release Archives — Magnolias West

Darkness, goals, and your inner curmudgeon

December 16, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Solstice is just a few days away. And we’re lighting candles on the menorah in the darkness.

It’s dark, just a few short hours of bright light every day, and then the darkness descends, with its invitation to connect to your inner light.

The year-end time whispers its invitation to get complete with the year that’s ending and then look ahead to plan and create goals that will guide you to the full expression of your purpose and passion.

You’ve probably done it before — it’s a natural inclination to feel into a theme for the new year, and step into the vision that theme can bring.

How your plans unfold depend largely on your mindset.

When you create a plan or theme for the new year, you’re capturing your thoughts and wishes and creative spark in that moment. [Read more…]

In the darkness, take time to review, complete, release the year that’s ending

December 2, 2017 6 Comments

Are you feeling that impulse to plan?

As the darkness deepens, as we head toward the Solstice and the return of the light in the north, a natural impulse arises to get complete with the year that’s ending and look toward the coming year to map out visions, plans, and goals.

I learned a long time ago that “resolutions” — those year-end declarations of what you’ll do differently or better in the new year — are hard to sustain. Picture your gym or a 12-step meeting in January — much more crowded than usual with enthusiastic people full of resolve.

Picture the same room in late February or early March — back to normal, right? You’re surrounded now with folks who have found a way to make a sustainable and supportive commitment. [Read more…]

The year is winding down. Are you feeling the pull to review and set intentions?

November 24, 2015 19 Comments

It’s getting darker and darker here in the north in this last month before the Solstice.

This is the time when your thoughts and your heart may turn to setting intentions for the year to come.

I’ve always thought that it’s more than just “resolutions” that are needed to make effective and lasting changes. I’ve written about resolutions and how by themselves they just don’t have enough energy attached to do the job. As you can see when you compare the crowds in the gym or at your local 12-step meeting in early January and a month later. Yup, resolutions in action. You can read a few of the articles I’ve written about this very thing here and here and here.

There’s so much to see every time you look back

You see and celebrate the good stuff: everything you completed and every risk you took.
Then you can assess what didn’t get completed: What needs to change to make this happen?
What needs to be released?

Once you have done this completion and release work, then your intentions (and resolutions) have a much stronger foundation and a much better chance of sustained success.

I created this Year-End Completion and Release workbook a few years ago, and this year instead of selling it I’m giving it away. Because my birthday. Because I’m grateful. Because of you!

Every subscriber to my weekly loveletter will receive a free download link to the updated and revised workbook starting this week and going until the end of December. I’ve given a lot of gifts away this birthday month, and I’m closing it out with this gift from my heart to yours. It’s a beautiful and useful book. Set aside an hour or so and do some work that will help you set the foundation for changes for the coming year.

Look for the link in your copy of my loveletter in the coming weeks, and if you are not yet a subscriber, you can opt in right here.

I’m turning to three quotes from Mary Oliver to close this post. Because she really says it:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

I’d love it if you’d chime in in the comments; how’s your year-end ritual shaping up?

Solstice image courtesy Danny Pivato from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website

Release what’s holding you back — Full Moon in Sagittarius

May 27, 2015 20 Comments

What happens when you’re stuck?

Do your goals and vision seem inaccessible?
Do you keep taking actions but feel like you’re not making progress?
Do you wonder about giving up, or worse, do you find yourself in fear?

Here’s where I am on my journey….

It’s time for me to find a new place to live and work. ~~Not by my choice.~~

Wait, stop! Part of what holds me back is this insistence on stamping my foot and saying it isn’t my choice! That is the last time I’m going to think and express that thought, because that thought comes from the voice of the victim. And when I’m feeling victimized I am stuck stuck stuck. So…. reboot.

It’s time for me to find a new place to live and work. My landlady is selling this place I’ve been renting and I chose not to buy it. There! That’s better.

And here’s what I’ve been noticing.

I’ve been looking at possible places to move and bemoaning costs and what looked like unacceptable choices. Oy! I was starting to spend so much time stressed that I forgot what faith, trust, and spacious ease felt like. I was fearing that I’d have to take something that doesn’t suit me (a loud smoking and heavy-drinking neighbor overhead) because I wouldn’t be able to find anything else.

