Metaphysical

Coming Back to Yourself.

The Last New Moon of Summer

There is something about September that feels different.

You can almost see the Wheel turning.

The evenings arrive earlier. The mornings have a different feel. The light is changing. The garden is heavy with things that have spent all summer becoming. There is still summer here, but autumn is standing at the garden gate saying, Oi, I’m coming.

And frankly, I’m delighted. 😂

I’m not one of those people desperately clinging to the last hot days of summer. By September, I’m ready. Ready for cooler mornings, sweaters, earlier evenings and that first delicious crispness in the air.

There’s something about September that feels like an exhale.

A threshold.

And I bloody love a good threshold.

On September 10/11 we arrive at the last New Moon of summer, in earthy Virgo. After all that eclipse energy — the shifting, revealing and great big LEAP — this New Moon feels like putting our feet back on the earth.

We leapt.

We may not be entirely sure where the hell we’ve landed.

But here we are.

And perhaps the question isn’t Where am I going next?

Perhaps it’s simply:

What do I need now?

Virgo is connected with health, work, service, routines and the small details of everyday life.

Which could very easily become: New Moon! New habits! Organise everything! Buy a planner! Get up at 5 a.m.! Drink something green! Become a much better human by Tuesday!

Fuck that. 😂

What if you don’t need another self-improvement project?

What if this New Moon isn’t asking you to reinvent yourself?

What if it’s asking you to come back to yourself?

I’ve been thinking about the difference between routine and rhythm.

Routine can become something we impose upon ourselves. Rhythm asks us to listen.

Nature knows this.

My garden doesn’t arrive in September, look around and decide it hasn’t achieved enough and needs to get its shit together. It responds to the changing light, cooler nights, what has ripened, what needs gathering and what is beginning to let go.

Nature doesn’t stay in one mode all year. Why the hell do we expect ourselves to?

Maybe September is simply an invitation to notice the rhythm you need now.

What nourishes you? What are you tired of? What have you made far more complicated than it needs to be? Where is your energy going — and do you still want it going there?

That last question matters.

Virgo is also connected with service, and there can be a very fine line between service and self-abandonment.

We help. Fix. Accommodate. Carry. Understand everybody else’s needs. Manage the emotional weather.

And sometimes we become so bloody busy tending everybody else’s garden that we suddenly realise ours hasn’t been watered in weeks.

Coming back to yourself might mean remembering what is actually yours to tend.

Maybe that’s why this New Moon feels less like a beginning and more like a return.

Instead of asking, What new habits should I start?, try asking:

What would I like to return to?

Walking amongst the trees. Writing. Making something. Going to bed earlier. Sitting outside with your coffee. Dancing around the kitchen. Turning the bloody phone off. Spending time with people who make you laugh.

Those little things that make something inside you go:

Oh. There I am.

Virgo understands the power of small things.

And after eclipse season, perhaps small is exactly what we need.

We don’t need another great leap. We don’t need to know what the next six months look like.

We can put our feet on the earth, notice where we are and listen.

I’ve created a Virgo New Moon Ritual for Clarity, Health and Harmony to help you do exactly that — a little space to pause, clear some of the noise and notice what you want to tend as we move toward autumn.

So light your candle. Do the ritual. Get quiet.

And instead of asking who you’re supposed to become next, ask:

What would help me come home to myself?

The eclipse asked us to leap.

This New Moon invites us to land.

And September whispers:

Come home.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself, Gorgeous Soul.

Perhaps you simply need to come back to yourself. 🌑🍂

The Sacred Mid-Air, The Full Moon Eclipse, the Fool and the Courage to Leap.

Jenny Heston · 1:11 pm ·

Here we are in the middle of eclipse season, with the Full Moon Eclipse happening on August 27–28.

And I don’t know about you, but lately I have felt a bit as though I am free-falling.

I’ve been going through a great change in my life. A career change, a life change, some health changes, an identity change—and a deepening.

Like most change, it is hard to say exactly when it began.

Was it eight years ago when I moved to the Island, guided by a Solstice wish?

Was it six years ago, when I accompanied my sister through the end of her life?

Was it two years ago, when two close friends and my mother passed?

I don’t exactly know when the change began, but I do know that I am somewhere in the middle of the leap now.

