CREATING YOUR SELF-CONCEPT

Greetings my Beloveds. Wheweee!! The going is rough as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Eleven days ago we had a partial solar eclipse at the New Moon in Aquarius, a reboot of our consciousness around our collective humanity and close relationships. Those areas of our un-consciousness that we have been doing a bang-up job of ignoring are totally out in the open, up for review. Now is a time to see what does not work, like AT ALL ANYMORE, and leave it behind. It’s not surprising that the most recent school shooting happened within this portal; in the past we’ve witnessed these events, been heart-broken and horrified and angry and then we just sort of all ‘forget’ and move on until the next one happens. This time feels different though, doesn’t it? And it’s not the older ‘wiser’ generation who is demanding change; it’s our youth, literally standing up and saying NO. NO MORE. NOT EVER AGAIN. These ones have been activated upon a path of taking responsibility for their world and I can feel the power and force of the slip-stream of consciousness they have said Yes to and it’s HUGE. I’m excited to see how it’s going to roll out.

We too must catch this stream of energy and do our work. Time to get REALLY REALLY clear on what it is we are doing here – what did we incarnate on Earth to do? To be? What is the gift we are bringing to Humanity? It’s time to leave behind ANYTHING that doesn’t serve that mission, be it a thought form (I can’t do it, I’m not smart enough, rich enough, worthy enough, etc.), a behavioral pattern (I hate my job so I need to drink/smoke/numb out at night to feel ok) or a belief system (I’m a piece of shit, born with sin, and I need to pay a man to make me right with God.) All of these are Systems of Illusion that keep us trapped in vicious cycles, that keep us from delivering our dharma, which is the thing we came here to do and be. Ever see a fruit tree that never gets cleared of its fruit? The fruit is the tree’s gift to the world; when it rots on the branches and ground, the stagnant energy eventually makes the tree sick. We are the same – if we are not delivering our dharma, it will ultimately make us sick, either emotionally, physically or spiritually. Know any sick people? I do. If we are not creating something good every day (we are born creators) we will create drama. Know anyone who does that, creates drama for no reason? I do. It is time (well past time, actually) for us to quit this nonsense and tap back into the reason we are here. Our souls know it – it’s written into the blueprint of our DNA. The only thing keeping our consciousness from knowing it are these silly illusions we hold so dear. Time’s up on our f’in illusions, individual and collective. Time to set them down FOREVER.

How do we set them down? Well, I’ve been talking about this for years because this is exactly the work I’ve been doing for years. Go back and read the archives - there’s lots on this subject there, lots of tools and practices to help you begin this important work. In short, we must examine everything we believe about ourselves and the world and see if it’s actually true for us. Examine your habits and patterns; where did they come from? Do they reflect who you are or did you inherit/adopt them from someone else? Examine your belief systems. Where did they come from? Are they actually true for you? Examine your childhood. What did your parents actually think of you? What ideas about yourself did you inherit from them? Are they true? Are you that? If so, do you want to keep being that or would you like to change?

Here’s an example of this kind of inquiry from my own life, around coffee. (I know, totally mundane, but watch where it goes). Coffee ‘told’ me every single morning that I needed it to function, and I believed it for MANY MANY years. It literally was my first thought upon waking – where is my coffee and how do I get it? Then my body started telling me that coffee wasn’t my friend and I was like ‘that can’t be right because I need it every single day to function.’ I ignored my body for a long time because what it was telling me didn’t jive with my very engrained thought form. When I finally grew weary of the struggle between my body and the thought form, I took a hard look at it - where did I get the idea that I needed coffee first thing every day? In college, when I worked two jobs, I didn’t get much sleep. There were nights that I worked until 11pm and then went  home to write a paper, due the next day. Coffee kept me up to get my work done and coffee got me up and to class the next morning so I adopted the thought form that I needed coffee to function. And when I dug deeper, I discovered another thought form I’d carried since childhood that said I was lazy, had low energy and was unmotivated. Coffee was the antidote. So I asked myself, ‘Am I lazy?’ Nope, never been lazy. Ok, easy to release that one. Do I have low energy? Yes, I’ve had low blood pressure my whole life, which I counteract with exercise. Do I need coffee for that? Nope, exercise does the trick and as I’ve aged, my blood pressure has risen into normal range, so I’m all good. Am I unmotivated? Yep, around doing things I hate like paperwork, filing and mundane tasks. I’ve been working with Saturn (the Cosmic Taskmaster) on that, and I’ve actually started to enjoy ticking those things off my ToDo list. Examining these thought forms allowed me to see that they were never or no longer true so I could easily release them. Then I turned back to coffee, my long-time love. What was true about coffee? Well, it’s delicious, yes. SO SO delicious. Also it makes my whole system acidic and it fuels my monkey mind so that my thoughts race. So here I am, dedicated to a quiet, meditative mind, so much so that my entire life is structured around practices to achieve this and the first thing I do every single morning works against that? Isn’t that interesting?? This opened up a whole new area of inquiry that led to a whole new set of false beliefs to release. And I easily quit drinking coffee every day.