Then I released the fear and the discouragement. Which led me to:

Awareness (the noticing). I got honest with myself about how I was paying so much attention to the negative thoughts that I forgot what’s true. I copped. I lovingly laughed at myself (yo, people pay me to teach them how to do this!).
Acceptance (no self-judgement). I remembered who I am, I remembered that I am safe in the arms of the Divine, and I released what’s holding me back so I can embrace this journey with spacious ease.
Action (moving forward in humility and faith). And now when I take actions, make calls, explore sharing space with someone, I do it from this place of surrender. I dwell in the knowing that the right and perfect outcome is already happening for me, and all I need to do is to continue to put one foot in front of the other, eyes up, heart forward, hands open.

Instead of hanging out in dis-couragement, I am now able to again feel en-couraged.

It’s all a choice. When I choose surrender, humility, and faith, it is much easier to move through the tendrils of negative thoughts that want to wrap around me as I go. When I choose to be positive, I can’t get stuck.

I may forget. I may get stuck again before all is said and done but I’m guessing I’ll be able to release and reboot quicker this time. Or I won’t. The amount I suffer is only and entirely up to me. “Said and done”? That happens when I’m dead. Having to move is a thing, yes, it’s a big thing. But it’s not the only thing. Life keeps happening, dunnit?

When I took my morning walk today in my ‘hood — west Oakland — and I passed the piles of garbage and the homeless encampment I could feel in my heart an excitement. I could end up in a higher-vibration neighborhood, and wouldn’t that be wonderful!

Full Moon in Sagittarius

Tuesday, June 2nd
11º49′ Sagittarius
9:18 am Pacific
12:18 pm Eastern

Mercury retrograde in Gemini

continues through
Thursday, June 11th

The Mercury retrograde and the Full Moon in Sagittarius — what a perfect time to release!

How are you faring in this Mercury retrograde? I’ve been finding that conversations are more transparent and loving (what I give out and also what I receive), and that my research and preliminary negotiations are smooth. Of course, I’m without my desktop computer because the hinge that holds the monitor in place (27-inch iMac) died. So there’s that. Hopefully the repair will be done soon. And hopefully that will be the extent of Mercury’s trickster gifts for me this time!

If your journey during this Mercury retrograde has you thinking about where you are in your business and wondering what you might want to rethink, review, and release, this is an especially good time to get an Astrology for Your Business reading. I have time in my schedule for one, maybe two, before Mercury is done with this retrograde journey.

The Sagittarius Full Moon is a great time to release what no longer serves you in your business and in your life.

It may be something in the way you are connecting with clients and prospects.
It may be your thoughts and attitudes.
It may be a relationship or partnership.
It may be some behaviors that don’t match your values.
It may be a lack of self-care.

Suggestion for your Full Moon ritual

Sagittarius is a fire sign — release in the flames. Light a (safe) fire or get your cauldron. Write down what’s holding you back, and commit to releasing it as you burn what you’ve written. You can do this work on your own, or in a circle of trusted friends under the light of the Moon.

Where are you today? Are you stuck? Are you freely able to release what doesn’t fit or serve any more? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Just for fun, I’m sharing my Pandora Hawaiian station with you.

Yup, weeks returning from Kaua’i, I’m still listening to Hawaiian music.

I get so much pleasure out of it, hope you will too. Here’s the link.

Release and renewal — New Moon Solar Eclipse

March 18, 2015 20 Comments

So much goodness going on this week!

The last of seven Pluto-Uranus squares since 2012, the New Moon Solar Eclipse, and the Equinox are bringing lots of energy of release and renewal — endings and beginnings.

New Moon
Solar Eclipse

Friday, March 20th
29º27′ Pisces
2:36 am Pacific
5:36 am Eastern

Equinox:
Sun enters Aries

Friday, March 20th
3:45 pm Pacific
6:45 pm Eastern

Pluto-Uranus square

March 11–28

There’s a strong theme of releasing and renewing

This Pluto-Uranus square invites you to choose how we are going to live now, and for the rest of your life. This invitation can manifest in a number of ways.

You are invited to stop taking things so personally. Start here: “When I feel rejected, or slighted, or fearful in my business I connect to my heart, and remember that there is always room for love, even here.”
You are invited to forgive, forgive all of it, step into your sovereignty, and create a positive reality. Start here: “The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a gift; I live and do my sacred work in the present.”
You are invited to do your sacred work in the world: manifest the love, the service, and the justice you want to see and watch these awesome qualities ripple out from your heart — to your family, your friends, your loved ones, your clients, your community, your world. Start here: “I invite my dreams to shine and reveal themselves to me so I can manifest them.”

