Jessica Shepherd's Blog, page 15

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’

‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I’m getting older, too…”

–Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Changes have been brewing over here at Moonkissd.com, dear reader. Maybe you’ve noticed I’ve been writing a lot more about energy and spirituality. Or perhaps you’ve seen the new look of my site, or the way I’ve dropped the “Astrology” from Moonkissd. Under my services tab, instead of astrology readings, you’ll now see only intuitive healing sessions as an offering. Last month, I cancelled an astrological lecture I was due to give this fall. I just resigned as one of the lead writers/teachers for Dana Gerhardt’s beloved astrology site, Mooncircles.com.

Why? Everything changes, and it’s time for a change.

A New Way of Being

Astrology has been my calling card for a long time. You may or may not know this: I have written Full & New Moon columns twice a month since 2004! I can’t even believe it’s been almost 15 years. Throughout all my explorations in learning various spiritual tools and methods, the astrologer hat stuck. I kinda thought I would do this forever. Have you ever had your plans fall away, to discover the Divine Universe had other, bigger things in store for you?

Well, this has happened for me.

In spring 2016, something dramatic occurred in my consciousness and energy body: I begin to sense energy very strongly. It was nothing like I’ve ever before experienced, or thought possible for me, and it totally rocked my world. Fortunately and synchronously I found my teacher very quickly. She gave me context for the what of what was happening, the why, and most importantly, tools for how I could most gracefully unfold into this new way of being.

As I spent more and more time in this new reality, learning to do healings and clearings, astrology started to show it’s limitations. It works great for giving context, meaning to life cycles, and can be incredibly affirming. Yet alone it does not move, shift and integrate healing energy- which is what I was now doing with most of my time. With clients, new insights were emerging and I found myself wanting to offer what was coming through, but often because of the expectation that we were having an “astrology reading” felt bound to hold that language, format.

One day when I found myself saying in session, to a beloved client, “Do you want to keep talking about it (your issue) or do you want to finally heal it?” and then proceeded to do some energy healing with her, I knew I had grown beyond what I’d created.

Okay, So How Does this Work Now?

Now that you know what’s up with me, how will this work going forward? Especially if you are a client, this may be important to answer. I will still write about astrology some, but I’ve been doing less of that. In a session I may still use astrology, but as only one tool in my toolkit. For awhile now I have been moving toward intuitive healing, where I use a variety of tools like intuitive presence, channeling, energy healing, and more…but not astrology exclusively. If you’ve had any session with me during the past year or so you’ve likely already noticed this shift.

To be clear: I’m not doing “astrology readings” anymore. This means if you want someone to do your chart, your baby’s, your partner’s etc., if you want someone to predict or choose astrology dates, I am no longer your person. Since I am no longer calling myself an astrologer, if you are looking strictly for an astrologer, I am happy to refer you to colleagues.

I know this news could be disappointing to some of you. But hopefully exciting to others!

Change isn’t necessarily hard, but it’s new and unfamiliar so can be disconcerting.

I’ve built a substantial following while wearing my astrologer hat. I bow deeply to and thank all of you for the years of support in that phase of my calling. I still find the language extremely relevant, and magical (here’s a bone for you: transiting Pluto is currently opposing my Cancer Midheaven, and over the next several years will oppose my tenth house Venus. This speaks to the necessary reinvention of my calling and worldly contribution, as a healer).

Yet as all stargazers know, seasons change, and I have, too. I am feeling incredibly liberated by this next phase of my calling and its unfolding. I fully understand I may lose some of you in this transition, so thank YOU. For those of you who remain and are along for the ride, thank YOU.

Much love to ALL!

I recently visited Santa Fe again, my hometown. I love the high, mountainous, desert. The energy is so clear and earthy, and truly I charge up my grounding cords for the coming year when I visit. Sitting in the patio enclosure, feet on the warm brick floor with a blanket, the ozone scented air of a late afternoon monsoon rain embracing me like the gently curving lines of adobe, I am in my earth element. A clear eyed desert Goddess.

When I got home I realized that my energetic “door” has been too open, here. Whereas in our Santa Fe adobe I had claimed several little perches as my own, in Hawaii it was sloppy seconds. I have an office, my own private room to retreat to, but for various reasons it is not totally adequate.

I decided to recommit to anchoring my energetic space. Because it’s not about the structure of the space – how much or little room you have, how much or little privacy, or it’s adequacy – so much as owning a given space as yours. Finding what feels okay then filling it up with your God given energy.