Because this is what the leap looks like.

The word leap sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Weightless, buoyant and graceful in flight.

Yet that is not usually how a leap feels.

When I’m in the midst of one, some days I wake up and legitimately do not know what I’m doing. Sometimes that feels humorous, sometimes it feels liberating—and sometimes it is frigging terrifying.

On the excruciating days, the ones clearly designed to grind me into some kind of imago goo, I wake up and think:

I actually do not know who I am.

And that feels like both an ending and an invitation to live differently.

The ground beneath my feet is nowhere near as solid as it used to be. Income is shifting. Visions are slipping. Relationships are swaying and solidifying into something entirely new.

I can’t see the future like I used to.

Or perhaps I can—but only a step or two ahead, like walking a deliciously winding trail where I cannot see what is waiting around the next bend.

Some days I am filled with so much hope and joy that I can feel possibility fizzing beneath all the chaos.

Other days, I am inexplicably crushed by the uncertainty of it all.

I don’t know what comes next. Not truly. I see glimpses and catch whispers, but the whole picture remains just out of sight.

Yet I know that this feeling of weightless free-fall—no tether and no familiar ground—is somehow the sign I have been waiting for. Perhaps it is even the moment I have been praying for.

Because this is what the leap looks like.

The leap looks like being ungrounded for a moment. It looks like not knowing where your feet are.

It looks like glimpsing the whole wide world before you for one glorious second—before having to focus, somewhat blindly, on the unrecognizable blur of something new rushing towards you.

It looks like having no idea how you will reach the other side, while knowing you cannot get there if you keep even one foot pinned to the ground where you are.

So you leap. (Probably whilst cursing!)

This is the energy of the Fool in tarot, standing at the edge of the cliff and about to begin an entirely new journey.

The Fool has no map tucked into that tiny bundle.

There is no carefully constructed five-year plan, no list of guarantees and no certificate proving they are qualified for whatever comes next.

The Fool stands at the edge with an open heart, a wee dog at their heels and their face lifted towards the sun.

The dog may be offering a warning—or it may be the Fool’s instinct, joy and wildness saying, Oi, let’s go!

The Fool is numbered zero: the place before the beginning.

Zero is empty and yet contains everything. It is the pause before the first note, the blank page before the first word and the moment when every possibility still exists.

The Fool can appear naïve, but their energy is not about being careless or refusing to see what is in front of them. It is about refusing to let fear make every decision.

It is curiosity over certainty.

Trust over control.

Possibility over predictability.

The Fool reminds us that we are allowed to begin before we feel completely ready.

We are allowed to be new at something. We are allowed to change direction, travel lightly and leave behind the identities and expectations that have become too heavy to carry.

There is a glorious freedom in Fool energy. It does not ask, What will everyone think? It asks, What is calling me? What makes me feel alive? What might become possible if I take the next step?

And no, the Fool does not know exactly where the path will lead.

That is the whole frigging point.

The Fool’s journey does not begin with certainty. It begins with willingness—with the courage to step away from the familiar and meet life as it unfolds.

This is what the leap looks like.

You must be willing to enter that sacred mid-air. To have no familiar anchor for a moment. To allow both feet to leave the old ground—because there is no other way to arrive somewhere new.

But sometimes we are walking towards that cliff for years.

Sometimes we forget that there is anywhere else for us to be except on the edge—the edge of our limits, the edge of our familiar world, the edge of despair.

Sometimes there is so much weight we must put down before we can leap that the shedding feels as though it has become our whole life.

The world asks us to release layer after layer after layer.

The good girl. The people pleaser. The rescuer. The person we thought we had to be. The relationships we have outgrown. The dreams that no longer fit.

The versions of ourselves that once protected us but have now become too small to live inside.

And then, eventually, one day, we leap.

We always leap—even when we begin to believe it is impossible—because the leap is inevitable.

It is how the soul moves.

At our essence, we cannot help but continue to change, deepen, remember and evolve. And so we leap.

As our feet leave the ground, we have to remind ourselves:

Do not be afraid. This is what the leap looks like.

That is the energy of the Fool.

And it is the energy of this eclipse.

Eclipses uncover things. They illuminate what we have tucked away, ignored or convinced ourselves we can continue carrying.

