Ringing ears? It may be connected to your intuition. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of problems with the ears.

The ears—most of us don’t think much about them unless something goes wrong. Our ears are easy to take for granted. Unlike our eyes, which we can close to block out sight, for those of us with full hearing, our ears are always “on,” constantly receiving information. As always, talk to your doctor if you have concerns about muffled hearing, have difficulty hearing, or hear ringing in the ears. But what might be the spiritual meaning of ear problems?

Love is an ongoing, evolving experience, not something that can be won or lost. If you’re single this Valentine’s Day, explore a new perspective on the desire for love.

When we are young, many of us are concerned with dating, finding the right person, and settling down. Not all of us end up doing those things, and as we get older, we find we’re still looking for a partner while others around us have found theirs. Or, perhaps, we've settled down just fine, but then our relationship ends and we find ourselves single once again. Single life can involve a lot of “It’s fine, it’s fine, I don’t need anyone!” Which may well be true. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to want someone.

At winter's halfway point, take time to honor the past year's losses and harness the cleansing power of fire. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of Februalia.

In ancient Rome, before our modern calendar became what it is today, the year began in March, the month named for the war god Mars. Ten months of the year were counted up until December, which held the winter solstice, and what we now call January and February were unnamed, a dead zone in the year.

Grief is a sacred cycle, just like that of the moon. Utilize this powerful but simple month-long ritual to honor your grief in tune with the moon.

Grief isn’t linear, as much as we’d like it to be. We want to know when it will end; that it will continue to get easier until the pain is gone. The truth is, grief is cyclic. It ebbs and flows, arising around anniversaries, seasons, holidays, and other triggers.

More than ever, the world needs healers. If you feel drawn to the healing arts or community building, you might have been—or may be now—a witch.

Do you feel extra connected to nature, trees, and the seasons? Do you sometimes feel other people’s emotions as if they were your own? Do you find yourself attuned to the moon, the stars, and other unseen energies? Do you do healing work like counseling, nursing, medicine, massage therapy, herbalism, or nutrition, or any version of artwork or community building? You could be a witch. And you could have also been a witch in a past life.

January is one of the hardest times of year to establish new habits. Instead, use these compassionate intentions to support your body through the hard winter.

While the practice of New Year's resolutions was once a commitment to spirituality and community, it has evolved to frequently focus on things like diet and exercise. While setting intentions can be wonderful and the New Year can definitely feel like a fresh start, it’s actually a terrible time to be making big changes, especially when it comes to adding exercise and reducing calories.

It’s early December as I write this, and we are getting into grief season. As the daylight gets shorter and the moon comes out more, it’s natural to think about what was gained and lost over the last year. Traditionally, the Winter Solstice was called Yule, a 12-day celebration of the rebirth of the light after the darkest moment of the solar year. It’s a time for revelry, food, and joy, but it’s also about remembering was came before, about being in the sweet, if melancholy, embrace of the darker season. It’s about looking forward to the next year, but also about looking back at the last one. It is a natural time to be engaged with the feelings and processes of grieving. 

Overwhelming emotions are common but often feel insurmountable. Try these five techniques to ground yourself and unwind.

Big feelings are a part of life—and not just for toddlers, either. It’s normal and natural as a human being to have big reactions to the inevitable difficulties of life.

Unfortunately, our culture is not so good at handling our big emotions, and many of us have gotten the message that we should suppress and repress those feelings so we can continue to function. This is a bad idea, partly because those stuck emotions end up coming out in other ways, often as physical symptoms. When we’re constantly trying not to feel what we feel, we create a consistent stress response in our bodies, and that can make us really sick.

How are you breaking your own heart? The Three of Swords tarot card asks us to look into what is causing us pain.

The Three of Swords tarot card is somewhat dreaded—perhaps even more so than the heavy-hitting major arcana cards of Death or the Tower. It’s often called the Heartbreak Card, and it shows three swords piercing a bleeding heart—ouch.

Look at its placement in your reading, however: If it sits in your past or present position, it may represent shifting out of a phase of heartbreak. It may also be asking you to look at how a previous heartbreak is informing your current situation.

We are living in an era when pagan religions and personal spirituality are having something of a revival. Organized religion is still very powerful, but many people have been turning away from an official hierarchical religious structure and exploring spirituality on their own terms.

For some of us, this means cultivating certain powers we didn’t know we had—listening to our bodies, intuiting other people’s emotions, hearing the voice of gods (or goddesses) through meditation or plant journeys, and sometimes even having access to our spirit guides or ancestors who have passed over to the other side. These experiences are powerful and fascinating—and a little confusing.

While wasp stings can certainly be random and unfortunate, they can also teach us about ourselves and our perspective on life. What is the spiritual meaning of a wasp sting?

Stung by a wasp?

Whatever your reaction, a wasp sting sometimes feels like it’s trying to tell you something. What is the spiritual meaning of a wasp sting?

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?

I’m a winter witch—I love cozy sweaters, fireplaces, low lazy mornings, and time to do my rituals and meditate without all the pressure to get outside and soak up the sun. Summer witches tend to be nature witches—your herbalists, trail runners, ecologists and the like. Winter witches tend to be meditators or empaths—counselors, meditators, spiritual teachers. We like to be inside with our candles and tarot cards, maybe gazing at the moon. 

Then there’s Wade. His family is loving, but they have also experienced very little stress on their family system. Water people were the first to arrive in Element City, and their primacy is never questioned. He falls in love with Ember with a gentle naïveté. He keeps insisting that it could work, that fire and water could mix, that everything is going to be okay. There is a moment when he says to Ember—in front of a full crowd of Fire people, nonetheless: “I love you, Ember Lumen. And I’m pretty sure you love me, too.” Only someone with secure attachment—like really secure attachment—could say such a thing.

The Lovers tarot card doesn’t just indicate a new relationship on the horizon—it also represents deep archetypal wisdom about love, growth, and learning. Learn more about the spiritual meaning of the Lovers tarot card.

The Lovers tarot card is a happy one to receive, especially if we’re coming to the tarot deck asking questions about our love lives. Classically, it represents the divine marriage, perfect harmony, an

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?

My birthday lands in late September, and while I love the season, I don’t always love my birthday. I tend to get really melancholy around it, always comparing my reality against what I thought my life was supposed to look like at whatever the age is. Then I do that thing where it’s never enough—you know that thing?

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?