Priestess in Blue Jeans

Do you know how powerful your Heart is?

As I write this, the wind is whipping and howling, the rain is falling, as if the wild-heart of Nature is calling to our own wild, authentic hearts -- that part of us that's natural, Divine, and hasn't been tamed or squished into the box of the status quo.

Speaking of our hearts, maybe you've heard this: "Where your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

There is a major shift of consciousness happening, to return us to our hearts. After wandering around in our heads for an age, our beautiful hearts are yearning for reconnection and fuller expression.

Maybe you've heard the questions, or asked them yourself: "Where is your heart?" "Is your heart in it?" or maybe you or someone you know has said, "My heart just isn't in it."

Or we just may feel like something's off, or something's missing. We feel the yearning of the heart.

Returning to heart, living from heart, and putting our hearts on the line takes courage.

Did you know that the root of the word 'courage' - cor, or coeur - means heart?

Read the rest of this article & the full edition of the Mojo-Seazine ...

Love & Mojo,

Jamie

Image Credit: Rhodochrosite is a vibrant pink stone associated with the heart-center.

Stirring Up More Joy, Ease & Blessing at the Holidays

If you're looking for ways to experience less stress and more joy, ease & blessing as you surf into your holiday weekend (and season),  check out some holiday tips in the latest Mojo-SeaZine.

What if it's possible for us to be more relaxed, and experience more joy, gratitude, and ease at the holidays (and any other time)?

For many of us, it feels like time's flying more quickly than ever, and that can really add to the stress, anxiety, and relationship tension that many people experience around the end-of-year holidays.

Thankfully, we have another (much more enjoyable) option.

Read the full edition of "Tips for More Joy, Ease & Blessing at the Holidays" at Ivy Sea Online.

Happy Thanksgiving (& Giving Thanks)!

FeMojo Blessings,

Jamie

Dreaming Feng Shui & the Wealth Within Us

A little over a week ago, I noticed that I was dreaming feng shui. The feng shui dreaming continued throughout the week that followed -- dreaming pale green stones, like jade, amazonite, chrysoprase, and aventurine; dreaming pink stones of rose quartz and rhodachrosite; dreaming of moving things around in the house.

As I went through each day, I started getting feng shui 'instructions' or validation -- putting the zen fountain where I'd placed it was perfect to support a specific intention; moving the mirror in the bedroom would be a good idea to shift energy of an annoying issue; shifting other little things from here to there.

I felt amazed, again, at the wealth that's within us.

Dreaming feng shui is an example of the wealth within us. I knew a little bit about design feng shui from exploring it 5 or 6 years ago, but it's not something that became a regular practice. If anything, I was amazed at what we do intuitively, if we're open and noticing.

So I followed my dream and waking-insight guidance, and moved the mirror, placed my beautiful qigong jade disk where I can see it as I work at the laptop, and so on; a simple, elegant sacred ritual, and feeling the subtle shifts in the energy -- and my own mind.

I've been filled with a renewed sense of Life as a creative adventure, a delightful, often magical, dance between what's within us, what comes through us, and how we interact with what (or who) is around us.

There is, truly, a wealth within us. It's taken me years and more than a few tears and challenges to not only remember this, but begin to honor it, and that feels pretty amazing in itself.

FeMojo Blessings,

Jamie

If you'd like to explore and feed the Wealth Within You, join me in the creative adventure of the Feminine Mojo Mystery School, launching on October 7th and evolving (and creating) from there!

Image Credits: Green Aventuring photo from GVStones; Circe's Palace by Maxfield Parrish (1907).

Pisces Full Moon & the Open Heart

"If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have."

~ John O'Donahue (Anam Cara)

Wow! The last month has just been wild in the energetic realms, and no doubt some of that 'wild' has found its way into each of our lives.The call to return to our wild hearts.

If we haven't realized it by now, a key 'lesson' of our times is that really learning to 'let go, let be', to trust the flow and unfolding of Life, is the essence of navigating perpetual change. That means reconnecting to inner Wisdom, to intuition.

That's a lot easier to do when we're cultivating an open heart, a strong heart connection. I'm not talking about greeting-card, romance-novel, chick-flick 'little love'. I'm talking about the fill-your-heart, overflowing Big Love. The Love that mystics and sages from many traditions say banishes fear. The cultivated Heart that shines with intuitive knowing, connection, empathy, and compassion.

