Summer of Love

Late Summer Greetings! You all have been fully on my mind and in my heart and I can feel so much moving within each of you – life is so very big right now isn’t it?? Thankfully, we have been aware and even anticipating these times of big change, so that we can make the most of it. The energies of this summer are huge and one of the newsletters I follow (Dr. Michael Lennox) calls this the “Summer of Love.” We are being busted open, heart-first it seems. And all of the changes give us such great opportunities to expand ourselves into a higher caliber of Love, to create a life that is more in line with our higher selves. For me, my life feels a fig that has been turned inside out. All those years (decades, lifetimes) of forming in the dark and now the time is ripe, the fig is split open and all that was in darkness is starkly right there in front of me. I can allow myself to become overwhelmed and look away, casting myself into even deeper shadow, or I can stand in the face of it and just be. I choose the latter and I am finding such a beautiful place of acceptance and stillness with it. I am seeing myself, truly, deeply, from an unfettered vantage point for perhaps the first time in this lifetime. I am also seeing myself perfectly reflected in the world around me – every face, every heart, every situation and place. It is beautifully humbling and empowering – and exceedingly simple. What a gift.

The prevailing energies I am focusing on is Venus’s movement through the skies during July, August and the beginning of September. All of Venus’s motion during these months creates a ‘perfect storm’ of movement for us, exposing new levels of personal truth, showing us ways to expand into that truth and then helping us to manifest it here in the 3D. Aside from astounding symmetries/geometries that amplify and supercharge the full and new moons during this time, Venus also entered her retrograde period – July 25th through September 6^th.  Venus in retrograde gives us a chance to turn within, to examine all the lessons on Love that have been pouring into our experience since early July and to see what we have learned. How are we interacting with Love and Abundance in our lives? Where are we in our capacity to give and receive these gifts? If we work consciously with the energies, we can expand our capacity to experience Love and to live in and from the heart. Living from the heart means being entirely present to what is without judgment or resistance.  Just being with what is as it comes, bringing our whole-hearted attention to what is right in front of us. When we judge it by labeling it, making up stories or building cases to prove our righteousness, we are experiencing life through the filter of the mind. Likewise when we resist it by pushing it away or burying it (I don’t want to experience/feel/know this). In this way we live life through the filter of what we DON’T want and are constantly draining ourselves through the energy leak of resistance.  Living from the heart is like walking with a giant YES to everything, understanding that the world we see we have solely created for our learning and highest good. EVERY SINGLE THING is our own good showing up for us, period. When we embody this knowing, we can live in absolute acceptance – and gratitude - of all experiences and feelings. When the shit hits the fan as it will, we can say, “OK. Wow. What is this for? Why is this in my movie? What am I to learn/see here?” We can be in life from an empowered place, bringing all of our wisdom, skills, talents and ATTENTION to finding solutions and avenues for our next highest expression.  

On Friday, August 14^th, we have the New Moon in Leo and this is a WILDLY powerful one! The energies are about deepening the lessons activated by Venus in early July; when we add the new moon energy into this already potent cauldron of heart-opening mojo, a great window of newness and expansion is at hand. Consider doing ceremony at the New Moon, preferably using fire (in a nod to Leo) and using this time to create/set/manifest your desires around Love and Sexuality. Also consider using creative expression as ceremony – dance, sing, paint, however your heart directs you!

A theme for reflection this month is “How Is Your Love Life?” This means Love and Relationship in all forms – to a partner, family members, friends and most importantly with your self and your life. What is Love asking of you? How is it teaching and/or stretching you? How can you say YES to Love even more? You can write about this, talk about it with your loved ones or simply let the questions be with you. Ultimately you already know the answers and the questions are an invitation from you to you, to step into a more conscious engagement with Love. Everything we are, can be and will be is already right here, encoded into the filaments of our earthly and spiritual being. Now is a good time to decide to step up into a bigger you. Let go of all the crap you do to hold yourself back from truly thriving. Say yes to yourself and the entire cosmos conspires to support you!!

