As the solstice offers its invitation to pause and embrace the fertile darkness, the unrelenting tide of modern living washes on the shores of my life and swallows the carefully crafted seashell, rock, and feather mandala designed so consciously by the intentions of my soul. Some days, it’s a high tide of unexpected tasks that land in my lap ushered in by the Gods of emails, Angels of What’s App, and Indra’s Net of text messages, or the 5pm rush of people barreling through the underground trying to get on the 8th Ave subway of my thoughts. On other days, I stare into the exposed ground of my being, my life, my offering (or what’s left of it), at low tide as the spiral of time turns. After the crashing chords have landed, the swirling waters of movement have danced with me, and then receded, I’m here standing among the sparkling stones and glistening colors of the setting sun welcoming stillness.
The shores of life look smooth, even soft in this moment, and I wonder is this simply the art of living… to be like the sand that bears witness and gives ground to what sought to rise in that moment and then withdraw? It tosses and turns, gives itself to the water, finds its way into shells, and creates magnificent pearls of existence.
What would it mean to give my own being the movement of that tide? To move like the water, to be the wave, unique and responsive, continuous and at the same time, every movement a one-time unrepeatable occurrence. To roll on the land, making an impact, and naturally withdraw as I feel complete… trust my instincts and agree to forever change the landscape of another. Am I comfortable being so fluid? Could I lay my body down on the soft sand during low tide, be absorbed, find my way into the interior of a shell and just rest for a while, nestled into stillness? Could I merge with the belly of a holding container versus rush back to the wild ocean in time for the next Zoom class, session, or event.
On the darkest day of the year, I am creating my annual matchbox, inspired by Gunilla Norris, author of Match, and my mother, Laurie Blefeld, author of Ordinary Moments of Grace, who studied with Gunilla and then taught me this contemplative practice. My intention is to tend the ancestral spark and wilderness in the soul of my being, and awaken my natural rhythmic, vibrational essence that quietly and consciously guides me forward.
This year, I share the matchbook practice with you as an invitation to welcome you to a sacred space where the spark of your light awaits and calls to you for illumination.
Constellations have taught us that everything moves in waves. Whether you are riding the peak or sinking in the trough, gifting yourself a daily oasis practice brings more attention, beauty, and power into every movement. Moving in resonance with your own unique frequency allows you to ride the waves that life inevitably brings and greet a bright 2025.
A Solstice Ritual: Matchbox Vision Board
Strike a match and set your vision ablaze with the power of your lineage
Vision boards are one of my favorite tools for manifesting my deeper soul intentions and desires. Plant a seed of light filled intention in the darkness. By striking a match each morning or evening, we renew our commitment to living into the optimal realization of that intention.
Step 1: Gather the Supplies
- Gather magazines, catalogues, greeting cards, old calendars, or search the internet for inspired images that you can print. You might write quotes on paper, draw or pain images, or use printed photographs of people or places that are important to you.
- Scissors
- Purchase Mod Podge or some form of clear glue to paste the images on.
- Purchase a matchbox, empty the matches, and count 90 matches for 90 days.
Step 2: Set the Tone and Write Your Intention
Create a ritual before you begin vision boarding. Set up your supplies, sit quietly. Light a candle. Call in your soul council, guides, and ancestral resources and welcome them to help you peel back the layers between you and your core truth, deepest desires, and heart’s invitations. Play music. Dance, move, put your hands on your heart and womb. Breathe. Take some time. With lots of kindness and openness, invite in the Mystery embodied. Draw an oracle card. Here are some that I love:
Contemplate your intention for your matchbox and perhaps write it on the cardboard inside the box.
Step 3: Choose the Images
Flip through the magazines and cut images from them. Rip out anything that delights or calls to you. Don’t ask why. Just gather the images! No gluing yet! Let yourself have fun looking through images and pulling out pictures or words or headlines that strike your fancy. Make a pile of images, phrases and words.
Step 4: Sort and Select
Sort through the images and begin to lay your favorites aside. Sorting is all about your intuition. Notice if any of the images don’t feel quite right. Trust yourself enough to release them.
Step 5: Design the Matchbox
Lay the images on your matchbox. I’m as interested in my shadow as I am my light. My mess often becomes my message to the world. So, if I am visioning a matchbox, I have one side represent the darkness I’m transmuting or the challenges or inquiries I’m exploring, and the other side be the manifested clarity or intentions I desire. Or I may have the bottom be what I’m rising out of, and the top be what I seek to create or become.
The options are endless.
Step 6: Glue the Images
After you’ve arranged all the items in a way that works for you, paste everything onto the board. Spread Mod Podge onto the empty cardboard matchbox being careful to avoid covering the strike plate. Glue the images to the box. You can then spread Mod Podge on top of the image to give it a hardened gloss texture. Make sure that the box will easily slide open.
