Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Ringing in the New with Blue Moon Magick!

We've got a wonderful opportunity to kick-start 2010 and our desires to manifest what we really want with the full blue moon at the gate between the old and new years.

Basically, the energy of the full moon is used to catalyze and add energy to whatever you wish to manifest into your life. A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. As blue moons happen roughly every other year, its energy is extra potent.

The blue moon is going to hit its peak at 7:15pm GMT on 12/31. (This works out to 11:15am PT, 2:15pm ET, on 12/31 in North America. It will be New Year's Day in Australia.) From my personal experience, I have found that there is a window that opens 24 hours before the peak time and closes 24 hours after the peak time when the energy is at its most potent.

During this time, why not choose the dream you most want to manifest and concentrate on it. Give it your full attention; visualize it in as much detail as you can. Affirm and claim this dream as yours, then release it into the Universe as you see fit.

Now is the Time;
This is the Hour.
We have the Magick;
We are the Power!

Let us use our power to dissolve all obstacles and step into our true lives! HO! :-D

Thursday, December 24, 2009

swimming below the hoopla @ yuletide

After the Solstice, the Light begins to return, a tiny spark in the thick dark Night...

Many peeps have their big celebration today and tomorrow. Many others had it about two weeks ago with their Festival of Lights. I fall somewhere in between; these days, I'm all about the Winter Solstice, and Yule.
Some years I gladly dance and prance about in celebration. This year, it's been very low-key. I think the Soul Retrieval has recentered me, and now I see the world rushing around like a collective chicken with its collective head cut off and I blink in bemusement, before I go rejoin Grandmother Bear in her cave, and step back into the Dreamtime.

I find myself these days very quiet, very contained, but not at all afraid or anxious.
I have just finished catching up with my bestie Maitri's blog, and I thought about reaching out, to say I was swimming below the hoopla with her. Then I grabbed that thought and pulled it back down to me before it had a chance to float off, because that sounds so perfect!
This is exactly what I'm doing...I see the lights and hear the songs and nibble at the food (Great Mother, has there been a LOT of food! I'm very thankful to have a low sugar tolerance at this point, because as a foodie, this time of year has been Big Trouble to me in the past! As it is, I have a "winter belly" and am in resistance to that, now and again - but I'll save that for later) ...yet it's as if I'm following the deeper current through Winter, allowing all the glitz and merriment to glide above and around me, as I carry myself close and marvel at being a Whole Soul once more, for the first time in a Very Long Time. Born anew~born again. I'm getting the holly-jolly I need by osmosis this year.

So I swim below the hoopla, aiming for the lights around New Year's Eve, when Yuletide winds up with a bang, literally, in shows of fireworks. I will be out & about this year, bundled up against the cold and ready to experience the magick of 2010.
I know already: this is going to be a Year of Awesome for me. If I don't check in between now and 1/1, may it be a Year of Awesome for you and yours as well.
Peace out, yo.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Third Birth

(Blooming lotus flower. SRF Gardens, 7/09. Photo by moi.)

1971:
A petite woman is in the hospital, trying her best to birth a "normal-sized" baby. The doctors are monitoring her closely. They suddenly notice the baby is in distress. They make an instant decision to go get the baby.
Thusly did I come into the world as Julius Caesar is supposed to have entered it...they cut mom open and pulled me out. (now you know why it's called a caesarian section!)

1999: A woman enters a park close to her home, a park that is partly cultivated, but mostly "feral." She wanders about with her walking-stick until she finds a tree besides a slow-moving stream. She plants the end of the walking-stick among the tree's roots, and sits at its base. She reads aloud a statement she found in a book about Wicca, then adds her own words. She sits in silence before and after she speaks aloud. Then she leaves, seemingly unchanged. ;-)
Thusly did I dedicate myself to following the ways of Grandmother Earth and Grandfather Sky, and chose to adopt a new spritual path, after free-floating for several years outside the comfy confines of the scientific laboratory. Little did I know where this path would lead me...!

2009: A woman drives up to a house decorated for Christmas. She rings the bell and is greeted by a shamanka she recently (re-)connected with. The two women go out into the backyard, into a screened-in space. The first woman talks; the second woman listens. Then she uses her rattle and goes on a journey into the Dreamtime, while awake. She tracks down three "lost" pieces of soul, which she brings back and blows into the first woman's body. She relates the stories of these three pieces, and the other Work she did in the astral. The first woman cries, and smiles, and nods. Eventually, they return to the home and part ways, for now...
This is the barest sketch of what happened when I visited Lady~M. and had my Soul Retrieval experience. In truth, I don't feel a whole lot different, but that's only because I've done so much Work on my own. I have, however, noticed that I look different - I seem to be a bit softer, a bit more femme, when I behold my own reflection.
Also, when I was out walking today, I also felt the difference in my energy: the crazy patchwork of sometimes conficting shielding that had surrounded me was gone; stripped away, with full permission. Now, there is an openness, yet I'm still very solid and protected.

