from the heart - August 2026 🌑

"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

      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