Take your time doing this. If you haven’t already, write your intention for your match box practice on the cardboard insert inside the box. Let it dry.
Step 7: Strike a Match
Fill your box with ninety matches for a 90-day intentional practice. Strike a match every day. Ponder the images that are on your box. Read the words you wrote and re-commit each day for ninety days and more.
From Shadows to Radiance: Ancestral Healing and Visioning for a Bright New Year
With Emily Blefeld, LICSW & Dan Cohen, PhD
Free Zoom Gathering | January 5, 12–2 PM Eastern
Join Emily Blefeld and Dan Cohen for a transformative Seeing with Your Heart Gathering—an alchemical journey to illuminate the path forward. Together, we will weave ancestral wisdom, personal intention, and communal energy to plant seeds of light in the shadowed soil of the past, opening the way to a radiant new year.
This New Year marks a threshold— a portal into infinite possibility! Together in community, align with your highest potential, honor the gifts and wounds of those who came before, and illuminate your journey into 2025. Whether you are seeking to heal, to vision, or to simply connect with the aliveness of beginning anew, this gathering offers a luminous container for transformation.
Step into the New Year empowered by the guidance and love of your lineage.
P.S. Can’t make it live? Register anyway, and we’ll send you the recording. Let’s start the new year with a spark of magic and intention!
Begins: January 16, 2025
This 14-week master class is a journey of awakening where intimate personal emotions are understood in the context of the storehouse of human history. We give special attention to the birth of global corporations and the Scientific Revolution when alchemists were converted to scientists, and witches were persecuted, burned, and accused of insanity. The Science, Myth & Magic class wraps an original, panoramic frame around who we are and how we arrived here.
”Dan’s knowledge of history, culture, and mythology, combined with his ability to access fields of ancestral and spirit consciousness are extraordinary. The class helped me place my personal concerns and desires within the continuum of humanity’s enduring quest for the magic, the truth, that refuses to be disappeared.”
with Emily Blefeld & the Seeing with Your Heart Alchemy Team
Begins: January 27, 2025
Deep within the soul of every person lies a wild, untamed spark – a natural rhythmic, vibrational essence, that calls us to live fully and freely. Like a child finding its crawl, a bird soaring on new wings, or a fern unfurling roots beneath the Earth and fronds above, we are endowed with the instincts to move towards the vitality of life. This 16 week virtual program invites you to lift the barriers to your heart, deeply align with your primordial nature, and nourish the conscious flow of your life, work, and relationships.
Now is the time to embody the answer to the following question… do we have the courage to trust our instincts, embrace the soul-stirring ideas that awaken us, and move expansively toward the life that calls to us, rather than retreat into fear or doubt?
“This is a space to reclaim your essence, align with your truth, and rise into the flow of your life, work, and relationships.”
Back to the Roots
May 14-19, 2025 (Constellations Retreat & Game Drives)
May 19-25, 2025 (Tour of Mother Africa, Constellations at Sacred Sites, and Wisdom Teachings from Zulu Sangomas)
South African Family Constellation facilitator and trainer, Erik Andersen, and his wife, 5th generation native of KwaZulu-Natal, Christel (Engelbrecht) Andersen, are pleased to welcome an international circle of consciousness evolutionaries, led by Seeing with Your Heart co-founders Dan Cohen and Emily Blefeld to South Africa. This promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime immersion in Mother Africa on the lands that influenced Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellations. This unique gathering includes a 6-day Seeing with Your Heart immersion on a wild game reserve, five open safari game drives within the retreat experience, and a 7-day optional tour to sights of natural and spiritual significance in KwaZulu-Natal, led by Christel, shamanic rituals led by Gogo Nomzimane (a Zulu Sangoma), and constellations facilitated by Dan, Emily, and Erik.
We welcome you to embark on a profound journey of systemic transformation and healing. Held in the embrace of Africa, this retreat and excursion will connect you to the streams of consciousness that pulse with ancient, unified wisdom. It is time to embrace the eternal heritage of the Earth and the life it grows. Come to open your hearts to love and enlivened joy, while connecting back to the roots of all that you know and all that you seek to remember.
Bonus Resources
Every step on your journey is a choice. Whether you feel called to unravel the imprints of history or embody the rhythm of your wilderness, these programs are here to support and guide you.
This is your moment to root down into the essence of who you are and rise into the fullness of what’s possible.
Watch a Live Alchemical Constellation
Enjoy watching a free Zoom call that features an actual constellation.
Read Seeing with Your Heart Blog
Reflections on family systems, breaking free from patterns, and living fully.
Science, Myth & Magic Deep Dive Master Class Participant Stories
Hear Alchemical Constellations Training Graduates Reflections
With love and presence,
Emily and Dan
Seeing with Your Heart