I looked at my home with new eyes. Was there a cozy nook I’d been overlooking? A beautiful chair off to the side of the living room, on a square of carpet perhaps? I sat there for some time, like a regal Queen, filling the space with MY energy. In my imagination, I transposed the high desert energy on top of this small area, demarcating it with energetic lines that are a color I identify as my energy, centered, rooted, grounded and sunk into the deliciously smooth feeling of calm. When my husband tried to enter the space, I politely asked him to back off my “grounding station.” If I were a dog, this would be the equivalent of (ahem) marking territory. My energy was the only energy I wanted in this area. No one else’s. I was claiming MY space.

(I also asked him to bring me a drink while I sat, just for fun. Hey, I wanted to feel like a Queen, and set the sovereign tone of this space! He happily complied).

I figured if I couldn’t have a she-shed, this could work.I would anchor the space with my energy and see how it shifted things. The benefits were immediate:

– I allowed myself to be Right. I had just been involved in an uncomfortable disagreement. I decided to break a commitment I had made last year, and I didn’t want any longer, which brought up some issues for the other person. My old habit of taking care of others’ feelings and wounds reared up quite strongly, and because they thought I had done something wrong to them, I struggled with taking on that feeling, too. So every time those feelings would come up I’d sit in MY space and allowed myself to be Right. As in, Goddess/God/I AM Right. Because I AM, serving the truth of your Divine Self, is the most powerful and peaceful place to embody.

-I started drawing boundaries. In my primary relationship I wasn’t liking the backseat driving, him jumping into the shower when I wanted to take one alone, or receiving advice when I needed, and had asked for, support. Instead of complaining about what was happening, getting caught up in emotions (I spent some time beforehand feeling those, on my own), I got practical about it, essentially saying: I don’t like it when this happens, can you do it differently? When challenged, I calmly held my ground…and because I had anchored my energy I had a ground to hold. When you’re in your light there is no need for anyone to feel threatened – and if they are, you clearly see it for what it is.

–I stood up for myself. Several times. In relationship, we get to decide what kind of behavior is acceptable for us, and what isn’t, through what we allow and accept. For instance, someone dumping their “stuff” on me – the energies of their bad day, energy from their unhealed wounding patterns, etc.- is not something I am ever okay with. It’s always appropriate to, practically and calmly, draw a line in the sand when someone crosses yours. Simply stating that, without blame or judgment (it helps to deal with/release your anger alone, first), keeps you feeling clear.

When you truly sit in your own energetic space, all kinds of things become apparent.

…Like, how much you have been allowing others to walk in, and over, you.

…That you may not be in control of others, but you are 100% in control of your experience.

…And, that no one is ever doing anything wrong or to you. They are being their self. When that conflicts with how you want to be treated, the only thing to do is take care of you by anchoring your own energy, getting clear in your self, and asking for what you want. If they comply, great. If they do not, you are still rewarded with being clear in your self and feeling good.

So. Do you feel you have a right to take up space? To be Right, with a capital “R” (no matter another’s version/experience)? To do what you want (and not do what you don’t want)? To stand up for you? To draw a line? Do you feel how other people treat you in relationship is up to you (not them)? Do you feel like the Queen/Goddess of your life (not a servant to others)?

If you answered “No” to any of the above questions, why not spend some time anchoring your energy at this Aries Full Moon– so perfect for steeping in the energy and wisdom of the True Self? This Moon is conjunct Chiron in Aries and square Saturn in Capricorn, planet of clear realism, maturity and the practical structures of our lives. Where could you hold better boundaries? Where have you gotten too used to putting your self last (Chiron in Aries) instead of first- where you belong? If you’ve gotten lax, where might you need a little more of what my teacher calls a “Brooklyn attitude”:-) about standing up for your Self?

Because…

You are allowed to be Right.

You are allowed to be treated with respect.

You are allowed to respect your Self.

You are allowed to feel peaceful in your choices, and your partnerships.

You are allowed to own, and anchor, your energy.

You are allowed to connect deeply with your Self.

You are allowed to take all the time you need to do this.

I was at a beach, the topaz blue waves gently lapping, when I happened to overhear a conversation between the two women next to me. “I’ve been so screwed up…something something… Mercury retrograde…something something…I just can’t figure things out,” said the younger woman, festive earrings dangling from her pretty but pinched face. Like a mantra, her energy said: I’m not okay. I’m not okay.

The next morning outside a coffee house, different people, similar conversation. “How are you?” asked a concerned looking friend of the waitress. “I’m really struggling…something something…having trouble adjusting.” The older person offered a healing or therapy session. There it is again, I thought. I’m not okay.

