On Book Writing, Tarot Reading, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Ten years ago, I gave birth to a daughter. Now, on another gold-blue October day a decade later, I am in the midst of another long labor. This time, I am birthing a book. 

The book isn’t here yet - the release date for The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic is set for February, 2020 - but today is the day I must say, “It’s done.” I’m going over the proofreader’s changes and, in just a few hours, I will declare an end to years of writing, rewriting, editing, and polishing. No more additions or subtractions. These two hundred pages of prose must tell the entire story. (Until the next book!)

I feel both empty and full. All emptied by exhaustion and filled by hope. Such a combination of love and depletion has a way of making you feel so heavy and so flimsy at the same time - especially when you realize you have so much more to give.

There is still much to do (both as a mom and writer!), but now that the latest big project is complete, I am left to wonder: where my mind is meant to wander?

This is my moment to breathe before I dive into the book promotion and marketing, which will be its own tremendous emotional and creative undertaking. This is also my moment to contemplate motherhood before I need to prep the gifts, the cupcakes, and the candles.

And so, I give myself permission to do exactly what I invite my Sovereign Writers to do when I see myself at a creative and emotional crossroads.

I sit down to write.

The Writing Coach Gets Writer’s Block, Too

But where do I begin now that the project that has occupied my attention for so long is finally finished? What requires or deserves my attention?

Should I try to recapture the emotions of the day I birthed my first growing girl? Is it important to review the decade that stretches back to that stunning moment of her arrival? Should I fill a page with tales of my daughter’s power and potential, weaving prayers that her courage will blaze more brightly than her fear and that her sense of Sovereignty with outmatch the bastards who will inevitably try to get her down?

Or, can I just watch the falling leaves litter the page and savor the sweetness as a ladybug alights on my moving pen? Can I just let the day mother me as I trust that my creations, both human and literary, can make their way through this day without my worry nor intervention? 

Can I just be in this moment, tired and proud, overflowing with gratitude and apprehension? Can I put aside my worries for just a little while and meet myself on the page during this perfect October afternoon? 

The Medicine I Take When the Words Won’t Flow

And this is when I realize that, even though I know writing is the best medicine, sometimes it requires a big old spoonful of sugar first.

You need to get centered and refocus your inner vision before you can just dive in and meet yourself on a blank page.

When this happens to me, I do something that I’ve been doing since long before I became a mother or an author… I look to the cards. 

This might be my first child’s tenth birthday, but it’s almost my tarot deck’s twentieth. In 1999, I was an American college student living in Galway, Ireland. On Samhain - that’s probably “Halloween” to you - I bought Caitlin Matthew’s Celtic Wisdom Tarot at the Hawkins House Bookshop. I’ve called on these cards for guidance and assurance ever since.

I never cease to be surprised and gratified by the messages that come through when I take the time to consult the cards. (And I never stop saying, “You can’t make this shit up!”) As I saw the cards arrayed before me on this particular autumn afternoon, part of me sighed “of course” and part of me gasped “thank you.”

The cards that come up for my daughter and my book offered layers of blessings and hope. The card that represents me showed me how much I am struggling to accept all the goodness and all the possibility being lavished upon us right now.

Inside My “What Needs My Attention Now?” Tarot Reading

I came to the cards knowing that I both my daughter’s milestone birthday and the birthing of my book were competing for my attention. I also knew that I was confused about how to hold myself in the midst of all this creative magic.

Though I didn’t know what to write about in my journal, I knew just what to do with the cards. Intuitively, I laid two cards for my daughter, and two cards for my book. I placed one card for myself at the center.

Of course, the first card to represent my daughter is a 10. The 10 of Art (the suit of Cups in a more traditional deck) is a sign of joy, harmony with the earth, and lasting happiness. The other card is the 1 of Knowledge (the Ace of Pentacles), which indicates Sovereignty and “the touchstone of self-realization.” It’s a perfect way to describe her own next decade, the one in which she will begin to make her own choices and learn how to work with the princess within so she can crown herself queen of her own life.

As for my book, the first card is The Fool. In the Celtic Wisdom deck, it’s called The Soul. The wide-open wanderer is just starting out on the great quest. This card is followed by the 1 of Skill (or the Ace of Wands) and is another potent symbol of beginnings, enterprise, and creative initiatives. I know I am meant to understand that the publication of this book is just the start of the adventure.

Finally, there is the card that represents me at the center of my two most vivid concerns, motherhood and authorship.

