Full Moon in Sagittarius, Lunar Eclipse

Friday 5/24 at 9:25pm PDT

They say that this is one of the most powerful Full Moons of 2013. This eclipse has a SuperMoon, when the Moon is as close as it ever gets to the Earth, in a straight alignment with the Sun and Earth. The SuperMoon makes this Lunar Eclipse extra potent and important. Ooh, time to fasten seatbelts!

Some of the names different cultures use for this month’s Full Moon include:

• Milk Moon
• Dragon Moon
• Bright Moon
• Hare Moon
• Grass Moon
• Planting Moon
• Panther Moon
• Flower Moon

Most of the names allude to the lushness and growth of this early Summer season, don’t they? (Yes, the way I see it, we’re already in Summer’s energy. Seeds have sprouted, I’m seeing flowers on the tomato plants and blackberry vines, days are getting longer and longer. Aaahhh, that sultriness, I love it.)

Sagittarius helps us weave our stories, myths and meanings

What stories are you telling yourself about this now moment? What do see as possible for you, for your community, for the planet? What do you say to inspire yourself and others to keep moving in the direction of your highest good?

With the Sun, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter now all in Gemini, the energy this week should start feel more fluid, changeable and undefined with fiery Sagittarius opposite airy, open-minded, fast-moving Gemini during this week’s Full Moon. This invites us forces us to let go of the resistant death grip on stagnation we may have developed during the last cycle (all that Taurus-Scorpio energy can get pretty stuck and sludgy, believe me, as a Scorpio, I know!). Once you pop free, hopefully you’ll land on your feet—or at least bounce back to standing—and lighten up, be more flexible, less attached, nimble and open to change.

You’re gonna need that openness and nimbleness, because that stagnant energy is getting stirred up now and in that freed-up state, you may all of a sudden see more than one way to move forward. You gotta pick your path, find your way, listen for your own story and heed it, be guided by your inner GPS. Because, beautiful, no external person or force can make this decision for you.

There’s relief in this, isn’t there?

The inner planets are finally finished with their paralyzing dance with Saturn. Whatever was blocking you from moving forward with your intentions and plans is being released. The increasing awareness and openness you feel frees you to move forward. Despite any confusion about what might be best, choose a path and move in the direction of your highest good.

As long as the path you choose keeps you moving forward in the direction of your passion, and your growth, and your mission and purpose, you cannot make a bad decision. What’s next for you in your business, lovely? Now’s a really really good time to start!

Every Full Moon invites you to celebrate the progress you’ve made on manifesting the intentions you set on the previous New Moon. As this SuperMoon has waxed towards full, what have you taken on? What have you risked? And what sacred and audacious action is next? Please share what you’ve manifested with me in the comments.

But wait, there’s more!

I’m on day four of 30 days of a cleanse

One that will help me learn how to be more mindful, and open to receive

To receive healing. To receive peacefulness. To receive wellbeing.

My journey, since I’ve been sick, has been a very active one. I am such a good doer! I have done so much, I have tried so hard to make healing happen. Cures, remedies, doctors, other doctors, woowoo practices and practitioners. Doing and seeking and trying with so much determination. So much chasing. Receiving—not so much.

When the calendar turned to May, and it became 18 months since this condition began, I found myself letting go. I found myself hearing an inner call to stop, to retreat from all the doing. To put the remedies, and the supplements, aside for a while, to slow down a bit, and to open myself up to hear, to feel, to receive.

What I’m finding is that by removing some of this doing, the connection to my own inner voice, my intuition, is becoming more open and more clear. And now that I’m open to receive, I’m downloading some pretty powerful messages.

Putting on my big-girl panties and facing what’s true

In my addiction, for 22 years, I chased my get-high 24/7. I was committed to doing everything I could to numb myself, to not feel, to be anything but present to the moment.

And then, 22 years ago, I got clean and sober, and spent much of the first ten years in a dumbfounded WTF state. It took me a long time to find a way to be in life that wasn’t agonized. And I’m seeing so clearly that just there are a whole lot of behaviors that I have not yet found the way to change, and release.

I get to change.

I choose to release.

I think I really really need to, that at this point, my life and ability to be of service, depend upon it.

I’ve been that one, the one who inhales her food, while watching tv, while playing a game on my iPad, while talking on the phone, while ironing.