It's the Climb

Wow.  So sort of overnight I changed my life entirely, without realizing how profound this move would be.  Of course I knew it on a surface level, as I was leaving Malibu, leaving a house I loved, leaving a life-style that fed me constantly.  And on this side of it I realize that subconsciously Geoffrey and I both knew that living so isolated in the middle of nowhere was serving Nikki less and less as the years passed and that ultimately we would reach a tipping point where it wasn't good for her.  We actually reached that point two years ago, and yet we held on to our life on the mountain.  And then one day we were passing an Open House on the lake and we went in for fun and Geoffrey looked at me and said, "We should buy this house and move here for 4 years while Nikki is in high school".  Of course my answer was "I know" because I did know; I had known for some time.  We slept on it and the truth only became more apparent - it was without doubt the right thing to do for our girl.  With that, I turned my focus entirely to buying the new house; it fits our needs perfectly and I did not want to lose it to the other buyers who were circling.  Once the house was secured, all my attention went to packing the pyramid.  And once moved, all my energy (maniacally so) went into unpacking.  Then of course, reality set in.  And there is so much, SO MUCH to this new reality.

First, Nikki is much happier here.  She rarely had friends to the pyramid as rides were always a thing and for the past two years she has been embarrassed by how remotely we lived.  I don't understand how that is embarrassing and to a teenager apparently it was brutal.  Now she invites friends over; they swim and go out on the boat and have fun.  Last night her boyfriend came over.  She walks to Starbucks, to get her nails done, to pick up lunch.  She "has a life" now that most of her free time is not spent in the car going up and down the mountain.  She hangs out with us a little bit more as she likes to be in the family room.  She is already so much more independent and free.  What a blessing!  In a year and a half, she will learn how to drive, something that was likely not an option on the mountain.  Now she can learn on flat, straight, well-lit streets.  This is good.  And we can keep an eye on her throughout high school, as we plan to trick-out the loft in her room as the ultimate teen hang, so that our house becomes the place to be.  So she's all good.

Me, though, that's another journey.  I knew how much I loved my house, that was obvious.  I didn't realize how much I identified with living there and how much I relied on it for sustenance.  The pyramid house, the land and the mountain are sacred, and entirely magical to me.  I regularly saw things that took my breath away - the fog, the light moving across the ocean and canyons, the sunset, the moon set, the stars, the birds, the coyote, deer, and more occasionally the bobcats and mountain lion.  My walks were magical, surrounded by all of the above and held by the ancient sea bed - the rocks, fossils and caves.  I was constantly being fed by that place.  And now I am in a lovely house, in a gated, planned community that has streetlights.  STREETLIGHTS.  In the middle of the night, my house is flooded with artificial light streaming in from three sides.  I have to close the blinds against it.  The artificial light steals the moon and starlight; in fact I cannot even be in perfect moonlight, even when it's full.  At the pyramid, I always knew the approximate phase of the moon by the feel of the darkness or light around the house at night; not so here.  So now I get to make a concentrated effort to follow the moon phases based on a calendar rather than my own senses.  That's cool; eventually I will know the calendar innately and my body will learn to integrate the days of the moon perfectly.  That seems to be the thread here - in this house I will learn now to navigate life a bit differently.  The things that were 'easy' on the mountain - quiet, stillness, peace - will need to be found in other ways, through different channels than simply sitting down and allowing the place to wow me.  Although the lake is beautiful, it's not as showy as the mountain - it is more of a constant, subtle beauty.  I am already growing different eyes to see it.  I am learning the myriad birds who live here and nest in the surrounding trees.  And the trees here are so beautiful - I have already made new friends among the Standing Tall Ones.  As far as people, this place is an entirely different vibe from the mountain and Malibu.  I don't see myself reflected much in this community.  And you know what?  That's cool because I am strong enough to be a different kind of reflection for them.  That's also why I'm here.

And so, I will be with the lake and learn what it has to teach me.  The pyramid was all Fire and Earth; this place is Water and Air.  Hmmm, feels like a necessary and balancing cycle.  Perhaps this is why my meditations are so deep here - I drop in deeply almost instantaneously, like I do when I'm in Hawaii.  I can't count how many times I've wished that my meditations were so easily deep at home...and now they are.  Here I even have a meditation room, filled with all my stones and books and tools and it's become an incredible sanctuary.