Once you get good at knowing what you are not, you can begin deciding what you are. Only you get to decide this as you are solely responsible for you. You alone get to create your self-concept. You get to decide who you are right now, who you will be tomorrow and who you will be next week. In this eclipse portal (which runs through July) you have a giant push of cosmic energy to help with this process. Self-Concept is literally your declaration of who you are. As I was holding the self-concept of “I am a person who needs to have coffee every day in order to function”, my life organized around that concept and let me tell you, I was very successful in procuring coffee every morning. Everyone around me and the Universe itself conspired to make that happen. Now I hold a self-concept of “I wake energized and charged for whatever the day asks of me” and that's simply what's true now. I can put whatever I like into my self-concept (although things like “I am a tall person” or “I am a prima ballerina” might be a waste of my energy) and as long as I hold fast to it – like a dog with a bone – my system will organize itself around that concept. I will choose those actions and thoughts that serve it, and the world will mirror it back to me. It’s important to think BIG with your self-concept, as in “I am a boundless creator god, fully tapped into the creative impulse, delivering my dharma with exuberance, grace and love, realizing my dreams, living as a beneficial presence to humanity and to consciousness itself.” Get the picture?  

Your self-concept will evolve over time as you become the thing you declare yourself to be, so you can move onto other self-concepts. What have you always dreamed of being? You can’t get it wrong so be creative, have fun. Keep it open-ended; the Universe has a bigger imagination than you – let it fill in the blanks. Write it down, tape it to your mirror so you can see it when you’re brushing your teeth, put it on your steering wheel, make it the wallpaper of your phone, tape it to your refrigerator. Write it out every single day on a little piece of paper and put it in your pocket. Refuse any thought that contradicts it. Hold steady and fast to it, even when the phenomenal world appears otherwise. Just simply KNOW that it is your birthright to be who you say you are. When you are steadfast in your knowing, the Creative Principle will know it with you and the Cosmos itself will shift to accommodate and support it. And that’s when the magic really begins…

ON BENDED KNEES

Saturn's Rings as seen from Cassini

New Year’s Greeting Beloveds! I hope this finds you catching the slip stream of new beginnings as the Julian calendar tips into 2018. Astrologically and seasonally, there is nothing significant about December 31^st at 11:59:59PM, however humans have been celebrating it for several millennia as a turning towards the New, so we tap into that energetically for ourselves. January becomes a time to renew our homes, health, schedules/routines and the like, as well as revisiting and reviewing our life purpose. 

To prepare myself for this new year, I listened to Dr. Michael Lennox’s Astro Overview for 2018 and it was  L O N G  as in there is a lot going on. I am going to condense it here as best I can. Realize that when any astrologer looks at an entire year taken within the context of wheels within wheels, cycles within cycles, he/she could throw a rock in any direction and hit a major vein of energy on which to focus. It takes an experienced, intuitive astrologer to catch the biggest story and for me, that is Dr. Lennox. Where he chooses to place his attention most often matches my own choices. If you follow an astrologer (AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO) (BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON), find one that matches you energetically so that you can receive intuitively. 

There are two big stories for 2018 and they are 1) Awakening in the World of Form (3D) courtesy of Uranus moving into Taurus and 2) Saturn (yes Saturn is going to be on your last nerve until you shed the body) (wish I was kidding) DEMANDING that you build the forms and structures that support you achieving and maintaining the highest possible vantage point available to you. Let’s break that down.

Uranus is the Great Awakener, and uses any means possible to bring that awakening; your house burns down or you win the lottery - both will equally transform your relationship to the material world. Uranus moves slowly – it’s been in Aries for the past 10 years. Aries is all youthful fire, leap first/question later, “Let’s burn everything down RIGHT NOW OK??!!” Think businesses failing, marriages failing, governments crumbling, social structures disintegrating. Change and transformation all over the place. In May Uranus enters Taurus which is grounded Earth energy that takes all that Aries exuberance and says “Ok, we’re here, shit’s all burned down, now what? How do we integrate these transformations into our physical world? How do we contain and hold what’s emerging now?” We take the concept of Awakening out of the fiery, almost-out-of-control, action orientation into the slow, steady, grounded pause, into inquiry and finding the best way to proceed. And the best way to proceed is best seen from the highest+widest vantage point available, which brings us to #2. 

Saturn.

Saturn is our Great Teacher, the bringer of lessons which leads us to fulfill our karma (righting+releasing past actions) into our Dharma, the energy we incarnated to bring onto the planet, the one we embody when we are fully realized. Saturn has been in Sagittarius - all fiery transparency and authenticity, allowing for no wiggle room. No more faking it or phoning it in. We must be who we say we are or we’re going to get nailed. (See how this worked so beautifully with what Uranus was up to in Aries? It’s all one great big system with incomprehensible genius and precision.) Saturn moved into Capricorn in December and will be there until 2020. Capricorn is an Earth sign that teaches us how to achieve our goals, how to create and maintain the structures that will get us up that mountain in a grounded, real way. No woo woo here. Capricorn puts it head down and does its work no matter what. We’re going to need those Capricorn blinders because the world is going increasingly mad. The ‘crazy’ we’re with now is going to ratchet up steadily, hitting one peak in January 2020, when shit really erupts. This year and next are all about preparing ourselves for the world of 2020. We are going to need to be at the top of the mountain, our highest+best vantage point so that we have some distance off the crazy, so that we can hold the line for what is good, for what works, for how love acts and shows up. In this way we will be part of the solution rather than contributing to the crazy. 

