Sadness, while deeply uncomfortable, has a purpose and lesson to teach us. What medicine can your sadness offer you?

Feeling sad is a natural, unavoidable, but often deeply uncomfortable emotion. Many of us would prefer to feel angry than sad—anger has energy, and sadness can feel like it saps our life force. So what’s the point of feeling sad?

Spirituality and therapy have been intertwined since before psychotherapy became a respected field of study. Explore some of the complexities at the intersection of spiritual life and therapy.

Since psychotherapy was essentially invented by Sigmund Freud in the 1900s, the therapeutic industry has tried to present itself as hard science; as something that can be studied and that can produce predictable results. This idea has been touch and go, with some therapies showing great promise in scientific settings, and others falling flat.

The Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, brings potent magic and wisdom. Learn what this year’s Harvest Moon has to teach you.

Each full moon of the year has a special name that comes from cultures all over the world. Usually, these names refer to the season, and the moon’s appearance shifts depending on whether we’re in a year with twelve or thirteen moons. The Harvest Moon is a special name, as it refers to the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere). It’s called that because, at this time of the year, the full moon tends to rise around sunset for several nights in a row, giving farmers that little bit of extra light to work by during the vital harvest season. It usually rises sometime in September, but it can land in October as well.

When we are attracted to unhealed people, it’s often because of unhealed wounds within ourselves. Learn more about working with intuition to unravel conditioning in relationships.

What, exactly, is attraction? We often think of it in terms of a romantic draw towards someone with particular looks, or a type, but as many of us have experienced, our romantic interest in someone has so much more to do with things like the way they talk, what they are interested in, their mannerisms, and other mysterious factors. What if one of those mysterious factors is our own deeply held attachment wounds? What if attraction actually is our wounds trying to heal?

What we react negatively to—even and especially the foods we eat—can offer us deep wisdom. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of food allergies.

Food allergies are common and can range in severity from slight discomfort to anaphylactic shock. Food allergies can be life threatening, and it’s important to work with your doctor on managing these allergies appropriately. In the meantime, it can be useful to consider what your food allergies might be trying to tell you on an energetic or emotional level.

Learning this won’t necessarily cure your allergies, but it might help show you how to support your body to lessen the effects of allergies or even change something in your life for your greater good. What’s the spiritual meaning of food allergies?

The Law of Attraction empowers people to think more positively, but at what cost? Explore the complexities of the Law of Attraction.

The concept of the Law of Attraction, which is often called “manifesting,” refers to the idea that we can create our realities and make our dreams and wishes come true through the power of thought. Imagine hard enough, the theory goes, and you can get whatever you want.

The Blue Moon offers an opportunity for contemplation, completion, and tapping into divine femininity. Explore the spiritual meaning of this special full moon.

The length of a moon cycle is around 29.5 days, while the average length of a calendar month is 30.5 days. We usually have just one full moon per month, but every two or three years we have 13 moons in a year. This 13th moon is usually a Blue Moon, either the second full moon in a calendar month or the third full moon in a three-month season with four full moons. So what is the spiritual meaning of a blue moon?

Empaths often have a history of childhood trauma. Explore how empathy is both a gift and a challenge, and learn how to navigate your past experiences for a brighter future.

Empaths are people who tend to be very sensitive to other people’s moods, emotions, and energy. They can tell when what you’re saying doesn’t match what you’re feeling. They’ll feel other people’s emotions—both good and bad—as if they were their own. You won’t tend to find an empath in a crowd—it’s so overwhelming to have everyone’s energy coming in at once that many empaths would rather stay home with a few people they feel safe with (or only in exactly the right crowd).

And sometimes things don’t shift. Sometimes we’re stuck in a rut for a long long while and nothing seems to change no matter how many full moons pass us by. I’ll be honest—with everything I’ve been dealing with this year, I am in a sort of self-imposed, restorative rut. I’m in day-by-day mode.

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.