Hi, I'm Katie Hemphill, a writer focused on the interweavings of spirituality, embodiment, and connection to the lands that make up this Planet Earth.
I call it an Embodied Spirituality, a worldview, one combined with practice, that knows ourselves as grounded and centered within our own bodies upon this Planet Earth; whilst, simultaneously connected, interwoven as a collective web of life.
I write in contrast to what I witness in the world, which has a whole lot to do with people viewing themselves in isolation while being desperate to ascend, progress, or otherwise rise up and out of here. This observation is what created the foundation for "upward slopes" - the critique of the ascension narratives that rule our world, and while doing so, strip us out and away from the present, embodied experience of life on Planet Earth.
These "ascension narratives" can be found in most any system in our world: from science to religion, tech, self help, etc. We focus on what is wrong here and now, and we set our sights on making it better. Our life unfolds as a continuous drive to be somewhere else, and feel some other way, than what is right here, right now.
I do not write to hate on progress, nor do I write to hate on healing, or any other transformation that brings forth more light into this world. Rather, I write to bring forth a more wholesome worldview:
- can we be present in the here and now for all that it is?
- can we look forward to a brighter future moment, calling upon skillful discernment to take aligned steps towards where we best be headed?
Current Writings
You can find my writing on Substack, here on The Mountain Mystic Blog, and in book form.
Find me on Substack
Head over to The Mountain Mystic Blog
Read my Ebook: We Are The Forest - Walking an Embodied Path of Collective Healing
Exerpt:
I’ll be honest with you. I can’t be sure, exactly, of how I found myself here immersed in the weavings of biology and spirituality. What I do know is that it is the forest - my hometown forest - that awakened me from my slumber and brought me into a deeper knowing of that which is alive in our world; and, that which is alive within our very own beings.
It happened amidst my own deep descent - dropping down out of the stories that had been programmed within me, and freefalling through the vast unknowns; it’s here, wrestling my own demons and battling my way through a great unknown, that I found it.
It’s here that I found it, at last! Solid ground - as I walked (or, in my case, often ran) my backyard trails on the land that had finally successfully called me back home.
My home lands calling me back home - after nearly a decade away, off spending one long year after the next trapped in a life I’d been told was important. All-the-while, I’d been hearing the whisperings of the ponderosas calling me home; day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year...
It’s here, at last answering their call, that I, myself, could finally wake up.
It’s here, working hand-in-hand with the forests I now know so well, that we get to come together as one to continue to wake up.
Works in Progress
- A Trip Up A Mountain - A memoir and spiritual teaching centered on connection to this Planet Earth. Calling upon "The Mountain" as our guide, teacher, and own embodied experience of reality, we explore story, teaching, and practice of what it means to ascend in a grounded, centered, and otherwise skillful way. I started writing in 2022, and am allowing this book to take its time to come into form.
- We Are The Forest - The Ebook above, expanded and otherwise updated to be made available in book format.
- A Little Book of Spiritual Teachings (working title) - my attempt at laying down the most essential practices for any modern human being who wishes to "wake up." Calling upon my formal trainings in Yoga Therapy and Priestessing, combined with my own wild and unique experiences as a millennial and modern human being, I cut through all the dogma and speak directly to the practices that best serve the practitioner.