And how do we get up that mountain? Cue the broken record.
BY HAVING A DAILY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE. At this point in the human evolutionary journey, we simply cannot grow into our highest and best potential without one. It does not have to be long or complicated. It just has to be a daily touch-in with your own eternal nature. Decide what it is for you and do it - even for five minutes if that’s all you can manage. JUST DO IT. EVERY GOSH DARNED DAY. Meditate, do the kundalini practice I sent last month, chant, do pranayama exercises, whatever, JUST DO. No more wiggle room, no more excuses. The energy is going to get more and more divided in the 3D, which means the heavy pull of gravity at the negative end of the spectrum of experience will become even heavier. You must have a practice wherein you experience the light, neutrality and wholeness at the positive end of the spectrum of experience. When you are hanging out there, life is your school and rather than freaking out when the shit hits the fan, you have the wherewithal to pause and wonder “Why is this in my movie?” You are the writer/director/producer of your movie, and I guarantee you put that shitty thing in there for a reason, so find it. Find and receive the gift – and thereby fulfill your karma, stop the f’in cycle of suffering and start delivering on your Dharma. The world is begging you, on bended knees, forehead to the ground, to deliver your best. 

Here are very brief overviews of how each sign will interact with the two big stories I’ve outlined above. Read for your Sun, Moon and Rising signs.

Aries: Will not be challenged by the Uranus changes – you thrive on the new. You will however be leveled by the demand to be responsible to goals (square to Saturn). Saturn will be all over your shit around being grounded, responsible and deliberate in your actions, particularly around a spiritual practice.

Taurus: Brand new, lightening strike of awakening, YAAY YOU!! You will also have a harmonious experience around the demand for responsibility as you are in a good relationship with the Great Teacher.

Gemini: You will be forced to act upon the coming changes in a pointed way; you must follow the fork in the road, taking a NEW PATH, making a NEW CHOICE. Pass this test – it’s vital.

Cancer: Changes are ones you can work with, you’ve got the info and wherewithal. The Saturn in Capricorn angle is confrontational for you – do your best to overcome being overly emotional, which clouds the field. Find neutrality.

Leo: Will face a similar energy to Gemini although softer; you’ve already made most of the changes and the fork in the road is a gentle course correct.

Virgo: Will receive the greatest benefit. Incorporating changes and responsibility will be easy and in your highest good.

Libra: You will also have a fork in the road – TAKE IT! You will explode into a new consciousness on this new road. Your journey will be uncomfortable but clear.

Scorpio: Your experience will be explosive, confronting. Imperative to become responsible to a daily practice – the energies ensure it will be very effective and offer great long-term outcomes.

Sagittarius: Similar to Scorpio, especially with regards to responsibility around practice.

Capricorn: Mighty responsibility however you’ll receive energy and changes harmoniously.

Aquarius: Very disruptive energy – square with Uranus brings instability but also fun and excitement. Ground, ground, ground. 

Pisces: You will receive the energies of shake-up/changes and responsibility in a very productive way.

Hope this helps. Buckle down, get your shit lined up, it’s time to work.

THIS SHIT WORKS

Holiday Greetings from Utah! I'm snuggled in, watching the snow (blowing sideways) and giving myself the gift of long, deep practice.

There is a lot happening astrologically as I'm sure you're aware. The last new moon of the year passed and it's proximity to Saturn's transit into Capricorn, Mercury stationing direct and the Winter Solstice increases it potency - making it an especially good time to set intentions for the coming year. The Moon cycle is roughly a month long, offering us a regular practice of working with a creation cycle - planting seeds, nourishing the new shoots, harvesting the crop and clearing the field to prepare for the next cycle. Here is a great website that clearly explains the phases: http://astromagickal.com/new-moon.html

Here is another website that offers yogic practices to coincide with the moon:

http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/how-do-moon-phases-affect-your-energy/  

And if you're having the thought "Oh no, I've missed the window!", let me say a few words about that. Affirmations and intentions work 24/7. If you set 'new moon' intentions on the first quarter moon, the cosmos is not going to reject them. Intentions work with cosmic law and are powerful any day of the year. The only thing that keeps your intentions from coming to fruition is your own subconscious thoughts about them. If deep down you are running patterns of 'not enough' or 'not worthy' or 'don't deserve' or 'that will never happen' - your intentions will not come to pass. This is why we need to do the work of cleaning out the basement of our subconscious minds - so that we can step into the true reality that we are creators of the highest order, made up of the stuff of God. If we are 'pure of spirit' (got a clean basement because we've cleaned out all the programming we received in our formative years), we can create a reality based on our choices of who/what we want to be - and who we DECLARE ourselves to be - rather than on what the world tells us is valuable. The 'special days' like New Moon, Full Moon, Solstice, Eclipses, etc. are super-charged energetically, which just means we will be amplified if we work deeply on those days. But make no mistake - work deeply every day and the cosmos will match us, helping to create the world of our choosing.

