Enchantment Lab: January #3
Do try this at home
created with NightCafe (zodiacal energy on steroids)
Hi, Reader! Let’s dive right into different practices you can play with and adapt for your magical syllabus.
The first idea is to translate your magical focus into something tangible, such as an object for your altar.
If you’re exploring certain planets in your natal chart, for instance, you might select a crystal to represent each one (google planetary-crystal correspondences) and place…

I love the fresh-slate feel of a new year, and right now I’m re-reading ​Atomic Habits​ by James…

Enchantment Lab: January #2
Witch school is officially in session
created with NightCafe (seriously, why isn’t this a real place??)
This week, we’re going to play with the concept of a magical syllabus, but I’d like you to think of this less as a giant to-do list (yuck) and more like the question you pose at the beginning of a tarot reading.
Allow me to explain…
When you frame a tarot reading with an opening question, you are then looking at the cards through that particular lens, and this…

Enchantment Lab: January #1
Crafting your magical system
New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige
Happy New Year, Reader!
Here we are, with our fresh, sparkly calendars. What better time to assemble your personalized magical system and set yourself up for an enchanting 2024?
There are as many ways to create magical systems as there are practitioners, so we’re going to approach this by first zooming way, way out and asking, “Why do you practice magic?”
It’s…

Happy New Year! It’s time for my favorite tarot reading, the Year Ahead Spread. Grab your journal, grab…

I’m a total sucker for year-end retrospectives, and this month my inbox has been cheerfully full of them from fellow authors and entrepreneurs. I love hearing about lessons learned, epic wins (and epic flops), and sparkly plans for the future.
So, here’s my Big Lesson of 2023…
Little steps, consistently taken, can create surprisingly big change.
Throughout the year, three smaller lessons helped drive this Big One home. Let’s take a look…
Little Lesson #1: Reality is way more amazing than…

Enchantment Lab: December #3
What does your astrology say?
The zodiac in a round dance around the world (1847) by JJ Grandville
This month, we’ve been talking about boundaries in a more esoteric sense, as the edges of a “liminal realm” where things are flexible and more malleable to our magical interventions.
Before we look at your astrological chart, I want to connect what we’ve learned so far with a practical, here-and-now experience of boundaries.
Many of us carry patterns from childhood…

First things first, a little music to set the mood, Reader…
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker,…
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Si…
PREVIEW
Christmas Eve, 1983
Someone gently shakes my arm, rousing three-year-old me from sugarplum dreams. My mom, wide-eyed awake, crouches over the bed.
Moo…wake up,” she whispers. “Can you hear the bells?”
I squint at the window, foggy with frost, and a twinkling jingle, so faint–am I dreaming still?–floats in from the snowy yard.
Santa?
Come on, let’s go see.”…

First things first, a little music to set the mood. Christmas Eve, 1983 Someone gently shakes my arm,…