This is the perfect focus for the Pisces Full Moon: a big, shining full moon, reflecting back the brilliance of the sun, and super-powering connection, psychic capacity, intuition, and compassion. (On the toxic side, if you're spiraling that way, it can be addiction (to numb the sensitivity) and unhealthy (or nonexistent) boundaries.)

As strange as it sounds, cultivating a strong, open, Big Love heart takes practice, even though it's so much who we truly are. We live in a culture whose machines are fueled by (and thus cultivate, very effectively) fear, to which the opened heart is a threat because a cultivated heart, flowing the Big Love, is more powerful than we might imagine.

I remember 5 or 6 years ago, receiving a vision of how the power of the heart field worked, and how it radiated outward from us and affected -- or alchemized -- all around us. I didn't, then, have the words for what that meant. And I was just in the midst of a journey from head to heart (a journey that continues, and which I'll share more about in upcoming posts here or in my Sophia's Children blog). But for now...

With more recent research on consciousness and the power of the heart field and 'emotional intelligence', we know and can articulate a lot more.

The electromagnetic field of the heart, for example, is 5000 times more powerful than that of the brain, according to research by Heartmath. 'Heart intelligence' includes a potent magnetizing or alchemy potential, as my own experience has shown me, and also a powerful intuitive and empathic capacity. We see more easily 'through the eyes of the Divine'. Our inspiration and creativity flow more easily. We're more well. And on, and on.

When we're fearful and anxious, we constrict, and tend to 'be in the head', in the past or future -- anywhere but the present, anywhere but the heart. Oh the chatter, the judgments, the fear-inducing 'what ifs'! The mind is pretty good at that; it's been well-trained and is well-maintained by the Fear Machine that makes us good, if somewhat mindless, consumers and drones.

I'm guessing that we're on the planet for a whole lot more than that. You?

When we relax and bring our awareness to our heart center, breathing into it like a gentle bellows stoking the spark to fire, we can easily begin to feel the difference between the fear-full mind and the powerful heart-center. We begin to get an inkling -- we're remembering something we deeply know but have been conditioned into forgetting -- that Love really is the most powerful force.

Don't take my word for it; try it yourself and see, feel and know. Mmmmmm, the Big Love, the open heart. Perfect practice for this Pisces full moon.

Blessings and Lots of Heart-Full Juju,

Jamie

To explore and dive into Heart, the Mystery, and the gifts of the Feminine, join me for the Autumn season of the new Feminine Mojo Mystery School.

Image Credits: creative-commons Heart from Clker; public-domain full moon rising from NASA.

Wild, Wild Energies (and More on the Way)

Well, this has been a wild two weeks, I don't mind saying. From what I've been hearing from different people, maybe it's been that way for you, too?

There is a lot going on astrologically, so that no doubt contributes to the dance. In the last few weeks, Mercury went direct (after its retrograde in Taurus), and Saturn is readying to shift out of retrograde and move forward this weekend.

Adding to the fiesta-kind-of-feel, Uranus -- this Aquarian's co-ruling archetype -- just shifted from Pisces into Aries (a very different energy) yesterday, the same day in which we saw a brilliant full moon in Saj.

Plus, there seems to be a good bit of collective tension brewing, over the economy, political and corporate shenanigans, and ecocidal bungling  of the Gulf oil spill response. These things also add to the energetic atmosphere, all just fomenting away in the collective cauldron.

Since we're connected with all that's dancing, shifting, brewing, and moving around us, through that 'morphogenetic fields' Rupert Sheldrake and other scientists and mystics talk about, this all contributes a particular type of energetic (and thus mental) atmosphere.

As both a participant and an observer, I've noticed some big shifts, a flow of ideas and insights, and what I'd describe as a gathering momentum. Lots of things coming up for release or energy shifting.

For example, just in these last two weeks, I've been moving forward on a new vision for my livelihood and business based on ideas, insights, and momentum that have been gathering force and clarity since the start of 2010. The whole concept really got a boost of clarity and momentum in the last several weeks. Here's how it all unfolded:

During the couple of weeks of Mercury retrograde in Taurus (my rising sign), I received and sat with a couple of concepts, like Reclaiming Your Feminine Mojo, that really focused and wove together themes and activities that have been unfolding since December. I worked with the new concept behind the scenes.