And this cleanse I’m doing now, while it involves cleaning up my already clean diet, is really about adding an ingredient to my meals: Mindfulness.

I’m limiting my distractions to one at any meal. I can read a book. I can read or play on my iPad, or I can watch tv. One. (I still blanch when I think and write this!) And one meal a day, I go outside with my food, away from my books and tech toys, and eat in the garden. Watching the birds, the sky, the flowers and trees.

How do you bring mindfulness, peacefulness to your life? How do you receive healing? When have you stopped chasing a solution and instead opened to receive? I’d love to hear what you have to say. Please leave a comment, beautiful!

But wait, there’s more!

Sharing my gratitude with you

• I am grateful for gorgeous weather
• I am grateful for the abundant food of May: cherries, asparagus, snap peas
• I am grateful for the sisters of choice, and that we are on a shared spiritual path
• I am grateful for Mother’s Day love to and from my daughter
• I am grateful for early morning yoga class on Sunday morning
• I am grateful that I enjoy 6:30 am wakeups on Sundays — that’s a huge change
• I am grateful for willingness to try something new for the next month, a different way to be with food, and see what that does for my health
• I am grateful that I get to retreat to Harbin Hot Springs tomorrow for an overnight retreat, complete with hot stones massage and a watsu — yum!
• I am grateful for good books. Right now I’m reading Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun series — excellent!
• I am grateful for the soul retrieval work I am doing with the help of a shaman

So much gratitude!

But wait, there’s more!

My t’ai chi teacher drilled Surrender To Win into me for years

And I’m still learning what surrender means, more being revealed, as it always is, slowly, slowly…

Most people don’t get the “surrender” concept at all at first when I talk about t’ai chi. Instead, they say, “Oh, yes, that soft art where you use your opponent’s energy against herself, right?”

It’s easy to see it that way. But as with all powerful spiritual traditions, I’ve learned, in the 40 years I’ve been practicing this art, that it’s deeper than that. Surrender to win is nothing less than giving up any and all investment in the outcome, all outcomes.

Using my opponent’s energy against herself, for me, connotes a whole bunch of wiliness, planning, strategy. The moments when I truly get the concept, when I’m truly surrendered, I have dived into the mystery with willingness, awareness and trust. Willing to be led wherever I’m supposed to go, whether it’s where I think I want to be or need to be. Aware that there are messages and lessons in the act of being led, if only I can open myself up to them. Trust in the journey, trust that I’ll get what I’m supposed to get when I’m supposed to get it.

Deep, yo.

Last week, I marked the 18-month point of being sick.

That’s 18 months with a so-far undiagnosable severe digestive problem. One that is pretty tiring, and that has me spending far too much time in the bathroom, and far too little time out and about, because my energy is so depleted.

But wait, there’s more!

I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful.

Sometimes gratitude looks like this:

• I’m grateful I’m not having surgery without anesthesia right now.
• I’m grateful I’m not covered in honey and staked to an anthill.
• I’m grateful I haven’t alienated even more people this week.

Yes, it’s been that kind of a week.

Just sayin’, this Full Moon in Scorpio kicked my Scorpio ass.

• On Wednesday I dropped my iPad and shattered the glass big time. To the point that bits of glass were falling out all over the place. Dented frame. Everything.
• On Thursday I couldn’t deposit a check from a client, because, despite my best efforts and clear instructions, the check was made payable to my business name, and my bank account is not a business account.
• Today, the new website we just launched for a client was a little bit broken, and three WordPress experts at my Meetup group didn’t know how to fix it.

And I found gratitude anyway.

• I’m grateful that I had the money to replace my iPad.
• I’m grateful that I spent five minutes in discernment:

Do I really need to replace the iPad? I could live without it, right? [five minutes tick by...] Uh, no. Just like I would replace a busted tire on my car, I will replace this essential technology. Please don’t judge me too harshly. I know, in fact, that there are people in the world that would have seen the blessing and opportunity to lighten their gadget load. Not me.