Lately I’d noticed how “I’m not okay” had been affecting me, which is probably why the energy of these particular people caught my attention. A visitor had come to town, someone I care about, and I observed how I felt in her presence. On paper everything was was beautiful, life was abundant. There was no emergency. So why was I feeling like there was? Because of the energy she emanated: things are not okay, creating a sort of energetic drama, a swirl of emotion and intensity surrounding mundane interactions.

I had noticed what was happening inside me. The moment I think someone is not okay, I’m buying into the story that they’re not, and then it’s easy to lose my center. When I believe someone is not okay, it activates concern, a sense of urgency in me, to help, to spin out in anxiety– which isn’t helpful to them, or to me.

So I had been working on a practice, grounding into “I’m okay.” Because I am okay, and so are you. Truly.

Here’s how to do “I’m okay”: ground, root, center and drop into your belly. Sit with whatever sensation you have, no matter how uncomfortable, without analyzing it. Now ask the question, Am I okay? And wait for the answer energetically. Don’t force it. Allow it to arise, from your Soul. (hint: there is one right answer, and if you’re receiving otherwise, it’s your mind talking). It’s subtle at first, and takes practice, but when I gently ask the question, a calm billowy energy arises and continues to expand. I try to sit with that a few minutes.

To be clear, feeling “not okay” is not the same as being not okay.  99.9% of the time when we tell our selves we’re not okay, it’s untrue. My husband recently got stuck in a coral reef nicknamed “the garden”, named such because surfers get stranded on their boards and the only way they can paddle out is by waiting for the tide to slowly push them out. Like being stuck on top of a garden. He told me about a stranded surfer, which is common, but it was serious this time. Friends yelled from a few hundred yards away, “are you okay?” He wasn’t. An ambulance was called, he needed stitches, his life was at risk. That’s “I’m not okay”.

Virgo season can amp up worry, anxiety, and habits of mentally analyzing things over and over in our minds. The mind is tricky. It is easy to convince our selves that someone else, or we, are not okay… and let fear have the driver seat. Yet if we want to be helpful toward others, and especially toward our self, we need to hold a larger perspective. To see our self and others as already whole and perfect is the most healing perspective we can hold. It is literally a decision that says: There is nothing wrong with them, even when they think there is. There is nothing wrong with us, even when we think there is!

Feel how that feels in your body. Feel the Yes!!! in this, the rightness of it, the faith in the perfection of life.

This is how we heal. This is how we move forward into uncertainty with ease and grace. This is how we really know and begin to trust, in our body, that there are no wrong decisions, no mistakes we can make, ever. We see our selves primarily as whole, first and foremost. Everything else is just life moving through us. Conditions that constantly change.

On an energetic level the moment I don’t think I’m okay, I’m not. The moment I decide I’m okay, I am.  This is not an affirmation, not something you repeat to yourself in your head and feel disconnected from in your body. It is an energetic experience of one’s True Self, and faith in life’s ability to hold you through all of it…and that makes all the difference.

The post Virgo New Moon: I Am Okay appeared first on Moonkissd by Jessica.

I took my first inter-island trip this past weekend, alone, to Kauai, a neighboring isle. My rental car, a huge boat of a Cadillac, belonged in Texas not backroad beaches, was what I call a “God car”– a big boss of a car. It set the tone for the trip. I figured this weekend was about owning it, owning my Divinity. In my God car, I would feel what it’s like to be all-knowing and everywhere all at once, to part seas (of crowds and cars).

Sometimes you own it… and sometimes you lose it to find it.

Parking my God car near the hotel entrance with the intent to snorkel, the waves sent a lava rock smashing into my foot so I changed my agenda. When I saw people hiking cliffs down the beach, I set down my beach stuff, debated momentarily about what to do with my keys and grabbed my phone.

It was a rocky, sweaty hike up, requiring all hands on deck. The view from the top was spectacular, even if I didn’t see any turtles, as promised by the review site. I scrambled down the side of a sandy cliff, took pictures of the sea cove, and hiked back down to my gear, reaching for my car key… Wait, where was my key?

Back up the cliffs I went, retracing my steps, though this time in panicked prayer. God, Goddess All That Is, this is the time to show me my inner vision. Up and down I scoured the sandy ground, and then up and down again, thinking that if I stopped hyperventilating I would have a much better chance of said all-knowing vision kicking in. As I walked the perimeter, at every point I stopped and heard, “The keys aren’t here.”

