Jessica Shepherd's Blog, page 11

I’m enjoying a comparatively lovely morning on my yoga mat, feeling into my body, noticing it with fresh awareness and relishing the fact that I’m about to go deeply inward for the first time in a little while…when my husband walks in and interrupts my flow. My first reaction: frustration. Actually, it’s been my first reaction a lot, lately, as those of us for whom social distancing has brought our loved ones and close family members undeniably closer are experiencing.

One of the more challenging aspects of social distancing has been the reality that while perhaps we once had an 8-hour break from our counterparts and roommates, or at least social outlets, that’s no longer. It’s been 24/7 partnering.

As a result, I’ve had to be extraordinarily patient with myself.

Patient when I get frustrated; then, patience with the feelings of frustration.

Patient when I get interrupted; then, patience with the feelings being interrupted brings up.

Patience with the higher number of dis-resonant energies I am experiencing; patience with the time it takes to clear the energies, and patience for my increased need for self-care, awareness and energy practices.

Patience with myself for wanting things to be different; patience with that understandable desire.

There’s a Mars-Saturn conjunction in the sky right now, and it has been active since the beginning of social distancing (exact 3/31, though will continue to be relevant thru mid-May, while Mars shares the sky with Saturn in Aquarius). Classically this duo is described as driving a car with the brakes on. Feel into it. Mars wants to move fast, have agency and freedom. Saturn curtails movement, making things slower, restrictive-feeling. We are all living this.

Just as every strength can become a debility in another circumstance, in a similar manner, weakness or debility can blossom into strength. This pressurized combination can certainly give rise to negative expressions, like, violence, frustration, and panic…but Saturn offers Mars the bracing clarity, focus, gravity, doses of reality, fruits of maturity and experience. In the cauldron of boiling hot iron (Mars) and nowhere to go (Saturn), time and limitation forces you to cool down, work with your hot experience. When molten metal cools in a safe container, new forms can appear.

For instance, take right now. When everything in our home life and inner world is getting amplified we can really see our psychological triggers. We also can potentially use this time to make a few needed adjustments.

Leave the Red Zone & Come Back Home

I’ve been reading Rick Hanson’s book Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength and Happiness.

As a result, on the yoga mat this morning, I spontaneously found myself doing one of his practices called Leave the Red Zone. The Red Zone is Mars; it’s our hard-wired neurological habit of reactivity. When we work with our mind a little on this though, we don’t have to stay “red”. Hanson compares our brains to gardens — it is a mechanical thing largely designed for survival with its negativity bias toward looking for intruders and danger, and if left unattended, the weeds (like hyper-vigilant thoughts, rumination, worry) will take over. While it is valuable and useful at times to simply watch and deepen around what’s there, as in letting our thoughts be, sometimes we need to cultivate a more fruitful mindset.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Let Be. I notice my frustration levels rise. I name it. “Wow, I’m getting really frustrated.” Labeling helps give you a little emotional distance from it, or enough so you can observe it. Naming also calms the amygdala, the fire alarm bell in your brain, so you are less reactive. Let be with the feeling as long as you need, noticing, not trying to change anything.

2. Let Go. I don’t enjoy these feelings, but because I am letting be, I am not in resistance to them. I continue to observe and notice my body, areas of tension. I still feel “hot” and “fired up”. I start to realize this frustration isn’t isolated to this one event…a similar interruption occurred minutes ago, and they have been occurring all week. This softens me. I start to realize the tension I’m experiencing has more to do with me being hard on myself, thoughts like, “why am I being so reactive? -and-why am I having such a hard time with this?” In fact, a main awareness I observed during Let Be was that while I noticed he was actually happy to see me, yet I was still annoyed, and I felt really guilty about that.

3. Let In. I am softening into my experience now. I say to myself “wow, let’s be gentler on you” and I offer myself understanding by saying “this is an understandably challenging time.” I feel the impact of my own self talk, I really take the time to let it into my energy body. I feel a gentle release and lift, then, similar to the way I feel when I receive a compliment or some nice feedback on my character. It feels like I’m being stroked, or petted.

One key point Hanson makes in his book, over and over again, is to take the 10-15 seconds to really let in positive experiences– be that as self-talk, or pleasurable experience, like really appreciating a cup of coffee or our favorite song. Why? 10-15 seconds is the time it takes for a neurotransmitter to make a connection, and for the Ego to connect to what is True. Taking this time increases our resilience for future stress. This literally plants flowers in the garden of our minds, and where flowers of positive responsiveness exist, weeds can’t take over. Eventually they may stop trying.

(another way I play with “letting in” is a way Hanson also recommends: “You know what? I’m a good person.” This one feels universally good no matter what the situation, because it’s always the indisputable Truth!)

Right now, we all have the understandable potential of getting pulled into the red zone — either because of isolation bringing up our fears, or paradoxically, too much enforced togetherness with loved ones.

Practically speaking, in relationship, it is vital to draw boundaries on your space and personal agency right now, be that behind a closed door for 30 minutes, taking a bath, or going on a walk, alone, so necessary. Take the time for indulgent and luxurious levels of self-care. You have the time right now. It is the Universe’s hidden gift, just for you.

We can all use this time to practice coming back home to ourselves quite literally! After all, these are the collective Cosmic marching orders for everyone right now. In his book, Hanson actually compares the way we get stuck in negativity bias and negative rumination as a kind of chronic inner homelessness. I love this metaphor.

One thing I find is consistently true: There are as many ways to leave home as there are ways to get back.

But we can always find our way back home to our self.

