The Field Guide to You: A Year of Tiny Magic

January: Creating space for yourself in 2026

Welcome!
I’m so glad you’re here.

Here’s how The Field Guide to You will work:
Each month, I’ll share a theme. I’ll offer an example of something that inspired me, along with a prompt for you to explore in your own way. We are starting the year with the intention of making space for ourselves.

January theme: Creating Your Sacred Space

✧ Create a sacred space for yourself.
✧ Find something to collect tiny delights in.
✧ Give yourself time.

Prompt: What do you long for?
Is this longing connected to something you let go of long ago?
Or is it something you feel you should want in order to be successful?

Sit with this.
You can journal.
You can go on a walk.
You can wait to see what answers arise.

The Inspiration:

This podcast episode made me cry on my morning walk. It earned the very first page in my new journal.

While we all long for things, it’s often how we experience our daily lives that determines whether we feel content or endlessly waiting.

Andrew Garfield Wants to Crack Open Your Heart
In this podcast episode of Modern Love, Garfield reads and reflects on Chris Huntington’s essay Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss.

One line stopped me in my tracks:

“Be the best prisoner you can be.”

It filled me with sorrow for all the ways we put our lives on hold for what we thought they should be - and how often that keeps us from noticing what they could be.

Take a long walk and listen if you can.

You can also read the essay through The New York Times (You will need an account - but if you have a library card, it often gives you free access. I 💛 my library card).

A Note About Community:

I share my Monthly Nature Almanac and weekly Tiny Things for all my subscribers. I am offering The Field Guide to You for paid subscribers. There is a more private space where we can talk, share work, and reflect together. I’ll share more of my own art practice and creative tools – and fair warning, I tend to overshare and love a good conversation.

If that sounds like you, I’d love to have you join us.

I’m so honored you signed up to join me. I was hoping a few people might come along, but I’ve been truly overwhelmed by the response. I’m deeply grateful to share this practice with you – and to begin getting to know you.

Your Sacred Space

This January, let’s set up our spaces in a way that welcomes us in.

It doesn’t have to be much. It only has to be for you. A space made of tiny things that light you up.

My Sacred Space

This window brings the perfect light for creating.

My space is a desk full of plants.
Tiny crystals gathered in bowls.
A tarot deck.
A candle.
A bird feeder is stuck to the window where morning birds land.

(Quick note: the New Year rains have turned my bird feeder into a home for baby snails. I am completely undone by this.)

Your space doesn’t need to take long to create. It could be a tiny altar on the end table next to your couch. What matters is that it’s yours – a place to spend time with yourself, to notice what delights you, and to reconnect with what you may have left behind years ago.

We all begin somewhere. Sometimes it takes just one small step.

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Barriers to Entry

My sacred space was completely hijacked over the holidays. Piles of things everywhere. I lost the thread of it entirely. I couldn’t even light my morning candle because I couldn’t find a working matchbox.

So I gave up on candles.

I love candles. They center me. They begin my morning ritual. And yet – I let them go.

It’s funny how small disruptions can knock us off course when we don’t take the time to just set things right.

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A little sign I made for my space. More about this later. : )

Slowing Down

Over the holidays, I joined a ritual called 13 Days of Magic – an old European folk tradition that begins on the Winter Solstice. You write thirteen wishes on tiny scraps of paper and burn one each night for twelve nights, releasing them to the universe. You’re left with one final wish to guide you through the year.

Mine read:
“Slow down. Be intentional.”

It felt like kismet. I hear that quiet voice often – slow down. That’s where the magic lives.

I’ve learned it’s not how much I do, but how I feel while doing it. When I slow down, I create more meaningful work. I listen to my intuition. I make space for things I didn’t know lived inside me – and those tend to be the most powerful.

When I rush, things unravel. I make half-thought-out decisions. Time piles up. Days slip by. And I feel undone.

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The Invitation

Create a sacred space for yourself.
Find something to collect tiny delights in.
Give yourself time.

Please feel free to share your space – or even the idea of it – in the paid subscriber chat. I’ll be sharing mine too. 😊

If it is not the right time for you to join, maybe this time, you can observe. You plant the seeds. In time, you will be ready.