My vision turned out to be right on, even if in that moment I mistook it for a worry addled mind.

On my third or fourth (?) trip down, and back, I met a young Hawaiian man. Twenty minutes later at the top of the cliff, he was there, too. “I’ve been looking for your keys,” he said, describing where he’d already been. “My friends are searching for you, too,” he said, as one walked over. I thanked him profusely, deeply touched. “I know how it is. I would jump in the water to look, but I am recovering from an ear infection.” At all of this, my heart clenched a little, my eyes watered. “This is Aloha,” I said, meaning it and thinking that if this was the whole point of this crazy search it would absolutely be enough.

Dehydrated, walking back with no keys, I resignedly folded up my towel and put it in my beach bag, prepared to spend time and money on something I didn’t want to do.

My keys. In the little pocket of my bag — right where I’d left them. Oh God!

Oh God was right. Instantly, I knew. I had been looking out for myself all along. I had never lost the connection, I just thought I had. Through the doubt, fear, panic, regret, confusion… the keys were always there. All was well. All Is Well. And even if they hadn’t been there, All Is Well.

This is the million dollar metaphor. There is only one thing we can ever lose: our connection to our peaceful, present, patient, kind, eternal self. When we lose that, we lose everything. And paradoxically even that loss is an illusion because we are always connected.

But we forget. We get confused. We think we’ve lost our keys on a beach and tell our self a story about how impossible it is to find keys on a beach. We become afraid and worried when things don’t go according to plan. We think dreadful thoughts, like, “Now, I’ll never be able to…”. Only to realize we can, and could.

We forget we are driving around in a God car, that Spirit has us covered at all times.

Pisces Full Moon has the potential to bring up doubt, confusion, panic, worry, madness, and any other illusion we can experience in our emotional body. And then, on the drop of a dime delivers miracles, magic and acts of faith and grace that leave us breathlessly awe-inspired and deeply connected to Spirit. We lose connection and then find it again. We contract into our small self and then expand into our big self.

We are infinite potential. When we allow this awareness in, we realize we are so infinite that we can change our entire experience on a dime, just by remembering who we truly are. It’s a subtle shift of energy and focus, like shifting from the foreground action of a painting to the background that holds everything. Energetically, it’s the subtle shifts that make all the difference.

And it is an ongoing practice.

For instance, as I write this, the Hawaiian islands are under hurricane watch. Schools and beaches are closed. Ships have been ordered out of the harbor. Stores have been sold out of drinking water for days. Life in paradise! It would be easy to hang out in the collective anxiety and let it commandeer my energy. Instead, I drop into my Soul. I ask the question and feel the calm, peaceful affirmative answer. All Is Well.

ALL is well

all IS well

all is WELL

Steep in your infinite self at this Full Moon. Make it your Full Moon practice.

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The post Pisces Full Moon: Paradise Lost and Found appeared first on Moonkissd by Jessica.

My relationship with my creative identity has been in flux for awhile now. I notice I am no longer comfortable calling myself an “astrologer”, and not because I don’t have the technical expertise of my craft, the years of experience or ability. But because this identity does not, any longer, encompass the whole of what I do.

I am, I have been slowly realizing over the years, primarily, a healer. While astrology is one framework I use, it is only one piece. Often I can facilitate greater shifts for someone by simply listening to the energy of the person and responding with little or no assistance from the chart. In fact, the chart can get in the way, especially for those really familiar with astrology. Sometimes when we get too familiar with a thing, a partner, a situation, or even the tree in our front yard, we no longer clearly see it- the abstractions, interpretations, technical descriptions distracting us from truth.

My Sun is in Cancer, and so is my Midheaven. Using astrology, I have the Spirit (Sun) and mission (Midheaven) of a Healer (yes, astrology, reliably, “works”). The mission of a healer is broader than that of an astrologer; a healer sees the person in front of them as whole, and holds space for that recognition to occur for them. An astrologer dispenses information and counsels; a healer facilitates awakening to Divine Self.

This Leo eclipse brings creative identity questions to the forefront of our consciousness. Are we fulfilled in our heart’s path and truth? Are we appreciating the unique contribution we make to the whole? Do we have the right audience for our message? Jupiter, planet of expansion, now in Scorpio (transformation) is square this eclipse, so we may feel we’ve outgrown the pot in which we are planted. Is there something new we want to bring in – because it would feel good to spread our wings and fly?