The 6 of Art (again, that’s the suit of Cups) is the only card that is out of sync with all these 10s, 1s, and 0s. It depicts a student poet in one of Ireland’s ancient bardic academies lying with eyes closed in “the house of memory.” This is where the storytellers would go to compose poetry and commit to memory the great sagas that preserved and connected the culture.

I smile because I am a storyteller and I love this card. It is the only card in the spread that is reversed, however. When a card is upside down, I understand that to mean that its energy is available to me, but it’s blocked or impeded in some way. I want to be the bard, but I’ve been so caught up in wanting it that I couldn’t see that I already am.

Finding a Way to the Page

Seeing my own story re-told before me through a series of symbols and myths loosened my grip on “can I? and “should I?” and released me from all that self-imposed stress. I was able to soak up the sunlight and simply be with the big moments that are ten years of motherhood and the birthing of a book.

Thanks to the cards, I was able to get to the page to tell this story, a story that matters to me as a mom and an author who wants to recall this important moment of becoming. I was able to perform what I call the Alchemy of Story and take my own wonder, worry, and experience and use it to tell a story that just might help a reader like you.

There are so many ways to access the stories within you. I have a feeling that the cards can help you as they’ve helped me.

Whether you’re a writer hoping to get clarity on your next creative project of your simply someone who finds herself asking “what needs my attention now?” I would love to share the cards with you.

Learn more about how a Tarot and Intuitive Healing Session can help you live and tell a more powerful story. (Book a session by October 31 and save $50!)

How to write what you know when it hurts too much to talk about in public

Do you keep a journal?

The Gifts of the Regular Writing Practice for the Person & Professional That You Are

A regular writing practice is good medicine. Writing keeps you going through times of frustration and confusion. When you fall into the rhythm of your own words you can keep fear and loneliness at bay… at least for a little while.

As you make and keep writing dates with yourself, you become stronger. You get to know what you really think and how you really feel.

And, if you’re a lifelong diarist, if you ever need to do research on something like what true love’s first kiss feels like, you have exclusive access to a primary resource. (Or at least I do, but that’s another story!)

If you’re a professional in the transformation business who wants to change some corner of the universe with your ideas, a writing practice helps you become the person who not only thinks brilliant thoughts, but who also changes lives with them.

Your Journal Has Some Secret Gifts to Share with You

As someone who has carried around a journal since shortly after I learned to use a pen, I figured I knew every trick in the blank book of personal writing, but then I met Monica Kenton of the Spiritual Innovation Lab and she revealed a secret that every journal keeper must know:

Use your own journal as a book of answers. When you’re stuck and seeking guidance, ask the greatest authority on your life: yourself. Think about what you need to know and then open your journal to a random page.

Monica shared that idea last month in a workshop at Camp GLP (the most wonderfullest gathering for creatives and entrepreneurs EVER!). I’d forgotten about this magic trick until now. But, as I sit on my front porch, trying to force out a blog post in a few stolen moments while I try to tear myself away from the latest headlines, I realize that I just might have access to exactly what I need to write for you today.

We all break that “write what you know” rule sometimes, and then...

Seeking a taste of my own wisdom, I flip to a random page of an old journal.

Only July 17, 2016 I was up at 5 AM and feeling simultaneously filled up and emptied out by motherhood. Mothers of young children are creatures of the dawn, so I’ve seen the day from this angle countless times, but this wasn’t always the case.

That morning, I scrawled:

In high school, I wrote a story about a world trapped in the eerie half-light of dawn. It was fantasy - and not only because it featured druids and all sorts of enchantment. In truth, I wasn’t all that sure what dawn looked like. Sure, I got up in the dark to catch the bus, but I was too busy putting together my mid-90s flannel ensembles to look out the window.

At sixteen, I was breaking that rule that begs to be broken: write what you know.

Who can blame me? When you’re just desperate for something to happen to you, it seems like all you know are curfews and boys who just don’t get it. It’s almost impossible to write stories when you’re inside them - especially when you think the story you’re living is too limited. As a result, I turned to the completely made up.

Here’s the thing: I think it’s possible to write what you know even if your story is full of unicorns and dragons (even if you haven’t seen one - yet.).

If that story the sixteen year-old me was actually about yearning to be kissed by "the one" and a teenager’s longing for freedom, the silver horned creatures and the weird atmospheric conditions would have been completely believable and wonderful.

Thing is, I wasn’t writing a truthful story because I wasn’t willing to live the part of it that was completely accessible every damn morning.

You wander into “fraud” territory when you write about a daily planetary event and don’t actually bother to go looking at it.