Also, I have committed to making great use of all the time I used to spend driving and waiting.  I am diving deep into Kundalini yoga and it no longer feels like I have to aggressively eek out time to do a long practice.  The benefits of that in every single aspect of my life are tremendous, beyond description.  And I'm writing.  Regularly.  Words, again, fail to convey the happiness writing brings to my life.

Geoffrey and I have a different life here, one that is more active and social.  This also feels like a necessary cycle and one my body is pretty excited about.  And so, I'm here.  My intention to rock this place is beginning to pan out.  Three weeks ago I could feel the possibility of being sucked under into a sadness I couldn't name, and I had to rely heavily on all my tools (another gift) so that I could facilitate my experience with excellence. (Gratitude to all those who held me; I could feel you and it helped!)  As our life here begins to emerge as clarity, as grace, as a new and exciting adventure, I'm diving in.  Literally.

Still in the Wormhole

Wow.  I am deep in the washing machine of this month's crazy geometry.  We had the Full Solar Eclipse at the New Moon Spring Equinox that kicked things off last week and we're in the spin cycle until the Full Moon Full Lunar Eclipse on April 4th (which will be visible from North America!!)  Every year we have this wormhole and every year I ride it entirely and feel it profoundly.  This year the geometries have some absolutely astounding symmetries, allowing us to go deeper than ever before.

There are thousands (if not millions) of sites that write about these geometries and every one has a slightly different spin.  Each of us will have a unique experience based on our birth charts.  The bottom line for me is that I can feel the solidity of my constructed world falling away; it has been getting less and les dense over the past months and during this wormhole, I feel like I can blow it apart with my breath, like those dandelion balls I used to blow on as a kid.  A new layer of truth is being revealed about this Reality and it's big ya'll.  Karma is a construct we created out of the extreme density of this realm.  We carry all this crap forward from every incarnation and then we think the only way to get rid of it is to balance it by 'paying' it back.  Karma is bunk.  We were never meant to carry anything other than the jewel of the experience forward.  We lost sight of that truth eons ago, and it's starting to make its way back into our collective consciousness as the energies quicken and we realize our multi-dimensional selves.  If you are living strictly in the 3D, this sounds like gibberish to you and you should likely find a different blog to read, one that is fully steeped in the density of matter, the suffering, the war, the struggle.  If you are reading this and some part of you awakens ever so slightly, perhaps you should read on.  When we reclaim our fullness as multi-dimensional creator beings, we break the cycle of karma. I'll say that again. WHEN WE RECLAIM OUR FULLNESS AS MULTI-DIMENSIONAL CREATOR BEINGS, WE BREAK THE CYCLE OF KARMA.  And during this wormhole we have the very real possibility of simply laying down our karma. TO SET IT DOWN and continue forward free and clear to create from our purest urge, not from our past crap.  Setting  down our karma means allowing ourselves to see, truly see, with all our infinite number of 'eyes' the whole truth of ourselves, light and dark, and to accept and love ourselves in all of it.

A major practice we could be in RIGHT NOW to support this process is a simple bringing in of Light everyday.  This is going to sound really trite and try it anyway.  Barring a really long and probably boring explanation, the multi-dimensional part of you can be summed up as pure white Light.  You still have the phone number of God/Creator/Great Sprit/Whatever You Call It.  You can simply sit in meditation and with the breath, bring pure white Light from the cosmos through the crown of your head and down into your belly region.  If you don't know what that's about, just imagine a beam of pure white Light coming down from the sky into the top of your head and into your belly.  Now condense the light into a really powerful ball, then spread that Light into your heart (hold it there for a few minutes) and then spread it into your whole body, into your whole house, into your town, into your state, into your country and then throughout the whole planet. LEAVE THAT LIGHT THERE, and pull your attention back to your own body which is still completely infused with Light, and then 'merge' with Divine Light, God Light, Pure Truth.  And then, as you go about your day, infuse every situation with that Light.  Just infuse every area of your life with that Light.  Read an article about fracking?  Infuse fracking with that white Light.  Someone nearly creamed you on the freeway?  Infuse that person and yourself with Light.  Your 14-year-old daughter jack-hammering your quietude?  Infuse both of you with Light.  You don't have to see or create any outcome; just see the situation and infuse it with pure white Light. Do that for a while and see what changes in your life.

