America’s Pluto Return and Healing of its Karma

Most years Presidents Day comes and goes, and I don’t give it much thought other than gratitude for a 3-day weekend to catch up on taxes or other projects.

This year, though, the cosmos is inspiring those of us who follow astrology to reflect on the karma of the founding fathers.  This week, for the first time since the founding of our nation, Pluto returns to its exact location in the sky as on the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.  It will also ping this point in space a few times this year.  

When you look at the symbolic nature of this, Pluto is the god of the underworld, the place where we experience a dark night, heal our karma, and in turn are reborn.

On the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, these men turned around and continued living out of alignment with the very truths they had declared.  They continued to enslave Africans, slaughter Native Americans, and destroy a land that didn’t belong to them, creating a whole lot of dark karma.  

The lead up of Pluto pinging 27 degrees Capricorn this week started back in 2008 when it first entered Capricorn and the economy collapsed.  What has happened since then?

10 years ago Trayvon Martin was slaughtered and his killer got away with it, giving birth to the Black Lives Matter movement calling out racism and racial inequality.

We’ve also had the Me Too movement calling out misogyny.

We’ve made gay marriage legal through the Marriage Equality Act.

We’ve had the Standing Rock protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, calling out the oppression of Native American communities.

Then there was the election of Trump who is the ultimate embodiment of America’s dark side, bringing to light that we still have a long way to go to heal the karma of this country.

And over the past two years the pandemic continued to amplify this karma, dividing us instead of uniting us.  

We are at a pivotal point.  Do we take the momentum of the good that’s come out of these past 14 years and continue working to make this karma whole?

Or do we double down on the patterns that destroy our democracy and end up losing the very freedoms the original presidents claimed they stood for?

It’s time to make our country whole.

At this very moment, there are school systems refusing to teach about slavery, the holocaust, and the massacre of the Native Americans.  How can we evolve if we don’t understand the past?

The systems at play want us to be divided.  Political parties, the tech industry, communication and media, religions, economics, dark conspiracy theories created to distract us from the truth are all in play to trick us into taking sides and in turn shaming the other side until they are deemed unworthy.

When we consciously choose to unplug from these systems, we remember that we’re all created equal in the eyes of the divine, god/goddess, source, however you relate to the greater whole.  

This country was founded on the premise that anyone escaping oppression could come here to carve out a life of liberty.  We’ve come far, but there is still quite a ways to go for us to reach the point where we can say that we do indeed live according to these values. 

It’s time to create equality through healing our land and waters, through meeting the basic needs of every human being, through remembering that we are all equal.

(Photo by José de Azpiazu on Unsplash)

Remembering Love in All the Right Places

 

There is a growing number of loved ones in my life who have passed away and as time goes on, there’s been a beautiful shift in how I relate to their love.  The first big loss was my maternal grandmother.  She passed away on Valentine’s Day 13 years ago.  I was in London visiting my brother at the time and I believe it was her way of always reminding us how much she loved us.

Each of my closest loved ones who have passed on have a way of connecting with me from the other side.  The number 919 shows up when my grandmother is reaching out to me.  Her birthday was 9/19.  With my paternal grandmother, blue jays show up on my fire escape or follow me around in the park.  She loved watching the birds hanging out at the feeder in her backyard.  These are reminders that I am still loved even if I can’t be with them here on the earth plane.

When my stepmother, Linda, passed away last spring, she came to me in a dream and said, “Ladybugs will be our thing.  Anytime you see one, remember that I am with you.”  I thought to myself that’s nice, but I rarely run into ladybugs.  There was that time over a decade ago when one rode the subway on my shoulder and got off at Columbus Circle, but that’s about it.  The next day I saw a big bright ladybug on the label to a wine bottle and said to myself, “Very funny Linda.”  Then a few weeks later, as I was walking in the park, a butterfly flew into my face and as I turned my head, there was a ladybug sitting in the middle of a flower.  I would have missed it if the butterfly hadn’t slammed into me.  Last fall, my dad was visiting, and we were sitting on a bench near the river when a ladybug decided to join the conversation. 

