Hey there, Sun, I’ve been thinking about you. Especially these last three weeks leading up to the Solstice and Chanukah. Seems like the waning light’s shocked you into apparently standing still last night.
A little note: Jewish holidays move around the western calendar. This year is unusual, timing-wise, with Chanukah and Solstice arriving together. When you read Solstice below, please understand I’m short-handing this moment — this turn of the Wheel — through both these metaphors.
[Read more…]I’m developing eyes for divine neutrality (aka grace, or acceptance, or It don’t make no never mind) in the face of challenges.
I’m not a divine neutrality black belt. I can’t embody grace on demand. I’ve tried to meditate and give and gratitude-list my way to peace of mind for years.
[Read more…]No blog posts for a while, not much on social media. And yet, now that I stop and look around, much has been created around here, which I’m excited to tell you about. I’ve been taking stock. You too?
[Read more…]The New Year. Rosh Hashana.
The time where you can turn and return to yourself.
To the best of yourself.
First turn in. Turn inside. Get quiet. Join in sacred ceremony, service, ritual. Or create one of your own. Or go on one with me.
It’s the first harvest. You reap everything. You reap the good. You reap the painful. You reap the celebrations. You reap the regret.
Turn inside so that when you turn outward again you do so lighter, less weighed down, freer.
A sacred pause that is a reminder and teacher. A sacred pause in which to listen, and to receive.
You may receive a question. Or a message. Or something that is beyond words.
For me this Solstice feels like a culmination moment. I’ve been unfolding like a flower for the last couple of months (since the move). I’m doing things I was reluctant or afraid to do before, and reaching deep down inside myself for the willingness to keep going deeper. [Read more…]
The Leo Full Moon rises this year just after Imbolc, the time when you can begin to really feel the first stirrings of Spring here in the north if you haven’t already — tree buds are swelling, and daylight is now noticeably longer. The first days of February are also known as Tu BiShvat — New Year for trees — in Judaism; and Groundhog Day in the U.S., symbolizing how animals are waking from their winter hibernation.
Where I live, in Northern California , the magnolias have already bloomed and brought their beauty and heady scent. My daughter and I did our annual photo shoot with the magnolias as a backdrop just the other day.
As we celebrate the growing light in the Northern Hemisphere, those of you in the South are approaching the first harvest. Some of us are opening to the light, and the others are seeing the coming darkness. We are all doing our dance around the wheel.
Who will you be, what will you do, and what will you heal this coming year? In addition to setting goals and intentions for the two weeks, as you usually do at the Full Moon, look at the year ahead as well. What is being called forth? What will you share of your time, treasure, and talents with the people you love, and those you serve?
Ask for a blessing for healingImbolc is the Goddess Brigid’s festival. She is a triple Goddess, a healer, a poet, and a maker — no wonder she’s so dear to my heart! It is believed that at Imbolc, she blesses people and livestock. This is a great time to hang pieces of ribbon or cloth out on a bush or a tree for Brigid to bless and imbue with healing properties.
I have done this today. I wrote on pieces of ribbon the names of those I want to be blessed and healed. I walked my neighborhood and found a lovely bush on a corner where there’s a community garden. I hung my ribbons there. I also made smaller versions of my ribbons and glued them in my journal. Because why not?
More about the Full MoonLeo is the sign the represents your individuality, creativity, and leadership. Is there a moment you can step around your fear and step fully into the spotlight? Leo also invites you to nurture those you love and your own beautiful self. Are you making enough time for fun, rest, and adventure?
All three of this year’s Mercury retrogrades occur in air signs (this one is in Aquarius), inviting you to re-examine your thoughts, your limiting beliefs, and your social interactions. Mercury Rx also opens the way for you to re-lax, and turn your attention within and listen closely to your Divine Feminine, your inner creative voice. Honor your emotional intelligence, your instincts and your intuition.
Listen to the whispers that resonate in your heart, and open you up to healing and clear vision, as we turn the corner into Imbolc and the Full Moon. What are you meant to be and do and heal in the coming year? How will you step into what is calling you? I’d love to hear what lands for you — talk with me in the comments. Blessed be!
Maybe it’s because I’m starting to feel better, after six weeks of coughing, and fevers, and the effects of two rounds of antibiotics. And better in my body, now that nearly three weeks have passed since the car accident. And maybe it’s an opening in the energy in more than just me and my body. The upcoming astrological shifts are inviting innovation and exaltation in some very lovely ways.