It’s scary stepping into the unknown. A leap into a bold new frontier is a leap of faith. The greatest fear each of us truly face is the unknown itself. Every day, this strange, new world is requiring each of us to get a little more comfortable with uncertainty, a little more courageous with trusting our heart over what our five senses tell us. It’s honoring the song that wants to be sung, the feeling that wants to be felt, that centers and guides us. Those choices that appear to be “logical” or “practical” are more often a result of old conditioning and programming than the Soul’s truth. To expand and evolve beyond where we are, we really do have to “wing it” in order to find out what we’re capable of.

…And, over and over, I’ve had evidence that Spirit rises up 100% to meet us when we do.

For a long time now, I’ve been allowing astrology to be the reliable tarmac runway, the solid takeoff strip that I warm up on which allows my plane to fly. I wait till I get in the air to abandon the chart, to fly with my intuition entirely. That’s been a safe choice.

Am I a plane… or a bird? The plane can be cumbersome, too unwieldy in its mechanics, controls. A bird just lifts off, directly off the ground. It doesn’t need a running start.

When I go into the area behind my heart, I see a vision of me holding a bird in her hands. She wants to fly free, without labels, without fulfilling others expectations to be or “do” a certain way — it would feel so freeing, so liberating. And there’s a little fear there.

You might find the energy field around your heart particularly strongly right now. Feel the space right behind your heart, in your spine, relax and settle in. Breathe into any fear or tightness that comes up. Be with it, allowing it to exist and move through at it’s own pace. Connect with the deep and still knowing that you are always okay. All is well.

In the coming months, you’ll see the shift in my creative identity taking place on my website. Creative new beginnings require us to lose the training wheels (or runway) and step into a larger, expanded version of our self, having faith that all will be well. Likewise, I wish you only success in your own shifts and transformations.

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The post Leo New Moon Eclipse: Spread Your Wings appeared first on Moonkissd by Jessica.

I had been looking forward to attending a concert all week. I had even gotten buy-in from my husband, whose musical tastes are vastly different from mine (we have Venus square Venus), so this was an exciting and huge accomplishment in and of itself! Yet by the time Friday night rolled around I had a headache. I’ve learned that sudden physical symptoms can be an intuitive premonition about what’s to come, so I checked in with myself, scanning all aspects of the concert. The venue. The venue felt wrong for me. And, by extension, the people. The venue would attract a certain quality of crowd. This event was a definite “No.” But I had purchased the tickets. I was so curious. I could leave early.

I knew I was getting a “No” and I also knew I was going to override that.

The bar was dark, the energy heavy, and the acoustics, the sound system, awful. The crowd didn’t bother to stop conversing when the artist began to sing, prompting a flare of frustration from her that even I could feel. 3 songs in, I bailed. Saturday morning I woke up feeling like I’d been drinking all night. I hadn’t had a single drop.

Unhealthy Mental Patterns & Behaviors

Have you been in your head a lot, lately? Arguing with your self, or others? Justifying wrong choices, thinking it will be different this time? Mentally ruminating on ideas or connections that have no probable  future for you? Futilely developing a battle strategy for a war that you know you can never win?

A client was sharing some longstanding issues with her mother, elaborating on the story, getting really into it. I felt her temperature rising, and so I said: “I’m going to stop you right there. You’re getting pretty worked up, mentally strategizing about when to have ‘the conversation,’ the one where you finally get the understanding and validation you want– the one she’s never been capable of having. Sorry to say this: It’s a dead end.”

Mars retrograde conjunct the South Node in Aquarius highlights conditioned mental habits and patterns we engage in that just really aren’t all that helpful. I know a little bit about the nature of the South Node on a planet, as South Node in Cancer joins my Cancer Sun. I think Steven Forrest first planted this metaphor in my mind: an alcoholic sits at a bar, refusing drinks offered. That’s how it feels, being surrounded by the temptation to do the very thing you most want to do. And you must refrain.

It’s an apt metaphor now. Our Mars may need to “dry out”. The endless mental masturbation to no end, doing the same thing over again and thinking it will be different this time; getting drunk on habits of anger, mental strategizing and future-planning, disconnecting on social media and calling it “connection”; giving in to any old pattern of conditioning of saying Yes when you mean No, the South Node is a point of dissipation, showing us where we can easily lose traction, energy. At best, we develop the foresight to clearly see where this choice or behavior will take us, should we follow it, and the self-compassion and wisdom to refrain. At worst, it leads… nowhere good. Just as hanging out with the “wrong crowd” leads you toward making choices you’d never make otherwise, one bad habit, wrong turn always leads to another… and we will only ever feel worse. Not maybe. Always.

