Many of our health issues, especially the chronic ones, are rooted in long-term stress. This stress can be caused by unresolved trauma or grief, but it can also be triggered by living in a society that emphasizes productivity over everything else, including the natural cycles of nature and the body. Within grind culture, it’s a badge of honor to be exhausted, to have worked all night or weekend, to never take time out to rest. We treat our bodies like robots, pushing them to labor until they break down.

But human beings are animals, not robots. It used to be very common that we would live and work seasonally, farming, planting, harvesting, and resting according to the seasons and the phases of the moon. Our seasonal holidays reflect an ancient past where we honored the power of nature and the weather, which had a major impact on our daily lives—and even on our survival.

The Morrigan is a fierce goddess from Celtic tradition, which was the folk religion of the people throughout much of Europe and Anatolia from before the rise of Christianity. These people traveled widely in their heyday, often as warriors, but largely settled in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man.

Many of the stories we retain about the Celts were written by their enemies after the Celts had been all but eradicated. But what we can glean is that the Celts were people with a rich oral culture and a belief system that was deeply connected with the land.

The Two of Pentacles tarot card typically shows a character who looks like a juggler or royal fool balancing two coins or pentacles around an infinity symbol. The character looks comfortable enough, but there’s a sense that he has to keep moving in order to keep those two pieces balanced, otherwise everything will fall apart.

Psoriasis is a relatively common skin condition that comes with itchy, scaly patches that can show up on various parts of the body. It’s not contagious and tends to come and go, which is a good indication that emotional factors could be at play when it arises. While it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor or health practitioners about your psoriasis and any medications that might help you, let’s see if there’s a spiritual or emotional imbalance that could be contributing to your psoriasis flares.

I am in the process of writing a series of books on divine feminine archetypes. As a feminist and human being, it has been fascinating to think about the many different types of women who have existed—whether in history, mythology, or fiction—that taught us something about what femininity might mean. But my writing process also has me thinking about the divine masculine and what that has meant in the past and currently means in the present. Who should men be emulating today? What are the qualities of ideal masculinity?

The concept of masculinity has changed plenty over the many generations humans have been around and has tended to reflect a given culture’s history, religion, and connection to the land. A good man may have fulfilled the archetype of a just King, an abundant Farmer, a noble Soldier, or a Knight in Shining Armor.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Do you ever wonder who you really are? Sometimes you’re kind and gentle, and other times you are irritable or need space. You’re proud of some things you’ve done, but maybe deeply regret some others. Maybe you’re trying to make a change and notice that, while a part of you really wants to, another part is resisting. So, who is the real you underneath all of that?

The Four of Cups tarot card represents the potential of an unknown emotional journey. Will you embark on the quest for the Holy Grail, or will you stay where you are comfortable?

In most decks, the Four of Cups tarot card depicts someone sitting by a tree, looking distant, disappointed, or apathetic. There are three cups at their feet—sometimes depicted as full, sometimes empty—and a fourth cup offered by a disembodied hand, referencing the image of the Ace of Cups. The general sense is that there are opportunities, new options, or new places to go for the person sitting by the tree, but there is also a disaffected mood, a refusal of the offer, and a sense that the cup is probably just filled with the same old bitter stuff.

Tennis elbow is a relatively common condition involving a swelling of the tendons in your upper forearm that bend your wrist back toward your arm. Despite the name, it’s relatively uncommon for people playing tennis and much more common for people who do some kind of repetitive motion with their arm(s) in general, and treatments like rest, pain medications, and physical therapy can help. While we attend to the material and medical needs of tennis elbow, let’s also consider the spiritual meaning of this common condition.

The Buddhist goddess of compassion can teach us how to balance softness with fierceness and show us how bearing witness can be good medicine.

Quan Yin (also spelled Guanyin, Kuan Yin, or Kwan Yin) is “She Who Hears the Cries of the World,” the embodiment of compassion in Buddhism and other Eastern traditions. She is said to have once been Avalokiteshvara, a man who became a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who maintains their earthly form to help other beings attain liberation. Avalokiteshvara took the form of a goddess who could hold all those suffering in their pain and help them heal.

From this Celtic goddess’s perspective, the winter is the beginning of everything and where life gestates before it can bloom.

The Cailleach is an ancient giantess who is said to have created the world itself. She is a part of many creation myths within the Celtic traditions, but there’s evidence that she’s even older than that—the oldest of the wizened old crones.

She is always understood as old and wrinkled. In some stories, she marches around throwing boulders out of her apron, creating the landscapes of Scotland and Ireland. In others, she has a magical hammer, much like the Norse god Thor, and hammers the landscape into place. When she’s complete with it all, she places a pure white blanket over the land, creating the snow.

How would your day-to-day life change if you knew your sole purpose in this life was to be in your body well?

The meaning of life is a big concept, of course, and no one has ever been able to satisfactorily answer what, exactly, it is. And yet many of us still wonder what it is we’re doing here, what our purpose is, and what we must accomplish during the short time we have on Earth.

