Making A Life From Broken Pieces

Monday Oracle - Dream Restoration - 27 July 2026. Written and read by Nicole Cody

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen

Hello, Lovelies!

Welcome to this week’s Oracle — a reading to carry us through the days ahead.

I’m working with The Hero’s Journey Dream Oracle this quarter, by Kelly Sullivan Walden, with artwork by Rassouli. These beautiful cards speak to the fact that we’re souls having a human incarnation, that we get to choose our own adventure, and that however powerless our circumstances make us feel, there is power in us still.

As with all card decks, there is a guide book. But I read from my own internal lexicon instead, because a meaning printed on a page doesn’t know the kind of year you’re having. I sit with the week’s card and write down what comes; what it’s saying now, to us, in the week we’re actually in.

Which is the whole point of Pilgrimage to Self, our theme this quarter. Not looking up the right answer — learning to hear your own.

2026 is a profoundly intuitive and creative year, encouraging adaptability, flexibility and new beginnings that are both practical and sustainable. We’re closing out July’s theme of All the Feels — a month for slowing down and honouring our sensitivity — and stepping toward August, and Trust Your Instincts: a month for healing, for adventure, for leaning into our intuition, and growing into who we’re becoming.

Our card for the week ahead is Dream Redirection, and it brings up two things.

The first is an invitation to go back to a situation from our past that is still unresolved — the kind we can’t put right in real life.

Perhaps a loved one passed over and you never got to say goodbye. Perhaps a friendship ended before you could say what was in your heart. Perhaps you were misunderstood, and you never got to put your side.

This week we’re invited to sit in reflection, and take ourselves back — to that time, or to that person we can no longer reach — and re-dream the ending. To say our goodbyes. To say our piece. To speak what was in our hearts. And to bring it to a place of acceptance, and of letting go.

The second thing this card invites is a reframe: what can I make from what I have?

So often we’re left holding the broken pieces of a life we didn’t expect: illness, divorce, the loss of a job. There are so many reasons a life doesn’t turn out the way we planned.

This week, instead of only grieving the loss, pick the pieces up. Turn them over. Ask what they could still become. So often, in the fragments, there’s a chance at resurrection, at completion, and sometimes even a new direction.

I’ve been down on that floor among the shattered pieces of a life. When my illness began, I was going to be a lawyer. When my mind could no longer hold the complexity of that work, I turned to hospitality, then to business, each time reaching for the thing I thought I could still do. When my health took even that, I sat among the debris and worked out that I could still write. Not the novels I’d dreamed of. Writing for other people, from home, in my pyjamas, on the days I was able. It wasn’t what I wanted. But it was the door that was open, and I built a life through it.

That’s what I mean by resurrection. It’s not some grand concept. Resurrection is the plain work of getting yourself up off the floor, picking up the broken pieces at your feet, and making something from them.

🌿 This Week’s Guidance

Here’s how to work with the card this week.

First, think of a situation that still stings; a breakup, an argument, a loved one who passed before you could say goodbye. In your mind, or your heart, picture that person, or that situation. And sit with how it felt, the way it was.

Going back to the situation and sitting with your feelings can be hard. But it’s actually the most important step AND the one we usually skip. You have to feel it as it was before you can truly rewrite a different energetic outcome.

Now gather all your love, and hold it in your heart. See the person, or the situation, and imagine a different outcome. Say the things that needed saying. Do the things that needed doing. Rewrite the ending in a way that brings peace, and release. And when you’re done, sit a moment, and flow love to that person, to that situation, and to yourself.

When we imagine a different outcome to an ending, we’re always working with the past. But so often we’re living in the broken pieces of a past that has become our present, and may become our future. And that’s why this second practice becomes so important, because it gives us power where before we felt powerless.

Now think of a situation you truly can’t change, one where you still have to live with the consequences. And here is where you have to dig deep. You need to take yourself beyond the grief of that shattered dream on the floor and find your curiosity. Be brave and look at what’s left — being honest with yourself about your capacity, because whatever you build needs to be sustainable.

Ask yourself: What can I do with what’s left? What can I do with the pieces I still hold? If you’re able to sit with curiosity alongside the grief, that’s where the hope arises, the ideas spark, and the new directions can come.

📖 Journaling Prompt

Think of a situation where you wish there had been a different outcome.

Take a moment, and feel all of it - the feelings you had at the time, and the feelings that came afterward.

Now take a breath, and ask yourself what you would rather have felt instead. Instead of anger… peace? Instead of hard words… soft ones? Let your feelings guide you.

Write two lists. The feelings as they were, and the feelings you would like to end this with.

Then close your eyes, and visualise those second feelings. Sit in them a moment, as though they were already true.

🌟 Top Tip of the Week

Find something you can do this week, however small.

Find a way to use what you still have — your skill, your imagination, your gift for a thing. It might not be the way you’d planned to use it. Use it anyway. That counts.

Try one new thing. See where it goes.

Crystals to support you this week — Moonstone, our stone for the year, for connecting to your intuition. Carnelian, for creativity. Garnet, for inner strength. Citrine, for possibility. Red Jasper, for the courage to get up off the floor and begin again. And Pearl, for gentle emotional support.

🌿 A note from the Treehouse

Last week was a whirlwind — more medical appointments for me, and for some of my family, one after another. There wasn’t much room left over for anything except work. But late every afternoon we got down to the beach, for the grounding and the fresh air, and somehow that always helped me let go of the day, and get ready for the next one.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Ben took one look at me and came home with an emotional support animal. A giant plush Bingo, from the Bluey show. He thought I needed one. He was right.

Last week I also had a pitch to do.

A literary speed dating event, for my unpublished manuscript — How to Survive Dying. Three minutes to win a publisher’s interest. Normally I’d prepare for something like that within an inch of its life. This time I had nothing left and no time to prepare with. A dear girlfriend bounced ideas with me the day before, but I went to bed feeling like what I had wasn’t right.

On the morning of my pitch, I took a photo of my three emotional support animals: Rufous, Ben, and Bingo the Plushie. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to get through the day, but this was a great start.

On Friday, the day of the pitch, I still had other things that needed my attention, but my girlfriend read through my notes and sent encouragement. I went in to the session exhausted, undercooked, and too wrecked to mask.

I swore, twice, while describing my main character and his actions. The publisher didn’t bat an eyelid, and somewhere in the middle of being mortified I thought: Oh well. This is just me. This is how I’d talk if I was with my besties.

The book is about death being a door rather than an ending. It’s about love being the problem, and love being the cure. For everything. It sprang from the distilled work of thirty years of my metaphysical practice and work with clients. Rollo (my guide), had rather a lot to do with the writing of it too, though I’m never quite sure how you put that in a pitch.

Then the publisher asked if it was a Christian book, because I’d mentioned archangels. If it were, they weren’t interested. I looked them in the eye and said: I’m a psychic. I’ve been actively persecuted by Christians. So no — though I’m sympathetic to all faiths.

Okay, Nicole…

Nothing like putting it out there.

It was the first time I’ve ever sat in front of anyone in the publishing industry and simply said who I am, rather than trying to impress them.

When the call ended, I sat for a moment and thought: Well, that was a fair representation of me and my book. This is what I’ll write about for however long I’ve got. And if that’s not what they’re looking for, they’re not the right people for me.

I went in unmasked because I was too tired and too sad to hold a mask up. And it did me a favour. They didn’t just hear the story. I think they saw me. Fingers crossed they ask me to submit!

Wishing you a week of being seen too.

Love, Nicole xx

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