You’re out of step with authenticity when you ignore that you and your life have a part to play in the stories you tell.

Apply the “write what you know” advice in a way that supports your life and writing process

But we're not kids anymore.

So much has happened to get you to where you are - so many terrible mistakes and private joys and worrisome truths. There’s an inherent challenge embedded in “write what you know” when what you know is too private or stressful or in-process to share in public.

And, "write from the heart" is a downright punishing statement if you’re a healer or a clinician who helps people solve problems and find peace and happiness when your own daily life is full of conflict and confusion and frustration.

But what DO you write about when life is hellish and your brand is meant to offer clients hope and solace?

The sunrise.

I’m taking this 2016 journal entry literally. If you can’t write about what’s happening in daily life, you must be able to write about what it means to stand in the stillness of dawn and tune into something bigger than your dramas.

Here’s your writing prompt:

Watch the sunrise.  Why would your perfect reader/ ideal client/ the individual who needs the change you seek to be in the world benefit from experiencing the stillness of dawn?

Give yourself permission to see that sunrise through the shadows that cloud your vision, through the hopes that blur your sight, through your biases that create your perspective

Even if every writer in this community wrote their next blog post about a sunrise, we’d all write something unique and show up as OURSELVES in the page. We’d offer some specific medicine that would help our own communities of clients see themselves more clearly and heal their lives.

You're invited to show up for the display nature puts on for free every day and turn that into your own story

I invite you to get up early tomorrow. Make a cup of something hot and strong. Get yourself to a window or snuggle into your coziest robe and face east. Then, go write. Please share the link in the comments or tag me in social media so I can see this particular sunset through your eyes and the eyes of the people you're writing for.

Want more writing prompts like this one? Join the next free community writing practice call.

Are you dreaming the dream or doing the dream?

It's Friday, and that means I am breaking a rule by breaking out of my writing bubble, but I trust that it's ok to give myself permission to do that.

My current work in progress describes how the Celtic Sovereignty Goddess guides women through the transitions of modern life. Why write a book about crowning the queen within if you can't rewrite a few rules along the way? Especially when I'm taking these moments to write to you and the rest of my beloved community of healers, writers, and creatives.

Right now, I have a candle burning on one side of the laptop and my open journal on the other. I just got up from the meditation cushion and the beautiful clutter of sacred stones and tarot cards that surround it. Before I shut my eyes to dream into the work, I had scribbled several pages of notes that just might make it to the typed page.

My little one is home with me today, and it might make more sense to hit the grocery store and put away all that laundry so I can empty the baskets and start the whole process again. But, instead, I'm giving myself permission to let her watch Moana for the twelfth time and I am using this stolen hour to do the dream.This is new for me. Until just a few weeks ago, I'd never allow myself to sit down and work on my creative projects before the kids' bedtime. It seems the Sovereignty Goddess is whispering: it's time.

Dreaming Time and Doing Time

This life I lead, as a mother and a creative entrepreneur, it offers ample time for dreaming.

Driving the kids around, throwing together yet another soup, dealing with all that laundry... When the girls amuse one another and when I remind myself that it's ok to turn off NPR (the madness in Washington will go on whether I listen to every news report or not), I find new vast new territories within my own mind.

Yes, this life with small children may give me time to dream, but it often leaves very little time to do. I have time for my clients, of course. I have time to co-create the podcast. But time to actually do my own writing? That has often seemed impossible...

But then, this book project awoke within me. Re-awoke, I might say, but I am not 100% sure that's a word.

With the spring rains, with the rising tides of my own life, and the churning waters of these tumultuous times in the collective, the Sovereignty Goddess rose out of the earth, out of the past, and out of my own past studies and told me it was time. (Get a taste of her magic here.)

And so, the S.G. gets my creative doing time every Friday, and she gets lots of dreamtime in between. And I feel more alive than I have in long, long time.

Out of the Barren Territory of "Just a Dream"

I'm realizing how much effort I have put into dreaming the dream, and how little I devoted to doing the dream. This long time habit has left me feeling barren and lost... I was terribly accustomed to the bitter cycle of feeling inspired and then feeling disappointed as all those ideas just faded into the ethers.

What about you... are you able to dream the dream but just don't have the time and space to do the dream?

I'd love to talk with you about how I can help you capture that creative energy and turn it into words on a page that touch the hearts of your readers and potential clients.

Book a 15 minute session and we'll talk about how writing coaching can support your creative practice and transform your professional practice.