On some levels, the Work is now done. On others, it has just begun. (again.) ;-)
Let the shape shift subtly, yet let the result be profound...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

~in the liminal time~

Liminal: adjective - of, pertaining to, or situated at the threshold.

(Nearly at the end of the long dark tunnel. "Portrayed" by the SRF Gardens (7/09). Photo by moi.)

As a child of Sirius, and a daughter of Changing Woman, I was born a shape-shifter.
In the eleven years since I made a New Year's resolution to "cultivate a light side of my personality" and brought a copy of SARK's Living Juicy along with me, I have lost count of the times I have reinvented myself.
I have rediscovered the mysterious ways and magickal stories of Grandmother Earth and Grandfather Sky.
I have opened up the treasure box within and found gifts, realized talents, and stepped into Power that I would never have suspected resided within me...

And then I entered this year, 2009. I said "Yes" once more to Adventure.
In a forest in Northern California, I was struck by lightning - a lightning bolt called Love.
I have recapitulated my entire spiritual journey in this one singular year...dancing into Shadow and out into the Bright, again and again. Remembering, recovering, and reclaiming my Authenticity. Naming and owning my Power.
The recapitulation has brought me back to the limen, the threshold, once more. I stand just outside my one true home: my*self.

I descended anew at the start of Winter, and realized that there were pieces of my puzzle that were still missing, little ones still lost in the Void, not sure how to come home - pieces of yin energy, little daughters of Eve. Femme essence.
So once I'd returned to the cave with Mother Bear, I began to make space within myself to re-house these missing bits...reclaiming empty space, transforming "cold and foreboding" to "warm and comfortable." Meanwhile, I have made arrangements to co-create a Soul Retrieval with one of my sister shamankas. This will unfold next week, in the time of the new moon.

When I went north in January, I had an agenda.
What came to me at the start of the year was something that had not been on the agenda: Integration.
This word has carried me through the entire year, and is depositing me at this place, in this time.
I float now in the liminal time, on the verge of the Solstice, and the one thing it is known for, regardless of spiritual orientation: Re~Birth!
After the Solstice, I will not be the same person.

I would be completely arrogant to believe this to be my last shifting of shape, "ever."
However, this is definitely a completion of a cycle, probably several cycles, of transformation.
As it's said in shamanic traditions: Complete Healing. Healing Complete.
Perhaps I have reached the completion of healing - at least, what I can do on my own.
For even as I finish this phase, I am finding myself beginning to work with others to co-create healing... :-)

Friday, December 4, 2009

Completing another circuit :-)

Pictures are in this entry; all of them are from my camera. Enjoy. :-)

Way back in March, I took a trip to the Self-Realization Fellowship gardens in Encinitas, and was asked to take a rock to the desert. The one that volunteered accompanied me to Joshua Tree in October, and found a place at the feet of a statue of Mary, the Blessed Mother, that is on the property...
Here is The Ambassador in his new home.

After placing the rock in the sacred space, I was invited by Mary to take a rock from Her space and carry it with me back to the SRF Gardens.
"Are you sure?" I asked. The invitation was totally unexpected, and I wanted to make sure I'd heard it correctly.
I sensed great amusement from Mary. Yes, I'm sure, She said.
So as my gaze fell to the sacred space at Her feet, looking for a volunteer, I heard a clear voice declare: I want to go home. Please take me home. It wasn't from a rock, but I had no doubt as to what I was going to take back with me...
This is Shell, pre-anointing. Isn't she pretty?

So Shell hung out with me in my room while I waited for an opening in my calendar. She did NOT want to go with me to Questhaven and spend time with the statue of Mary there; although it's lovely land, it wasn't anywhere near close enough to the ocean for her! All righty then...! (lol)

Finally a day opened up in my calendar: November 21st...a month after my most excellent adventure of Dancing in the Desert. So I packed up Shell in the car and we were on our way. I had intended to visit Questhaven, but no - timing was a bit of an issue. As it turned out, the SRF Gardens provided a perfect respite for me on this day...
Sampling of the botanic loveliness of the SRF Gardens. 7/09

When I turn onto the 101 to get to the Gardens, I get a lovely view of Moonlight Beach. I pulled Shell out at the stoplight to show her the view. Her response was immediate: an overjoyed squeal of, "HOME!" I offered to take her directly to the beach, but no - she would honor the agreement...the Gardens were close enough to the beach for her! (I'd never heard a seashell squeal before. Interesting.)

So here is where "home" is for Shell...A pepper tree dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. I used Shell to libate the tree at its base. I then anointed her with what remained of the libation, a special "potion" I call Mother's Blood.


A close-up of Shell at her new home.
I don't know where the objects go after they've been on the altar for a while, for I know it's cleared periodically. Perhaps she will make it back to the sea after all...

And that is how I complete a circuit. :-)