Holistic Homemaking
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Imbolc: Light a Candle, Light YOUR Candle
Midway between the longest night of the year and the dawn of spring, Imbolc stands like a white candle in the snow on a quiet morning. Imbolc is bi-directional, energetically speaking: contemplative and quietly anticipatory. It is a time of hope, of ideas and clarity, of knowing that the inner light is enough to sustain Continue reading
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The Healing Power of Small Steps
How one woman reclaimed her home–and her life–five minutes at a time There is a woman (Bonnie) out in Utah whose YouTube channel is called “A Beautiful Mess.” She specializes in the same kind of service that I do—healing homes, essentially, and the families within them. She recently featured another woman’s home, a woman that Continue reading
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Watering My Own Roots
(Shaping the Foundations of Hearth Mysticism) I’ve been juggling more things than usual—writing newspaper features for the Humane Society, managing another literary project for a new client—and among service, whether volunteer or for pay, it remains important to give time to our own pursuits. So I’ve returned to my own writing, watering deep roots, which Continue reading
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Gratitude in the Details
A practice of restoration, one overlooked detail at a time. What if the secret to a vibrant home isn’t new furniture or fresh paint, but simply noticing—and loving—the overlooked details? Dr. Joe Dispenza speaks of “loving another into life” as a healing technique. I’ve found that the same is true of our spaces: we love Continue reading
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Turning Inward, Don’t Leave Out the Light!
We are now on the dark side of Winter Nights—the dawn of the cooling season, marked on 10/31-11/1. We light candles to symbolize warmth and light. Some of us get the woodstove warming the house for the first time since last winter. I’m conservative of firewood, so I wait until the downstairs gets a chill Continue reading
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Thresholds of Accumulation: Hoarding Versus Prepping as Emotional Ecology
Prepping is typically thoughtful, organized, and open-hearted. Hoarding is where mental habits become unnecessary accumulation for accumulation’s sake. It is often disorganized and can become outright disastrous, beginning as boxes and piles in corners and against walls. In time, they can grow higher and wider, even making navigating from one room to another a task Continue reading
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Jars, Pill Bottles, and the Scarcity We Carry
The past few weeks, I’ve been moving through a gentle round of decluttering — the kind that feels less like a task and more like a quiet reset. A few bags of clothing have gone out the door, and today I’ll be tending to a couple of kitchen cabinets, letting go of jars I no Continue reading
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Kids Bedrooms: Cleanliness = Self-Respect
In every home, there are rooms that breathe differently. Some exhale peace. Others hold tension. And then there are bedrooms—those private sanctuaries where our kids retreat, dream, resist, and become. For many parents, the untidy bedroom becomes a battleground. But what if it could be a threshold, a space where self-respect is not demanded, but Continue reading
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From Meadow to Hearth: A Color Journey
During a guided meditation today, an unexpected image appeared: my ideal self, dressed in brown and pink. The colors felt quiet, grounded, and unmistakably true. For years, I’ve designed my materials in green and yellow — colors of growth, vitality, clarity, and playfulness. They carried me through a long season of seeking lightness, joy, and Continue reading
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A Multi-Sensory Home
Before we speak, before we settle, before we even think, we sense. The spaces we inhabit speak to us in subtle languages: a flicker of light, a hint of lemon, the hush between footsteps. These sensory cues shape our nervous systems, our memories, and our moods. In crafting a healing home, we begin not with Continue reading
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Sunlight Choreography: Small Rituals for Light, Color, and Scent
August in the Northern hemisphere is all about sunlight and flowers in full bloom. The zinnias are bursting like fireworks, the eyes scan skyward for a pastel palette of hollyhocks, and the air is abuzz with hummingbirds and dragonflies. It’s a beautiful time to map where sunlight lands in the home. In my dark Victorian Continue reading
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Gratitude on the Plate: How Blessing Your Food Nourishes You Twice
We are often inspired when we go on road trips to visit friends and loved ones, and they dish out their very best, family-loved meals. My step-son got his favorite Zuppa Toscana for his birthday, and I’ll be making it soon. His wife served up Blueberry Dutch Baby for breakfast, and I’ve added it to Continue reading
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A Home Named Harmony (& Thrifting Adventures)
Thumbing through Sacred Space by Denise Linn, I paused at a suggestion for the reader to assign or receive a name for their home. What a great, simple way to deepen one’s relationship with the home, I thought, and pondered only briefly before the name Harmony came to mind. It’s perfect. A few days later, Continue reading
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Community as a Form of Home-Care
Living in a rural, hilly community has taught me something I treasure: work and family often move together here. It’s common to see home‑maintenance professionals arrive with a spouse, a sibling, or a teenager learning the trade. Extra hands lighten the load, shorten the workday, and quietly pass practical skills from one generation to the Continue reading
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Creating Space for Success: The Feng Shui Mindset
Feng Shui goes much deeper than just moving things around. It harmonizes the physical and spiritual aspects of place in a way that welcomes desired change. It establishes a dynamic flow of energy, creating an environment that nurtures well-being and encourages growth on all levels. It also awakens intuitive faculties as we liven up our Continue reading
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Five Reasons To Make Decluttering a Top Spring Priority
Spring is synonymous with renewal—a chance to embrace fresh energy and let go of what no longer serves us. Decluttering your space goes beyond aesthetics; it’s a profound act of self-care and transformation. Here are five compelling reasons to prioritize decluttering this spring: This spring, let decluttering be your first step toward a brighter, more Continue reading
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Embracing Oneness: From Self-Improvement to Whole-Self Loving in 2025
There is “self-improvement,” and there is remembering and returning to the Self (which is all-oneness). When we seek to self-improve, it’s a sign that we’ve become lost in a sense of separation and forgotten who we really are. The quickest remedy out of this, and to avoid spending potentially decades reading self-development books, is to Continue reading
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A Hygge House
“That house was a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or storytelling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.” This was written by J. R. R. Tolkien. The last sentence is of particular Continue reading
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A Fresh Look Around: Love of Place
As you read this, imagine that it is your first time in whatever room of your home you are in. Look around with fresh new eyes. Does anything look out of place? Does anything look like it belongs in another room? Are there things that need to be thrown away? Would surfaces benefit from dusting, Continue reading
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The Heart of Green Living: Home Cleanliness
In the serene embrace of the home, where we seek refuge and comfort, the essence of green living begins with the simple yet profound act of cleanliness. A clean home is not just a reflection of how we care for our surroundings, but also a testament to our commitment to a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle. Continue reading
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The Importance of Doing
Whatever we seek for our holistic well-being: peace, happiness, comfort, ease of suffering, etc., the pathway is less about visualizing and more about doing. The vision shapes itself as we work within our physical environment one micro-step at a time, moved by what is meaningful to us in any given moment. Time is more precious Continue reading
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An Experiment with Nonlocal Healing
Affirmations are a powerful tool for healing and personal development that can actually be improved upon with the use of technology. I’ve recently found a 30-minute presentation of healing affirmations that is clearly a total mind experience, engaging both hemispheres of the brain with sound that travels (with headphones) like a rainbow arc from one Continue reading
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From Control to Comfort: Creating a Home That Breathes
We can have our home, our micro-world completely clean, orderly and organized into perfect cubes, complete with labels. We can manage our days by the hour, assign chores, prepare meals in advance, and snag every dust bunny out of the air before it lands. If this sounds like you, then I am here to encourage Continue reading
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Celebrate EVERY Day!
Why is it that some of us celebrate life more on our birthdays than any other days? Birthdays surely are days to measure the steps behind us, and to look ahead; but mostly birthdays give us cause to celebrate our unique existence in the now. This year I turned 52. I got up early and Continue reading
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Surround Yourself with What You Love
When we look around and love everything we see, is it not the deepest of healing experiences? People go to botanical gardens, bird and butterfly sanctuaries, the beach, the mountains, antique shops and art museums for this gentle high. We enter such a space and often sigh a deep breath. We find ourselves in the Continue reading
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Home As Healing Assistant
Making simple adjustments within our physical environment can contribute immensely to psychoemotional wellness. There are various popular applications around the world that put this to practice, such as feng shui (Chinese: “wind and water”) and hygge (Danish: “hug”), but here I will illuminate a more introspective approach. It’s as simple as analyzing the story of Continue reading
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From Vision to Fulfillment: Applying Meaningful Purpose in the World
Most of us ultimately wish to discover and live some deep, meaningful purpose for being alive. Sometimes this is driven by a strong sense of self or being passionate about goals and vision, and sometimes it is driven by simply knowing who we are: consciousness having a human experience, born in a certain place and Continue reading
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Getting REAL: Love Plus Courage Equals a Healing Home
Maintaining a healing home is a natural balancing act, the marriage of spiritual and material realms. It isn’t just about meandering around with singing bowls and incense. It isn’t about burying our heads in the sand (or the clouds). It’s more about staying rooted in the home and developing it into a true healing space Continue reading
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Simplify Your Surroundings for Peace and Healing
We’ve cycled back around to the time of year – warming sunny days as we draw nearer to spring – when we seize opportunities to move stagnant indoor air out the windows. We deep-clean, we dust. We empty from our living space all that isn’t appreciated for either form or function. Delores Canon once mentioned Continue reading
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Applying Your Enneatype Within the Home
The Enneagram of Personality is a fun tool to apply to any aspect of life, and the home is no exception. I share it here from another blog of mine that predates this one by several years. ENJOY! (If you do not know your enneatype and would be interested in learning more about it, I Continue reading
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Serene Spaces: Home As Healing Sanctuary
If there is one thing that I can recommend to stressed or depressed people, it is this: set up a room in your home that is especially for decompressing, relaxing, clearing the mind. Mine looks like this, and I simply call it “my healing room”: It’s something that can be done in a day (or Continue reading
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Transforming the Home with Love
Ideally, when we step in our front door, we should feel a sense of serenity, like all of the day’s problems and worries have washed down our shoulders and we can settle into the moment. This would be a deeply healing experience, so we make efforts to provide this for ourselves and our loved ones. Continue reading
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Balance Your Home, Balance Your Life
If your mind is scattered, if your heart hurts, if your soul is yearning, if your body could be in better shape: these can be remedied through acting on the understanding that there is a mutual support network between you and your home. Just as there are layers to the human, there are layers to Continue reading
