When Megan Murphy lived in Homer full time, she focused on community-level and systems work that included crafting plant medicines and coordinating a community-wide wellness initiative. She also worked as an environmental educator, researcher and science communicator. When she and her family moved to Illinois, she began the more inward journey of focusing on the individual work of discovering how to best care for herself, which includes nurturing her intuitive gifts.

Combining her passions with a goal to help others on their own path of self-care, Murphy wrote “The Inner Garden,” a channeled guidebook and illustrated card deck.

“This book offers a personalized map to learn more about yourself and your gifts so that you can navigate and address your particular needs,” Murphy said. “The guidance within can enable you to alight your own rhythm to that of Mother Earth’s seasons, determine your own unique physical, emotional and spiritual constitution and support you in develop and practicing heart-centered living.”

The framework is based on Ayurvedic holistic wellness and uses parallels to the Earth’s ecosystems to convey an individual’s physical, emotional and spiritual constitution.

“The gut microbiome, the soil of your inner garden, is at the foundation of your well-being. Each successive chapter builds on facets of how to tend this inner garden, with each chapter including self-reflective questions, card deck exercises and meditations to support heart-listening,” she said.

This is the book that Murphy wishes she had seven years ago when she began exploring her own intuitive gifts and learning how to listen to her heart.

“I wanted a textbook, something tangible to reference and support my understanding of what I was experiencing, how to trust that I was actually hearing my heart and that my mind wasn’t playing games with me,” she said.

For Murphy, living the guidance shared within the pages of her book coincided with the creation of the book.

“While writing about the Inner Garden framework, the importance of the gut microbiome and tending the needs of our unique constitutions, I was being led through a deep dive into what my constitution was, what foods were best for my body at specific times of the year, foods that enabled me to reduce inflammation within my body, and more,” she said. “It’s like I was test-driving this book while simultaneously building it.”

Along the way, Murphy decided that she wanted to include a set of oracle cards to go along with the book and collaborated with Homer artist Brianna Lee to create the artwork for the cards.

“Sometimes called divination cards, oracle cards are a tool that can be used to bypass the mind and facilitate communication with your own heart,” she said. “When used with intention, asking specific questions that have yes/no answers and being in the present moment, oracle cards can support your heart’s guidance in ‘speaking up.’

“I bought Bri’s painting, “Cosmic Sea,” years ago and was so taken by the ocean scene with its movement and brilliant colors. She came to mind immediately all these years later when I was being guided to create this book and adding the oracle cards, knowing that art would be necessary.”

Lee spent two years creating a body of work of the same name, creating sketches and ideas for each chapter as she read Murphy’s drafts. Her paintings are on display at Bunnell Street Arts Center through June 4.

Murphy also collaborated on the book’s forward, inviting Ilarion ‘Kuuyux’ Merculieff, an Unangan elder, to write it after she came across his video, “It’s All About Relationship.”

“This video was a phenomenal source of support and validation for the experience that I was having and articulated exactly what I feel is the crux of humanity’s biggest challenges at this time, that ‘fundamentally, there is a need for a spiritual consciousness shift’ and that we need to learn how to reconnect to our heart’s guidance,” Murphy said. “Ilarion is doing such important work, some of which is connecting Indigenous elders from around the globe and sharing Mother Earth’s message.

“The wisdom of the Indigenous elders is saying exactly what ‘The Inner Garden’ is conveying, specifically about the need to connect with our hearts and symbiotically partner with Mother Earth. I realized that it would mean so much to have him write the book’s forward, and what he wrote perfectly frames the guidance that is offered within the book. Working with Bri and Ilarion and gaining the support from the written guidance itself have been the most joyful aspects of this project to date.”

As a Homer community member from 2004 to 2018, Murphy was focused on community-level and systems work. She participated as a steering committee member of Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership of the Southern Kenai Peninsula, or MAPP of the SKP, a community coalition whose goal was and continues to be to develop and support a long-term vision of community well-being. In 2012, she became its second coordinator.

“It was in a MAPP steering committee that I had the epiphany of the importance of cultivating inner well-being in order to create ‘outer’ well-being particularly at community-level scales,” she said. “Homer offered multiple service providers that introduced me to energy work and experiencing myself as a spiritual being having a physical life, an important environment to be within as I was navigating an expanded self-awareness.”

In 2018, Murphy and her family moved to Illinois to live on her family’s eight-acre centennial farm, keeping a 0.1-acre urban homestead in Homer. Murphy and her husband Steve pursued on-farm self-employment opportunities, him with a creative carpentry business, Intuit Studios and her creating her business, Backyard Beauty, with cut flowers and perennial farming.

“With COVID and my own journey’s evolution, my Backyard Beauty business morphed into writing this book and framework, crafting plant medicines to support gut microbiome health and participating in Illinois food systems work,” she said. “My Illinois farm systems work has made me further appreciate the phenomenal collaborative nature of the southern Kenai Peninsula communities, like MAPP, and the willingness to work towards shared goals. This is the most important community skill to cultivate, particularly as we navigate more chaos and challenges at all levels.”

Not a stranger to publishing, in 2021, Murphy co-authored with 25 other women the book, “Empowered Self Care: Healing Body, Mind & Soul for a Better World.” The research she conducted on larval crab populations in Kachemak Bay between 2007 and 2009 as part of her Master’s degree in biological oceanography was published in the scientific journal, “Estuaries & Coasts.” She has also written numerous self-care and regenerative agriculture-focused blog posts on her website, backyardbeauty.net.

As these more recent years living in Illinois have given her the opportunity to focus on the individual work of discovering how to best care for herself, Murphy is eager to help others support their own journey to wellness.

“With ‘The Inner Garden’s completion, it finally feels like I’m emerging from the chrysalis and getting to meaningfully share my work,” she said. “’The Inner Garden’ acknowledges that we are living in chaotic and environmentally challenged times and that the most important action we can take at this time on Earth is to first heal our individual selves so that we can reconnect with our hearts. My book provides an overview of how to discover and then care for your unique wellness needs in addition to offering guidance on how to practice heart-listening.

“I am very eager and excited for this guidance to be available for anyone who desires this type of support.”

A limited number of Oracle card decks are available for purchase at Bunnell Street Arts Center. Both the e-book and hard copy versions of “The Inner Garden” will be available in early June, with Murphy announcing the book’s release on her Instagram account, @backyrdbeauty, and on her website.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Megan Murphy did not coordinate the creation of MAPP, but participated as a steering committee member and then became the coordinator after it was underway.

Megan Murphy, former Homer community member, recently published her book, “The Inner Garden,” in collaboration with Homer artist Brianna Lee. Photo provided by Megan Murphy

The cover for “The Inner Garden” by Megan Murphy shows artwork by Brianna Lee. Photo provided by Megan Murphy

“January” is a watercolor and oil painting on cradled Aquabord by Homer artist Brianna Lee, in collaboration with a book by Megan Murphy. Photo provided by Megan Murphy

The first chapter from Megan Murphy’s book, “The Inner Garden.” Photo provided by Megan Murphy