How to create your own reality? If you've been reading my newsletters/blog, you are likely aware that I'm a huge fan of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. This yoga is weird to the extreme which is why I tried to reject it - unsuccessfully - for five years. I kept coming back to it because it works. I could feel energy gathering, moving, brightening in my body and auric field for the first time in my life. And the more I came back to it, the stronger it grew. Now I do it every single day and it is a vital part of my functionality. A regular practice will bring up all your shit; as it consistently raises your vibration, the low vibratory places in you are exposed. It's a completely different way of working spiritually; rather than having to go in and dredge up all the crap in your unconscious (from this lifetime and others), you are literally dosing yourself with...I hesitate to say...the truth of Supernal Light and yet that's exactly what it feels like. And that Light clears your shit out, brightens your aura, makes you spacious, allows you to respond to life rather than react. It allows you enough presence in any moment to actually take it in completely to see the truth of it, rather than running every dammed thing through your fucked-up false filters. Doesn't that sound lovely?  I have watched as friends surrender to Kundalini and every one of them becomes increasingly brighter, clearer, happier. Bottom line, this shit works. 

Astrologically, we are in a time of 'The Shit Is Hitting The Fan'. Technically we have come out of a long cycle of being asleep, where confusion, illusion, having no idea who/what we really are, fighting one another for resources, etc. reigned. And although we've entered into an age of awakening, we are literally in the throes of the turnover and those throes are likely to last for the remainder of my lifetime. The old Piscean patriarchy is not going down without a fight; the good news is we know it ultimately will go down - and it will be a nasty fight to the death. This is currently playing out on the world stage in a big way. This time of chaos reminds me of something I learned from scuba diving; wherever two separate bodies of water meet up, the diving is incredibly tumultuous and incredibly rich because every creature under the sun is in those crazy waters. We experienced this in Tobago, where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean at the very tip of the island. The diving is surreal; the best dive is called 'Washing Machine' and we saw things on that dive that were hard to fathom. And we are without doubt in the washing machine of the meetup of the Ages of Pisces and Aquarius, so best get used to it. And best to get yourself as bright and calm as possible now so that 1) you can survive these times without becoming an addict of some kind (drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, Instagram, Netflix) and 2) you get so bright you are able to help facilitate others into their brightness.

To that end, here are some ideas on how to interact with Kundalini Yoga; classes can be hard to find because it hasn't yet completely taken root in the US. If you live in Los Angeles or New York City, there are Rama Yoga studios owned by my teacher Guru Jagat. Otherwise, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, you can take classes from wherever you are in the world on the Rama website, with either a yearly or monthly membership that is very reasonably priced. Rama's mission is to get these tools out into the world; if you cannot afford a membership, reach out to them and they will work with you. This is a new model of commerce that is about more than money! I do my practice through the website and it is as potent as doing it live in person with the teacher. I know this because I did virtual, on-line classes with Guru Jagat for about 6 months and when I finally decided to drive the hour to Venice to do a workshop, I realized that there was no difference between sitting in the studio or doing it on-line. The full mojo comes through on-line, largely because of her radiance and also because they film it as though you are sitting in the back of the class, so you really get the feeling of the group experience. Apart from daily classes (with a huge archive to choose from), they also offer on-going immersive experiences as well as special workshops that coincide with potent days like Solstice. I follow Guru Jagat mostly and also enjoy Harijiwan, Tej and Harmanjot's classes. Each teacher has a completely different vibe; find the one that works for you.

Ramayogainstitute.com

Sometimes full length classes can feel overwhelming for a beginner so I will offer up my small practice, which is what I do when I don't make time for a long practice. These kriyas clear and fuel me so that I have a higher functionality throughout the day. And when I do them every single day, well, my entire life glows. I created two small videos of my practice, originally for a few women in my Circle who asked for it specifically. Those who are engaging with it are really benefitting, so I've decided to share them. The first video is an explanation of what I'm doing and the second is the actual practice. I would strongly encourage you to watch the first one first so that you can get the most out of the practice. Disclaimer: I AM NOT A KUNDALINI YOGA TEACHER. I am not called to that path. I am a practitioner, sharing my practice. I checked in with a dear friend who is a teacher and she felt my practice was deep enough to warrant my sharing. Another disclaimer: Kundalini is very specific, a technology, so details do matter. That said, as I lengthened into my practice, I could feel some things working for me while others didn't. I could feel my own field respond or not. Trust yourself. Ultimately you are the only expert on you, so once you begin to feel your subtle energy body, allow it's wisdom to lead you rather than the kriyas. The explanations I give in the first video are mine, they are how I have come to feel and know the mantras and kriyas. I encourage you to research the mantras so that you can find your own way into what they mean for you. The individual words are multi-layered to the extreme - there is no single 'interpretation.

Mantras:

Tune-in:
Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo (repeat 3 times)

Aad Guray Nameh
Jugaad Guray Nameh
Sat Guray Nameh
Siri Guru Dayvay Nameh
(repeat 3 times)

Practice:
Sa Ta Na Ma

Sat Nam

Sat Nam Sat Nam Wahe Guru Wahe Guru

Sat Nam (tune-out)

I originally recorded the videos on my iPhone, and am unable to upload them here although I can email a link to a drop box. If you are interested, email me at jaclyngelb@gmail.com

If you aren't interested in the video, you can google each kriya for the specifics. There are videos available for every single one.

