Musings | Test

What Tea Taught Me About Belonging to the Living Earth

I want to share the deeper calling behind offering the Mingjing Yunnan Tea Journey - an incredible immersion to Yunnan, China I am co-leading in November of 2026. The first thing to say is that this is not meant to be a retreat. It is an immersion. Retreats, as we tend to understand them, are often designed around personal healing, rest, and reflection. These are beautiful and necessary things. But what I experienced in Yunnan, a place renowned as the birthplace of tea, wa

jdetreglode

Mar 104 min read

Entering My Metal Era

Over the past few months, I’ve been spending more time looking at my astrology and my BaZi chart, and something has become very clear: I am moving into what I can only describe as my Metal Era . In BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny), my Day Master is Yang Yang Metal. Metal, in the language of the Five Elements, is the element of the blade. It is the energy that refines, cuts, and discerns. It separates what is true from what is not. When Metal is operating well, it does not cut f

jdetreglode

Mar 104 min read

The Shadow Side of the Yang Fire Horse of 2026

The Yang Fire Horse is a powerful image: speed, charisma, momentum, and heat. It is the archetype of movement - of charging forward with conviction, appetite, and will. In its most luminous expression, this year carries courage, vitality, and the capacity to break through stagnation. But every force that moves this quickly also casts a long shadow. The shadow of the Yang Fire Horse is excess and shallowness mistaken for freedom. I write about the shadow side not to diminish t

jdetreglode

Jan 75 min read

I Ching Reading for 2026

Hexagram 10 → Hexagram 58: From Treading Lightly to Joyousness As a gift to this community during our transition into 2026, I offer a communal I Ching reading. What has emerged feels uncannily aligned with the energetic shift between years -from the Yin Wood Snake of 2025 into the Yang Fire Horse of 2026. There is something almost playful about how these alignments reveal themselves right when we need them. The reading landed on Hexagram 10 (Treading / Conduct) changing into

jdetreglode

Jan 43 min read

The Wisdom of our Inner Landscape

Anyone who has spent time with me in the last few years - in ceremony or in the moments in between - have probably heard me speak often about BaZi (pronounced ba-tzuh ). As we enter the Water season of winter, a time of reflection, depth, and inward descent, it feels like the perfect moment to share more about this incredible cosmology from ancient China. This is a system many people have never encountered, yet I truly believe it holds wisdom that can be profoundly transform

jdetreglode

Dec 3, 20253 min read

To Holiday or Not To Holiday - Part 2

As I continued my exploration into why folks choosing to not celebrate certain holidays felt sticky for me, I realized that part of that stickiness came from what I see as a subtle layer of privilege in the ability to “forego” holidays altogether. To be able to simply opt out of collective rhythms - to say “this day means nothing to me” or "I do not agree with this celebration" - requires a kind of freedom and insulation that not everyone has. It assumes we can step outside o

jdetreglode

Nov 4, 20255 min read

To Holiday or Not to Holiday?

Yes, this is the question. This is one to file under musings and unpopular opinions. Recently I have found myself responding very strongly to messages out there that indicate that there are certain holidays we should not be celebrating. I think what gets to me is what I feel to be a bit of hypocrisy in these messages. The messages, yes… they come from social media and yes… the speakers are putting it out there as their own opinion to not celebrate, stating that they are not t

jdetreglode

Nov 4, 20256 min read