On that note, a friend just told me that my new book, Come Home To Yourself was “prophetic”. I’ve heard this several times now. Back in October, when I was pulling it together, reworking it, for publishing (it had been sitting on my computer in various forms for a few years) I remember feeling the nudge that this was the right subject for the right time.

So, let’s set the intention to come back home to ourselves, now. We’re all staying inside, anyhow.

Jessica

The post Leave the Red Zone appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

Up until the very last day before traveling, it was moment by moment. I did not know whether I’d take the trip I’d planned on taking now for months. Yet I was not in fear or anxiety about this fact. Only wonder. As in, “I wonder how I feel about taking this journey right now?”

When I’d ask myself the question, and get an affirmative answer, I knew everything was in alignment for me- despite topsy-turvy world events. I kept checking in, asking myself multiple times. I was open to canceling everything, and have many times before. I have nothing to lose by listening to what my Soul most wants. My deepest (and only) commitment is listening to and honoring my connection to Divinity.

Therefore, the predominant feeling I’ve been experiencing is lightness.

It struck me that all the spiritual work I’d been doing for years has prepared me for moments like this. I’ve learned to pull my energy inward, to not turn to external sources for affirmation or guidance, but my own. When I am listening inward, I trust that I will be given the information I need. I don’t need to listen to others, or the news (which doesn’t mean that I tune it out, entirely). If I’m walking out the door or airplane and my Soul doesn’t want to be walking out the door or onto the airplane, I’ll know it. I’ll feel a strong sense of dis-resonance, which feels like anxiety but is actually intuitive information, psychic perceptiveness, and is a very different energy from anxiety or fear. That’s a sign to pause, and be open to inner listening.

I’ve learned to live in the moment, the value of not going on auto-pilot with Ego’s plans- so easy to do. Because plans dynamically change; that’s life (I’ve never found a way to game that – not even with astrology!) We are in clarity/certainty one day, and a few minutes, days, weeks later, we aren’t. If we want to live from the Soul, live intuitively, we need to be flexible like the Willow tree, not unyielding like the Great Oak. If something’s not happening, it means my Soul doesn’t want it right now; it wants to experience something else.

It’s so much more pleasurable, enjoyable, even, to learn to flexibly move with what’s actually happening. There’s so much freedom and space within the present moment. So many good options.

When I was on my trip, which I ended up taking, I was sick with a sinus cold for most of the time. I didn’t get to do some things I’d planned. But I’d brought my paints and notebooks and divination cards. I ended up spending some time revisiting sketching and painting. I wrote. I explored my inner landscape more deeply. I took long walks, photographs, cooked, listened every step of the way to what I wanted.

Whatever is happening or not happening in your life…whatever is not working, being cancelled, plans being thwarted… is not cause to feel victimized, but an opportunity to be even more present to what is. To live more fully from the space of your Soul. To enter more deeply into the temple of yourself, the greater part of you that is truly okay with whatever is happening because it knows that, as a client who is experiencing several rather big and simultaneous Neptune transits right now recently said to me, “this is a dream. This plot change, the characters, set and scenery are all for my experience”.

But if the Ego has a story to tell about it, it will. The Ego wants certainty and security. It wants immunity from suffering. It wants its just desserts. It has an idea that it has suffered enough, so certain things (this) should not be happening. It will hang out in those attachments and belief structures your whole life, if you let it. Yet as the human experience teaches us over and over again …it’s not within your control. Let go, good friend. Turn to something bigger than your Ego’s version. Surrender. It’s not your Ego’s job to manage the stock market and your portfolio right now. It’s not within your power. Give it up to Spirit. Pray. Ask Spirit to do the work of figuring it out for you. Find that calm place inside.

The invitation is to be present to the now. To recognize the energies and thoughts and stories that take you out of the present and then work on coming back home to yourself, again.  Because if you are living in a state of fear or despair, you are either caught up in an external energy, or a story. There is no other option. Figure it out, and you can return to the calm ease that you are. I have many ways of doing this, many of which I’ve shared with you on this blog.

Neptune & The Invitation into Greater Presence

We also have astrology. Reading the astrology, energetically, pandemics (invisible illness and contagions, because we are interconnected) are ruled by Neptune/Pisces. When Neptune comes visiting, our expectations and understanding of “reality” gets washed away. From an evolutionary perspective, Neptune’s intention is to offer us a greater experience of eternal oneness, spiritual consciousness, the recognition of Self-as-Spirit. There are methods and means for getting to that place of expanded connection. Some popular ones are: going to the cloisters, spiritual retreat, illness, removal from our daily life so we can enter into an expanded state, willingly giving up our material and Ego-driven focus for a spiritual one, sometimes thru death. However, for most of us, a common method for Neptune is isolation & removal.

Do you value what Neptune is offering all of us right now? Monasteries & artists, do. Modern culture doesn’t (staying home, cancelling of plans, a shift from productivity to inwardness is threatening to capitalism, as well as the Ego part of us that is focused on survival). Likewise, you may have some conditioning stacked against the very methods Neptune is using right now, as your master teacher. But in meeting present with presence there is:

-opportunity for quiet contemplation, inwardness, reflection and silence

-a reprieve from day to day reality, a chance to retreat

-a break from social demands, roles and obligations

-quiet time to be with our visions and dreams

-time to make art and create, revisit that latent hobby, if we are so moved

-space to relax and let go, make space for something new

-time do more energy, spiritual and intuitive practices that feel good to us, and are healing

-opportunity for embracing our introverted, imaginative, reflective and solitary nature

I remember when I was 17 and became ill with an undiagnosable syndrome. I didn’t get to graduate with my high school class. I was unable to live a normal life for several years. Being faced with a situation where my life, and my body, was totally out of my control at such a young age taught me the kind of things that most of us would never willingly sign up for. Yet the greatest gift of that period was that it shaped who I became, today. During those long months and years spent in isolation I turned within, and found depth psychology, astrology, spirituality, art and writing. Now when I undergo periods where life feels out of my control, I deeply understand my Soul has elected to experience it.

