Take Advantage of this Year’s Super-Charged Aries New Moon

We’re in that magical time every spring between the Aries New Moon (the very first new moon of the entire astrological calendar year) and the Aries Full Moon.

This is a really powerful time to make an Aries New Moon Treasure Map — essentially a physical representation of everything you want to attract into your life in the coming 12 months.   If made consciously with purpose and intention, the treasure map helps anchor in the energies of our desires, acting much like a lighthouse beacon beaming our intention out into the Universe and helping us manifest more effectively.

This year’s Aries New Moon period is especially powerful since we have a stellium of 5 planets in the Sign of the Ram (and new beginnings) right now: Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, & Uranus, are there and were briefly joined by the moon.

Fruits of the Land

I’ve been working on an interesting multi-year “Aspirant Program” with Page Bryant that was custom designed to help me fill-in missing pieces in my spiritual education. (Page offers such programs to interested persons for a modest fee.  To learn more, see her website at www.pagebryant.com.)  As part of this teaching, I’ve been working through a series of “modules” where I’ve been journeying to learn from particular goddess archetypes, totem animals, and star spirits.

My current lesson involves work with the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes, Pele, and I’ve learned and done some fascinating things as her student.  One of the most interesting is a “lesson” she gave me a few weeks ago.  Pele explained that every land has a sacred fruit or berry that grows on it.  This fruit  is literally imbued with the strength, character, and healing energies of the spirit of that land and, much like a patron saint, you can call upon it to imbue you with these energies.  It was such a surprising and beautiful lesson that I thought I would share it with you today.  In her own words, this is what Pele told me:  

Divine Revelations in Small Places

Life is constantly surprisingly me by providing feedback on what I seem most to be struggling with at a given moment.  There are beautiful, poignant, insightful, and revelatory signposts all around me, if only I can get out of my head long enough to pay attention and see them.

Just this week I was beating myself up for not having made the time to blog in a while. I’ve got half-a-dozen half-finished posts sitting around in my drafts folder and they’ve been that way for months and months.  I occasionally open one up, poke around at the sentences, add a picture or two, and — still not satisfied — put it back into the drafts folder again.

What I think I most struggle with on this blog and in all my writing is finding the courage to be real, or, rather, to be self-revealing.

10 Things I’d Tell My Younger Self…

Recently, while whipping through my daily mountain of eMail, I saw a headline that intrigued me:  10 Things I’d Tell My Younger Self.  With a new year already underway, and my 50th birthday coming around in the spring, I mused that there really ARE some things I could and would tell my younger self if given the opportunity.

So assuming I did open a dialogue with my inner child, my younger self, where would I start and what would I tell her about what I’ve learned from 5 decades of life?

Staying in Balance in this Season of Giving

One of my teachers, Jule’, wrote this piece about the spiritual ramifications of giving and receiving long ago under the title, “Universal Citizen Universal Bookkeeper?“  It seems like a good reminder as we begin to unwind all the positive and negative learnings of the Age of Pisces, and in particular during this season of “giving” when so many of us feel pressured to do just a little bit more for those around us.  I’m reprinting a slightly abridged version of the original article with permission from the author.

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What does keeping track of accounts have to do spiritual awareness?  Well, actually quite a lot.

People involved in their growth often begin to think of themselves in terms of “planetary citizens,” or even “universal citizens,” but what that might mean in daily life needs some consideration.

The concept that there are “Universal Laws” can be found in many teachings. Science, often with great hubris, attempts to define them as they relate to the physical universe. Yet, even that quest has run straight into metaphysics since the advent of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and the work of many seminal thinkers in the new physics….But, our purpose is to speak of “Universal Law” in the context of being specific vibrations that operate as “regulatory agents,” which have been put in place to assist mankind in its growth, and in the course of individual lives.  For the purposes of  this article, we will focus on the “Universal Law of Exchange.”

Just-in-Time vs. Just-in-Case: Changing Your Philosophy of Living

One of the great things about my local gym is that it’s easy to keep up on periodicals I like but no longer subscribe to because members recycle gently used magazines for others to enjoy.  That’s how I came across an interesting article in the April 2009 issue of   O: The Oprah Magazine, by life coach, Martha Beck called Just What You Need!

Beck, previously a college professor who taught business classes,  takes a lesson from the Japanese auto industry’s approach to sourcing parts and applies it as a metaphor for two very different life philosophies she calls Just in Time (JIT) and Just in Case (JIC).

For those unfamiliar with the story, in the post-World War II rebuilding efforts in Japan, with resources scarce and expensive, Toyota Motor Co. embraced a radical new parts-sourcing philosophy that originally was developed (but not adopted) in the U.S.  called lean manufacturing.  Rather than follow the traditional North American and European sourcing model — which called for suppliers to over-produce and automakers to over-inventory large surpluses of parts to prevent the possibility of having to shut down their assembly lines  — Toyota began working closely with its suppliers to ensure that they produced and shipped only what the automaker would need over a short period of time.