Pisces is all about transcendence and intention. It’s an inside job.

The Equinox ushers Spring here in the northern hemisphere, and the impulse and desire to clear out what no longer serves you and make room for the new may be stronger at this time. Go with it! Lovingly release what has outgrown its usefulness. Gift what you can to others. There’s a deep shift and opening that happens when you declutter your office, your storage spaces, and make room for the new. Release everything that has outworn its usefulness.
Try yoga, meditation, or any spiritual discipline that calls to you. Or recommit if you’re out of practice. Connect to Spirit, to the Divine. Enjoy the exploration. What calls to you? Are you inspired by something you read? I love my daily walks. Thirty minutes or more basking in the fresh air, gazing afar (instead of at a computer screen) — heals my body and lightens my spirit.
The Eclipse invites you to step into sacred ritual. Any personal ritual will serve you here — journaling how you experience this balance point between the Solstices, making a list of what you are called to birth during this next season, painting one or all of the affirmations above — allow, express, listen to, and acknowledge your intuitive, passionate, Divine Feminine heart.

This is really interesting

According to one of the articles I read while preparing to write this for you, it seems to be a fact that this is the only time in 5,000 years that there has a been a Solar Eclipse at 29º Pisces. If this is true, we may be moving from a long cycle into a new one. Do you feel urgency to get it done? Even if what will come of your beautiful actions is shrouded in mystery?

What if the new cycle is all about women’s equality with men? What if the bold, audacious expression of your Divine Feminine helps every man’s feminine side bloom? Take ownership of your own mission and methods, be who you truly are, and let your light shine. Listen to the whispers of your heart, let it guide and empower you, express yourself, and be of beautiful service!

How is this week’s New Moon energy landing for you?

I’d love to know. Please talk to me in the comments. Blessed be!

Goddess holding eclipsed Moon image courtesy Curezone

What’s waiting for you on the other side of the stillness point?

December 14, 2014 10 Comments

Sunday, December 21st

New Moon in Capricorn

0º06′ Capricorn
5:36 pm PST, 8:36 pm EST

Sun enters Capricorn

The Solstice
3:03 pm PST, 6:03 pm EST

Right before all the change, take some time in the stillness

Yes, change is coming on Sunday. If you haven’t been feeling the year-end bustle yet, you certainly should be by then. On Sunday, we have another in the series of zero-degree New Moons, the third of four. How have you been moving through these? Have they been landing like clean sweeps? Have the changes taken you by surprise, because you didn’t get any time to feel the energy of the Sun in the sign before the New Moon arrived? That’s how it’s felt for me.

Before all the changes on Sunday, you have a celestial, spiritual invitation to be still

Accept the invitation. Set aside some time on Saturday the 20th, and reflect. Have you downloaded my 2014 Completion and Release workbook yet? If you haven’t, Saturday is the ideal day to do this stillness point working. If you have gone through the workbook already, bring it with you into your stillness point time and review it, you may get some new and deep insights that didn’t show up the first time you looked at this.

Suggestions for you — what you can do to make the most of this stillness point

Take some time alone. I will do this working in darkness, which makes sense here in California, since we have so much darkness right now, and since Sunday is the turn of the wheel, and the beginning of the return of the light. In the Southern Hemisphere, you might want to do this working in bright daylight.
Create an altar. Whether inside or outside, all you need is intention and maybe a sacred object or two to make a space sacred.
Get quiet. Invite the stillness. Allow the stillness to help you to turn away from the world, from your thoughts, and from your worries. Sink instead into your heart.
Take some time to look back at the year that’s almost ended now. Accept what was challenging, give thanks for what worked. And here’s the big magic: give thanks even for what didn’t work out as you hoped it would. The more you can get grateful for everything, the better. On every level. Accept it all, get complete with it, give thanks for it, and release it. Now you are ready to move on.
After some time in this deep and sacred reflection, end your stillness time with celebration. Celebrate the New Moon that is coming, and the New Sun, and the New You!!!

Now you are ready to start looking at your goals, intentions, and visions for the year ahead.

I’d love to know how the stillness point lands for you. Please talk to me in the comments below.

Stop! Wait! Before you start visioning and writing goals, do the completion and release work first

December 7, 2014 16 Comments

This post was originally published in December of 2012. It’s been completely updated and brought up-to-date.

This is the time of year when your thoughts start to turn to your visions, goals, and intentions for the year ahead

It’s December, a natural time to start thinking about plans, and set intentions, to get clear about your visions for the coming year. You may even be thinking about those things right now.

