At the cross-quarter date between the summer solstice and fall equinox, many modern pagans celebrate Lughnasadh. Learn more about this ancient Celtic harvest festival, and explore how to celebrate it yourself.

Ever caught yourself waiting before making a decision, but not knowing why? Explore how hesitation can be a meaningful manifestation of intuition.

You’ve thought about it, you’ve weighed the pros and cons, you’ve made your decision and then…you hesitate. Your mouse hovers over the “purchase now” button, you’ve written the text but can’t quite bring yourself to press “send,” or you put your key in the ignition but can’t quite seem to start the car. You hesitate.

The Wiccans and English Medieval traditions refer to the full moon closest to the summer solstice as the Mead Moon. At this time of year, beehives are heavy with sweet honey that can be fermented into an alcoholic elixir called mead.

Eclipses hold strong spiritual energy that you’ve probably sensed yourself. Explore the spiritual meaning of these beautiful cosmic events.

Eclipse season comes twice a year. Every two weeks or so, we have a full or a new moon, which happens because the earth, sun, and moon line up, either completely obscuring the light of the moon between the sun and the earth (new moon) or fully illuminating it with the moon on the far side of the earth (full moon).

I’ve been writing lately about a loss I’ve been going through, and I know many of you can relate. You’ve had your own losses or are maybe even going through one now. And when we’re experiencing a loss, there are a lot of uncomfortable feelings that can come up—anger and sadness being the big ones. So we often resist them. But in my long history of dealing with loss, trauma, and the big feelings that can come with simply being a sensitive person in a world that doesn’t always support that, I’ve learned that one of the absolute most powerful things that you can do to resolve uncomfortable feelings is to feel them. Just feel them. Just let them be there.

Who sits between you and God? Learn more about the meaning of this masculine major arcana card.

The Hierophant tarot card generally depicts an imposing masculine figure sitting between two pillars, clad in three robes of different colors with a triple-pointed crown on his head. One hand is held up in a gesture of teaching or speaking, two fingers pointed to the sky, and the other hand holds a scepter. Two people sit below him listening, rapt, to his sermon.

Is it an overactive nervous system, or is it unprocessed emotions keeping you awake at night? Learn more about the spiritual meaning of insomnia to get a better night's sleep.

Insomnia is a common enough experience. You struggle to fall asleep, or maybe you fall asleep easily enough, but then wake up throughout the night. Maybe you have a certain time of night where you always wake up, unable to get back to sleep. There are routines you can do to help your nervous system wind down before bed, as well as medications and other interventions you can try to help you when you’re struggling to sleep. But what’s the spiritual meaning of insomnia?

So how am I doing? I am okay. I knew about the risk I was taking when I allowed myself to hope. I know that fear and anxiety don’t cause bad things to happen, and thinking positively doesn’t guarantee that things will go well. I know I’m not to blame—not my thoughts, not my intentions, not my connection to spirit or lack thereof. I know that sometimes things happen for no discernible reason and it’s really freaking unfair, but that I can still be okay. 

While fatigue can indicate a physical imbalance in the body, it can also point to an energetic or spiritual imbalance. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of fatigue.

Fatigue is the experience of tiredness, which is reasonable enough when we’ve been busy or not getting enough sleep. But sometimes, fatigue takes over. We feel so tired, even after a full night of sleep. We can’t seem to get our energy up to do anything, and sometimes—even worse—we can’t sleep when we want or need to. When we’re going through a period of fatigue, it’s a good idea to check in with your health practitioner (to check for things like iron deficiency). But what’s the spiritual meaning of fatigue?

With Beltane, we invite the energies of life, joy, playfulness, beauty, and hope into our lives. We remember pleasure and presence and offer our gratitude for having survived the winter season and made it to the rebirth of spring. We celebrate the energies of the Maiden aspect of the goddess, which is about life, fertility, and potential. Here is a simple ritual that you can practice to celebrate Beltane this year.

As we greet the midway point between spring and summer, celebrating the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane is a joyous way to invite pleasure and connection into our lives.

Beltane, also known as May Day, falls on the first of May. It is a cross-quarter festival that marks the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. In Celtic traditions, it also means the beginning of the abundant, bright, beautiful summer season.