Some believe we should pray, connect with God, and join with divinity. Others believe we must follow the rules of a religion to have a good life. Some of us believe there is no meaning; we’re just here following our animal instincts. From other perspectives, our higher self has some plan for us—but we don’t ever get to find out what the plan is.

What if the meaning of life was a little simpler than all that? What if the meaning of life is being in a body well?

The Yoruba goddess Yemoya teaches us about the power of divine femininity and how to flow with the deep waters of our emotions.

Yemoya (also spelled Yemaya, Yemoja, and many other ways) is one of the principal goddesses of the West African Yoruba people. She began as a river goddess, giving birth to the world when her great waters broke. She followed her people across the ocean during the slave trade, becoming a source of comfort and protection for them, taking root in Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad, Haiti, and the US, where she is also understood as a sea goddess. One of her gifts to humanity was the seashell, in which we can always hear her voice—the voice of the ocean.

When dealing with a traumatized inner child, adults who were parentified as children may find deep healing working with divine archetypes in therapy.

Have you ever brought a goddess with you to therapy? Would you want to?

Therapy is a place where we can explore our inner landscapes, discover patterns and dynamics that are happening in our lives, and plant the seeds of change. It can be a place of healing and self-discovery, helping us to live lives that are richer, more connected, and closer to our goals.

Warts can be frustrating and annoying. Consider the potential spiritual meaning of this condition to better understand yourself and the world around you.

Warts are common and usually harmless, but sometimes they manifest as painful, raised lumps on the skin. They are typically caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), of one strain or another, and are somewhat contagious. In addition to seeking medical help to address our warts, let’s also consider what they might mean about our emotional and spiritual selves.

In the Northern Hemisphere, November can be a tough month. Things start to get colder and darker. Snow may or may not have arrived yet, but the trees are bare, seeming to shiver in the wind. The cheer and playfulness of Halloween is over, and we’re not yet into the holiday break, especially if you are in Canada, where Thanksgiving has already passed.

In ancient times, before our modern calendar, people tracked the time and seasons by the moon. November’s full moon has been called the Frost Moon by the Cree, the Freezing Moon by the Anishinaabe, the Dark Moon by the ancient Celts, and the Snow Moon by the Medieval English. November marks the true beginning of the cold season, and it can be a difficult one to get throu

In Greek mythology, Hera is the wife of Zeus, and while she is said to be very beautiful, presiding over marriage, birth, and many aspects of women’s lives, she is not the most popular of the Greek goddesses. She is often seen as jealous and spiteful, causing problems for Zeus’s many lovers and illegitimate children. But there is some evidence that Hera was around long before Zeus ever came into the picture.

Pre-Hellenic Greece had a thriving goddess culture, and Athena, Hera, Demeter, Persephone, Pandora, and several others were worshiped before any of the male gods showed up. As Charlene Spretnak explains in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, beginning around 2500 BCE, waves of invasions by northern groups including the Dorians brought the concept of the male gods—and patriarchy itself—to these matriarchal societies.

The Knight of Cups tarot card usually shows a young man in shining white armor atop a white horse, holding up a cup. He is on a quest for love—the quest of the cups, the suit of emotion, connection, and love. He can also be a bit of a bad boyfriend.

The Knight of Cups is the archetype of the “knight in shining armor.” He is a fairytale figure, someone who will come and rescue us from whatever distress we happen to be in. His cup echoes the Holy Grail, the magical cup that can solve anyone’s problem but might not actually exist. He offers the promise of escape, of rescue, of the joy and pleasure of love and romance outside of the painful realities we may be dealing with at the time. In some cases, this can be a really wonderful thing. But there are also times when we need to watch out for the Knight of Cups because he is not everything he seems.

According to heaps of archaeological evidence, the Goddess was once worshiped all over the world by many different names. She was often depicted in three forms: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Sometimes these three goddesses were sisters, sometimes separate goddesses reflecting different archetypes, and sometimes as the same goddess in different life cycles.

The Maiden

The Maiden embodies the new moon, springtime, and the dawn, as well as moments of new potential and possibility. She is the Greek Persephone, originally referred to as Kore, which translates to “maiden.” She is also Brigid, the beautiful red-haired Irish goddess of early spring, representing the energy that pushes the very first shoots of grass and flowers up through the snow. She is birth and rebirth after death in the Goddess cycle.

We all know that having a connection to our intuition is a good thing. It can help us differentiate a good friend from someone who is trying to take advantage of us. It can help us move toward what we want even when other people might disagree with our choices. It can help us know whether we should go up or down, right or left. Or can it?

Intuition is, essentially, our sixth sense. It’s a feeling of knowing beneath our cognitive understanding. It’s knowing without being able to explain how we know. But what if our intuition is broken? What if what we’ve been feeling all along is actually something else, like fear?

In the classical protocols for addiction, abstinence is king. Twelve-step programs and other strategies help people quit a certain substance or behavior and stay off it forever. While this strategy absolutely works for some people, it doesn’t work for everyone. According to the American Addiction Centers, only about five to 12 percent of people who go through a 12-step program actually succeed in recovering from their addiction. So what if there’s another way to work with addiction? What if abstinence isn’t the only option?