Priestess in Blue Jeans

Scorpio New Moon: Phoenix & Magic

Today is the New Moon in Scorpio, the sign of the Shaman, the shapeshifter, the Magician, and the Phoenix. Or the Scorpion.

I started tuning in a bit more to the lunar cycles last year, though I'd been familiar with working with the New Moon to set intentions each month. Paying more attention to natural cycles is really helpful as time seems to be accelerating (and according to some sources, actually is accelerating) and being so technology centered makes us feel a bit detached and unrooted.

Noticing the moon phases literally lifts our perspective from what's going on around us, and if we have a clear night, we're also fed by the beauty of the moon and stars. Suddenly things don't seem quite so claustrophobic.

Depending on the source, the Scorpio archetype, like Pluto its 'co-ruling' archetype, is often mired in fear. Both are intense archetypes, associated with life and death cycles as well as intense feeling, change, release, and transformation.

But I don't find that finger-wagging gloom-and-doom all that helpful, to be honest. I'm more interested in the archetypes for how they guide us, how they help us to rise above, or dive below, so that we can find as-yet undiscovered treasure and bring it out for expression in the world.

Scorpio's symbols are the scorpion and the phoenix: the former 'unredeemed' and the latter 'risen' to its higher, fuller potential. The Scorpion is moody and likely to zing-and-sting you pretty nastily if caught off-guard; it's sting is its protection. The Phoenix has risen to its potential as Shaman, plumbing the depths for magic that has been lost and is ready to be found and expressed.

So the new moon has long been seen as a powerful time to set intentions that can grow to fullness with the moon, and then be harvested as the moon wanes. That means at least once a month, you're visiting with your intentions -- the seeds you'd like to see bear ripe fruit in the coming days, weeks, or months.

At the Scorpio new moon, you might play with intentions around recovering lost magic, adding magic to certain areas of your life, and renewing what's sacred in your life and making mundane things sacred. Since it's the archetype of Shaman, rituals are a natural complement.

It's also a great new moon for recognizing connection with all that is, including vast support from the Unseen -- whether in the form of spirit allies, ancestral allies, or guardian Angels. Call in support from allies one and all to aid in the manifestation of heartful, soul-aligned intentions in a joyful, magical way.

* Where would you like to experience more magic in your life?

* What deep feeling would like to find heartful expression?

* Where could adding ritual enhance your sense of connection and meaning?

* What needs too be released or transformed to allow greater magic, joy, and soul-aligned expression?

* How would you like to be an agent of transformation?

For more insights on the Scorpio new moon and prevailing 'energy opportunities', visit my friend Kim Gould's Love Your Design blog. She's a master at her craft.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

The Beautiful Power of Blessing

Common wisdom, both contemporary and ancient, is that our vibration has a magnetic resonance that unfolds a sort of 'magnetic attraction' of whatever is aligned with our particular vibration. Most of us need to look no further than our experience to see that this is true.

Spiritual practices have, at their core, encouraged us to release 'low vibration' habits and cultivate higher-vibration by aligning with such high-vibe states as gratitude, appreciation, kindness, and love. In our world, with low-vibe stalking us at every turn, it's a daily practice to cultivate something different.

The practice of blessing is a beautiful way to shift your vibration and cultivate those higher-vibe states, sending a beautiful ripple all around you.

Many of us have heard of blessing our food, or saying a blessing before we eat a meal. This is just one of the powerful ways to practice blessing.

Another way to practice blessing is to bestow blessing, including, or particularly, on those people or circumstances or things that vex us. For example, we might say, "May he be well. May things unfold gracefully for him. May his heart be healed...". Or for a circumstance or event, "May it go well. May all involved speak from the wisdom of their hearts and find inspired common ground. May unexpected grace arise."

The visionary activist, radio host, and inspired myth-and-symbolist, Caroline Casey, shares another way to practice blessing.

When we're feeling 'snarky' -- not particularly positive towards someone or something -- we turn it into a 'reciprocal blessing'. One example of this is when we read the headlines or a news story, and change the headline into a more blessed, positive or desirable one, e.g. "Congressional leaders set party and personal interests aside in a historical collaboration on behalf of common good."

You can even bless yourself and the day ahead as you start your morning, using an essential oil and/or lighting a candle for a short blessing before getting started on the day's routine.

Play with it; you might find unexpected fun and humor as well as you raise your vibration. It's powerful magic in these times.

Blessings,

Jamie

* Thanks to Gilbert SantaRosa for the beautiful, creative-commons spiral fractal image.

Not Knowing

"The best way to face the unknown is by not knowing."
 Swami Beyondananda

Facing the unknown. Probably not one of our favorite things, generally speaking, even though we're always doing it.