For myself, I am being uber present to my kundalini yoga practice as well, as it is allowing my physical body to hold the Light.  I follow Guru Jagat at Rama Yoga Institute for Applied Science and Technology.  All of her classes are game-changing and she televises each and every one so that you can do it from your own home.  Rama-tv.com.  Tara Matthew's Art of the Daily Practice is also a good source.  When I first started doing kundalini yoga, I had a ten year practice of let's just call it Flow Yoga.  I hated kundalini, thought it was weird, and was just simply like "NO".  Thankfully my beautiful teacher at the time, Rev. Kate Roger, had taught/reminded me how to work through resistance and I broke through into the unspeakably beautiful jewel that kundalini offers me.  Resistance can be our deep knowing that this is truly not for us and resistance can be our ego saying no, don't go down there, you'll wake up from the illusion that you ARE your ego and then where will I be?  

Bust through. Truly live, multi-dimensionally, in all your glory.  And then share that glory/Light with the world.  Please.  Thank you.

March

Blessings Beloveds! This month of March is a doozy. Lots happening planetarily and the good news is when we move through it with consciousness, we actively create our experience and get the best ride, like catching a wave and surfing it to the end. The big players this month are the Pluto/Uranus Square, a solar eclipse and the Spring Equinox. This P/U square has been with us since last June and will culminate this month on the 17^th, the same day the eclipse portal opens. The Pluto/Uranus Square is all about dismantling and destruction, which essentially entails burning down the house. The energies have been so intense that we have not really had a choice in the matter. Some planetary aspects are sort of ‘voluntary’ in that we can look away, hide out under the covers and become more entrenched in our illusions so that we are not consciously affected.  Not so this one; within this portal, everything burns whether we’re ready or not. We have been up to this for at least eight months and for me personally, it has been a somewhat gentle process, although yes, everything has changed again and again to the point where my life is hardly recognizable. Throughout we are asked to release and let go of that which is naturally falling away – hopefully with grace and ease – so that the next iteration of our lives can spring forth. Barring grace and ease, this can be an incredibly messy, bloody process, a real mf'er as it were. If this is your experience, just breath, meditate, deepen your self care and know that the end of this particular cycle is near. The end of this month might be a good time to journal around “Who am I now that I’ve released this story, pattern, belief, behavior, person, job, house, town? (You get the picture). What’s next? What do I want my life to look like in six months? For the next year, for the next 10 years?” You get to construct it, so why not do it mindfully? You are the architect, designer, contractor and builder.

 

We are tremendously helped in this deconstruction/letting go/rebuilding by this eclipse season. We have a total solar eclipse on March 20^th – total equals maximum intensity - followed hours later by the Spring Equinox and the New Moon.  Eclipses are pause moments, where we get to reboot the system and integrate all the wisdom/upgrades we’ve accumulated on our journey towards higher consciousness. This, preceded by the last Pluto/Uranus Square and followed by an Equinox New Moon makes for a dramatic portal of destruction, releasing, integrating and then turning towards what’s next. We get to plant our new seeds of Spring from a beautifully purified vantage point, on the other side of this intense experience the planets have led us through and held for us. How great is that?!

 

 How can we move through this month mindfully? I would begin with journaling/reflection. Journaling is most powerful as it opens avenues of often hidden thought and information that then get to come into the 3D so that we may examine and work with them. I would suggest journaling about how your life has changed over the past year. What has fallen away? Can you see why it was with you and what it taught you? Who are you now that you experienced it? Can you see why it had to fall away? Who are you now that you’ve let it go? Is there more you can release? What’s the best way to do that? I find when I ask myself the question, the answer inevitably follows. I will wake up with it, or it will simply show up in my consciousness. We can also support ourselves this month with ceremony, honoring where we’ve been, where we are now and where we’re going. Then we get to ride the energy of the Spring Equinox, the sun’s ‘new year’ when it enters the first house of the zodiac, Aries. This sign is all about creation and movement, with a bullet, through any terrain. So get to it. Consciously create what’s next. The world is waiting with baited breath to see your brilliance evolve and shine!!