Finally, if you are having difficulty with this period of energy…

Neptune is the window of consciousness, the lens through which we view the world, and our life. Many of our windows have a few smudges on them. When you look through a dirty window, you will get a distorted reality. If you are suffering, it is not the reality, but your perception of it. As Steven Forrest has asked, during Neptune times, how dirty are your windows? Clean those windows, so to speak. Look at the beliefs and stories you are carrying around. Set the intention to release them. Those are the things that are causing you to suffer — not the pandemic, or the threat of it. It is possible to experience the many things we consider hardships in life with a sense of equanimity, surrender, peace.

Collectively or personally, something will always challenge the Ego’s attachments. None of us are immune from sickness, death, and disruptive change. We may feel more out of control in times like this but even that is just a reminder that we never are in control. So, the invitation is to keep doing the very practical things that keep you feeling calm and grounded in your Light. Perhaps to clean your windows and let some of those energies finally… go.

Jessica

The post Pandemic: A Crash Course in Neptune appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

There is a core light energy within you. When you go inward and feel it, you will know, you will be filled with a sense of rightness: This is your energetic integrity, a strong weave, a fabric, of yes-ness, grace, peacefulness and lightness within your being.

Try it. Take a few minutes to relax, ask to be shown what your personal Light feels like to you, so you can identify it. It will feel like a concentration of core energy in your center. In my imagination, this core me energetically resembles the shape of the body of a butterfly. When centered here, it feels like I’m in a warm cocoon of light.

Your energy has a color. What is it? My color is a changing blue, with differences depending on my mood. Sometimes it’s periwinkle, and others more earthy, cornflower. Sometimes, when I’m feeling really in my transcendent self, it’s the “color” of light reflecting on water – golds, oranges, yellows, luminescent blues, purples.

The more present you are, the more easily you will be able to feel and sense this energetic integrity within you. Also, once you get an energetic sense of the You who never changes, who is always right here, you can tell when you are deviating from your center.

How can this help with potentials like coronavirus? Situations, people with disresonant ideas, and collective energies that are beyond our control– and which easily lend themselves to fear, anxiety and doubt?

When in this centered state, which feels peaceful and relaxed, you are protected. To repeat, you are PROTECTED and SAFE, no matter what happens. And in this present state, because you are connected to your innate intuitive guidance, you will always make choices from a place of alignment, for yourself, choices that are just right for you.

Once you identify your core energy, it’s easy to know when you deviate from it, aka when something else- a thought form or energy- distracts you from your awareness of it. Remember, this YOU never changes. Only your attention and focus changes. When we get caught up in an energy, it tends to change our perception — we act, say and think things that we otherwise would not. Most people are unaware of this phenomenon as a driver of behavior. But once you know your core energy, you will know how, and when, you need to draw back inward, recenter.

In times like these, this awareness is GOLDEN.

For instance, when I read the paper yesterday and saw the coronavirus headlines, I quickly felt woozy, out of center and anxious. I’m getting ready to travel, so there’s some reasonable concern for me here. My mind started to race. Should I cancel my trip? Am I crazy for traveling? I want to make my choices from a place of connection, not fear.

So, I laid down and went into my energy body. I could sense my innate core energy but it was sort of underneath a separate hazy yellow energy that kept moving around and shifting. I associate yellow with thinking/thought- which makes sense, since writing/reading about an impending pandemic tunes into a collective thought pattern of fear, versus reality. I decided to observe it. I watched it shift, move and eventually dissipate, along with the accompanying feelings.

Now, when I encounter that energy again a) I know what it feels (and looks) like in my energy body b) I know how to come back to myself, by reconnecting to my own core energy, and c) because of a and b, I can make choices that are in alignment with and just right for me—which may not be buying travel masks, mega-dosing vitamins, stocking up on 2 weeks of food, or anything else media, and others, suggest (and often carry external energies of fear and panic).

Now, I can feel into my own energy, and I trust what arises from this place will be exactly what I need to do, to take care of me. And that’s the most important thing, right? That each of us feels empowered to take care of our own self in the precise way that feels most natural, comfortable and Right for us as unique individuals?

When fear and doubt drive our actions — which is to say, when we are not aware that we have been pulled away from our center and into other external energies — we become vulnerable to all kinds of strange things.  I have seen this truth manifest over and over again, in my life. When caught up in an external energy I will feel bad, full of self-doubt, uncertain. It happens. But when I return to being centered in connection, in energetic integrity with my energy body, I feel peaceful and know exactly what I need to do in any given situation. The True Self is powerfully protective.

We don’t live in a vacuum. It is impossible to not be affected by energy patterns of fear, hype, and more. Yet when we accept this Truth, when we can honestly acknowledge that we do coexist with strange, often troubling, uncomfortable energies, we have choices. We can see that we are not those -the temporary energies we can feel and sense; we are something else entirely. We are eternal. We are stronger for being able to feel and notice all of it (not weaker for being sensitive to it). When we feel our Light -and- it all, then, instead of reacting, we make choices that feel right, peaceful.

And if we feel on these deep levels, we also do often need radical levels of self care, and tools.

I suggest you try what I’ve introduced, now: feel into the real energy of YOU. Don’t wait to encounter the strange pandemic energy, because once you are in it, a point of reference helps. Feel and sense into the YOU, underneath everything, now. Set the intention to strengthen your relationship to that lovely light body of yours. Life swirls around you in various energy patterns, all day, every day. Only you decide whether you will get swept away.