Most recently, I was watching the television show This is Us (small spoiler alert ahead if you’re not caught up) and the mother, Rebecca, is recalling a day when the kids were having a tantrum in the car and a ladybug flew in through the window, immediately transforming the tantrums into sheer delight.  Here’s the kicker. . . The kids named her Linda the Ladybug. 

Linda suffered from Alzheimer’s the last 16 years of her life.  In the final years she was unable to communicate yet being alone with her in the silence was never difficult.  I could still feel the love and joy that was in her heart.  She might have lost her memories and forgotten her words, but she still remembered love and I could still experience that with her.

Love is such a powerful force and yet can make us feel so vulnerable.  It serves up so much joy, pleasure, and passion and is also an elixir to help us heal when we are suffering.  In Reiki we work with a mudra called Gassho.  In other practices it’s known as prayer or namaste position.  When we work with this mudra and breathe into the heart, we begin to restore balance and harmony within our being.  As that harmony is restored, we can more easily remember with gratitude both the tangible and intangible expressions of love. 

Love is not only found in our personal relationships that make it easy to be loving, but also in the people who trigger our anger and fear.  When we can remember this, we can begin to shift how we respond to our most challenging relationships.  Love is accessible to every dimension of life, and it can be called upon to transform any given experience into something beautiful.

This week I was reflecting on the “recipe” for restoring the fullest experience of love in our lives and the words grace, compassion and joy came to mind.

Grace reminds you that you are loved, and you are enough no matter who you are and what you’ve accomplished.  It helps you to cultivate self-love and anchors a sense of safety within you so you can have the courage to explore your inner realm.  Think of how the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz discovered he always had courage in his heart and grace bestows this on us when we journey back to love.

Compassion creates space for you to embrace both the light and the dark.  It reminds you that everything is of the divine.  It brings fluidity to how you perceive yourself and others with kindness.  Within the word Compassion there is “Passion” which inspires you to stay the course as you seek to experience more love in your life.

Joy is the presence that exists within all dimensions of life.  It is found in the cracks of even the darkest of places as well as in your happiest moments.  It creates a nonresistant space within you to welcome the fullest expression of love into your life.  When joy is fully flowing within you, you can’t resist love.

Love is everywhere, even when we’re grieving or in a state of fear and worry.  

The mind prefers we stay in the old patterns of “looking for love in all the wrong places”. 

The heart encourages us to instead remember love in all the right places!

Preparing for a Re-BEarth

When I was in college, my roommates and I had a tiny black and white TV and on Saturdays we would gather around it to watch The Golden Girls.  We would laugh so hard!  Sometimes my friends would tease me and compare me to Rose, played by the late Betty White, which I didn’t appreciate at the time, but now I find it quite endearing.  Those who have known me for decades know that I can see things from a lighter or even sillier perspective than most and yet be dead serious at the same time. 

This Monday happens to be Betty’s 100^th birthday and it’s quite poetic that we also have the first full moon of 2022 arriving that same day in the sign of Cancer.  The cosmos is opening doors for us to connect with several different archetypal patterns starting with the Divine Mother.  The moon which represents the mother archetype also happens to rule the sign of Cancer, creating a beautiful flow of energy to nurture what is ready to be Re-BEarthed in your life. 

We all carry the Divine Mother within us.  It’s the energy that encourages kindness, love and care for yourself and others.  I can’t think of a better way to shine a light on the mother archetype than by celebrating the life of Betty White.  While she didn’t become a mother herself, she mothered the world at large with her loving kindness, and the sweet joys of life that she shared with others.  She showed the world how you can be both kind and fierce. 

The full moon in Cancer always opposes the Sun in Capricorn which represents the Divine Father and so when the full moon rises around this time each year, you can call on the mother and father archetypes to marinate in the supportive energies that will help create something new.  This could be a new sense of healing and wholeness, something you are wanting to manifest, a new way of being of service to the greater whole, or simply a new pattern of relating to yourself and others. 

We have also just entered a new and powerful Mercury Retrograde cycle that moves backwards from Aquarius into Capricorn.  Aquarius is the visionary while Capricorn is the cosmic CEO that makes sure the vision becomes reality.  This is a wonderful time to reflect on your higher vision and how you can align your daily actions with what is truly important to you.  And at the same time, ask how this contributes to the Re-BEarthing of the planet as a whole.  Capricorn reminds us that in taking the baby steps with focus and patience, we do indeed get to the top of the mountain.  If you ever find yourself overwhelmed by the world’s problems, remember that each small but positive action contributes to the collective and over time makes a bigger difference than any of us can imagine. 