Then on the 13th of May, I loaded some new intro text on Ivy Sea-Sophialon Online. As soon as the new intro 'went live' online, I felt as though my heart was gripped with terror, as if the Inquisition was going to knock the front door down and drag me out by the hair. The Inner Shaman-Priestess says, "Okay then, time to clear that one!" Whether ancestral or race memory that we all hold in our cells, that was a biggie -- one of those memory patterns that keeps a lot of us playing small and silent. So I did several energy and clearing practices on that one. A friend tells me, "Well, I guess that tells you you're on the right track!"

The next day, Friday the 14th, I was in the zone, refining the intro text, doing some redesign around the new Reclaiming Feminine Mojo concept, loading it online (with none of the afore-mentioned heart-gripping terror!), and brainstorming an aligned project with a friend and collaborator (to be launched in June!).

That sense of focus continued, with a high level of energy and momentum. At the same time, over that five-day period, two other 'biggies' -- those embedded patterns that lurk and hold us back -- came popping up for release and clearing.

In one case, I experienced several instances of people strongly advocating a particular agenda and course of action, each with a sense of urgency. They weren't telling me what they wanted to be doing; they were telling me what they thought I should be doing. In the course of each interaction, I noticed that I was feeling the pressure of their strong opinion and urgency, and could feel myself teetering off my own center and that momentum. Suddenly, I was second-guessing myself.

At the same time I was noticing how it felt in my own body -- and that I didn't necessarily agree with either of them. What came up clearly was this guidance: "Notice this. See how you have regularly allowed others' agendas and sense of urgency and pacing take you out of your own guidance, intuition, and instinctive pacing." Big 'aha'. I did see it and feel it in those moments; and I saw how I'd acquiesced many times over the course of my life -- away from my own intuition about the best approach, timing, or next step and into someone else's agenda. The Inner Shaman-Priestess said, "Okay then, time to clear that one!" Another round of energy and clearing practices ensued.

Over the course of that week, I noticed I felt more calm, centered, and present, particularly when I tuned into and went with my intuition and energy flow. The insights and ideas for my work with clients and on my own emerging, re-visioned business concept were flowing. I was able to go with the focus and momentum, and relax and refocus when my energy guided me to do so. I could be in interactions with others, notice what was coming up, and notice where I could either 'trigger' and react, or just be present and not take on the energy or urgency or projections.

None of this is particularly new to me, yet I did experience the increase in intensity these past two weeks, as well as a heightened clarity of when something felt aligned for me and when it didn't. As always, it gives me a renewed respect for the blending of energy and shamanic practices with every day 'doings'. Like another rung of the evolutionary spiral, remembering how we dance and co-create with Life based on how we perceive and how we respond.

Attuning to, observing, and honoring the ways we each receive information and are guided by our intuition and instinct is powerful.

My astrologer friends tell me these wild energies will be continuing, inviting us to see, engage, be present, create, practice, and dance in new ways.

The dance continues...

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

Image/Photos: Mt. Etna volcano pic from USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory. Pleiades pic photographer unknown. Sirius pic by Yuuji Kitshara

One Person, Laughing

Remember the times when you've laughed until you had tears coming from your eyes and your belly hurt? We've all heard that laughter is good medicine, and that laughter is contagious.

Here's what happens when one man takes 'laughter medicine' into the world.

Sunday is World Laughter Day. How about spreading a little of your own?

Love and a good Belly Laugh,

Jamie

Spring Cleaning & Aries New Moon

Maybe it was Venus moving into her comfie home-sign of Taurus two weeks ago, but between then and now I've found myself cleaning the proverbial hearths -- scrubbing the kitchen floor (the modern-day hearth), sweeping front and back entrances, tidying and clutter-clearing like a maniac, and baking batches of oatmeal-walnut dark-chocolate-chip cookies.

Standing back, I then surveyed my freshly scrubbed domain in satisfaction while nibbling a cookie (okay, three cookies-they're good!). Mind you, I usually take the Middle Way when it comes to cleaning -- I'm not a slob, but I'm far from a neat-freak.

There was some element of casual ritual to my cleaning and clearing, and that synched up nicely with the waning moon phase (great for harvesting and clearing things out to make room for the new). Maybe you caught that Spring Cleaning wave, too, in one way or another?