They bring endings and beginnings together until it can be difficult to tell which is which.

Perhaps that is why they can feel so ungrounding. Something has ended, but the new thing has not yet fully arrived.

We are neither here nor there. We are mid-air.

Lately, I look around at my family, my community and this aching world and think:

Wow. What a leap we are taking.

What a time to be here on this planet, living inside this great mid-jump uncertainty.

It is an honour, really.

And it is an honour to keep walking towards that edge ourselves.

Because our individual leaps—our willingness to release, change, speak, choose and begin again—help create the collective energy the world needs to make its own leap towards healing.

So, if you too are feeling the endless expanse of mid-air during this eclipse season…

If you read this and recognize yourself in the simple, uncomfortable sensation of not knowing…

If you sense a new era coming but cannot yet see what it will look like for you…

Take a breath. You do not need to know exactly where you are going.

You do not need to make the leap look graceful.

You do not need to have a tidy plan, the perfect answer or a frigging clue what happens next.

You simply need to remember:

You are not falling, Gorgeous Soul.

You are leaping.

And this is exactly how we reach the other side.

The Glorious Reveal….

Jenny Heston · 3:33 pm ·

A Playful New Moon Solar Eclipse Ritual

This New Moon Solar Eclipse in Leo invites us to step out from behind the roles, masks and expectations we have collected and remember the glorious, creative being underneath them all.

This is not a ritual for improving yourself.

You are not a renovation project.

It is a ritual for seeing yourself, celebrating what is already alive within you and reclaiming the pieces you may have tucked away because they were too loud, too strange, too playful or simply too much for someone else’s comfort.

And because this is Leo, we are not going to whisper our way through it.

There will be music. There will be a crown. There may be dancing of questionable quality.

Perfect.

You Will Need

A small mirror
A gold, yellow or orange candle—or whatever you have
Paper or lightweight card
Scissors, tape and coloured pens
Five small slips of paper
A bowl
Music that makes you feel gloriously alive
Something playful to wear

Never look directly at the Sun during an eclipse without certified eclipse glasses. This ritual can be performed indoors and does not require viewing the eclipse.

Create Your Crown

Make yourself a simple paper crown. It does not need to be elegant—a wonky crown made with enthusiasm is far better than a perfect one made with clenched teeth.

On the inside, write:

I do not have to perform to belong.

Decorate the outside with words, colours and symbols representing your aliveness: creativity, courage, humour, joy, wildness or whatever feels true.

This crown is not about being better than anyone else. It represents your willingness to take your rightful place in your own life.

Arrive as You Are

Light your candle and take a few slow breaths.

There is no need to become calm, spiritual or impressively serene. If your socks don’t match or the cat has already sat on your supplies, you are still welcome.

Say:

I arrive as I am.
I release the need to perform.
I welcome all that is alive and true within me.

Reclaim What You Have Hidden

On each slip of paper, complete this sentence:

I am ready to reclaim my…

Perhaps it is your voice, playfulness, creativity, confidence, curiosity, wildness or ability to say no without writing a twelve-page apology.

Fold the slips, place them in the bowl and choose one.

Ask:

What would this part of me like to do?

Let the first simple answer come. Perhaps your playfulness wants to dance, your creativity wants to make something or your voice wants to speak honestly.

Write down one small, real action that will give this part of you room to live again.

Meet Your Own Gaze

Place the crown upon your head. Yes, really.

Look gently into the mirror—not to inspect or criticise, but to witness the person looking back at you.

Say:

I see the self beneath the roles.
I recognise the light that has always lived here.
I forgive the ways I learned to disappear.
I do not need applause to know my worth.
I belong here as myself.

Now offer yourself one genuine compliment that has nothing to do with being useful, productive or pleasing.

Begin with:

Something glorious about me is…

Say it aloud, even if you blush or laugh.

Especially then.

Let Yourself Be Alive

Put on your music and move for the length of one song.

Dance beautifully. Dance badly. Sway, bounce, shimmy or wave your arms like an enthusiastic inflatable tube person.

There is no audience and no performance—only your body remembering joy.

When the song ends, place your hand over your heart and say:

My aliveness is sacred.
My joy matters.
My creativity is an offering.
My voice belongs in the conversation.
My light was never the problem.