In my own life, and in the many consultations I've done with individuals and organizations undergoing major transformation, I've noticed just how much of the discomfort stems from fear of the unknown (and thus we cling to the comfort of the known).

We really just kid ourselves by thinking we actually know how things are going to work out. But then, eventually, chaos descends, and we're face to face with our not-knowing.

Not knowing is another one of those blasphemous concepts in our culture, so bent as it is on 'always knowing the answer' and never being out of control. In most spiritual traditions, though, not knowing, and having little control over most anything, is the accepted way of things.

And it's an interesting journey from thinking we always have to know the answer, the way, the solution, to actually admitting we don't know, and finally finding a strange sort of relief and bliss in that. We don't have to know everything, and we don't have to control everything. Can you feel the "Ahhhhhhhhh"?

There's a real benefit in getting to the point where you find yourself saying, "Ya know, I really don't have a clue." That's right: I don't have a clue; don't know. I definitely do care, but don't know what to do, where to go, what to think. It's terrifying in that space of not knowing, realizing it's out of your control, but something else begins to rise up.

When our minds stop their incessant chattering, looking through the old databanks for the answer, the solution … thinking, thinking, thinking, working the problem … creativity starts arising, intuition, a sort of gracefulness emerges, along with the aha moments that rarely have a chance to be heard through the deafening roar of the usual chatter.

"I don't know" becomes an invitation for a different sort of knowing to arise - a knowing that is both ancient and spontaneous, and more suited to navigating these times of great shift.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

* Thanks to Lori for permission to use her beautiful photo!

Wu Wei: The Fine Art of Non-Doing

“Industrious people build industry.

Lazy people create civilization.”

– Kaz Tanahashi

Shocking, isn't it?

The idea and practice of not doing is truly blasphemous in our 'do-aholic' culture.

I mean, think 'not doing' and notice what reactions come up within you.

"Well, how will anything get DONE?," we might ask. "Everything would fall apart!" "You have to do something!"

Can you feel your heart palpitating at the very suggestion of NOT doing -- or the thought that 'being lazy' might have its strong points?

I don't know about you, but I definitely did not get that memo when I was growing up!

There's a part of me that finds it compelling, though.

After decades at the Altar of Perpetual Doing, I saw that the Puritan Workaholic Ethic that is so ingrained in our culture has got a pretty big shadow side.

After hitting the Workaholic Wall going 1000 miles an house, I was literally forced by circumstances -- including my own wellness -- to consider other perspectives.

The Taoists, following the wisdom of Lao Tzu and others, talk about 'wu wei' -- nondoing.

One idea of wu wei or non-action is that you 'do without doing and everything gets done'.

Can you feel your brain cramping and well-conditioned synapses smoking at the thought?

Stay with it...

In order for this 'nondoing' magic to arise, we have to be still and receptive sometimes, so that we can connect to our oneness with all things and allow Life to lead us through inspiration, intuition, and synchronicity.

This is a pretty radical thought for Western-conditioned minds.

Just look around, or tune in to yourself, and you'll see just how terrifying and uncomfortable most of us find it now to be still -- still the body, still the noise, still the mind.

It's enough to give most of us jitters and hives, if we haven't immediately 'plugged in' to relieve the discomfort with some more stimulus and action.

Yet most of us would also say that we want to experience 'flow',  synchronicities and, dare I say, maybe even miracles.

We'd all like things to be just a bit easier, a bit less hard, a bit more graceful than they seem to be, particularly these days.

We all want inspiration and intuitive-guidance to lead us into passionate, purposeful right action and graceful timing.

These require stillness, not doing, so that we can be receptive to that guidance, our deeper yearnings, and more subtle frequencies.

The challenge is to reclaim the wu wei wisdom through stillness,  listening, and closer observation of what arises within us and what arises, then, around us.

And it couldn't be more alien -- even excruciating -- to us.

This has deeply challenged me, often, over the years.

Despite a natural contemplative vein that runs through me, I learned early on that being still, daydreaming, sitting or wandering quiety, and things of that more contemplative genre were in the same pigeon-hole as being unproductive, suspect, or lazy.

In comparison, I was encouraged and rewarded in those 'activa' pursuits that were considered industrious -- no one really seemed to care whether action was wise.

Perhaps you, too, heard, "Don't just sit there, do something!"?

And now, of course, we're surrounded with the outcomes of a cultural addiction to perpetual left-brain-informed action, workaholism, and stimulation without the balancing, wizening benefits of contemplation, reflection, and wisdom (aka 'the Feminine' or right-brain gifts).

To heal it -- individually and collectively -- we have to practice our way back to a healthier balance, to reclaim those right-brain Feminine gifts.

As the saying goes -- with a radical little twist -- don't just do something, sit there!

Blessings on the Wu Wei.
Jamie