What an Irish Goddess Can Teach You About Writing & Marketing Your Practice

If I had one wish for you, it would be that you would stand sovereign in your life, in your story, and, yes, in the marketplace.

Sovereignty is at the heart personal fulfillment and professional success. When you are Sovereign, you are the confident, compassionate ruler of your own life. You don't assume that you can control everything, but you are sure of your worth and guided by your dedication to the greater good. 

For the healer, therapist, or coach who wants to change lives with her vision and her work, sovereignty is a beautiful thing to aspire to.

A quick Irish history lesson (and a good story to tell over a few pints of Guinness!)

But, before it was applied to the modern individual, “sovereignty” has belonged in discussions of royalty and statecraft.

Goddess by Moira age 5

At the heart of Celtic myth - and particularly Irish myth - sits the Sovereignty Goddess. She is divinity made flesh and an embodiment of the land itself. In order for the king to take the throne and guarantee the fertility of his realm, he had to win favor with this otherworldly woman. And then she took him to bed to seal the deal.

Across mountains meant to be her breasts and across rivers meant to be her blood or tears, battles were waged in her name. The Sovereignty Goddess did not rule, you see. She was the power behind the throne. Or, perhaps, it's better to say the power before the throne.

She supported his royal cause and she crowned the king, but then, she had to stand aside and let him define his own destiny.

Centuries later, when the Irish farmers struggled under English rule, the Sovereignty Goddess reemerged in the folk tales. This time, she was a fairy woman representing dreams of independence. The goddess would appear to young men in a dream and incite them to take a stand for themselves, their people, and their country.

(Does this sound a but like what you do for clients? You help them along their journey of becoming and giving them the tools to succeed on their own, right?)

What does the Sovereignty Goddess have to offer the modern transformation professional?

History is starved of powerful women, so this influential creature is a welcome shot of the feminine. Certainly she got my attention when I was a student, just as she got the attention of the people who used these myths to understand their world.

But a couple of generations of feminist literary and cultural criticism has taught us that “and then a woman appears” is not always a sign of gender equality and empowerment.

Though seducing mortals and actually being a country is all very fabulous, it’s quite disempowering. The goddess is momentarily star of the origin story, but then she is pushed offstage until the hero decides to invade a neighboring kingdom in her honor.

With this in mind, what can a king-making, rabble rousing Sovereignty Goddess do for the transformation professional on their own quest to change the world?

Well, being an essential part of the prologue or “just” having a recurring role in the supporting cast is actually what being a healer is all about.

5 Lessons About Storytelling & Marketing that Only a Sovereignty Goddess Could Teach You

When you’re a therapist or healing professional writing in support of your own work, the Sovereignty Goddess can be the perfect model.

As the writer or the healer, you’re not the star. The reader is the hero. The client is the hero.

Your role is to awaken, inspire, support, facilitate. Though you hope to sustain a long term relationship with your readers and your clients, the focus is on their process and growth, not your role as guide.

Here are five ways to embody the Sovereignty Goddess and make a difference in your business and in people’s lives:

1. Live the Legend: Like the Sovereignty Goddess, you need a powerful legend.
   
   Through your writing and branding, you can build visibility and a strong reputation that invites people to learn more about what you offer. Intrigued by your story as well as the social proof (what people are saying about you), prospective clients (or, perhaps, perspective heroes) will be excited to explore how you can help them rewrite their own stories.

2. Embrace the Magic: The Sovereignty Goddess used magic to turn commoners into kings and warriors.
   
   In our contemporary world, we have our own kinds of magic. After all, there’s something just a little mysterious in that alchemical process that turns ideas into words that help your ideal clients understand that you're the one who can help them become healed and whole.
   
   We create and connect to magic through stories. When you sit down and write out your vision for your clients, describing what sort of transformation you know is possible, you are taking the first step in making heroes who, in turn, can be Sovereign in their own lives.

3. Exercise Choice: Just as the goddess has the power to name her consort, you have a similar power when you decide on your ideal client and reader.
   
   Choose someone who has the life experiences that your stories can speak to. Write for people who seek the outcomes that your work can promise. It’s in being choosy and specific that you’re most effective, telling stories that go deep and doing work that changes lives.

4. Seek to Empower: When that young man laid down with the goddess, it was guaranteed that he’d arise an empowered man ready to make his own way in the world.

   Your hero client/reader is going to use the seeds of your story to create his or her own great narrative. Ultimately, this is what you want: your audience’s new sense of success and happiness originates with you but does not permanently depend on you.