SMALL PRACTICE: for all kriyas, I suggest starting with one minute and working your way up to 3 minutes each. The last kriya can be done for 11 or 31 minutes.

1) Tune in.
2) Ego Eradicator
3) Addiction Meditation
4) Fists of Anger
5) Sat Kriya
6) Gyan Chakra Meditation
7) Tune out.

I suggest pausing between each kriya so that you can deepen into the beautiful energy you're creating. These small seven steps CAN CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. (AND NO I'M NOT EXAGGERATING). 

Try it, reject it, hate it, come back to it, find your way into loving it. Report back.

Blessings for a grand 2018!! 

All Love,
Jaclyn

THANK YOU HARVEY WEINSTEIN

Fall Greetings Sweet Humans.

If you're reading this newsletter, you likely have some form of relationship with the subtle inward-looking energies, so I'm sure you're feeling this deep New Moon that just passed, and the final stages of Saturn in Sagittarius. Saturn is 'the great teacher', the maker and bringer of lessons. If Earth is a school, Saturn is the Headmaster. And in Sagittarius the syllabus is about transparency and authenticity. As Saturn prepares to leave Sagittarius on December 19th, there is a big push to make sure all the lessons have been presented, so the energy will intensify. The hidden will become known, those areas that have been veiled in delusion will come to light. Those places where we've all been complicit in collective illusion will be brought to our attention in a big way. Hmmm. Any of this sounding familiar? **

For me personally, what's up in the collective with regards to what I'll call 'The Harvey Weinstein Effect' is an incredible gift to humanity. All this time I thought HW came to Earth to present beautiful films that stir our hearts and imaginations. Now I realize he also came to be a very toxic male energy that was vile to the extreme, so that when exposed, we could not demur and look away. We have all been complicit in his behavior. And by 'his' I mean the toxic masculine. I've been complicit by ignoring and pushing aside years of unwanted sexual touch and advances. I was complicit in college when I was date raped; although I told everyone about it - to warn them to stay away from that guy - I did not even consider going to the police and pressing charges as I should have. I didn't even have a concept that I had a right not to be raped. This is an uncomfortably familiar story in the feminine collective. We have for generations somehow passed on this gene of passivity, complacency, the thinking that as long as we come out of it alive, we're good. And Harvey Weinstein took it SO far, he finally ignited the voice of a solitary woman. And her courage spread so much that women are awakening en masse to the fact that HOLY SHIT WE HAVE A VOICE. And the good men of America are holding the container for this truth to be known and flourish. That's a lot.

In my personal interaction with the HW Effect, I am investigating why I stayed silent all my life up to this point. What drove that? Why did I never call out the ones who treated me inappropriately? In my head I say because I never really cared about their advances, they did not harm me personally because I thought they were just jerks, mesmerized by their penises, 'bad' men, who could never actually touch the truth of me. Now I realize that by not defending myself, I gave them permission to continue to act that way with me AND WITH OTHER WOMEN - woman who maybe didn't have the tools to hold themselves in the midst of that. Women who might make it mean something about themselves, that they are weak, unworthy, or ___________. We all have a responsibility to speak out against injustice for ourselves, yes, and also for others. We will only change this culture of silence together.

So thanks to Harvey Weinstein, I am finding my voice in a new way. I'm noticing when I silence or coerce myself during the course of a day. The other evening I received a call from the Geffen Theater, asking for money to support its program that brings inner-city kids in to see theater shows. I typically cut these calls off immediately, saying NO THANK YOU and hanging up but I'm a member of the Geffen so I thought the call was about that. As he began his spiel, I noticed my body become weary with the thought "DANG IT now I'm going to have to donate money to a cause I don't care about." And this time I really heard that thought and was all "OH NO YOU DONT!" and when he finished I politely told him that while it sounded like a lovely program, it wasn't in my donating dollars wheel house. THAT FELT SO GOOD. While this may seem small, IT'S HUGE YA'LL. Every time we remain silent or do something that doesn't jive with our authentic values, we weaken our boundaries, we leak our precious energy and power. Every time. And when we get comfortable doing it with small things, it becomes very easy to do it with bigger things. This is the road to chronic disempowerment which has been the feminine condition for millennia. Thus the HW Effect.

So using our lives as Course Work, this is an excellent time to dive into your own story around Voice and Power. How do you relinquish it on the regular? How do you hold your boundaries in the face of a toxic masculine? In my own inquiry, I was shocked by the speed and depth of the revelations - it was like a river whose dam burst. This stuff is right below the surface yet has remained hidden. And knowing about it will change everything. As we reclaim our voices, it's VITAL that we speak from a place of self-honoring rather than defending against or judging the other. Self-honoring aligns us with the Divine Feminine, while defending and judging only fuel the toxicity. Standing in self-honoring allows the masculine to find his own voice of honor - this is the way forward now. 

Be brave, go deep, leave no stone unturned. And sing - it will help your voice to emerge powerfully and beautifully. Report back.