• I’m grateful that after pounding my fridge in frustration about the undepositable check that I remembered, first, that I had a heart; second, that I could turn away from my problems and sink into my heart, and third, that I could ask that powerful question, “Is there room for love, even here?”
• I’m grateful that that moment of surrender and meditation allowed a release of stress and an influx of peace and acceptance.
• I’m grateful that I looked for and found the middle place of both standing for what is needed and being kind and appreciative in getting my support team to complete a project. I call this the Sovereignty Sandwich: appreciate and acknowledge, explain and insist on what’s needed, appreciate and acknowledge again. Thanks to Yollana Shore for teaching me this important tool!
• I’m grateful for launching two websites for two beautiful clients this week: OmniConsultants and Happy Being You.
• I’m grateful that my web developer knew how to fix the seemingly unfixable problem.
• I’m grateful for the joint venture I’m developing—a series of teleclasses that launch in October. Eek!
• I’m grateful that it’s Friday evening and I am done with a prodigious amount of work. This last month has been extremely intense!

Do you ever get so frustrated that you begin to think that you’re  doing it wrong, and that you should just give up?

• Do you wonder if anyone is reading what you write? And worry that you’re not getting enough new subscribers, the ones you want, members of your ideal-client tribe?
• Do you share generously and consistently on social media and wonder why your followers and likes aren’t growing?
• Do you put your gifts out as beautiful offers and wonder if anyone will ever sign up for your teachings, and if your business will survive and thrive?

Do you begin to wonder if you should just give up? You can’t, you just can’t, and I’ll tell you why.

The story that follows will illustrate why your only choice is to just keep showing up, transparently, authentically, passionately, from your heart. Because you don’t get to know when the right and perfect person will remember the right and perfect thing you wrote or said, and take the right and perfect action, the one you intended in the first place.

[You may wonder how the following story applies to your business. It does, precious. The lesson in this story is not only about your business, it applies to your relationships, your wellness practices, your spirituality, your everything.]

I raised my daughter through some incredibly difficult years. As she became an older teenager and started looking for jobs, I passed on to her the things I thought she needed to learn, things I knew would be helpful life skills, things like:

• Dress nicely when you go out and look for work
• Fill out the applications carefully and neatly
• Ask to speak to the manager
• Go back, or call back, a few days later…Follow up!

My daughter listened to me—barely—rolled her eyes, and responded the same way every time:

• M-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-—it’s not like it was when you were younger, you have no clue what it’s like now
• There aren’t any jobs, there just aren’t
• You don’t know what you’re talking about

…followed by a slammed door, or a slammed-down phone (and I’m sparing you the curse words).

I would leave these conversations so downhearted, so discouraged. I would pray,  release her and release some more, asking the Divine to take her, take her, guide her, teach her what she needs to learn, what she needs to live a good life, do for her what it seemed I so clearly couldn’t do.

I would lean on my girlfriends, and my sister, for compassion. Even if they couldn’t relate, or really understand, they could still love me through this.

This went on, and on, and on…

And then one day my sister called me, made sure I was sitting down, and then told me this:

I called your daughter to say hi, and asked how she was. She told me that her boyfriend’s nephew was living with them, and was having trouble finding work. And how it was driving her crazy, because no matter how often she told him how he should dress nicely when he went out job-hunting, how he should fill out the applications neatly, how he should talk to the manager, and go back and follow up… No matter how much she told him, he just wouldn’t listen!

But wait, there’s more!

Are you hearing, feeling, remembering your ancestors?

Lately I’ve been feeling the presence of my departed parents. Very closely. I dreamt this morning, just before dawn, of my father. In my dream, I was packing up to leave. Emotionally wrought. And, in a way that rarely happened in our lives together, my dad came up to me and handed me some things I might need to take with me. In loving silence.

I am cloaked in this feeling of my father’s love now in the early morning as I write this.

We’re coming up on Beltaine—the first of May—the pagan festival that honors new life and growth. It’s said that the veils between the worlds are thinnest around Beltaine, just as they are at Samhain time at the end of October. (We’re more used to thinking of our beloved dead at Samhain time, with all its attendant symbols of skulls, and skeletons, and coffins, but here at the opposite spot on the Wheel of the Year, the veils thin again.)

Celebrate the thinning of the veils.

Spend some time at your ancestors altar, or create one. Display some photographs. Eat a meal, listen to music, that they loved. Talk to people you know who also remember them. Sink into your gratitude. What is remembered, lives.

How do you honor your ancestors, precious? Join the conversation in the comments.

But wait, there’s more!