5. Practice Trust: The Sovereignty Goddess understood her role in the grand scheme of things: kings would pass on and young upstarts would need her to help them take their place. She trusted that in every king’s court, her story was told around the fire - the modern equivalent of being shared on the Facebook wall, the Pinterest board, and the Twitter stream.
   
   Create content that matters to you and is designed to speak to your ideal readers and you can trust that your good work will inspire your hero client to share on your story (most likely by crediting your supporting role in their own remarkable journey).

This St. Patrick’s Day, as we celebrate all things Irish (both pagan and Christian), I’d be grateful if you shared the Sovereignty story with your community - who knows what getting in touch with their inner Celtic Goddess might do for them!

Do you need help discovering and telling your own Sovereign Story? The new program, Stand In Your Sovereign Story begins April 14.

2020 update: This post is three years old now, but some of these phrases ended up in my newly published book, The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic

Time, rest, work, and the shaping of a writing life

“Women can have it all, but not all at the same time.” Brilliant, successful people from Betty Friedan to Madeline Albright to Oprah to Anne-Marie Slaughter are credited with this line. I don’t think anyone is irritated about plagiarism because truth is truth and amplifying shared wisdom raises everyone up.

I need to come clean: right now, I’m not occupied with writing a seminal feminist text or running the State Department or establishing myself as the ultimate media mogul.

Nope, my reality isn’t nearly as high profile or quite so life and death. It’s just as real though. I’m dancing with the daily truth about the choices that must be made: “this, not that.”

The "thises" and the "yeses"

My “thises” include mothering sick children and tending to my own wintertime ailments. When I’m not tossing tissues in the trash, I’m taking on copywriting work and writing coaching commitments for healers who are changing the world, one client at a time.

I’m also immersed in the Practice of Being Seen community for therapists and its delightfully demanding sister project, the Practice of Being Seen podcast.

On the podcast, we talk a lot about the various roles we play as individuals, as professionals, and as change agents. Often, it’s about “you can do more than one thing, but let's think about how that will feel...”

That’s what we explored in the recent discussion we had about Resistance & The Princess-Rebel Role Model. You can be both princess and rebel because, let’s be honest, we often want to be saved just as much as we want to change the world. But what does that really look like in practice? (Listen in and decide whether it’s something you can really do at the same time.)

The "thats" and the "not todays"

But the act of podcasting - and doing all the behind the scenes work it takes to make it happen - creates a whole new bunch of “thises” and excludes a whole lot of “that.”

As you may have noticed, blogging about writing and the creative quest have been in the “not that, not today” pile for some time. That’s due to the concrete realities that contain our boundless universe and give our lives some kind of reliable shape. I assume you know these - very real the constraints of time and energy?

The shaping of the time. The container of rest.

All this has me thinking about time and energy more than ever. I’m thinking about  as discernment too. And I have a couple of resources for you to check out that speak right to what I know is a very common concern for so many of us - particularly those who try to  fit parenting and entrepreneuring and client supporting and creating and self care all into one day.

Jeffrey Davis of Tracking Wonder invited me to write about my tango with time. It felt good to offer up some of my finite number of hours to Stop trying to make time. Enter into relationship with time.

In the post, I talk about how “I enter into relationship with time so that I can see the relationships between my ideas and the work I want to manifest.” The patience and the resources it takes to enter into such a productive relationship rely on one essential thing: rest.

Karen Brody’s work with yoga nidra has long been a source of solace and support, and I’m thrilled to tell you that she has a nine-month immersion in yoga nidra coming up.

This  sleep-based meditation is radically necessary and powerful, but that isn’t the only reason I am so excited to share the program… Daring to Rest: Wild Woman Writer is specifically for women who know they have a story to tell. A playwright and author as well as a yoga nidra expert, Karen is the perfect woman to combine story, sleep, and personal revolution.

Ultimately, yes, it does come down to balance

It's as trendy to scoff at balance as it is to strive for it. When the contemporary tussle over a word becomes too much for me, I look to the ancients.

Balance | #365MagicWords by Writer & Storytelling Coach Marisa Goudy

This is the latest image in my #365MagicWords series. As I am thinking of shaping time and prioritizing rest, and I am also thinking of the Eqyptian Goddess Maat who was the keeper of universal balance. The daughter of the Sun and the wife of the moon, she had great wings and always wore an ostrich feather headdress. She was the embodiment of justice and the grounding of reality.

A fine spirit guide for these tumultuous, over scheduled times, yes?