Every winter this dance between the sun and moon creates the setup phase to support and prepare for the generation of new life come springtime.  However, I foresee 2022 having an overarching theme of connecting with the Divine Mother throughout the year to heal and restore our energy and to discover how we will be giving BEarth to a new world in the coming years.  It’s natural for us to want to jump ahead and make plans for when the worst of this pandemic is over, but before we can move on, the collective needs time to recover, heal and connect with its higher values once again which will naturally guide us towards a clearer vision.

The human psyche loves to celebrate the new but when we equally embrace the stages of life that call on us to slow down to heal and recover, our experience of the new is that much more fulfilling. 

How can you answer to your own personal needs for healing and recovery?

How can you in turn encourage others to do the same in their own unique way?

There is no right answer here.  It’s an invitation to listen unconditionally to yourself and others, just like a mother listens to the needs of her children.

(Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash)

 

Where Fear and Magic Meet

One of my fondest memories from college is when two of my friends and I stayed on campus during spring break.  While we were catching up on work study hours and homework, we’d also enjoy having the grounds almost completely to ourselves.  With spring emerging, we’d have our day outings when we weren’t working.  In the evening, we’d make dinner together and play games. 

Some nights, Michael and Terry wanted to watch horror movies.  They were obsessed with them.  These movies were terrifying to me, but I’d go along for the ride.  We would scream and laugh all at once.  The anticipation of something emerging from the darkness would rattle me from head to toe!

While I’ll probably never be a horror movie lover, I do appreciate why people are obsessed with them.  Whether it’s pleasant or terrifying, the element of surprise is exhilarating, especially when it emerges from the mysterious darkness.  We have no choice but to be fully present to the moment when these flashes of fear take over us.  We become alert, with our adrenaline rushing, and it’s exhilarating. 

Scary things aren’t all that emerges from the mysterious shadows of life though.  There is also magic, and magic requires that same presence to the moment that our fear does.  There is a full-on surrender to what is unfolding before us that allows room for unexpected blessings to arise.  It’s all part of the soupy mix of life that offers us the chance to embrace the unknown and trust that you can be in both your fear and your magic at the same time. 

Earlier this year, when I was experiencing a tremendous amount of uncertainty, a series of unexpected blessings came into my life.  As I was meditating one day, a message came through from the universe saying, “How much will it take to prove that I’ve got your back?”

If this chaos cycle has taught us anything, it’s that so much is out of our control, and the more we resist that fact, the more we suffer.  Instead, if we choose to become our own alchemists during challenging times, we discover true freedom.  We don’t have to like the challenges we face, but we do have the choice to surrender to them with faith in ourselves knowing that the answers will be revealed when we’re ready.

The new moon in Scorpio this week embraces the most mysterious parts of our being.  Not just the shadowy parts of ourselves that aren’t ready to be fully acknowledged, but the patterns that operate unconsciously through our whole being, influencing our inner and outer experiences.  Opposing this new moon is Uranus in Taurus.  Uranus likes to shake things up with the unexpected and doesn’t seem to care whether they’re pleasant surprises or our most dreaded fears coming true. 

Depending on what area of your life has been shaken up by the chaos of the past two years, Uranus’ mission is to set you free from the old to make room for deeper levels of transformation.  While this can be as terrifying as watching a horror film, it is also working magic in unexpected and mystical ways.  In the end this dance between the sun, moon and Uranus is creating space for us to discover a whole new level of connection to self, others, and life.

How can your fear and magic come together to support your inner and outer alchemy? 

What ways you can be present to all of it to help the process along?

Opening Doors for Ourselves and Others

Ten years ago a wise friend said to me that the moment you get clear on what you want, the universe can dump a pile of s*!t in your way.  The bigger the dream, the bigger the pile!  The key to manifestation is in overcoming these challenges and obstacles so you can capture the energy, inner and outer resources and space needed for your vision, dream, and goals to manifest.