Close the Ritual

Place your chosen slip beneath the mirror until you have completed the action it asked of you.

Thank the Eclipse, your heart and the gloriously imperfect person you are becoming more willing to see.

Blow out your candle and say:

I do not shine to be admired.
I shine because I am alive.
I belong without disappearing.
And I am ready to be revealed.

Keep your crown. Wear it whenever you forget who you are—or whenever doing the washing-up requires a little more majesty.

And if you are feeling bold, would love to see an image of your crown!

The Buck Moon: Grow Wild, Take Up Space & Feed What Matters!

Jenny Heston · 3:33 pm ·

Gorgeous Soul,

Can you feel it? There is something growing in the dark.

The Buck Moon rises on Wednesday, July 29, carrying an energy of nourishment, strength, healthy boundaries and unapologetic expansion. She reaches her fullest at 7:35 a.m. here on the West Coast, so look for her glowing beautifully on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

July’s full moon takes her name from the male deer—the buck—whose new antlers are growing rapidly at this time of year. What begins as something tender, covered in soft velvet, will eventually become strong enough to protect him, establish his place and carry him through the season ahead.

But those antlers cannot grow from nothing.

Their size and strength depend upon what is available to nourish the buck: rain, rich soil, abundant plants and a healthy habitat. If nourishment is scarce, growth is limited.

Nature, as she so often does, makes the lesson gloriously clear:

You cannot continually deprive yourself and still expect yourself to flourish.

You cannot run on crumbs—crumbs of rest, crumbs of affection, crumbs of joy, crumbs of time—and then wonder why you feel depleted. Nor can you pour all your energy into everybody else’s garden while your own quietly wilts in the corner.

The Buck Moon asks you to look honestly at what you are feeding.

Are you nourishing the dreams that make your whole being light up? Are you strengthening the relationships that strengthen you in return? Are you investing time, care and energy in your own gorgeous life—or are your needs forever being shuffled to the bottom of the list?

Because you are not an afterthought.

And taking up space does not mean pushing anyone else out of the way. It means no longer folding yourself into smaller and smaller shapes to make everyone around you comfortable. It means allowing your voice to be heard, your boundaries to be honoured and your gifts to be visible.

It means standing in your own patch of sunlight and saying:

I belong here too.

Growing Into Your Power

There is a lovely difference between forcing yourself to become someone else and allowing yourself to grow more fully into who you already are.

The buck does not spend the summer anxiously comparing his antlers with those of every other deer in the forest. He does not wake at three in the morning convinced that his rack should be bigger, more impressive or further along.

He eats. He rests. He moves through the forest. He trusts the ancient intelligence of his body and the rhythm of the season.

Meanwhile, we humans are often flapping about, attempting to bloom, harvest, heal, launch seventeen new projects and completely reinvent ourselves before lunchtime.

The Buck Moon reminds us that meaningful growth is not built through frantic striving. It is created through nourishment, attention and repeated small choices.

We grow into our power through practice, not perfection.

Every time you honour a boundary, you grow stronger.

Every time you choose what nourishes you rather than what merely distracts you, you grow clearer.

Every time you speak honestly, rest without apologising, learn something new or devote time to what genuinely matters, you strengthen the foundations of your future.

A meaningful life is not created all at once.

It is grown—one choice, one threshold and one season at a time.

What Are You Feeding?

Full moons illuminate. They bring things into view—including the things we have been cheerfully avoiding while hoping they might wander off by themselves.

This moon may reveal where your energy has become scattered. You might notice too many half-fed projects, obligations that no longer belong to you or relationships that continually consume your attention without offering anything nourishing in return.

This is not an invitation to judge yourself or begin hacking wildly at your life with an energetic machete.

It is an invitation to pause.

What matters most now?

What deserves more of your care?

What dream, relationship, skill or part of yourself is ready to be nourished properly?

And what smaller distractions can be released so that your deeper priorities have room to grow?

You do not need to do everything. In fact, trying to do everything is often the fastest route to accomplishing very little—except becoming impressively tired and slightly stabby.

Choose what matters. Feed it well. Give it time.

