A Winter Oracle

from the depths of December, with Cheese and Love

Hello, faithful readers. Thank you for being here with me. I have something quite special for you today, and I am coming from a pretty tender-hearted place. So I am grateful to be witnessed, and to have the company.

It’s Tuesday, and I’ve just made it back to my little apartment in Richmond, Virginia. The past few days were full and strange. I spent a long weekend visiting chosen family up in New Haven, singing carols, eating really good cheese, poking around Yale, and soaking up every single ounce of kid time I could. Whenever I see these particular children, I make an effort to freeze and capture as many details about where they currently are as I can. We used to see each other all the time! I used to know every detail automatically! I am so proud of them.

My visit was capped with a stop in Maryland at my childhood home, to pick up Iris. My parents were watching her. Yesterday, we had to put our family dog down. He was an old boy when he arrived to Arcadia Street after his original lady passed away. We didn’t have him long, but he was still ours for the time. I know it was his time, but I still feel emotionally hungover today from saying goodbye, especially in the context of all the tragedy happening in our collective experience. It has been a heavy week. But we are still here, and we are alive, and we are here together. That’s not nothing, you know?

I have been plotting and planning ~substack content~ for the New Year, and I am excited for everything that lies ahead. 2026 is a HUGE year for me, and I will fully be living in a different reality on the other side of it. That reality has already begun to take shape, in whispers and echos reaching back through time, from the future, to where I sit now. I am excited to take the next couple of days and root back into my rituals in this little fragment of time. It already feels like the past to my body. Isn’t that strange?

Before I sat down to write this, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to share. I thought maybe I’d write an ode to Rob Reiner’s mastery of the voice as medicine, or an ode to Finbarr the Dog and the way we are kept alive even after we’re gone through those who loved us that are still here, or a deep dive into effective ways to process and channel your grief into action and inspiration.

But then I felt a warm voice wrap around me, up my spine, blossoming in my heart like a red, red rose, and it told me to rest, honey. Do more with less. How thoughtful, such warmth. I am flirting with a certain sort of soul exhaustion at the present moment, and it has taken me years and years to unlearn the instinct to POWER and PUSH MYSELF THROUGH IT. True rest is a necessity in certain moments. Nothing a few days of good sleep, simple food, and reliably practiced routines can’t move off of me.

So as my butt hit the desk chair, it became clear: this is an oracle evening.

This is not fortune telling. This is a mirror, reflecting various aspects of yourself back to you in a way that might be clarifying, helpful, or comforting. All you have to do is take a deep breath, and focus in on your heart. Once you feel calm and grounded, scroll down and choose piece of cheese (!! we have fun here) below, then scroll again for the corresponding message. I am currently leading one of my clients in a study of the Celtic Tree system, so we’re working with those archetypes.

1. Gjetost

3. Brie

3. Aged Gouda

Did you choose one? Okay! Cool! Scroll on for your message…

Okay actually, wait, first, it’s Meg from the future, from after writing what I channeled for each option. Something fascinating happened. You can definitely read the individual message you chose, but they all fit together in an interesting way, as various aspects of the same person potentially. I’ll outline that at the very bottom, in case it feels resonant for you. It might not! Don’t make it fit if it doesn’t.