At this season of Thanks-Giving, I am grateful for you, for your willingness to be here reading these words, adding your voice to the human healing collective. I'm grateful for your wisdom, your heart, your unique gifts that you deliver with style and generosity. Thank you for working to be your best self, striving to live your highest life, for in doing so you elevate all others. I love you. Also, a shout out to all those who personally experienced Harvey Weinstein's atrocious behavior. I offer you love, compassion, hope and healing. Thank you for your part in this tremendous moment of awakening.

Lastly, a genuine and heart-felt Thank You Harvey Weinstein. Your actions are moving mountains.

**Thank you Dr. Michael Lennox for the crux of this teaching.

DE-GRIEFING

Years ago I was in a sweat lodge in the capacity of an 'elder', holding the ones in the lodge as they moved through an initiation I had transitioned through a few years prior. For me, the heat, darkness and sanctity of sweat lodge allows so much to dislodge inside me, old stuck energies that get burned up in the fire. It's incredibly powerful work. That night, the lodge was packed and there was barely room to breathe. And it was really, really hot. As it progressed, I managed to fold myself into child's pose, my belly between my knees, my forehead to the earth. As the participants softened and opened, they began wailing, first one, then a few, then all of them. The energy was unbelievable - lifetimes of grief pouring like a tide that had been held back for eons. I did not wail as I was not in lodge to journey with them; I was there to assist in holding their journey. Suddenly I felt their collective grief like a swirling vortex of supercharged energy, tunneling right into the back of my heart, through my body and down into the earth. My first thought was fear, because the energy was HUGE and felt like it could tear me apart. And then I noticed it was simply moving through me as I grounded it into the dirt. It wasn't actually affecting me in any way. I was a channel for it to ground. That night changed my life, shifted my understanding of the human vessel, showed me what a body could hold and move. Since then, I allow grief to move through me whenever it comes. 

Grief encompasses a whole compliment of heavy emotions - rage, anguish, resentment, desolation, dejection, despair. These unexpressed emotions live inside all of us and are most often what we talk ourselves out of feeling, because we want to avoid pain and because of an underlying belief that these dark places will kill us. The part of us that fears death is the ego - the illusion of separation that many of us use as an operating system for our whole lifetime. Awakening is realizing that we are more than our ego with its false beliefs. We are more than our stories, our thoughts, our secrets, our weaknesses. We are multi-dimensional creator gods with abilities, proclivities and capacities beyond our imaging. When we begin to embody this understanding, absolutely everything about our lives change. A major component of this work is clearing our physical vessel of the gunk of lifetimes, like steam cleaning an engine. And grief is extremely viscous gunk that adversely affects our entire being. The good news is that we don't necessarily have to understand what we're clearing and releasing - we just have to be willing to lay on the ground and wail, allowing it to simply move through and out of us. And when we're done, we can literally get up, dust ourselves off and carry on as before. No need to build an alter to the grief, process or assign it any meaning. Only to keep moving forward, minus the grief.

Are you up for this work? Can allow yourself to let go of your grief? Can you know that it won't kill you? Are you safe enough within your own skin to hold yourself and let it go? I'm not talking about feeding it with stories about why you should be grieving - that's just drama. I'm talking about opening yourself, accessing wherever it lives in you and then screaming, breathing, crying it out. When we learn to do this, and when we soften (and strengthen) enough to hold the whole human story, we become channels for collective grief. It is bigger than we can imagine and yet it will not kill us if we allow it to simply move through the container of our bodies and into the earth. And we're not just in service to the feminine here because men carry this grief as well; on an archetypal level, the masculine is well aware of its role in the trauma writ large in the feminine story. And men have had plenty of trauma themselves, in the endless cycles of competition and war over resources, in lifetimes of strictly serving the ego.

The masculine and feminine, in their highest, divine expressions, yearn for balance because only in balance can they be fully expressed. One cannot be completely fulfilled without the balanced dance and interplay with the other, for truly they are two sides of a single coin. (Please note, I am not speaking strictly of 'couple' experiences, i.e. marriage. I am not saying "You are nothing without a man". I'm talking about the wholeness within the Self, where we are in a constant dance of our own masculine and feminine energies. I am talking about wholeness within all of our relationships, with fathers, mothers, siblings, friends, beloveds, partners.) When a woman can fully embody the fullness of her Divine Feminine energy, she invites the Divine Masculine to the party.

What is the Divine Feminine exactly? It is the eternal, unchanging Principle that is our connection to Source – to Love, Creation, Nature. She is the Mother, the embodiment of Love, the vessel of unification, the physical with the eternal. She is Kali, a fierce warrior who destroys illusions. She is the Magdalene, the compassionate healer. She is the Oracle, the seer, the keeper of Wisdom and Balance. She is the Lover and the Dancer, who engages Earth energies like Wonder and Magic, who delights in the pleasures of the senses. She is womb, water, flow, life, stillness, enjoyment. Joy. She is the initiator, always, as everything comes through the Feminine.

And so as women, it's time to initiate. It's time to do our clearing work, to release our grief, to build up our nervous systems so that we can hold - and live from - the bigger truth of what we are. No more playing small. We deserve the best of everything. And the world deserves the best of us.