February's Gifts

Brilliant Ones! My goodness, spring has sprung in Southern California, and particularly in my orchard, which is awash in new blossoms. The walnut trees have announced themselves in their typical grand style and the citrus are beginning to perfume the air with a scent that makes me swoon. And of course the grasses are the indescribable green of brand new beginnings. Like the orchard, I can feel the endless possibilities of ‘What Will Be’ stirring within me. This time of year is always a bit confusing to my body, as it is still technically winter and yet Spring has most definitely arrived. And then we will have a cold spell and winter will reassert itself and then it will turn warm again, and so on. Spring brings to mind thoughts of cleaning out, clearing out, beginning anew. And yet it’s not quite time, as winter has not fully run its course. The seeds are not quite ready to break ground. And so we renew our commitment to nurturing the seeds we planted as intentions perhaps at the Winter Solstice, perhaps at the New Year, or both. Revisit your hearts, your journals, anywhere you recorded your intentions for 2015. Ask the vision of your life how it wants to be served; now is the time to start laying the ground for what will reveal itself as you this year. Dream. Envision. Re-empower your commitments. Make that phone call, schedule that appointment, have that conversation. When Spring arrives in March, it has an energy and momentum that is undeniable and wildly useful. Be ready to jump in and work with it fully so that your vision for your life is wholly supported by your actions. When in doubt, or when you have choices to make, pick the one that most supports your vision. Ask yourself again and again “Does this choice/action/thought support my vision for my life?” Listen to the answer, you are infinitely wise!
 

On another note, we are deeply in Mercury Retrograde and will be until the 11^th. This is a particularly powerful cycle; in the outside world it is seen as the great interrupter of travel, communications and the like. We are told not to initiate projects or sign contracts, etc. This is essentially because Mercury (ruler of the mind) in its retrograde period takes us deeply into our interior, and ultimately into an underworld of sorts. As we are essentially in another realm during this time, it can be a deeply nutritious dive if we work with it consciously. The retrograde phase brings us we closer to the spirit world; we are more oriented in our right-brain, where intuition and heightened sensitivities live. We have deeper inner sight; we can see and feel things about ourselves and others that have perhaps been hidden. (Hidden because we don't want to see, we don't want to know.) In this place, we tend to question our perceptions, to question everything, which allows us to re-orient, re-evaluate, re-invent. It can be very powerful work!!

 

The new moon in Aquarius happens on February 18^th, when Mercury is stationing direct, meaning it no longer gives the impression of moving backward and now appears motionless in the sky. This is the time we get to integrate all that the retrograde phase brought up for us. Good stuff!  That, coupled with the new moon, is a fruitful time to work, so let’s get to it!

  And, just because, I will take this moment to offer my deepest gratitude to all who use this blog and my Circle to dive into the adventure of knowing yourselves more authentically. When you shine a light on your own being, you light up the entire world and I am eternally grateful to you for that.

 

 

January Newsletter

Greetings Beloved Ones!

Sending Bright New Year’s Blessings to each of you. I trust this finds you settling nicely into a new solar spin. As last year’s energies were over lit with ‘spiritual exploration’, 2015 is all about the ‘abundant and new’. We are being asked to do things differently. From our overriding growth of last year - finding our footing, allowing ourselves to see and incorporate all aspects of ourselves, warts and all - we are now being asked to be this expanded being in the world. We are being asked to dismantle and release the way we do just about everything so that our newly revealed authentic selves may dictate how things are going to roll from here on out. This means allowing our hearts full reign to act as boss. That’s it.

 

For myself, for starters, it means releasing my age-old conversation that I am not a morning person, that’s it’s really hard for me to get up out of bed early. This does not mean I work through it, no. It means I say “F---  it, I’m done with that conversation. I’m releasing that thought form into the dirt as it were, just giving it back to the field of illusion from which it arose. Thank you illusion, for all you held and taught and now goodbye. I’m going to just start getting up to do my kundalini practice first thing before the school run. I’m going to let the larger yes of my commitment to kundalini and myself override the illusion of no.  So I get out of bed. And on the mornings I don’t, it’s not a big deal. I am gentle with myself. My skipping a day does not mean anything other than I skipped a day. I simply get up the next day. And as it turns out, I’m actually fine getting up early and am finding myself quite the eager morning person on my mat. Also, regular kundalini is changing absolutely everything about how I am showing up as my life. Thank you Breath, thank you Spaciousness!