In my childhood bedroom, I had a poster with a ballet dancer and a quote about how you can do it if you can dream it.  While a seemingly positive affirmation, this quote actually contributed to a negative unconscious belief that something must be wrong with me if I didn’t achieve my goal or that maybe I’m not worthy of success.  What I’ve come to learn throughout my adult life is that dreams and goals aren’t about the outcome.  The true sense of achievement is held within who we become in the process. 

I’ve never had any issues with dreaming up the possibilities of life and marinating in them with enthusiasm.  Both my parents have always encouraged me to try new things and to never be afraid to follow my heart.  I love visiting the realm of all possibility.  It brings clarity when I feel a bit lost, and it opens doors within myself I wasn’t aware of before.  When one of these doorways to my inner realm opens and I can feel my heart sing, magic starts to happen in my outer world and the doors of opportunity begin to fly open. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, I realized I hadn’t been spending nearly enough time in this realm of higher dreams and found myself throwing out all my old vision boards and personal mapping and planning guides I’d created.  I wasn’t giving up on my dreams.  I just needed to give them some space to explore what’s next and give myself a break to enjoy what I’d already set in motion.  Ironically, the more I slowed down, the more the doorways of new opportunities flew open. 

Whenever I ask someone if resources and opportunities were limitless for them, what would they do or create?  It never ceases to surprise me that most people either don’t have an answer of any sort or they immediately come up with a list of reasons why they prefer to go with the flow of life and setting goals is pointless.

Here’s the thing.  Going into the realm of all possibility isn’t about not being in the flow.  If anything, dreaming up the possibilities is about coming into alignment with the flow of life and your true self.  This practice becomes a source of inspiration and a way to find answers when life gets messy, and it’s the key to calling in the right opportunities. 

Where we can get lost in the process of putting a dream or goal into action is when we attach our worth and self-esteem to the outcome, or we try to control the process.  Life does indeed happen when we’re making other plans and embracing that part of the manifestation equation is a lesson in relinquishing total control.  This isn’t solo creation!  It’s co-creation!  That’s why it can feel so magical and it’s important to embrace the process with a sense of curiosity, adventure, and play. 

As the world has watched the unraveling of the Afghan government and the thousands of people fleeing the country to escape the tyranny they could otherwise face, I’ve been reflecting on how there is a generation of young Afghan women who never knew the oppression their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers experienced.  Over the past twenty years, the doors of opportunity flew open for these women, and they were fearless in following their dreams of becoming artists, scientists, governing officials and much more.  They revolutionized the culture of Afghanistan because in their hearts they always kept the doors of possibility wide open.  They knew all too well what was at stake if they shrunk from their hopes and dreams.

Now those actual doors of opportunity are closing again for the women of Afghanistan, and many are fleeing for their safety and freedom.  As I send healing energy for the entire nation and the safety of everyone involved, I also envision those doors of opportunity remaining open for the women who worked so hard to contribute to the growth of their country and its culture.  Just as we hold the door open for someone, especially when they have their hands full, we can do the same in our hearts for those who are oppressed.

For those of us who live in an open society, the inner and outer challenges we face are often rooted in conditioning from family and society and the stories we tell ourselves about our dreams.  The thing is, they are just that – stories!  Stories are just partial truths of the big picture and when we begin to unravel them, we begin to see they have no power over us. 

Taking a dream from the realm of possibility and breaking through the barriers of our inner and outer challenges takes work, but the kind of work that leaves you feeling full of satisfaction at the end of the day, because all of it was fueled by a sense of possibility that comes only when we keep our inner doors open to opportunities both seen and unseen. 

Plugging Into Your Power Grid

Since last summer, I’ve been participating in an online course for empathic souls with intuitive life strategist, Robert Ohotto.  In one of his numerous in-depth talks, he introduced the concept of plugging into a power grid of light, much like an electrical grid, and invited us to name the power grids that fuel us in a healthy way.  Encouraging us to commit to the practices that plug us into this energy, he later discussed how the dimension of joy permeates all other dimensions and is available to us even in our darkest moments.  We just need to be present long enough for joy to catch up to us.  I also remember hearing the rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks discussing with the Dalai Lama how joy is something we receive in the moments we are fully present in mind, body, and spirit.

