On the spiritual path, we’re often told that we are light, that we are love, that this light and love are always here and available to us. And yet often we don’t experience that!
In March of 2020, just as the entire world was going into lockdown because of Covid-19, I was getting ready to move in with Tom Carpenter and his wife Linda, who had been Course in Miracles teachers and mentors for decades. They needed support and my husband and I had volunteered.
A few years ago, my daughter turned me onto the idea that there's a Major Arcana Tarot card that informs the overarching energy for the year on a global scale. She now has a business offering astrology and Tarot card readings! (click here to learn more)
One way to think about this is that the card sets a tone for the year on a world-wide level.
To determine which card is being activated is simple. Add the numbers of the year together. So, for this year it would be: 2+0+2+5=9
Ready for a New Year’s exercise?
It’s to make a vison board – but with a twist.
I’m sure you know that I LOVE making vision boards. Perhaps you’ve even made one with me in the past!
**If you’re new to vision boards, click here to get my how-to download.**
Making a traditional vision board is fun, inspiring, & a wonderful exercise in intentionality. It gets you thinking about every aspect of your life – from your health, wealth, learning, fun…
Have you noticed that certain times of year evoke different feelings or orientations?
For me, it’s about LIGHT, about opening to it and receiving it.
How do you define light?
Perhaps you think about it as: inspiration, healing, divinity, truth, love- or something else.
Whatever your definition of light, the dark days of December seem to call for a kindling of that spark, a nourishing of our inner light.
Here’s a simple one: How would you complete this sentence?
Last week I began an online class focused on the arc known as the Hero’s Journey. If you’re at all familiar with the mythologist, Joseph Campbell and his work, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!
Essentially, the idea is that we are all the hero of our own story, and within our lifetimes are invited, encouraged, urged, and sometimes dragged onto a journey of self-transformation.
The other day, I was talking to one of my daughters who was sharing her desire to embrace the messiness of life.
Since that chat, I’ve found myself thinking about this idea because, let’s face it, life is messy!
Yet we so often put expectations on ourselves to be pristine, perfect, unruffled.
Can you relate?
Do you find yourself compulsively cleaning before a friend comes over? Or self-conscious about the way you’re eating? Wanting to look neat and delicate.
Perhaps it’s time for a reframe.
I have a client who, according to her, has the ideal life. She has her own business, doing something she loves. She has help with her child, and a supportive husband who financially bears the load of their life, and emotionally encourages her to pursue her passion.
When I talk with her, I’m reminded of myself and a similar internal struggle I had for years! That persistent feeling that success alluded me.
Sound familiar?
Do you have a go-to strategy when you find it hard to concentrate and your brain feels fuzzy?
Or when you can’t seem to figure out what to do next, or what direction to move towards?
When I’m in that place, it sometimes feels like I’m spinning in circles, directionless, blind to possibility.
However, when I REMEMBER to use this tool (!), a breathing exercise, it can really make a difference.
Why?
Since the end of October, I’ve been struggling with aftereffects from Covid-19 and today I felt guided to share my healing journey with you.
Sometime in mid-October, I contracted Covid. As with many of us, I wasn’t exactly sure how I got it. I was traveling overseas and didn’t confirm I was positive until I returned home! After quarantining for ten days, and finally testing negative, I was ready to move on with my life!
Ha Ha.
This was my first encounter with a long-term illness, something you may live with or have experienced at some point in your life. To you, I offer my deepest condolences. You are indeed a brave warrior.
Each time I’d think I was finally better and could get BACK to my life, I’d have some kind of relapse. Mostly with a blanketing sense of fatigue that would descend like a band across my eyes. That’s when I knew I couldn’t keep going.
This went on for weeks that turned into months.
I have this mp3 track of Louise Hay called 101 Power Thoughts for Life. At the beginning of it she says, “the thoughts we think and the words we speak are constantly shaping our world and our experiences. Many of us are in an old habit of negative thinking and do not realize the damage we have inflicted upon ourselves. However, we are never stuck because we can always change our thinking.”
Sometimes it’s fun to sprinkle in a little astrology… why? Because those GIANT orbs in the sky actually affect us here on earth.
January thus far may have had its fits and starts, but good news is a foot! Beginning on January 28th when Uranus ends its retrograde, there will be NO major planets backspinning from now until April 1st!!!!
In this time of giving, I’m reminded of a lesson from A Course In Miracles, “to give and to receive are one in truth.”
Initially, this can seem like an impossible statement, because if I have a sweater and I give it to you, then I no longer have that sweater, right?
Right!
But what if, on an energetic level, giving and receiving were the same thing?
For a number of years now, I’ve had this connection to the White Goddess. I first identified her as White Tara, Buddhist goddess of healing and compassion. But on my recent trip to Vietnam, I learned of a new white goddess, Quan Am. The Vietnamese version of Kwan Yin, the Boddhisattva of compassion
If you are unfamiliar with the Sanskrit term, bodhisattva, or bo tat in Vietnamese, it refers to a Buddhist concept of devoting your life to easing the suffering of others. A Boddhisattva vows to help release all sentient beings from suffering before being truly liberated.
This entire month, I’ve been kinda obsessed with the idea of the veil. Meaning the veil between worlds, or the veil that hides the truth from us.
In Hinduism, the goddess Kali is known to rip this veil from our eyes, to help us see the truth. Another way of thinking about it is that the goddess Maya is cloaked in the veil of illusion, which, in truth is as gauzy as a wispy cloud.
While I appreciate the imagery of both of these, the visual that has always, always, always speaks to me is the mists of Avalon. There the priestess stands in the prow of her boat and parts the mists, thus allowing her to enter the island of Avalon. Whereas, the others who are incapable of this feat wander forever lost in the gloam.