Jessica

The post Coronavirus & Your Cocoon of Light appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

I was walking Magnus the dog when I had the intuitive knowing that I would be taking a trip. Hmm. What was this about? Where was I going?, I lightly wondered, and let it go. Later that night, I knew. I experienced a feeling of psychic shock move through my system, a feeling I’ve come to identify as an intuitive communication of Truth, perhaps something I’d denied myself for too long, now demanding my acknowledgement and honoring.  I allowed the uncomfortable waves to move through my energy body, waited for the sensations to reveal their deeper message.

You’ve held space for others’ journeys. You want to take your own.

Oh, okay, here’s the trip from earlier. But where, when, how?…

My Ego chimed in with very reasonable suggestions: Isn’t Liz Gilbert teaching something in Bali, soon? No, no more teachers, you are the master teacher now. What about signing up for one of those artist-in-residence things you’ve seen? No, too people-y. Silence. Solitude. Stillness. Nothingness, emptiness and everything-ness. This is what my Soul asked for. It was a very specific request. 

I imagined the life of my favorite solitary artist– myself as her. Sitting in the Sun, long walks in nature, drawing, writing in my journal, cooking for one, reading by candlelight, watching the Moon rise.  I realized I’d always wanted to do this, this was a strong wish of mine, to be that alone. To go deeper into the I AM.

The personal retreat is a forgotten spiritual art. When we willingly let go of responsibility to anyone other than our Divinity, sensitivities, desires, yearnings, knowings submerged in the demands of everyday life, and relationship, can emerge. Mystics used retreat to get closer to the God, within. We, too, can retreat from the world, temporarily or regularly, to get closer to our Divine Self, and experience a deeper sense of alignment and presence. When we slough off identities, roles we play to others, other people’s energies, responsibilities, WE emerge.

Going deep into our bones is a way of rediscovering, gaining intimacy with, our deepest self. It is deeply restorative, nourishing, nurturing, a refilling of the well, and something all but lost and forgotten, even shamed, in our modern times.

Intuition, Sun, Mercury in Pisces and The Gem of Solitude

Mercury is retrograde 12 Pis-28 Aqu from 2/16-3/10/20. The Sun enters Pisces on 2/18/20. Pisces is the sign of the fishes, surrender, letting go and letting God/Spirit/Soul take the lead- something the mind typically finds challenging. Pisces also rules retreat, of course, because what better way to connect to Divine Consciousness than remove all distractions to that?

I was talking with a colleague recently about listening to that irrational inner knowing. Just as my intuition told me “you are going on a trip,” and then insisted that it happen without any external influences, intuition defies logic. At a time when your brain tells you that you should be more externally oriented – like needing/getting a new job, moving to a new community, or publishing a book (!)- your Soul tells you to retreat. To take a step back. Not move forward. Take a break. Have a nap. To not walk through that open doorway, no matter how attractive it looks to the Ego.

Listening to the irrational knowing within…forgoing “how it’s supposed to be done” and following the winding moonlit path, instead, to see what feels authentic for you… intentionally claiming solitude and privacy…Why are these traditionally feminine pursuits often so difficult for us to honor?

Because it’s not how our society is structured. From early on, every day we are put it classrooms with lots of people, taught how we should think (logically) and the right way to behave (conform to the group).

In Follow the Moonlit Path I talk about the necessity of stepping away from others and society, claiming privacy and solitude, for recentering into our fourth house energies.  But in the extroverted culture we live in, this is often discouraged, shamed even.  Stepping away from responsibility, “shoulds”, survival fears, tuning out external noise and our orientation toward tending to others in order to listen to and support the voice within… None of this is culturally or socially supported, generally.

More than a handful of introverted people have shared this particular guilt, with me: I should be more social, more compliant in socially superficial interactions, have more friends (not just one or two), I should like doing things, jobs, that “everyone else” seems to enjoy, I should get out of the house more…

I will always argue for way more self-acceptance, in this regard. Solitude is a precious gem. Without solitude, we cannot be healers, artists, writers, poets and wise teachers of Soul. We cannot become who we are.  For us, it fuels not one thing but everything.  Our solitude is worth protecting and cherishing.

Thoreau went into the woods because he wished to live deliberately, intentionally. I believe one of the reasons why people are in conflict in themselves is because the values they are living from are not of the Soul’s making, yet they don’t realize it. It’s like a fish who never cannot ever see that she’s swimming in dirty water because she has never not been in that water — which is an apt Mercury in Pisces metaphor. How can we feel truly purposeful, if we believe our purposeful life must look and behave in a certain way?  How can we feel successful, if we consistently view success through the Ego’s fear of lack? How can we value our deeply feeling and intuitive nature, if we feel it has no place or value in the world? How can we honor our grief, wounds or dark feelings, if we don’t give them the space to be felt?…

So, we retreat, to receive new perspective, gain clarity and a foster a deeper connection to our selves.

How to Retreat:

–Decide to embrace your desire for solitude.  It really is a decision. You may feel social pressure around this choice, and that is important to name and feel. Yet: Will you be true to yourself, or placate others?

–Follow your whimsy toward the right way to retreat, for you. I had a secret dream to live deliberately, in a certain way. It had tugged at me before. Your secret dreams can be very powerful. Likewise, what you feel has been forbidden, wrong, equally so; our secret dreams can be shamed into submission. Your retreat can be deep in nature or deep in the city. Solitude, time away and alone, without external stimulation or demands, is the key ingredient for going deep into oneself. How you do that is up to you.