I’ve been in a complex dance with hope over the last couple of years, and I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to expect and plan for the worst. I keep hope very, very close to my heart and certainly don’t engage with it joyfully. This helps me feel safer from a negative outcome. It helps me feel like I’ll avoid the embarrassment of finding out I shouldn’t have hoped. 

Highly sensitive people feel everything deeply. If you’re an HSP, learn how to cleanse and protect your personal energy to avoid overwhelm.

HSP, or highly sensitive person, is a term that refers to people who are a little more attuned to the things many of us don’t normally notice. This is a personality trait, not a mental health diagnosis, well-described and defined in Dr. Elaine N. Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person. HSPs feel things deeply, get stressed in overly stimulating environments, and often notice details others don’t. There is an intersection between the HSP trait and the quality of being highly intuitive. Spiritual awareness generally comes along, with an ability to feel things deeply and tap into energies that may not be so obvious on the surface.

April’s full moon invites us to delight in the gifts of being human and to enjoy the coming of spring. Explore the spiritual meaning of April’s Awakening Moon.

Before we followed our current 12-month calendar, cultures all over the world followed lunations, or moon cycles, to track the seasons. Each moon cycle had its own name, usually referring to something that was happening in the natural world at the time.

The Empress tarot card holds rich symbolism and is connected to two important goddesses. Learn what lessons we can glean from this powerfully feminine tarot card.

The Empress tarot card shows a beautiful woman, usually dressed in a flowing garment, covered with pomegranates (a fruit related to sexuality and fertility) with the symbol of Venus on a heart near her feet. She’s often shown in a lush environment, with wheat growing beneath her. Sometimes she is shown as a pregnant woman.

The major themes of the Empress tarot card include fertility, abundance, and feminine power. The Empress is an appropriate symbol for the springtime, when the world begins to come back to life after the dying time of winter. Mythologically, she relates to two other goddesses of the cycle of life and springtime.

Enjoy this gentle meditation to honor Ostara, a spring equinox celebration, and to welcome greater fertility and abundance into your life.

In this brief meditation, we acknowledge Ostara, the traditional celebration of the spring equinox, as a moment when the light and dark are equal and when we transition from the dark half of the year to the bright half. We focus on inviting the energy of fertility (literal or metaphorical), hope, and light while shedding any dark winter energy we are ready to let go of.

Experiencing sinusitis that just won’t go away? Dive into the spiritual meaning of sinus infections to get more insight into how to heal deeply.

Sinus infections can be very painful, often accompanying common colds and allergies. While many of us get colds that easily heal and go away, some cause sinus infections, or sinusitis, which is when the tissues of the sinuses get inflamed and blocked, and are often filled with mucus as well, causing painful headaches, tooth pain, bad breath, and other issues.

Do you know what it’s like to express yourself authentically? Many of us had to give up authenticity for connection, but there are ways to reclaim your emotions today.

Authenticity is a state of being who you really are. It means knowing your internal signals for when something is a “yes” or a “no” and being honest with yourself and other people. It means knowing your needs and boundaries and being able to express them without fear.

Authenticity is a state that requires a baseline of safety. There are plenty of reasons authenticity can be a challenge: social pressure, meeting people for the first time, and the natural fear that we won’t be accepted for who we are. But for many of us, the challenge of authenticity started when we were children.

Ostara is the springtime pagan holiday celebrating equal day and night and the return of the sun. Celebrate with this uplifting springtime ritual.

Ostara is the name for the pagan festival celebrating the vernal equinox (on or around March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere). The name refers to Eostre, a goddess of the dawn, who brings with her the new season of spring and the bright half of the year. The symbols of Ostara reflect those of the Christian Easter (the name of which likely also refers to Eostre) and include eggs and hares. Eggs represent possibility and new life. Hares, which commonly come out to mate around this time of year, represent fertility and abundance.

The spring equinox is a potent time of year for welcoming in new energy and revitalizing your life. Explore the spiritual meaning of Ostara, the pagan celebration of spring.

The spring equinox, also called the vernal equinox, happens around March 20 each year in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the first day of spring and a shift out of the dark half of the year, promising sunshine and flowers to come. While the celebration of this day itself is likely ancient, Wiccans and pagans in the modern age named it Ostara.