Enter the New Moon in Aries

Now we find ourselves at the New Moon in Aries (just earlier this morning, here in the Eastern U.S.), which -- according to my trusty astro-priestess peeps -- is particularly potent thanks to a range of powerful and unusual archetypal energies beaming in.

New moons are great times for checking in on new or updated intentions and visions incubated in the few Dark Moon days prior, on planting seeds (literal or metaphorical), and getting started with new things (current retrograding planets not-withinstanding).

The Aries New Moon is considered the new moon of new moons, because it's the start of the zodiac cycle. So whether you believe this stuff or not (and it's always amazing to find how  we live it even if we don't believe it), there is always power in checking in on vision, and getting started on things we've envisioned (or put off, if they actually do have to be done).

One particular theme that's been coming up (aside from the afore-mentioned cleaning flurry) is the importance and timeliness of reclaiming our power where we've given it over to other people, conditions, circumstances, institutions, or ideas. More on this, no doubt, in upcoming posts.

In the meanwhile, enjoy the energy boost of the Aries new moon, and consider that those 'rock and hard place' kinds of anxiety producing situations are little (or big) billboards inviting you to reclaim power that you've given away and need now that we're in at the Aries new moon - and a new cycle of our adventure here on Planet Earth.

Love,

Jamie

* Image: the Venus of Milo

Focus on What's Green & Growing

 For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is arriving. All around us, Nature is in its rebirth. We see migrating birds returning and looking for nesting spots; the daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinth are showing their blooms; the grass is greening again, and the trees and shrubs are beginning to show tender new leaves. After the Winter, when growth happens below the surface, Life emerges for a new cycle of seasons.

For many, Springtime is happening within as well. In the many conversations I'm having for the SophiaLogues and the body of work on the emerging Feminine and my in-process book project, green is a consistent theme.

Just as I received guidance to call the book and body of work 'The New Greening', or have been drawn to green forest-pools to seek Wisdom in meditation or visualization, many others are seeing or dreaming of green streams, green pools, blades of green grass amidst decayed matter and mud, or even a great bird with long, beautiful green tail-feathers.

In these dreams and visions, a common message is 'focus on what's green and growing'. Like Orpheus, re-emerging from the Underworld with Eurydice, we're guided not to look back...to be mindful of that we're focusing the greater share of our attention and energy on what's before us, on the emerging vision.

Focus on what's green and growing, on those places where what has been barren is beginning to become fertile again, beginning to bloom. In Springtime, we get a little help from Nature.

We can also go within, and invite guidance on what's green and growing. Given that this message is arising in and for so many people, there is  larger call to greening going on -- the greening of our hearts, and of our perception.

Green Blessings,

Jamie

Energy Practices Support Unfolding Vision

Isn't it a wonderful feeling when we're gifted with a new vision -- an image, energetic imprint, yearning, or idea that really beckons us into co-creation? At such times, it seems that anything is possible.

And then we often experience a co-arising of resistance: that within us which is perfectly comfortable with the status quo and doesn't want to risk that seeming comfort and familiarity.

That part of us certainly doesn't want to court failure and whatever we associate with it. "Eeek," it screams, "Back away, don't go there...besides, it's not such a great idea, anyway."

We might suddenly find ourselves thinking of a myriad of reasons why the vision isn't possible, or why we should wait; we might even experience resistance from those around us with whom we share the vision-seed. Sound familiar? To most of us, it is.

Thankfully, there are a whole variety of energy or spiritual practices that really support us in our ability to move forward into a new cycle of creativity and experience.

I've shared several practices and rituals in previous blog posts here or at Sophia's Children, and will share several in this post that can be particularly helpful in supporting your emerging vision and cultivating a new momentum.

Einstellen & Heilstrom - from the work of Bruno Groening

Bruno Groening was a German healer with an immense natural gift for healing, with many 'miracle healings' attributed to his presence and his teachings. Given the times in which he lived in Germany (1906-1959), his gifts and the attention they drew weren't always appreciated by the authorities!

Mr. Groening emphasized that each person has an innate connection to this healing capacity, and encouraged people to tune into the Divine energy or life force to restore health and harmony, and keep themselves on the path of the soul. The Circle organization was created by those close to him, many of whom experienced profound healing and revelation themselves.

The core of what Mr. Groening taught was that illness and unfortunate circumstances were not a natural state; one had to be ready and willing to release any identification with the illness or circumstance; and that by tuning into the healing stream of Divine energy -- einstellen and heilstrom, in German -- one could receive the energy that helps restore the  natural state of health and harmony. His teachings are very similar to the tenets of many other traditions.