Robert also shared how grief is a part of joy and how we're not taught to look at it this way.  The day before I listened to this talk, I had gone for a walk when a butterfly flew into my face in such a way that I turned my head and noticed a ladybug sitting on a flower.  Just before my stepmother passed away in April, she came to me in a dream and said “Ladybugs will be our thing!  Every time you see one, know that I am with you.”  I cried both tears of joy and grief in that moment as I was reminded that we are all connected even when we’re operating in completely different dimensions. 

All throughout these last 18 months, my walks in the park among the trees have been a way to plug into my own power grid and restore my sense of wholeness on the days I feel anxious or sad, but also on the days I feel happy and at peace.  Either way, it’s about being present so joy can entrain you to a higher vibration and create space for everything to unfold with a sense of grace.

In recent months signs have been hung on the trees throughout the parks that say “It’s okay to hug me.”  I also discovered a tree that hugs me back.  It has a nook in the trunk that’s perfect for a human to lean back into and feel held and supported.  When I do that and look up through the leaves, I can feel the warmth and light of the sun on my face and hear the gentle splashing of the water from the lake behind me – the perfect place to plug into my power grid. 

Several years ago, I wrote a waka poem about a tree.  Waka poems are similar to haiku, but with a slightly different stanza structure. 

The Hugging Tree

Tall shade, rooted in

deep stillness, climbing branches

of dreams, arms hugging

an unmoved trunk, its soul wraps

me in a loving embrace.

********

Joy isn’t rooted in what we accomplish, have, or do.  It’s rooted in the right here, the right now! 

All you need to do is plug in and allow it to flow wherever it needs to go to light up your life in powerful ways. 

  

Breaking out and into the Light

 

The sun depicted on Japan’s national flag represents the revered sun goddess Amaterasu.  It is said that the imperial family members are her descendants.  Amaterasu’s mythological story begins with being born from her father’s left eye while her one brother is born out of his right eye and her other brother from his nostrils.  While her father assigns her to rule the sun, her other two brothers are assigned to rule the moon and the storm clouds.  When her first brother’s dark side emerges because the moon’s light reflects the sun and doesn’t shine from within, a family feud ensues. 

Ashamed not only by the actions of her two brothers, but also her own destructive rage, Amaterasu retreats to a cave and blocks the entrance with a boulder, leaving the land in complete darkness for about a year.  After countless attempts by the other kami (divine beings), to coax her out of the cave, Omoikane, the Shinto god of wisdom, decides to appeal to Amaterasu’s curiosity and threw a big party.  The sound of the music and dancing eventually enticed her to return to the mouth of the cave where an eight-fold mirror had been placed to reflect her beauty and light.  In realizing her true light once again, sun was restored to the land. 

Amaterasu’s story has been an inspiration along my personal healing path as the practice of Reiki reminds you to shine your true light in every aspect of life.  As spring emerges after a long and hard year for many, it feels like something is breaking open within the collective and a new energy is emerging that will sustain the transformation to help us heal and evolve.

Just like seeds planted in the dark earth, there’s a desire to break open our shells to welcome the sun back into our lives.  However, for some the moment of breaking open can be the hardest part.  I know for myself, while I love change and growth, the initial pivot hasn’t always been the easiest.  I remember when I first left home, I would cry every time I said good-bye to my parents.  Yet, once my bus hit the highway, I would be fine.  It was a time of transition from childhood to my adult life and I knew life was never going to be the same.  Yet, I was also looking forward to what the future had in store.

Deciding it's time for a change is one thing but making the first move can indeed feel like you are breaking open.  When embracing life’s number one rule that the only constant is change, sometimes there’s no choice but to allow the shell that keeps you contained to break open.

It can mean shedding the parts that once kept you feeling safe but as you emerge from the container of safety you learn just how bright your light is meant to shine not only for you, but for those around you.  Every sprout has its vulnerability, but as the unshakable light of the sun continues to coax it to keep growing, it eventually transforms into a strong plant.  When we break open and allow the light of our true nature to shine, we know that no matter how uncertain life may feel, the cycle of rebirth will always come back around.