Heart Space

Heart center, wild heart.  Heart of the earth, heart of the matter.  Clearly, heart energy is the theme that's rolling through me right now.  It feels like it's time to speak to my heart, to speak from the heart.  It's time for all of us to create space for listening to our hearts.  The most comforting place to be these days is in our heart space: to move into our heart center, and to let that space inform all of our words and actions.  It's a good time to cultivate a compassionate heart for ourselves, for others around us.  Listening to our hearts will bring calm during these days that invite uncertainty, anxiety, tension, and unrest.  Bringing love to ourselves through our hearts will strengthen us for all that will come in the new year.  Once we connect with our own hearts we will be ready to bring our loving heart space to those who cross our paths in our daily exchanges.  No matter what circumstances we encounter, the loving energy we bring to each situation will go far toward creating a Heart Space big enough to embrace and encompass the whole world.

"Take a few slow calm breaths and slide down into your heart space. This is where the unlimited power of the universe channels into you, and is refreshed anew in each present moment." 

                                    --Josie Wood      

Clearing

We are coming through a time of large change and angst.  While it has felt unsettling at best, and horrific at worst, it has been all about the feelings.  This surfacing of fear, anxiety, shock, anger, and frustration has been a necessary medicine.  These debilitating feelings have been held in our collective awareness through generations of pain and struggle.  These large changes are about ushering us into a new way of being in the world.  A way that lifts us out of this struggle, and into a more compassionate and humane interaction with the earth and within our human family.  This very intense year of 2020 has been necessary for breaking up the status quo, and for opening a way for possibilities toward a more enlightened world.  It has been a time for clearing out old judgments, old feelings, old systems, and old darkness.  This clearing is creating a new path for openness to joy, to love, to freedom.  Yes, there will still be a time of blending the old with the new, and of sorting out what goes and what stays.  We are being asked to clear out and to stay in tune with our inner knowing--that true part of who we are at the core.  This true connection will be the mantle of strength that will carry us through these challenging times.  Stay true. 

"Like a wise serpent shedding her skin, you are called to release whatever is no longer authentic or doesn't serve your highest good.  You are not the same person you were ten or even five years ago.  Acknowledge your growth and movement."

                                --Elizabeth Eiler 

        

Circles, Cycles

This is an incredibly rich and vibrant time of year.  We are bringing in final harvests from our outdoor spaces and gardens.  The air is crisp and cooling.  The leaves on the trees are completing their year by turning into brilliant, amazing colors, and then releasing to fall to the ground.  Everything is preparing for a dramatic season change from growth time to rest time.  The recent cold snap in our area was a fast reality check for me after a very pleasant summer season.  We are in the time of year where traditionally circles and cycles of life and death are honored and celebrated.  This is a circle closing--the winding down of the plant and animal growth year for many in the Northern hemisphere.  Additionally, an uncommon cycle that comes around this month is the occurrence of the second full moon of the month--a blue moon.  With this event, and with the temperature change, I am also experiencing the sense of an energy cycle closing, and of another one opening to take us through to the end of the calendar year.  I felt prompted to address all of this because these circle/cycle reminders provide a strong thread of grounding and comfort to me as we move into the events of November and the remainder of the year.  It will be vital for us to stay connected with Nature, as these connections will continue to provide truth and grounding through these unpredictable days.  I wish for you the rich blessings of this season of transition.

"Circles of Life

Everything turns, rotates, spins, circles, loops, pulsates, resonates,

And repeats.

Circles of life, born from pulses of light, vibrate to breathe, while spiraling outwards for infinity

Through the lens of time,            

And into a sea of stars and lucid dreams."

                           --Suzy Kassem                            

            

Speechless

I feel speechless these days.  I feel like nothing I could say would touch the polarities that we are experiencing these days.  I keep a persistent discipline of "rising above," and these times are begging for me to hold to that practice.  This is a time of dissolution, dismemberment, and dismantling.  Old structures are clearly not working, or have been put on hold, in these events of our present lives.  New structures are in the beginning stages of being formed.  Fires, hurricanes, floods, and many other life threatening things are happening to shake up the "way things have been."  So we can no longer say, "That's just the way things are."  I think the courageous stance is to stay open and to allow.  Speaking about these things that are breaking down the status quo is not for me to do.  I heartily encourage others who are prompted to speak at this time to do so.  My part is to observe, to be compassionate, and to bring positive, loving energy into these times of upheaval.  So it is suitable that I am speechless.  There is new creative energy at work, but as yet unseen, so I am unable to speak about these Unknowns either.  I will remain speechless for the time being.  We can each only do our part to bring about the best changes in our world. 

"In stillness, I am speechless."

   --Lailah Gifty Akita

                  

Cauldron

Fire, cauldron, crucible.  The dictionary definition of cauldron includes this:  "a situation characterized by instability and strong emotions."  To me this feels like our present experience of these days.  Once again, I feel led to rise above this campaign place of polarized opinions and slings and arrows.  In the U.S. this fire burns super hot.  We have wildfires burning out of control.  We have long-standing issues of humanity and health heating in a pressure cooker.  And the current instability provides tinder for the fires of change.  This is a time of purification and release.  This heating up is necessary in order to purge past ills from our collective mode of operating.  There is much fertility in the ground after a large fire.  The charred remains leave amazing nutrients in the soil, and the seeds from some plants are activated through fire to germinate and begin the next generation.  These processes provide nourishment for new growth and new life, which we desperately need as an opportunity to begin again.  So this situation may feel uncomfortable for awhile.  But I believe strongly that it is leading us to a larger life of compassion and cooperation.  This belief is the place that I choose to reside in as I move through this cauldron of change.

"Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle--for the soul throws up wonders every second.  Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fanatic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says.  For nothing matters except life."

                                                  --Virginia Woolf 

              

 

 

Serenity

Amazing that I'm feeling prompted to write about serenity.  That is so NOT what is going on in the world today.  Yet, serenity is what each of us needs as a resource to be able to move through these times of chaos and the Unknown.  We each need to find whatever activities, places, stories or symbols will give us a sense of peace and calm.  What is that place or space for you where layers of stress begin to fall away?  These times demand that we connect with our own inner strengths, so that we can truly discern what is at the core of who we are as individuals.  We each possess a quiet place of connection within.  Rooting in that sense of our being will keep us sane and grounded during this pressing time of change.  We don't know how things will turn out, and the process may take awhile.  Maybe we can use that time on the path to find our quiet center and to let that be a source of calm within the storm for us. 

"We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds.  We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil.  Serenity is contagious."

                                            --Sri S. Satchidananda

                                        

Creative Harmony

These times are calling for our collective creativity to come forward.  There are many situations we are having to re-examine in all of the major areas of our lives.  Changes are being called for, and old ways of functioning are no longer serving us.  Our new awareness of these transitional rumblings is inviting us to be creative in our forward movement.  It's no longer "business as usual."  Too much truth and enlightenment have come forward with regard to equal treatment of individuals in our society and in our world.  We are gradually shifting out of hate and destruction and status quo.  We are opening to the possibility of moving toward love, and toward constructive ways of living in harmony with our world and with each other.  Creative cooperation will lead to the best and most inspired outcomes.

"If you want to play beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together."                               

                               --Richard Nixon

"The search for meaning is really the search for the lost chord.  When the lost chord is discovered by humankind, the discord in the world will be healed and the symphony of the universe will come into complete harmony with itself."

                               --John O'Donohue