The practice of einstellen -- 'tuning in' -- to the heilstrom or 'healing stream' of life force of Divine energy is a restorative meditation which many experience as healing, calming, centering, and heart-opening. Such Divine Love or Divine energy meditations also help us to allow the Mystery to move through us, as the Choktaw Elder, Sequoyah Trueblood, has said.

Emotional Freedom Technique - EFT

EFT is one of the acupuncture/acupressure-meridian-based energy modalities, in which you work with -- and in this case lightly tap on -- particular meridian points to clear energy blocks and the patterns or traumatic memories that are held in the body (and thus energy field). EFT was founded by Gary Craig in 1993, based on the Thought Field Therapy modality created by Dr. Roger Callahan in 1981.

A wide variety of people -- 'EFT masters' -- have explored, expanded upon, and adapted EFT for an array of applications. Two practitioners whose style I've appreciated, are Carol Look and Dr. Patricia Carrington.

Ms. Look has a conversational approach to EFT that can be both amusing and effective -- good combo! She focuses much of her EFT work on abundance, since it seems to open up the Motherlode of issues that are unhelpfully limiting or problem-causing.

Dr. Carrington is known for her 'Choices Method', including one application that brings forward a recollection of positive experiences and states of mind/energy and anchors them in the body and energy field.

If you're a believer that what you're predominantly thinking, feeling, and ruminating about has an effect on what you experience -- or even if you'd just like to feel more relaxed, centered, intuitive, and resourceful, practices like the ones I've shared here can be powerful and easy to use allies as you live into a new vision and cycle of creative expression and experience.

Blessings from your Vision Priestess,

Jamie

The Power of Suggestion

 We know 'the power of the Word', and thus the power of suggestion, and I gained a renewed respect for it a few days ago.

I'd been vexed about something that just wasn't progressing, that seemed stuck, despite myriad efforts that we'd expect would be very effective.

I'd inquired into it, looked into it, done energy work around it, worked with my own healers and advisors around it, and taken actions that get results. And I saw some success with that, a bit of movement, yet there still seemed to be some block at work. So I kept looking, kept up with the energy work, continued with aligned action.

Then, a few days ago, I experienced a powerful opening and clearings in the heart and sacral centers - fourth and second chakras. If you're familiar with energy work, you know that we tend to hold patterns -- thought forms, traumas, etc. -- in our bodies, including in the energy centers.

Within 24 hours, I received several insights into it, and found myself intuitively pulling out a little-used notebook from late 2007 and early 2008 -- a time of significant change for me.

I leafed through the notebook, and found notes from a conversation with an advisor I'd consulted in early 2008. There, in ink, were notes of her telling me, related to this particular area in my life, "It will take two years for you to recover from this." 

Jeez, Louise!

I knew as I looked at the notes, with that particular suggestion, that it had been a powerful seed planted. At the time, I was both deeply fatigued and grieving loss, so was particularly open to the power of suggestion. But it hadn't seemed that significant, until now, with the vision of hindsight.

The wonderful thing about this 'aha' moment is that it was very specific, so I could immediately address it specifically in energy work -- I used TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique) and a particular EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) approach to dislodge and clear the suggestion-seed from my body and energy field. I'll continue to work with these and other modalities to clear any residual from it and any root causes. I also had myself a little fire ritual to burn the notes!

And as I mentioned, the experience gave me a renewed respect for the power of suggestion, and for energy work, inquiry, and other modalities we use to access insight, intuition, vision, and momentum, and clear the way for them to flow.

The advisor I'd spoken with - who delivered the two-year dictum - was actually coming from a place of compassion, and from her perspective, protecting me. So I don't fault her; we've all done it. And suggestions can be healing and positive as well.

Yet it's a powerful reminder to be more mindful, whether we're delivering the suggestion (particularly with an air of authority, in a definitive way) or on the receiving end of the suggestion (particularly if we are, for whatever reason, in a particularly open and receptive place for it, and it's unhelpfully limiting or not particularly true). Note taken!

And while the two-year timeframe has recently ended (and new progress arriving in its wake, like Swiss-made clockwork), I'm glad that this particular suggestion is no longer lurking, hidden away out of consciousness. There is beauty in that.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie