10th Pillar of Soul Work: Listen Closely
Plus, an in-person Solstice Cacao Circle and a holiday snack mix
In today’s piece, I share my last event of 2023, the 10th pillar of Soul Work, and how I am getting into the spirit of the season. Sending love and magic your way as you also navigate this wild time. xx Maggie
Last Event of 2023
IN ONE WEEK: SOLSTICE CACAO CIRCLE— On Thursday, December 21, I will guide you through an in-person experience of softness, connection, and remembrance in order to hear vital messages from your soul and allow your next best steps to surface for a new calendar year through the use of Ceremonial Cacao. I heard the call to offer this live, in-person session in order to support your ongoing expansion.
This session is for creatives, visionaries, leaders, healers, and sweet souls who may be moving through death and transformation, wrestling with uncertainty, considering a major life transition, and keenly interested in detecting the voice of their soul from all the voices within. During this circle, we will commune with the heart of the earth, our ancestors, and a ceremonial dosage of the medicine of the great grandmother, or sacred Guatemalan Cacao.
If you hear a call to join this event, please reserve one of the limited spots asap as my Cacao Circle did sell out in November. The event will be at The Estuary in Essex, Massachusetts. Reserve your spot right here.
10th Pillar of Soul Work—Listen Closely
I hear the call to say—This is the most vital pillar of Soul Work.
There is a lot of noise around you right now. There is noise you must hear—like the sounds of the tragedies unfolding across the globe and perhaps in your very own neighborhood.
And, there is the noise you may wish to block out—like the calls of consumerism or the hollers of the media—as both of these wish to distract you.
Just like there is noise outside of you, there is noise within you—the kind that continues to broadcast in order to also distract you.
This noise may take the shape of a running to-do list in your mind. Or a constant prioritizing of the needs of others above your own. Or the non-stop requests from your boss, partner, or family. Or even, the bellows from the unwritten rules of society that you were trained to follow first.
The soul says, “If you have one job, it is your only job to choose yourself.”
To do this, you quiet the noise. You liberate yourself from its roars. You find some stillness for your own inner voice to rise.
I realize that this task feels daunting. Because even if you quiet the noise, the inner landscape of the mind presents a lot of discomfort. Because in the quiet, you see your life for what it is—the beauty, the dissatisfaction, the truth.
And, in turn, you momentarily feel the emotions you’ve long evaded. You touch the pain and grief buried deep within.
So, to protect yourself, you continue to follow the external noise and also fill the air with your own noise—negativity, complaints, more to-do’s—in order to stay comfortable and avoid your deep pain.
I see you. I feel you. I am you.
I stayed away from true silence for many decades. I said anything and did everything in order to avoid seeing my pain and choosing myself.
But, I am no longer afraid of silence.
Through listening to my soul’s voice, I heard my truth. I became quiet enough to explore and unwind my pain. I got so quiet, in fact, that I noticed the magic of my own life unfold right before my very eyes.
Now, I not only witness the magic of listening to my soul, but I can hear the calls from my ancestors. I can hear many energies that support my path and purpose. And it’s those energies that nurture my gifts, my gifts that may also support your path and purpose.
I speak to you as a human who is constantly learning how to integrate all the noises with the silence of a spiritual life. Silence is my solace now, much like it may have been in the womb.
I know you also have the capacity to liberate yourself from the noise to listen to your soul and embody your wildest dreams.
The soul says, “Choose you. Hold you. Soothe you.” And, that is what we do in the silence. And once we do, our own magic rises to the surface.
I invite you, I invoke you, to rise into your own magic now.
I am currently meeting with new sweet souls who may wish to join my Soul Mentorship in early 2024. Learn more here.
To hear me share more insights and stories on the 10th pillar of Listen Closely, play this new episode of the We Are Magic podcast.
The Spirit of the Season
I was speaking to a dear friend earlier this week.
“I just don’t feel like it’s Christmas,” I admitted to her.
“You’re not the only one who is struggling to find holiday spirit,” she reminded me.
Indeed, I am not the only one. I don’t even know what holiday spirit is these days. Not when we live in the world that’s as wild as it is. I think, the very fact that I wake each morning with gratitude for my body and my health and my friends and my soul, well, that is enough. That is, indeed, more than enough.
And yet, I find myself arriving at tiny ways to appreciate the spirt of this season, which is not of Christmas itself but more so an allowing of the energy of immense love and appreciation to flow through me.
First, I am resting, deeply. Like the kind of rest that has me crawl into bed for a nap at 2:00 pm in the afternoon and then again at 8:00 pm to sleep for the night. I am sleeping straight through the night, heavily, solidly, as if someone has pressed a spatula to my body, weighting me down for the night, hoping to turn me golden by morning.
I am also reminding myself to have a bunch of fun, or as much fun as my tired sweet soul can muster. I managed to go to a local holiday market last week and while that didn’t convert me to Christmas just yet, I felt close to others, close to a kind of randomly chosen regional family who smiled and nodded as I passed. That felt like quality soul medicine, the kind required to allow a bit of spirit, a bit more love. A few fries and bubbly helped, too.
In addition, I bought a ticket to a comedy show for the week of Christmas. I haven’t seen a comedian live in a long time and paying someone to make me laugh feels like money well spent. It’s also a-okay to ask for help, in this case, to ask a comedian for help, in the arena of holiday spirit. On the rare occasions when I do go to this particular venue in the city, I always walk around the corner for hot pot before the show. The idea of sticking raw foods in a boiling cauldron of broth flavored with ginger and herbs feels like its own kind of celebration.
I have strung some lights around my space, probably more so to accompany the candle light, to allow me to traverse some inner landscape, than to get me in the mood of the season.
But also, I like the feeling of bundled up strollers walking my tiny downtown, looking up, and seeing a glowing set of windows, wondering who is inside enjoying such sweet, atmospheric light, imagining me sipping nog and watching Hallmark movies. I suppose imagining them imagining me in the holiday spirit helps a bit, too.
And now, of course, we get around to speaking about the food most directly. This has been a tough one given that I’m so focused on tending to my body, to my wholeness, to my nourishment, that many of my meals are less festive more what a friend calls, “Maggie’s Mini-Meals.”
But given what’s going on in the world right now, every moment for a meal is an invitation to sit with joy.
Since my movement routine is considerable, I focus on stuffing my face with lots of protein, to satiate me and to give me energy for a couple of hours at the gym.
My mini-meals vary from soft-boiled eggs with cottage cheese toast and cucumbers, to mashed, cinnamon-laced sweet potatoes topped with white beans and brightly dressed greens.
There’s almost always Ceremonial Cacao and now, a bit more frequently than usual, a bit of decaffeinated coffee. I make it less so for me. In all honesty, my ancestors, my mother’s lineage, requested a cup of coffee each morning at the altar I erected to them in my space. It’s a small way to honor them while I meditate and recite my gratitude for my complex and beautiful life.
Lately, I’ve been saying this aloud every morning, “I embrace change in all forms.” It’s a kind of way to prepare for the newness that I feel coming in. I leave that on the altar between us in case those words serve you, too.
I do, though, have a seasonal snack mix that I make for an afternoon pick-me-up just before dinner. It’s not much of a recipe which allows for a far more intuitive style of cooking, something I very much enjoy these days, because I want things to feel new and different in each moment and working without a recipe supports that ideal.
In a big glass jar, I simply mix equal parts of rosemary-roasted nuts, sesame sticks, sesame seed-dotted corn chips, and dried cranberries. It’s salty and has a little protein and a lot of sweetness from the cranberries, which some consider an antioxidant.
I keep a large jar in my cabinet and grab a handful or two just because or to accompany a festive cocktail. These days, I’m drinking Wilfred’s Non-Alcoholic Apertif that is filled with bittersweet orange and rosemary flavor with a little tonic. But I’m also not averse to a shot of tequila here and there, which I sip slowly.
I want to end with, this path to allowing some spirit of the season to fill me up is not at all necessary. There is no requirement that you be in any kind of holiday spirit. As the soul says, “If you have one job, it is your only job to choose yourself.” I invite you to choose you, in whatever way that looks.
And, I also invite you to make your own holiday snack mix because food is there to support you and the myriad of feelings you are holding in this moment, in all moments.
And, at the very least, I am with you in spirit, across the world, across our screens. While we eat our own holiday snack mixes, let us remember that we are together in this small way, which may be all the holiday spirit we can let in at this time, and that is more than enough, always.