A Simple Buck Moon Ritual

On Tuesday or Wednesday evening, find a quiet place beneath the moon—or near a window where you can feel connected to her light.

You will need:

A candle
A small bowl of water
A leaf, sprig of rosemary or something gathered respectfully from nature
Your journal and a pen

Light your candle and place the bowl of water beside it. Hold your leaf or herb and take several slow breaths.

Imagine yourself standing in a summer forest. Beneath you is rich soil; around you, life is growing in every direction. You do not need to chase your strength. You are already rooted within it.

Ask yourself:

What within me is asking to be nourished?

Where am I ready to take up more space?

What boundary will protect what I am growing?

What distraction or obligation am I willing to release?

What would it look like to live more fully this season?

Write without overthinking or attempting to make your answers sound sensible. Let what is true come forward.

When you are finished, dip your fingers into the water and gently touch your forehead, heart and hands.

You might say:

May my thoughts nourish what matters.
May my heart remember what is true.
May my hands help create the life I am ready to live.

Place the leaf or herb somewhere meaningful for the next few days. When the ritual feels complete, return it to the earth with gratitude.

Want to Go a Little Deeper?

If the Buck Moon has illuminated something within you—and you want to explore it with pen, paper and perhaps a cuppa—I have created a collection of Buck Moon journal prompts for you.

They will help you explore nourishment, boundaries, taking up space and the glorious strength that is already growing within you.

Take your time with them. You do not need to answer everything at once. Choose the question that tugs at your sleeve, pour yourself something lovely and see what wants to be revealed.

And Lughnasadh Is Coming…

Just a few days after the Buck Moon, we reach Lughnasadh on August 1st—the first of the three traditional harvest celebrations on the Wheel of the Year.

It is a threshold of gratitude, abundance, sacrifice and harvest. A time to notice what has ripened, what our labour has created and what must be gathered before the season begins to turn.

But we will sink our hands deeply into that particular magick in a separate post later this week.

For now, let the Buck Moon show you what is still growing.

Let her illuminate the places where you have been surviving on crumbs. Let her remind you that nourishment is not selfish, boundaries are not punishment and taking up space is not something you need to earn.

Your life is growing around you.

Feed what matters.

Protect what is tender.

And allow yourself to become gloriously, visibly, unmistakably more of who you have always been.

Lughnasadh: Recognising What Is Already Growing.

Jenny Heston · 2:02 pm ·

Lughnasadh arrives on August 1st, marking the midpoint between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. It is the first harvest celebration on the Wheel of the Year—a sacred seasonal threshold filled with ripening grain, abundant gardens and the first quiet hints that summer will not last forever.

Throughout this post, we’re going to explore what Lughnasadh means, how to pronounce its rather tongue-tangling name and why this first harvest matters—especially now.

And because sacred days are meant to be experienced rather than simply read about, I’ve also gathered some glorious ways for you to celebrate. You’ll find links to Lughnasadh rituals, journal prompts and a First Harvest Tarot Spread to help you pause, reflect and recognise what has quietly been growing in your own life.

How Do You Pronounce Lughnasadh?

Before we wander any further, let’s tackle the rather large, tongue-tangling word in the room: How the heck do you pronounce Lughnasadh?

Learning to say Lughnasadh can feel harder than actually celebrating it. Trust me, I’ve stumbled over it too.

Common English pronunciations include LOO-nah-sah, LOO-nah-suh and LOO-na-SAH. You may hear native Irish speakers pronounce it differently depending upon where they live. After all, someone from Donegal, Kerry or Dublin won’t necessarily pronounce every word identically—just as English changes from one place to another.

It is always worthwhile listening to native Irish speakers so that you can hear the word within the living rhythm of the language. But please don’t let fear of getting it imperfectly stop you from honouring the day. What matters most is learning about the history behind the name, approaching it with curiosity and saying it with respect.

There. Tongues untangled—mostly. Now we can step into the deeper magic of the season.

The First Harvest

Earlier in the year, spring asked you to plant your seeds. It whispered of possibility and invited you to choose what you wanted to nurture.

Early summer asked you to grow, expand and step more fully into the light. It was the season of stretching outward, taking up space and allowing yourself to become visible.

But Lughnasadh asks something different.