ALL WORK IS MOTHER WORK

Equinox Blessings Beloveds! As September draws to a close, I find myself counting my blessings, offering gratitude for the ever-present abundance that is my life and allowing myself to feel more deeply than ever before. I write this from an airplane on my way home from Hawaii where my beloved and I just completed a five day workshop on Sacred Relationship and Sexuality that has opened me in ways I cannot yet fathom. And always in perfect timing as the prevailing energies now through the end of the year are all about Relationship, so we will be deeply supported as we integrate and expand on the work.

The work was largely about embodying archetypes and how the Divine Masculine and Feminine work together to form wholeness and balance in Relationship. We just passed the Fall Equinox, a balance point in Earth’s yearly journey around the sun, when day and night are of equal length, offering us an archetypal moment to feel our own still point of balance. Do we hang out in the light, forsaking darkness? Do we shun our own darkness out of shame or fear? Do we allow ourselves to be the full spectrum? As humans we are all of it and to function fully we must have understanding or at least knowledge of our dark side, otherwise when it comes online – as it always will - we’ll go unconscious. Or we’ll subvert, pervert, mask or whatever else we habitually do to avoid owning it.

What does that look like in the real world?

Say as a child I was not noticed or praised. Part of the feminine ‘package’ is the inherent desire to be noticed and praised and so when I did not receive it, I subverted the desire and made it mean I’m not worthy of notice or praise. This makes me angry and sad. Forty years later, when I buy a new dress to wear to my husband’s work event and also get my hair done and he doesn’t notice, what do I do? If I’m not in touch with my dark side, I likely won’t understand my subverted anger and feelings of unworthiness. So I’ll project the energy of that unmet need onto my husband, making it his fault and getting angry at him for not noticing my efforts. And I’ll add it to my ever-expanding list of ‘Ways That He Fails Me’ which is a non-reality that literally cuts away at the lifeblood of my marriage. Or, if I’m aware of my darkness around how my unmet childhood needs created this habitual patterning, instead of getting angry and blaming him when he doesn’t notice, I may go to him with my hand on my heart and show him my sadness around that. And, if I’m really hip to my needs and his functionality, I might go to him before he even has a chance to notice me and dance around him saying, “Do you like my new dress and hair as much as I do?!” If I’m bringing the fullness of my feminine energy to this dance, he will most definitely shower me with appreciation and praise. And if not, I am wise enough to ask him for it, saying, “I’m really feeling the need to be noticed and praised right now.”

Understanding our darkness begins with the Feminine. At our inception, as our bodies formed inside our mothers, her electromagnetic field imprinted upon our developing field. There is no way this can be avoided. And so whatever our mother was feeling – fear, grief, anger, overwhelm – was hardwired into us. This is the basis of our ‘mother issues’ and we all have them. And then, whatever our mother felt about our father was also hardwired and became the basis of our father issues. In normal human functionality, we either assimilate or reject our parental patterning. Assimilation means despite our best efforts, we wind up sounding and acting exactly like our mothers, which can create feelings of disassociation and self-loathing. And if we reject our mother, we use all our energy to do the opposite, which also creates tension and self-loathing because ultimately we know we are not free to be ourselves. We will marry our fathers or his opposite because of this imprinting. Only when we release ourselves from this habitual wheel of assimilation/rejection can we become liberated to who we truly are, so that we can make choices and design our lives from the creative pulse of desire that flows through us. Only then can we truly deliver what we came here to be.

And so we do our mother work. The good news is we don’t have to go back and understand our mothers! We can work multidimensionally, outside of time and space and literally reprogram our developing selves in utero. We can bathe our electromagnetic field in utero with what is also (eternally) present: Oneness, Absolute Love, Peace, Joy, Clarity, Purpose. We can tap into all the good that also flows through our ancestral line, through all of human consciousness. We can enliven the part of our field wherein we remember who we are and why we came.

There are various ways of doing this - find someone in your area who facilitates this kind of work. I do - and it can be done remotely over the phone. And if you're in the Los Angeles area, come to my monthly Women's Circle where we regularly dive deep into our darkest natures as well as amplify our brightest selves.

As the world spins faster and crazier, it is imperative that we become the calm at the eye of the storm. We must have the wherewithal to hold a high frequency within our fields, no matter what. We can never fix or heal others; we heal ourselves and our wholeness becomes a lighthouse for others to find theirs, so that we all can live from our highest selves. Doesn't that sound like heaven?

(If you would like more information or a referral to a facilitator, I can be reached at jaclyng@gelbgroup.com)

BLAH BLAH ECLIPSE BLAH BLAH

I know. It's all about the eclipses. Even if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, trust me - your life has been all about the eclipses. So every single year two lunar and two solar eclipses happen and some years there is an extra one, giving us five total. Simply put, eclipses are cosmic alignments wherein the earth casts a shadow on the moon or the moon casts a shadow on the sun. They are also portals, potent windows of vastly increased energy wherein we can achieve some major energetic shifting. Every eclipse is 'governed' by the geometries made by the movements of celestial bodies during the portal, which runs roughly from a full moon lunar eclipse (August 4th) to a new moon solar eclipse (August 21st). We don't often get total eclipses of the sun as we have this month, an event that further heightens the already gigantic energies.