 

And so, let’s start this year off with some clear sight. The new moon in Aquarius, exact tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5:14am PST, brings us the gift of new perspective, and since it is in the first degree of Aquarius, in brand new territory as it were, this potent new moon supports us in activating and initiating what’s next. We have spent an entire year facing the karma of our past; let’s release what we’ve worked through and create what’s next and true for us. Let’s allow our hearts to lead so that we are ‘drawn by the stronger pull of that which we truly love’ (Rumi). Let’s delegate our minds to simply noticing what’s present for us. Our thoughts about what’s present are not meaningful…let them float through. Notice what you need to see in order to shine light on and release old patterning. And check in with the heart again and again and again. It knows…

 

Inner Gangsta

In the 6th grade when she was 12 years old, my daughter discovered rap music and fell head-long in love, her first love really.  My skinny, long-limbed, sparkly spoiled Southern California white princess dropped into it HARD.  She went from Macklemore to Eminem to Dr. Dre to Snoop Dog (the chronic) and the like.  She went from rainbow sparkles to black on black, head-bands and bows to thick black eye-liner and Doc Martens.  We let her listen to whatever she wanted, as she was going to anyway, sanctioned by us or not.  She started out with the clean versions of everything which for some songs is really just humming; by 7th grade, she made her way into the explicit.  And so every morning, when we get into the car for our 25 minute drive to school, she's the DJ, and anything goes.

I have a mind that likes a bone; I love riddles and koans and anything that keeps my monkey mind busy so that I can get on with living from my heart.  And my mind learns lyrics really well, always has.  So when I listen to rap for at least an hour a day, the same songs over and over again, my brain learns every single word after a while.  And so we sing these lovely ballads together in the car "I don't give a fuck, I don't give a fuck, I don't, I don't, I don't give a fuck, bitch I don't give a fuck about you or anything that you do..."  The nastier the lyrics, the more fun we have singing them at the top of our lungs, like we're really extra cool.  (Sometimes we discuss the songs and use them for discourse on human nature but that's a different post.)  On the mornings where I tell my daughter I just can't face her music that day, she says "Come on mom, it's our jam, it's how we do", which works every time because how am I going to deny my girl our jam?  And you know what?  I am beginning to understand something about rap music - albeit from an affluent white woman in her 50's perspective.  It speaks to the gangster in me, that totally bad ass 'I'm a fuck you up' girl who doesn't take any shit from anyone.  Who fights back.  Who calls it as she sees it, without fear.  When I was a girl, Bruce Springsteen was about as close as I got to this.  Bruce told me to get the hell out of Jersey and I listened.  I bolted the summer after high school and never looked back.  When I listen to E Street radio now, I realize how influential Bruce Springsteen was back then; how his lyrics allowed me to find a place in me that knew that yes, I too needed to get the hell out.  I too was born to run, to break free and hide out on the back streets.  Those songs and those lyrics became my anthem, my riding music, and they gave me the courage to be that girl who ran away from everything she knew.

Rap is doing the same with my girl.  It is allowing her to explore this really tough bitch who lives inside of her and is basically like "eff you, I'm a do shit my own way."  Sometimes I know she is picking a song on purpose to sing the lyrics to me, as a message she can't otherwise say ("bitch shut yo trap").  The more I witness this, the more I see the value of her inner gangsta; it's allowing her to explore that raw power - without being incited to violence or misogyny.  And interestingly enough, she has also gone back to listening to the sound track of High School Musical, which is almost sickly sweet in its straight-laced idealism.  So rap is not necessarily informing who she is in the outside world; it is just exposing her to a side of herself she can own, integrate and use when necessary - a tough girl who is capable of handling herself, sticking up for herself and having her own back.  Like Snoop Dog, she is the shiiit, beeitch....

Anyway, as it turns out, there is a down side.  I definitely overuse 'motha fucka' and quite often find that after hours of hearing (and sometimes singing along) with a song in my head, what I'm actually singing is something along the lines of "take a bullet with some dick and get this dope off this jet."  I do find myself dreaming of the day when my daughter has her own car and her own jam.  And I can go back to my jam of yoga chants and the like. 

I ain't never gonna give up my inner gangsta tho, no.  That ho is way too bad ass to let go...