-Make it comfortable and nurturing, for you. The thought of taking, say, a meditation retreat at a Buddhist retreat center sends me into waves of anxiety, not exactly enlightenment- inducing, because its not right for me. There is no “should” on how retreat is done. Your retreat may be in a posh hotel room for a weekend. Everyone has different comfort levels, but finding a level of comfort that’s feels authentic & right for you, is not only necessary in order for your nervous system to calm down – it’s loving and kind.

–Be intentional. What separates a personal retreat from a holiday? Intention. Otherwise it is called a vacation. Hold an intention for your time, allow it to guide your daily choices, activities. Intentionality is a form of prayer. It’s a way of expressing our deep desire to be in alignment with Self. You might try: “Thank you for helping me recenter. Thank you for showing me how to connect more deeply with Divinity. Thank you for helping me to tune into my inner knowing, in this and in every moment.” 

-Let go of expectations. You may or may not walk away with an understanding of the big picture, or your life questions, answered. Making space in your consciousness for new awareness is kind of like cleaning your house, eliminating dust devils. It may just feel empty, at first. Trust you are creating space, and that it will yield something of value – perhaps when your perception has altered enough to see and value it.

-Jessica

The post The Lost Art of Personal Retreat appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

Lately, I have found myself thinking, “I could do this or that…but I love myself more.”

The more I used it, as a way to carry through on an action that was new, uncomfortable, or both, the more I realized the phrase “…I love myself more” was extremely helpful.

Especially for the intensely uncomfortable phase of moving from old habits into new ones.

The discomfort that accompanies releasing old habits of conditioning can be particularly vexing because you not only feel all that icky dis-resonance it’s time to clear up, the act of doing something new and different is (temporarily) uncomfortable, too. When athletes train they know there will be initial discomfort or pain involved when a new muscle is stretched in new ways. Reframing the discomfort we feel as loving can be just the reframe we need to energetically move into decisive change.

And giving yourself permission to do the same old thing, if you want, is incredibly freeing, too. 

Ultra-sensitive duo, Venus and Chiron, are now joined in the sky, in Aries. It is loving to be honest with our self about all the ways we feel hurt, disappointed, ignored, overlooked, betrayed, as long as we sit with our feelings and become willing to feel them completely.  It’s easy for the Ego to think that in order to feel better, others must change. Actually, it’s the honest acknowledgement and witnessing where/how we feel bad that gives us the ability to make new choices that will ultimately feel better for us. That’s the secret to empowered relationship (rarely is it: asking another person to change).

We just need to honestly face and feel the Truth of our feelings, not argue with them, and decide to love our self more. 

…Because there’s usually a “yeah, but…,” right? A reason for the Ego to argue with your Soul’s deeper Truth? That’s the old Ego conditioning butting up against the True Self’s response. We need to take those apart, too. Yet, what I’ve discovered is: I get to keep the objections and still decide …(yeah, but) I love myself more.

When we truly embody …I love myself more… as an energetic reality, in body and Soul, the obvious solution always appears – either as an action to take, or changed perception. We are not left hanging, waiting for the world, other people, to change for us. We get to more deeply respond to our own needs, desires. This shift is so empowering. And the rest, any leftover bad-feeling energies or lingering uncertainties, dissolve spontaneously, naturally.

Here’s how…I love myself more

It would be easy to push away how I felt excluded just now… I love myself more

To ignore how I felt when you talked to me in that way…I love myself more

To say “well, this is all you know how to do” as to why you do…I love myself more

It would be an old habit to gloss over the incongruence between your words and actions…I love myself more

To believe the words you tell me instead of trust what I know and feel…I love myself more

Follow the habit to bend myself into a new shape, to accommodate, because I don’t like how I feel around you…I love myself more

To stay in a connection that feels bad…(but) I love myself more   

To tell myself this the only way you know how to be, careful not to expect …I love myself more

I do not need for you to change anything for me…I love myself more

To know me deeply, intimately, to be in my own presence, is a privilege and a decision…This is me, loving myself more

I love myself more is the answer to everything. The Love that I AM always guides me to right action.

in love,

Jessica

The post …I love myself more appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

No house is ever really empty.

Follow the moonlight,

your house sign and ruling planet,

to connection and centeredness. -Jessica

I’ve received several questions, similar to the title of this post, from readers.

It’s a common phenomenon to look at your chart, see clusters of planets and vast areas of emptiness, and find yourself thinking if there are no planets in a section of your chart, there must be something wrong or missing.  With houses connected to relationship or money, for instance, the Ego tends toward: “I have no planets here, I’m doomed!” Ah, I’ve finally got the damning evidence I needed to prove that I will never have the money or a relationship I want.

It is simply not true.

Having an empty house does not mean you will not have, or access, what that house offers. After all, with 10 planets (including the Moon) and 12 houses it would be impossible to have a planet in each house. Planets are energy, and very simply, where the planets are you tend to expend more energy. Not to ignore the evolutionary importance of having a planet in a house; having a planet here means you are especially oriented to do deeper work in this area of life… but that doesn’t necessarily mean those with planet(s) in the fourth house have it all figured out – as you find out when you read my story, in the book! One client told me she has been mystified by having Neptune and Scorpio in the fourth house, devoured my book, and was amazed by the clear way I laid it all out, and answered so many of her open questions.

Yet, many people do find their empty house(s) to be especially perplexing or demanding.

So, what to do with that empty house?

1. With an empty house you may need more awareness around how that empty house works for you. I’ve seen this especially during planetary transits to said house, as well as the house ruler. Suddenly it’s like – huh? What’s this area of life about? How does it work for me? During transits, you get a crash course in how your fourth house operates, and your core stability needs.

