“Focus on who you are and what you’ve built,
not on what you’d planned on being or what you expected to have.
Trust that the present moment however difficult,
however different from what you’d imagined
has something to teach you.”
~~ Maggie Smith
Greetings to all my precious people!!
We are in the middle of January, the coldest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This is the deep yin of Winter, when Nature shows us the ancient patterns and cycles of the Earth. It is a time of quiet, a time of repose, a season of reflection and incubation. Nature is gathering up resources, from the soil, from our dreams, from the inspiration of conversations, or music, or poetry. We are in the midst of opportunities—to shed what no longer serves us, to lean into the callings of our heart and soul.
The Full Wolf Moon will be shining bright in the night sky on Monday, January 13, and it carries a message of not only hope but a reminder to reach down into the depths of our authentic selves. This year of 2025 will require us to be in close connection with our values, our needs and desires, and most certainly, our intuition.
The term “Wolf Moon” originates from Native American and European traditions, where each Full Moon had a name based on the natural world and the time of year. The Wolf Moon is the first Full Moon of the year, traditionally associated with the howling of wolves during the cold, barren winter months. This time often represented hunger and survival in harsh conditions, as wolves were heard calling to each other during long nights.
As the first Full Moon of the year, the Wolf Moon is a powerful time for reflecting on the past and setting intentions for the year ahead. It calls upon individuals to embrace their inner strength and resilience, much like wolves surviving winter. Wolves symbolize loyalty, intuition, community, and freedom. Spiritually, the Wolf Moon encourages you to reconnect with your instincts, honor your sense of belonging, and cultivate trust in yourself and your circle.
The Full Moon will occur in Cancer, a deeply emotional and nurturing sign ruled by the Moon itself. Cancer emphasizes home, family, emotional security, and self-care, so this alignment makes the Wolf Moon particularly potent for introspection, healing old wounds, and strengthening emotional bonds.
Full Moons always signify culmination and release. Use this time to let go of outdated habits, fears, or beliefs that no longer serve your purpose. Cancer’s energy enhances your connection to your intuition and emotions. Journaling, meditation, or quiet reflection can help clarify your next steps. Focus on creating a supportive environment in your home and relationships, ensuring stability as you move through the year. The Wolf Full Moon is a time to step into your inner power, realign with your goals, and honor your connection to both community and the natural world.
Remember—Life is not a spectator sport. We cannot stand on the sidelines and participate from a distance. We are being asked to enter a process that encourages our creative aspects and pushes our edges so they might be softened. Something intimate and alchemical is required right now and we need to pay attention.
To move forward, make yourself at home where you are. Stop trying to fix everything! Shift your mindset about how you think about change—for truly, change is NOT an interruption, but a natural and ongoing cycle of Nature. Recognize that the social media feeds are curated and neat, happy endings are not found in real life. No modality, nothing outside you, no matter how temporarily uplifting, can change you or rescue you.
All of us go through times of transition, challenges, and difficulties. We may have faced or will face times of loss, confusion, or heartbreak, when we realize we cannot control the way our life is unfolding, whether in our personal lives or in the world around us. By practicing mindfulness, we can learn to move through these intense, challenging times in ways that might surprise us. We can even learn to open our hearts to the richness and wisdom these times of immense disruption can bring us. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about how to “stop running” in this 9 minute video that is a gentle reminder to be present and come home to our body.
When we touch this experience of coming home, it is like we finally arrived home after a long journey. We experience a sense of peace and even freedom, no matter how confining the outer circumstances are. Coming home to ourselves feels like belonging; it is a state that holds us and enables us to hold others. This is so important because some of us may live our entire life being apart and estranged from this home within ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh was able to sum up his whole lifetime of teachings with one sentence: “I have arrived, I am home.” For him, the principal aim of mindfulness practice is to experience that we have already arrived, here and now. This is a precious reminder for us: there is nowhere we need to run to or be, other than right here in the present moment. When we experience ourselves at home, no longer looking for refuge outside of us, in some other place or time, when we touch the truth that all we long for and search after is here inside of us—this is the homecoming. This is the space of intimacy and alchemy. This is our connection to our deepest roots and our most Divine Self.
Because we cannot control the future, we are unable to find what we need to meet those moments—in a day, week, or month from now. However, we will find what we need for the moment right now. When we are not aware of what is happening in the moment, because we are caught up in our thoughts or in the grip of worry or other strong emotions, it is as if we have left our house. Stress and tension accumulate in our bodies and minds, and over time, if we don’t tend to them, they can lead to physical or psychological illness.
The beauty of awareness is that we can always return home to ourselves. Our home is always there, waiting for us to come back. There are numerous ways we can go home to ourselves: by being aware of our breath, by being aware of body sensations or bodily movements, and by connecting with the reality around us, like the sounds in our environment. When we come back home in these ways, we are able to take stock and survey the territory of our being, seeing clearly what parts of our inner landscape need more support, where we need to pay more attention.
It may also be hard to come home if we sense that unresolved pain has accumulated and we choose not to face it. We can create the habit of avoiding our home completely, because the raw, unprocessed parts of our lived experiences might be painful and quite scary.
If this is our situation, it is important to have compassion for ourselves for not wanting to return home to face these places inside of us. And yet the only way we can heal them, move through them, and make our home a more cozy place is to turn toward them. As the saying goes: “The only way out is through.”
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. Her work is based on the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice.
We Were Made for These Times is the 2021 book by Kaira Jewel and she talks about the Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. One of the meditations mentioned is the following, called I AM HOME:
Sit, lie, or stand in a comfortable position that supports you to be alert and also relaxed. Begin by feeling the contact between your body and whatever surface is supporting you. Let yourself rest in this place, returning to this moment, here and now. Invite whatever parts of yourself that may still be dispersed to come back and settle.
Set the intention to come home to yourself, to be present for yourself. You deserve this care, you are precious and unique, in all the world there is no one else who brings the precise combination of gifts that you bring. Allow yourself to arrive here as fully as you can. And welcome the many parts of yourself home.
You may already begin to feel yourself settling into the home inside of you: the place of your strength, wisdom, and clarity. A place that is trustworthy and capable of providing you with refuge in the storm. But if not, continue to stay with awareness of your body sensations, sounds, or breathing. A sense of coming home will develop over time. It may not happen the first time you meditate, but as you become more attuned to yourself, you will find you have been at home all along.
I AM HOME
Arrived in the present moment, home in myself, just as I am.
Arrived, arrived,
at home, I am at home,
dwelling in the here and dwelling in the now.
Solid as a mountain, free as a white cloud,
the door to no birth and no death is open,
free and unshakeable.
—Plum Village song
Acupuncture and herbal medicine are some of the tools I use to support the health and wellness of my patients, but the healing that occurs is always prompted from the inside. The answers to health and wellness reside in your heart. Treatment in my healing sanctuary goes beyond the needles—they simply serve to prompt the body to do its own mysterious and miraculous work.
I help people learn how to listen to their body’s wisdom and reconnect the unconscious mind to nurture the mind-body connection. This work allows people to realize their full capacity and choose to live a life aligned with their values, nourished by their dreams and desires. Together, we co-create opportunities for healing as the process unfolds.
I offer compassionate, attentive care. I see you. I hear you. I celebrate your journey. As an experienced clinician, I support patients as they come home to themselves, reconnecting the mind, body and spirit. This is my greatest passion: to serve as a facilitator, navigator and coach as you transcend old patterns and come into alignment with your best self. Are you ready to choose your Self and celebrate your gifts? Are you ready to manifest your Authentic Self that is abundant with health and vitality? Commit to being present and living your life with intention. Schedule your consultation today!