It quietly—and perhaps a little cheekily—leans over the garden gate and calls:

“Oi, you, hey you—how is it going?”

Not critically. Not with a clipboard, a furrowed brow and a list of all the things you should have accomplished by now.

Lovingly.

Lughnasadh invites you to pause long enough to notice what is actually beginning to bear fruit. What has grown since those first seeds were planted? What has changed within you? What is ripening, even if it isn’t yet ready to be gathered?

And what have you been so busy tending that you haven’t stopped to recognise it as a harvest?

Not Every Harvest Can Be Held in Your Hands

I think one of the hardest things about growth is that so much of it happens quietly, behind the scenes and beneath the soil.

We tend to celebrate what is obvious: the promotion, the finished project, the number in the bank account or the tangible thing we can point to and declare, “I did that!”

And yes, those things deserve to be celebrated. Bring out the cake, light the candles and do a happy dance in the kitchen.

But much of our most meaningful growth cannot be measured so neatly.

How do you measure becoming more confident?

How do you calculate the moment you finally said no without spending the following three days feeling guilty?

Where is the tidy little graph showing that you are more grounded, more trusting of yourself or more willing to speak your truth?

How do you put a number on becoming more fully and gloriously you?

These are harvests too.

They may not arrive with certificates, applause or a glorious shower of confetti, but they are no less real. In fact, these quiet inner harvests may be the ones that change your life most profoundly.

Perhaps We Have Been Measuring the Wrong Things

In my own life, I’ve been realising how much energy I spend looking at what hasn’t happened yet—and how completely that can obscure everything that has.

I can become caught up in sales numbers, subscribers, unfinished projects and all the ideas still cavorting noisily around inside my head. There is always another thing I could create, improve or complete. There is always something that hasn’t grown as quickly as I hoped it would.

Meanwhile, almost without noticing, I have built an entire body of work. A library. A rhythm. A life that is so much closer to the one I once dreamed about than I usually stop to recognise.

Some days, it doesn’t always feel like enough.

But perhaps that is because I have been measuring the wrong things.

And maybe—just maybe—that is true for you too.

Perhaps you have been staring so intently at the empty spaces that you have overlooked what is already filling your basket.

Perhaps you have been measuring your life by visible achievements while missing the courage it took to continue, the boundaries you learned to hold, the tenderness you offered yourself or the ways you began choosing what was true rather than what kept everybody else comfortable.

Perhaps this season isn’t asking you to produce more.

Perhaps it is simply asking you to recognise what has already begun to grow.

A Sacred Place to Return

This feels especially important right now because life is incredibly full. The world feels heavy, the noise is relentless and most of us are carrying far more than we were ever meant to carry alone.

That is exactly why these seasonal practices matter.

Not because they magically make everything easier or whisk away the difficult pieces of being human. They matter because they give us somewhere to return—again and again.

They offer us a rhythm beneath the rush.

They remind us to pause, breathe and notice.

They help us remember who we are beneath the noise, the expectations, the endless lists and the peculiar pressure to be forever improving ourselves.

Lughnasadh reminds us that even in difficult seasons, something meaningful may still be growing. Something may be quietly taking root, becoming stronger or preparing to bear fruit.

Your harvest may not look the way you imagined it would.

It may be smaller, stranger or much less tidy.

It may be a deeper trust in yourself. A boundary held. A truth spoken. A relationship released. A new rhythm created. A life that finally feels a little more like your own.

Whatever it is, let yourself see it.

Name it.

Honour it.

And please, Gorgeous Soul, celebrate it.

Because you do not have to wait until everything is complete before you acknowledge how far you have come.

Celebrate Lughnasadh With Me

I’ve gathered together some delicious Lughnasadh practices to help you pause, honour your first harvest and listen for what this turning season may be asking of you.

Explore the 3 Lughnasadh rituals and ways to celebrate here, spend some time with the Lughnasadh journal prompts here, or lay out your cards and try the First Harvest Tarot Spread here.

You don’t need to perform any of it perfectly, have a glorious field of wheat or pronounce Lughnasadh flawlessly before you begin. Simply bring your curiosity, your honest heart and a willingness to notice what has quietly been growing.

Then light a candle, make yourself a cuppa and take a moment to honour the harvest that is already yours.