Since many people have clusters of planets in a certain part of the chart, with your empty house(s), conscious awareness is key. For instance, imagine your chart is very public/social with the majority of planets in the southern hemisphere which means you spend much of your energy here. You still have a home and family, right? But you tend to feel challenged, perplexed in this area because you are naturally oriented to focus on other areas of your life.

Look to your fourth house sign for guidance. If you do not have a planet, here, look to the sign on the house cusp (which I cover in the book). The sign can be revelatory. In fact, the editor of the book (who knew very little astrology) looked up her fourth house Taurus cusp, read the description and said “OMG I am Riley (the fictional fourth house Taurus/Libra/Venus person described in the book)! I was literally shouting out loud, YES, that is so me, to your words!”

So, yes, you can definitely broaden your awareness and understanding of how an empty house works for you by knowing its sign. AND its ruling planet. Which brings me to my next point.

2. No house is ever really empty.  Your fourth house has a ruler. Traditional astrology acknowledges this, but this fact has gotten a bit lost in modern astrology. I’m going to leave the deeper intricacies to someone who studies this branch of astrology, but in practice, every house is mediated by the goings-on of the planet ruling the cusp of said house.

How does rulership work? As said earlier, knowing the sign of your empty fourth house can be enough to send waves of revelation through you. But say you want to know more.

Let’s go deeper. Imagine Cancer on the cusp of the fourth, the fourth house is empty, and the ruler, Moon, is in the twelfth. Can you taste how the flavor of this has now been enhanced?  Cancer influences the fourth – the desire to put down roots, the importance of finding Soul mate(s) with whom you want to spend your entire life, a need for emotional transparency with partners. Add a new flavor. Moon in the hidden, spiritual, creative and sometimes confusing twelfth house. This warns of a potential for isolation and confusion in fourth house matters, and remedially, the importance of claiming solitude and privacy, and spending time on developing a creative and spiritual life. You can go even deeper, look to the sign of the Moon, and it’s aspects. Each will subtly influence the flavor, taste, of how the fourth house expresses in your world.

As with all of astrology, it’s all about how deep (ruler, its sign, aspects…) you want to go.

3. In a nutshell, this book is for YOU – fourth house planet, or not. I wrote Follow the Moonlit Path for anyone who wants to feel more centered, rooted and peaceful inside. It felt timely to write. The Earth is going through massive changes, and so are we. It will continue.

This work is truly about the moonlit path within, taking the journey back home to yourself. This likely involves freeing yourself from old childhood conditioning, survival strategies and values that aren’t yours, so you feel more centered, emotionally and spiritually connected, alive: Like a beautifully rooted willow tree that flexibly, gracefully, accommodates wind, storms, change.

Love,

Jessica 

Buy here: Follow the Moonlit Path: Come Home to Yourself in the Astrological Fourth House

The post What if I Don’t Have a Planet in the Fourth (or any) House? appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

I have completed it, a book. A thing of beauty. I love the cover. I love the title. I love the color of the title. Loving devotion and care to detail went into every. single. aspect. of its creation.

My predominant feeling? “Thank You” Thank you. Thank you. 

To write, and be read.  To have an uncensored voice, as a woman!

I get to spend hours alone, creating. I get to write. One of my favorite things to do in the world. And, I get entire creative control! Virginia Woolf once created her own printing press. I don’t have to do that. I can create cover art, format a manuscript and distribute it to you with just my computer, from the privacy of my home office, in my jammies.

Honestly, the miracle of this privilege astounds me.

Of course, I have Ego thoughts. In a hot millisecond I can go from basking in the blissful ocean view to a full on belly-flop into that strange energy of publicity, platforms. Where one’s success in life is measured in followers, numbers. When I am in this energy, I am not in my center.

That’s when I know to take my own advice: To come home, again.

I lay down, close my eyes. I remember: Creative acts are like stars. Previously unknown stars are discovered all the time (fact: a “star nursery” – a place where stars are born- was just discovered this month!). They don’t have to be named or recognized to exist. They simply shine, beyond time/space, as brilliant light filled packages of energy, never to be replicated in exactly the same way again.

Ooh, I love this feeling, of co-creating. That’s why I write. 

This is the art and the practice of coming back home to oneself. Recentering in Truth.

This feeling of recentering and coming home, I believe you will feel radiate from the book.

It was a different journey for me. This book led me down a path of inquiry where all I had to go on was scant moonlit, an (oft very) little thread of inspiration and “what if?…”. I often questioned whether the above was enough to build a book on. It was. All 176 pages of it.

It may not be a bestseller. (Unless a miracle happens) It likely won’t. But my subject is the fourth house, not the tenth.

The tenth house asks, What will you contribute to the world? What are your #LIFE GOALS?

(Oh my gosh, the pressure!) 

The fourth house asks, What do you do like to do when no one is looking? What makes you feel centered and connected to your innermost Self (And, maybe, Where’s the ice cream?)?

In my experience, that’s what you really want to be doing, anyhow.

Yet we often get it backwards. Because we are raised in a culture of external focus, we expect great achievements from ourselves, without having nourished the invisible root network that sustains our life. Then, when we can’t self-actualize or feel stuck in our lives, we end up going to therapy, or on a healing journey—right back into the fourth house!

The feeling of pulling inward… slowing down… taking the time to discover your own natural rhythm… meandering down mysterious moonlit paths, for no other reason than you are curious to know what you might find there… That’s the fourth house. Oh, the rich discoveries you can make here. This is what gives rise to a Soul calling. Not the other way around.