But before you start writing those goals for the coming year…Stop and breathe. There’s work to do first!

Honor yourself in the most sacred way and allow for closure for all the beautiful actions you took in 2014. Take the time to look back, and acknowledge your magnificent accomplishments of this past year. Give yourself the gift of completing and releasing the year that’s coming to an end before you begin looking ahead — when you do, you’ll be creating a firmer loving foundation for your intentions and visions.

Introducing the Magnolias West 2014 Completion and Release Workbook.

Here’s how to create a strong, workable, sustainable foundation for your vision, goals and intentions for an amazing 2014! In this workbook you can make note of what challenged you, and what may still be incomplete. Celebrate yourself for all the new, audacious, brave, risky things you’ve taken on, tried, and manifested. The actions that worked out as planned (or better!) and the ones that didn’t. Everything that was wonderful, everything that was challenging, and everything in between. When you get to gratitude for all of it, you are lovingly cutting the ties to what may hold you back from your magnificence in the New Year.

Read what a client, Christine Scudder, has to say about the Completion & Release Workbook

“When I started the workbook, I was feeling pretty down on my year that was ending, but in the process of reviewing the questions, I found that I actually took more risks — and some significant ones at that — in the past year, and that each risk, each action, was deserving of my mindful attention and gratitude. I found the overall “taking stock” to be helpful. The language was at once direct and empowering, serving as an invitation to reflect upon this year in a way that was forthright, yet kind to myself. This is new for me — previously I’ve found “year in review” type activities to bring out a serious amount of harsh, critical self-judgment. I left this activity with a sense of clear renewal.” —Christine Scudder, MSW.”

Even when your efforts fail, gorgeous, as long as you’re trying, you’re making progress.

They call it failing forward. I promise you, taking the time to do this completion work will remove the weeds and undergrowth from your path, so that your new start —the goals, visions, blessings, and miracles you will bring to 2015 — will germinate, root, and flower beautifully for you.

How to buy the 2014 Year-End Completion and Release Workbook

It’s easy! All the information you need is right here.

Pricing, purchase links, more information, more testimonials, the whole megillah (yup, that’s Yiddish again — means the whole story). Check it out. Put yourself high on your gift list.
[Read more…]

Release to transform and a hella sacred New Moon

November 2, 2013 27 Comments

I have an ancestors altar

I keep it all year long, and add to it every year.

I add to it when one of my beloveds passes. A couple of years ago, I added my father to this altar, and now I’m the oldest person in my family. A powerful and grave shift to make, and one for which I wasn’t really prepared. There’s even a term for that, it’s called moving into the Terminal Generation. I experienced a huge release and acceptance at this turn of events in my life. Ownership of all I’ve learned. Reverence for all the lessons and love (however mistaught and misguided) received from those who made and cared for me. Releasing and transforming some of my attachment to youth, especially this persistent idea: that I would be rescued and carried by others. Another big one: I was able to finally know, understand, accept and act on what I have learned I am here to do. To claim my sovereignty. To be of sacred service.

I also add to my altar because it’s part of my birthday ritual. Today, Day of the Dead, is my birthday, and every year I make a pilgrimage to Corazon del Pueblo in East Oakland and treat myself to another piece for my altar, and I also buy a tin heart for my collection. This year, since it’s a Saturday I will also get to walk the Fruitvale Dia De Los Muertos Festival—look at the altars and join the raucous and reverent celebration.

This New Moon is all about release and transformation

[Read more…]

One more powerful Solstice blessing for you!

December 21, 2012 2 Comments

Blessings of the Solstice to you. Blessings of renewal, of rebirth, of the turning of the wheel.

Here in windy rainy northern California, today marks the turn of the wheel, the return of the light. And where there had been a feeling of contraction I welcome the feeling of release, of expansion. I for one celebrate each minute or two of additional light we get each day. Starting now.

Love Letters

The Solstice is a good day to release what’s complete and no longer serves. Early in 2012, some of my tribe (clients, subscribers) participated in a sacred Love Letter from Source working with me (more about how we did that, in a teleclass on International Self-Love Day, here). Each of them sent me a letter written to themselves from Source (the Goddess, nature, Spirit) congratulating them for all they’ve accomplished this year. Those letters are dated 12/31/12 and have been sitting on my altar in a sacred box all year, in envelopes addressed to the writers. I am mailing those letters back to each of those women today. Talk about release!!