brings with it dramatic change to the garden colorscape.

Fewer are the warm tones of the summer garden. Replaced instead by the cool browns of dead stalks and deep blacks of spent blooms.

At first glance a garden coated in a black/brown gradient may not inspire positive sentiments, but look deeper and you’ll see the beauty of life in the fall garden.

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Hello friends,

The closing of another chapter is upon us. We say goodbye to Summer and head into Fall, with the Autumn Equinox occurring a day after the New Moon.

As the seasons change, my relationships within nature changes too.

Building a relationship with nature, just as it is with any relationship, requires a ‘getting to know’.

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