This is the art and the practice of coming back home to oneself. 

Friend:

Do you give yourself the time, solitude and the privacy to recenter, to come home to yourself?

Do you permit yourself to follow the moonlit path… of your whimsy, your intuition, magnificent imagination, your “crazy” ideas …just because?

Do you allow yourself to pursue ongoing interests and pastimes that serve no purpose other (like making money, or furthering ambitions) than to satisfy your curiosity?

(P.S.- And no one else can give you permission to VALUE doing this, but you.)

What if the True purpose of existence is nothing more than to follow your unique inspirations, as YOU? I love what Liz Gilbert has said, You might get nothing out of it at all except a beautiful, long life where all you did was follow your gorgeous curiosity. And that should be enough. 

Isn’t it? 

This Sunday, we celebrate the two year anniversary of our move from California to Oahu, the place we now call home, which was truly a geographical and spiritual recentering for both of us. The Divine timing of this publication couldn’t be more impeccable and perfect!

Can I entice you with a new favorite book, a cozy flannel to wrap yourself in and, yes, some ice cream? Re-introduce you to the quiet kid inside, the one you may’ve understandably overlooked, or forgone, for those bright shiny lights of “what everyone else is doing?” Can I share a little of my journey? Can we explore your fourth house planets and signs, too?

Welcome Home.

Jessica

Available as print book or e-book. Click here to purchase your copy!

The butterflies in your belly

announce newness, different and strange

stay close to the feeling as you

would your own breath

let the breeze lift you to undiscovered places

To go beyond what has been done before we need to take a risk, or leap of faith.

One of the risks I have taken with my work is to give myself more permission to express what feels natural and right in a session- because that feeling is how I know the Divine is working through me.

It has been freeing to do this. Yet it’s been a process. I have experienced a lot of conflict about doing my work in the old way versus the new. Because I don’t know exactly what to call it, and also because it’s a change for me, too. In any typical session, many have the conscious or unconscious expectation of being the passive recipient of downloaded guidance and advice. But I like a conversation, to establish rapport, ask questions- that’s how I feel into energy and receive channeled insight. And while I offer guidance, I also recognize I am not the guide; I model how it’s done rather than doing it for you.

As I “do” differently, I may disappoint others’ expectations of me!

A fact, I’ve learned, that always signals new growth and expansion.

Right before I first published A Love Alchemist’s Notebook, a channel told me “Some new people will be drawn to you, but not everyone will like you. You will disappoint some people.” (to my Venus ruled chart :: chills)

As a human being who likes to be liked, when this happens it naturally bothers me.

And yet, I’ve learned, those people are not my people. I want my people to like me; they deserve someone who resonates, too. More importantly, I want to like me, and that looks like me sitting in my Truth and not catering to others’ expectations. Even if the new is temporarily uncomfortable to that very human part of me.

This is a powerful New Moon Solar Eclipse. Jupiter conjoins it, meaning, many of us are reaching for freedom in new ways, and expanding beyond old boundaries if we so allow it. Jupiter is the planet of freedom. Feel into the energy now. If you don’t feel freedom, you will certainly feel restless for it!

This Solar Eclipse/Jupiter falls in my third house of teaching, writing and information. Eclipses bring changes into the area of life they fall. The (astrology) book I’m about to publish in January (yay!) is different, like me. Just because no one else has ever written in the way that I do…doesn’t mean I cannot. Just because I use the ancient art of astrology as a tool…doesn’t mean I use it in the same way as others. As I figure out my authentic way forward, as many of us are doing right now, this feels very much in the Spirit of this eclipse.

Where are you ready to spread your wings and fly, fly, expand into that more authentic direction of YOU?

Another way of asking this question, using astrology:

Where is Solar Eclipse/Jupiter (4 CAP) in your chart? This is where you can get juice by asking Jupiter questions:

-How can I allow myself to experience more freedom, in this area? How am I ready to grow here, and potentially leave something old behind for something new, unfamiliar and exciting?

-How have I been underestimating myself in this area? Where could I take a leap of faith, or do something risky, in order to experience a greater sense of ease and freedom within myself and life?

-Where can I let go of a commitment, vow, social protocol or “should” that is no longer satisfying?

-Am I holding onto a tradition, “the way things are, and have been”, that is now holding me back?

-What ending could give me more freedom than I ever thought possible for myself?

-Where will a commitment to do some hard work (Capricorn) pay off in new opportunities for growth?

-Is this eclipse illuminating a blind spot for me? Can I see that anything uncomfortable I am experiencing is also showing me what I’m ready to let go of, and finally expand beyond?

The shadowy side of Capricorn/Saturn is guilt. That energy tells you that you should conform, be different than who you are, and that if you don’t follow social protocol, you’re wrong. When someone tells me I should be doing things differently, I can still feel a tinge of guilt and shame about it. Yet when I’m willing to simply feel that energy, and re-center into my own backbone and root energy (which shows me the Truth)…it always dissipates. Letting go of the guilt is apart of the process of becoming comfortable with who I am NOW.

Jupiter, transiting Capricorn, potentially frees us up from any strictures of conformity. Uranus is helping us ground into our authenticity, and Uranus is trine Jupiter (and this Eclipse) now. If we are holding onto how things “should be,” or playing into others’ expectations, we are probably feeling really & truly uncomfortable.

But some discomfort is the discomfort of expanding into the new – of never having done this before.

For this discomfort, we can ground, root and center into our True Self, give our self full permission to have the best experience we most want -AND- if we don’t know how yet, vow to figure it out… with persistence, patience, faith and a little work…we will taste the sweet freedom of going beyond what we’ve done before.