I think this invitation is an opening for you as a person, for you in your business, for you in your community, for you in the collective, and for us all. And isn’t that lovely!
Another zero degree New Moon, this one is barely in Aquarius, only a quarter-hour out of Capricorn. (We also will have rare second Aquarius New Moon on February 18th, the Lunar New Year, more on that soon.) Each of these Aquarius New Moons will have its own flavor, though, enhanced by the sign it’s so close by. This week, Capricorn’s energy will play its part, adding determination and skillfulness to the innovation and inspiration that Aquarius brings. For this New Moon, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus are all in Aquarius — it’s an innovation party! Expecting the unexpected can be helpful, especially with the Mercury Rx (retrograde) beginning the next day.
More good news. No, really, I mean it! Okay, okay, calm down. It’s just not true that every Mercury retrograde is the time to crawl into bed with chocolates and Netflix on your iPad (or whatever your safe nest looks like) and wait for it to be over. Yes, it’s good to be a little extra mindful, careful, and prudent during a Mercury Rx (especially at the very beginning and end). It’s also good to allow for a little more time to get things done and to get to your destination.
But relax! This time, the whole retrograde dance takes place in Aquarius, and Mercury is exalted in this sign — comfortable and functioning beautifully. Expect things to go well. Intend the awesome, know you’re going to bring the awesome with everything you do, and enjoy it!
I also feel this energy all around me, I can feel the season begin to shiftWhen I lived in New York, this time of year was frigid, and icy, and slushy, and hard to endure. Even in the insane cold, I was attuned to the slightest swelling of the buds on bare branches. I would watch for, and celebrate, the first tiny tip of green to appear in the cracks in the sidewalk. Harbingers of magnolias, snowdrops and daffodils on their way.
And now here I am in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the magnolias are blooming everywhere around me. And the first local avocados of the year were at the farmers market yesterday. Barely bigger than an egg, but woot! I expect the first asparagus in a week or two.
What changes are you noticing around you where you are? What shifts do you feel in the season? How will you embrace innovation and exaltation as the Aquarius energy opens for you? I’d love to know what you’re thinking…. please talk to me in the comments!
Moving through the points on the WheelA really interesting conversation came up in the comments on last week’s blogpost, about how even though we celebrate all the points on the Wheel of the Year, the wheel never really stops. I have some more thoughts to add to the conversation.
Today is the Solstice, the point where the Sun appears to stand still — a stillness point — and then begin to change direction. Here in California, where I live, we celebrate the return of the light today, on Yule.
I love celebrating each stillness point on the Wheel of the Year, because it’s a time when I can take a breath in the sacred moment I get to celebrate on that day. A breath of recognition, of awareness, of commitment, of gratitude. But as I get more connected to my spirituality, as my practice gets more seasoned and more real, I find myself pulled to connect in a deep way to every single day of the year.
I’ve been a tai chi student for 40, maybe 41 years (I don’t remember much of the ’70s, honestly). Years and years and years of classes and practice and more classes. Studying the form. Learning all those moves, those positions, where you arrive — body, arms, legs — everything arrives at once. Chunk — arrive at ward off left. Chunk — arrive at ward off right. Chunk — arrive at the press, the push, single whip. Chunk. Chunk. Chunk.
And then after a few years of learning all the chunks, I started to learn a deeper lesson. There are no chunks. Yes, everything arrives at once in ward off left, and ward off right, and every other “position” in the form. But you don’t stop. You arrive at an opportunity to check in, but it’s a breath that you are moving through. No stopping. Just movement. One continuous movement like a silken thread being pulled from a cocoon.
How was your Solstice? How was your day? Do you have some wishes and gratitude to share? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Sacred annual reviews, check
Accomplishments, noted and celebrated, check
What’s yet to be completed list, check
Revised goals, check
Powerful intentions for 2013, check!
We’re standing firmly in 2013, looking forward and moving ahead. How perfect!
It’s a perfect time to look and listen for the messages that strengthen and support us in our journey as we take one step at a time toward our highest good. One step at a time toward the full expression of our most sacred mission and purpose.
We’re coming up on Imbolc, which marks the time of the year of the first softening of the ground between Winter and Spring. Of the time when the lambs and calves are born. A good time to begin…
I found this poem among the amazing work done for the last eight or nine years, for the Brigid Poetry Festival. Poems created to mark and honor this time of year…