Greetings friends. Solstice blessings. For most of you reading this, we are in the longest and darkest nights of the year. Winter solstice is a time for deep reflection, an invitation to enter the quiet stillness, listen for guidance, and replenish your soul. It’s a time to release the things that no longer serve, and plant seeds of intention for what you wish to grow as the sun pivots, and begins its slow return.
The term “dark night of the soul” has found its way from Christian mysticism into the popular imagination to describe a season of unknowing. It is often an experience of prolonged suffering and inner wrestling, as we seek to discern a greater truth about who we are and what we are called to. We mostly think about this happening on the individual level, but we are arguably in a difficult “dark night” in the collective soul of humanity.
Yet darkness is also a time of dreaming into the future we yearn for. In the darkness we can find a profound communion with the Sacred. As is so often the case on this journey of life, it’s not an either-or, but a both-and. We are simultaneously in a season of painful unknowing . . . and in a season of great possibility, vision, and dreaming. We can embrace both.
For me this has been a season of completing my book and seeing it enter the world. After years of inward listening, gestating, and formation—work that is done in the darkness, underground and out of sight—Soul Medicine for a Fractured World is now available, and people are reading what for so long had lived only in my heart and on my computer.
In the last two weeks, I’ve had my first in-person and online book events—with many more yet to come. Being a serious introvert, I approached this move into public life with trepidation, but I’m finding such richness in community! Whether it’s giving a talk or workshop, engaging people at a book signing, or in zoom conversations and podcasts, I love hearing what resonates with you and discovering what questions you have.
My prayer has always been that this book would be a medicine for these times of upheaval. That it would nourish, inspire, challenge, and support us as we navigate the “dark nights” of both the struggles of the unknown and the dreams and visions of what might be.
I warmly invite you into this growing community as together we draw on the resources in Soul Medicine to help us meet what lies ahead. No one can do our growth and healing for us, but we don’t have to do it alone. We belong to one another, to Earth, and all of life. But sometimes it’s hard to remember.
To this end, I’m thinking of hosting a free monthly drop-in zoom gathering where we can come together in sacred connection and shared practice. To vision and find strength, to send our prayerful breath out as an offering to the world. If this is something that calls to you, please reply to this email or drop a comment below.
Changes to this Blog in 2026
Since its inception, this blog has mostly offered a narrative interview-profile on the third Sunday each month, and a shorter reflection piece on the first Sunday. Things will probably shift a bit going forward, so that I can better respond to what is arising in the world, and also share some of the rich engagements I’m having with folks about the book.
There will still be interviews and reflection pieces, but the schedule might be more free form. We will discover together the rhythm of this new season.
Sharing the Journey
The events page on my website HERE will let you know about upcoming offerings, and you can find all my social media linked HERE. (I post most often, and most personally, on Facebook, but am on other platforms as well.) I try to respond to every comment. And I’ve just added videos from a recent talk and a book conversation to my YouTube page. Lot’s more to come, if you want to subscribe there.
I had such a good time talking with Lisa Sharon Harper about the book, as part of her Kitchen Table Conversation series on substack live. We went deep, y’all. You can watch the replay here:
I’m so grateful to be on the journey with all of you, and wish you every blessing at this threshold of the year. May you find time to rest in the nurturing darkness and dream...
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