I have been looking at the implications of these eclipses all year as they tend to be auspicious periods of rapid spiritual growth for me. I ride the cosmic energies like a surfer, squeezing every bit of  opening, releasing, and transformation I can out of it. I go way in. The energies this year are so vast, so profound and multi-layered that I have been sitting (and sitting) with how to condense it all into this little ole newsletter for ya'll. How can I present it with any sense of manageability, without your eyeballs rolling back into your head two minutes in? And the answer has been I can't, which is why this didn't present itself weeks ago. I even considered leaving you to your own devices by sending a newsletter that simply said "I'm in too deep to speak, Google 'Eclipses August 2017'. Good luck, see you on the other side." Seriously. 

But then in my own practice, while doing a yoga class with Guru Jagat, she layed down the single most beautiful teaching about the eclipses, one that was so simple and elegant that I immediately determined to share it with you. Banished were thoughts of Jupiter and Uranus, and fire, fire, fire, and Vesta and the Divine Feminine and power dynamics and Mercury and air, and words and more words. It all suddenly became so simple and obvious. Here in a nutshell, here is what she said: 

This total eclipse of the sun happening on August 21st - really the jewel of the season - is about change at a cellular level. It is considered a 'Particle Convergence', linked to the Harmonic Convergence that occurred during the summer eclipse season of 1987. A new stream of thought (that would change the course of history) was layed down by the awakened ones on the planet at that time and this eclipse is the second movement of that thought stream. What it means to you and me is we have the opportunity to change our lives drastically by simply allowing our negative, destructive patterns and selves (from lifetimes and lineages) to fall away and not exist within us anymore, just GONE. And we don't have to do anything for this to happen except to conduct ourselves positively. During this heightened energetic time, it's imperative that we think and act constructively towards ourselves, holding only our strengths and amplifying them again and again. Be friendly to yourself, continually looking out for your highest and best interests, the best use of your time, the best treatment of your body, mind and soul. Be your own soul-mate, develop a deep and loving stream of communication with yourself, do your best by you. Always. With every choice, every breath. Protect your mind from negativity, whatever that is for you. Maybe that means turning away from media and towards whatever brings you peace. Align yourself with a different, positive Reality.

And here is the really really good part: Reality is whatever gives you energy. Non-reality is whatever drains energy from you. And you have a choice in every moment, as the 10,000 thoughts per second run through your mind, you choose which one to focus on. Choose the one that gives you the most energy.

This is brilliant in it's simplicity.

Here's what it looks like in the real world: This morning as I was registering my daughter for 11th grade, I realized she had been put in the wrong Spanish class, despite my weeks of effort in getting her schedule right, the weeks of back and forth with the counselor, who appears to know significantly less about the school's programs than me. Ultimately I hand fed her the schedule and she still 'messed it up'. As I returned to the counseling office yet again, I was in default mode, thinking, "Oh my gawd, why can't this woman just do her job? It feels like I'm out here all alone, trying to figure out this rather complicated program with no help and if I blow it, the stakes are really high." This thought was definitely draining my energy. And then I remembered what Reality is; when I scanned for the thought that would bring me the most energy, it was, "This woman is dealing with hundreds of students, all with differing needs and hundreds of courses, each with their own nuances and that must be a very difficult job. She's probably been working incredibly long hours for weeks, and she simply put the wrong code into the system. It's easily fixable and all is well." My energetic field shifted instantly and profoundly. Because I could feel the truth in that Reality. I've done it multiple times today and it's already becoming a habit. Wow. And, BOOM. 

So more good news, if you're feeling like you're losing your mind and your life has become a shit show because every negative thought you've ever held has come roaring back presenting itself as Truth, you can blame the eclipses! They are bringing up all the stinky muck, whether it's hidden, dealt with, released, whatever, it's baaaaack. And it isn't you; the portal has simply reactivated the energy so that it's 'up' in the field. So you can just turn your head, ignore, and scan for the thought that brings you the most energy.

Leading up to the eclipse, consider doing ceremony or ritual, wherein you give yourself permission/declare your intention to release whatever does not serve your Dharma (that which you came here to do, the Soul's path.) You do not need to get specific because it's very likely you aren't even aware of all you're shedding, so be general about it. Since it's also a New Moon, you can align with that angle of energy by setting intentions for the coming decade, as in GO BIG. For me personally, I'm doing a long yoga practice every day leading up to the 21st, lots of meditation and body work, whatever I can do to keep my mojo high, consistent and stable so that I can ride and use the energy instead of getting leveled by it. During the actual eclipse, it's a good idea to be in water, which could even be a bath before/after. Also, move - dance, twerk, whatever allows energy to move. And of course protect your eyes with eclipse glasses. SUNGLASSES ARE NOT ENOUGH.

Lastly, the shifts that happen within/because the portal will integrate slowly in September, after Mercury's direct retrograde ends on September 5th. It should be a kind and gentle integration and it won't be fully over until Winter Solstice in December. I'm looking forward to seeing us on the other side, all dapper and glowing in our newfound bestie love relationship with ourselves. We can be lighter, more energetic and just, well, happier. A beneficial presence on the planet. Because why the hell else are we here?