And that, my friends, is called growth.

May the old ways and ancient traditions bless and inform the new structures you are birthing in your own life.

Happy Holidays, One and All!

This morning, while centering, rooting and grounding, I watched a dove walking around on my lanai, and since we feed a group of birds every morning, I know it is a place that it has probably visited over dozens of times before.

Then why did it look like it was visiting Earth for the very first time?

It walked around in a circle, observantly tilting head in this angle and that, curiously taking in its mundane surroundings which appeared to hold nothing exceptional…a seed hull, a barbecue grill. Yet it took its time, with each head tilt acting as if it beheld a fresh, new sight, one never before considered.

I thought: THIS. This is the presence we all seek. This is the presence I seek.

Hundreds, thousands, of times I return to my energy body, to a sensation there, a thought here- hundreds of things I repetitively do, see, encounter. How often do I regard the moment as brand new?

I realized when I am holding my highest vibration, I do this all the time, actually. Every moment is fresh, new and wonder-full. Whether it’s my husband telling me about his day, bird-watching, watering the flowers, or writing, I am luminous, light-filled and at my most alive when I am in presence.

Nothing I’ve encountered comes close to this feeling.

When I am present and light, I feel my innate awesome-ness. I notice things that few others notice. I am at my most intelligent, curious, brilliant and observant. My husband tells me a half hour after the fact that he just “got” the idea I had quickly gleaned, connected, in seconds. I jokingly retort, “See what I have to work with?” He’s a highly intelligent man, if but a distracted one. I chalk my smarts up to presence.

Sometimes I lose touch with this magic. When I am caught up in an energy and telling a story about it, when I am ungrounded, when my energy runs high and fast, when I’m procrastinating on, avoiding or dreading doing something I don’t want to do, when I’m too much in my head or overthinking … I am temporarily unable to feel so awesome. The world temporarily loses its magic. The exact same world that once glimmered and glowed with magical aliveness threatens to give me a headache.

Distraction = loss of presence, feeling disconnected from the magic of life

When you break it down in this way, it’s a simple formula, really. Not easy to accomplish, but simple to identify, and so once identified becomes workable. Distraction from self, running at a frenzied pace, not going deep enough into this moment, causes the entire world to lose its magical luster.

It’s a distracting season; it’s easy to rush through the moments, not honoring the magic available in each. Life is nothing but a string of moments, to which we bring meaning, brevity and value with our presence. The magic each of us craves can only appear when we are present to the moment — not caught up in a story that is acting diametrically in opposition to the thing we most want.

…And, that, in a (festive holiday) nutshell, is the challenge of every Gemini Full Moon.

Gemini Full Moon Intuitive Energy Practice: Go A Little Deeper

Here’s a Gemini joke – ok, perhaps it’s a little annoying thing I’ve observed (I’m using it for educational purposes so we’re good, right, Gem?)  Say you are telling a Gemini about an issue you are having with a contractor who is working on your house, and you use an expression or word, maybe its the word “hammer”… and, so, of course, they remember the time they hammered their finger by accident, had to go to emergency room, and it was on their birthday (!?!?)… You ask them to repeat what you had just said, and they have no idea. All they heard was “hammer”. Now, “hammer” is all they want to talk about.

The distracted mind chases squirrels. This squirrel, that one, then, ooh look at that one. It’s a superficial way to move through the world, yet common one. It takes awareness to recognize when we’re chasing squirrels, see how unproductive it is, and gently guide our mind toward more satisfying directions and habits. When this happens, I might ask my mind, “Hey, does this feel productive, or good to me? No? Ok, wanna try something else?…” Then, I will attempt some kind of body-based energy practice, like this next one.

Here’s the practice: Sit down. Ground, root and center. Feel your feet on the ground. Relax into your spine a little bit more. Feel your pelvic bowl, and if it doesn’t feel soft and open already, send some energy flow down there. This first step is so important to presence that if it’s all you can do you are 99% in.

Set the intention to both be present, and to tune into the light, eternal, patient, peaceful LOVE that you are. You might ask yourself: What would it be like to be a little more present right now?  To feel my lightness?

Observe any sensation you feel in your body. Maybe there’s some heaviness around your heart, tightness in your back, maybe you’re holding your breath a little, or holding tension in your pelvic bowl, or your root.

Notice if you are telling a story about what you are feeling. Often, when we are exposed to dis-resonant energies, we carry them with us, and then because our mind naturally tries to make sense of what we feel, we will tell our self a story about it, one based on previous exposures to similar feeling energies. The story often isn’t true, or based in the present. The story is often, no -the story is always, irrelevant.

Go a little deeper. Get underneath any story. Drop down more deeply into your pelvic bowl and Root chakra. Feel your energy flow from the back of your heart and spine and down into that yummy area.

This is the center of Truth. Your Root always connects you to The Truth. The more deeply you are nestled into your comfy, yummy Root chakra energy, the more you are able to recognize a made-up story, be it an old familiar feeling you have tied to a story you are telling yourself, a thought tangent that has no real substance, or a person who is carrying energy that feels inauthentic, distracted, or anything else strange feeling, to you. Once here, it’s easy to release and melt back into presence.

Once you are fully *right here*, you will also find that you can more easily accommodate (or patiently tolerate) the people in your life who may be more distracted, right now. Know that when you are anchored into deep presence, you are a lighthouse for everyone else’s peace. Your bright beam invites all to come back home; believe it or not, give them enough time in your deep presence and they will do it naturally.

One of the most nurturing things we can do for ourselves is hold the intention to be deeply present. May you move forward into the season empowered to co-create holiday magic — with the light of your presence!