The old way of over-producing and over-inventorying parts could be called Just in Case (JIC), as in “I’m going to order twice as much as I need just in case I can’t get what I need next week or 6 months from now.”  The new model of ordering, producing, and shipping exactly what is needed timed to arrive just before a vehicle will be assembled is called Just in Time (JIT).  The JIT approach eventually became the way the entire industry ordered parts worldwide.  The advantage of this kind of manufacturing is that neither suppliers nor automakers have to pay for, store, and keep track of parts they don’t ‘t really need (and that might go to waste), tying up capital and floor space. It also forces all members of the supply chain to work together and communicate with each other in real time to prevent errors and supply shortages.  In essence, it requires customers to trust their suppliers, and suppliers to trust their customers, which in the auto industry, has not been an easy concept to embrace.

Beck’s interesting insight is that people tend to run their lives in much the same way automakers order parts. 

Mercury Retrograde Redux: Strategies for Surviving & Thriving (Part 2)

This post is a continuation of our discussion of how not to just survive but also thrive (or at least get something functional done) during Mercury retrograde.

Because of all the things in our lives Mercury can and does affect, astrologers traditionally warn us not to buy expensive things, sign important contracts, start new jobs, or begin new projects under Mercury retrograde.  They caution us to be extra careful when traveling:  check our tire pressure and oil and gas levels, start earlier and expect to arrive later, and drive defensively.  They also advise us to double- and triple-check our math, punctuation, and grammar, reconfirm that appointment and its location, and back-up our computers.  This is probably good advice at any time, but it seems we especially need to be reminded during periods when Mercury is retrograde — perhaps because we are less focused and not thinking as clearly.

However, let’s also be reasonable and keep things in perspective:  while this isn’t the ideal time to buy a new computer or car if you can help it, it’s fine to buy a bag of birdseed, replenish your toilet paper supplies, and try a new brand of barbecue sauce.  If it turns out you don’t like the product, you may be able to return it (save that receipt) and it’s unlikely your life will be ruined either way. You’re probably going to have to go to work and you may have to redo things a couple of times before you get them right, or it may take you twice as long to finish because you’re having a harder time concentrating.  More meetings will probably get set and canceled than normal, checks sure can get delayed in the mail, and you may well get lost despite having dutifully MapQuested the route out ahead of time…which is why you want to give yourself extra time to get there and back if possible.  Again, odds are good you’ve experienced all of this before (close to half of the year), so you’ll likely have already developed compensation strategies.  If your work is critical, then do your absolute best to focus (while eliminating as many distractions as you can) and take it one step at a time, rechecking as you go. This isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime experience for you. It’s something you deal with all the time — like it or not.

But what happens if you HAVE to do something like travel or start a new job or buy something expensive during this time?

Mercury Rides (Backwards) Again – Part 1

It’s that time of year again when the planet Mercury appears to move backwards in the sky relative to our position on Earth.

If the public (thinks) it knows anything about astrology — beyond the basics of what Sun signs represent and who you should or should not marry if you’re a so-and-so [insert sign] –  it’s that Mercury retrograde is a very-scary thing. They may not understand what it means or why it could be a problem, but they know they’ve heard of terrible disasters befalling people while it was occurring.

In reality, Mercury is retrograde 3-4 times per year for 3 weeks at a time.  When you add in a 4-5 day “shadow” period as the transit phases in and then phases out at the beginning and end of the cycle, you’re running close to 5 weeks per transit or 15-20 weeks out of the year.  That means we really spend close to half the year under the influence of retrograding Mercury.  If this transit was automatically that disastrous, surely society would shut down and none of us would leave our buildings.

Let’s talk about what Mercury affects and doesn’t affect, what is best avoided during this transit, and what can really benefit from its energies.

Taurus Full Moon: Wesak Festival

Today’s full moon is in Scorpio, while the sun is in Taurus.  This marks an important time for those who walk a Tibetan Buddhist path.

Wesak is a week-long spiritual festival that celebrates the birth, enlightenment, and death of the man who entered the world as Prince Siddhārtha Gautama’, and who became Śākyamuni or the Buddha nearly 500 years before Master Yeshua (Jesus).

In esoteric traditions, the Wesak festival is said to be a time when the veil between the worlds is thin (much as it is during the time of Samhain / Halloween / All Soul’s Day) and the Buddha and the Christ join together to send blessings into the world.  Not only is it easier for us to communicate with ascended masters and saints during this time, but it is also easier for them to focus concentrated energy upon us and on the planet.  A portal is opened between the terrestrial and celestial worlds and we and the planet are bathed in higher vibration energies of love, compassion, and wisdom.

A “Spiritual” Conspiracy

Received this intriguing poem by eMail and wanted to share it.  It seems to be all the rage on a number of new age / spiritual blogs these days.  Have not been able to find the origin blog or learn who originally wrote it, but this is one conspiracy I can get behind!

~ author unknown

On the surface of the world right now there is
war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time,
something else is happening underground.
An inner revolution is taking place
and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution.
From the inside out.  From the ground up.
This is a Global operation.
A Spiritual Conspiracy.