Yet, there’s a habitual element of compulsion with the South Node. Like, this time, this thing that never does…It will finally feel good! It will finally give me what I want! That’s me and social media. Or me and taking care of wounded people. Or me and ignoring my intuition.

Trust me, it won’t be different this time. It doesn’t feel good, and it never will.

Aquarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse

Aquarius Moon conjoins South Node and Mars -AND- it’s an eclipse. There is a message here. Full stop, Mars in Aquarius clearly wants our attention. Are you breezing through a big red STOP light as though it’s green, then acting surprised at the consequences, like getting a ticket? It is time to reflect on the fruits of our actions. Are we truly getting what we want (Mars)? If not, why are we engaging in this behavior?

There are many ways of slicing this, and not just through Mars. What are “unhealthy habits” of Aquarius, for you? Aquarius rules conditioning of family, culture -and, ironically- your authentic self. It’s both the ability to break free of those and be your most authentic self, and the opposing cultural force that rears its ugly head when you try, which says any or all of the following: “Ooohh noooo, you can’t/shouldn’t do that. I’ll hurt someone’s feelings. I’ll disappoint expectations. I’m being too selfish. It will be way too hard to say No. In fact, since it will, initially at least, feel just as bad to say No, I might as well say Yes.”

We are exposed to conditioning all the time. Our experience may not be entirely ours. Culture, and other people, create a “field of energy,” and just as fish swimming in the ocean don’t realize they’re swimming in ocean because they can never leave it, we, too, can have a hard time seeing all the ways we’re being influenced. Separating from this can be tricky and sticky. For instance, a client is attempting to online date. When she interacts with that social media field, feelings around self worth and insecurity come up. Is that really hers? Mightn’t it be the energy field created by that environment? A dating site can certainly be a place for love, but also superficial values and unsavory games that have nothing to do with heart.

There’s one bottom line here, and really it’s the only one you need to remember at this Full Moon. If it doesn’t feel good to you, it’s not for you. Full stop. No matter how tempting or addictive it is. No matter how “different it will be this time.”(it won’t be) This is the time to recognize and let go of any cognitive patterns and behaviors you’ve probably, frankly, gotten a little too used to, and which no longer have life force for you. They will get you nowhere good… and feeling good is the only place you ever need to be!

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The post Aquarius Full Moon Eclipse: Full Stop appeared first on Moonkissd by Jessica.

The thing about living in Hawaii is… everyone wants to visit. Your brother from another mother. Your fifth cousin three times removed who just found you on Ancestry.com. Everyone. All this visiting has lit up my Aries-Libra-Cancer chart like a pinball machine. In my family, I was taught to play by the rules, to not honor what I need. You can imagine how easy it is to wind up feeling like everyday is “groundhog day”: you’re sitting there, and, bam! here we go again. The energetic field surrounding family – with all its invisible rules and dynamics- is so strong. It takes supreme consciousness to do differently.

For instance, I’m at the dinner table. The energy field starts to feel very dis-resonant (not feeling good). No one shows any sign of moving. That’s when the voices start… You can’t leave. They will think you’re selfish. They traveled all this way to see you. You can hold on for a few more minutes, five, okay ten minutes (Alarm bells!! By the time I’m bargaining with myself I’m wayyyy past the point of being able to bargain).

If people are unconscious or pushing past their limits (which frequently happens in social and family dynamics) I feel it. They may be able to ignore those signals. I cannot, not any longer. The more connected I’ve become, the more I can feel what’s truly going on.

What I want to do: get up, leave, to take care of myself… deeply challenges the family programming that says I cannot. Big pushback.

Deep breath: I am allowed to take care of myself.

I have permission to take care of myself. Permission. This has been big work.

Not “F*** you, I’m going to do what I want…” because that never feels good. I’m a Cancer, I’m a healer, so I’m oriented to help the good of All. If taking care of myself means truly hurting another, I won’t do it. But when I investigate that thought, 99% of the time it’s a lie. Because: When I take care of myself, I am also taking care of others.

How can this be true?

Reframing What It Means to Be Loving

Here is a conundrum all people with a sensitive and kind heart will understand: it’s too easy to confuse kindness and compassion with self-sacrifice, love with enabling others.

I am a healer. My childhood was my first training ground. I felt my family’s stress, and so did my best to ease their burdens by being caring, loving and essentially self-denying. As a healer, I brought healing by sponging up their negativity, donating my energy, and lightening the load of all.

That approach worked in my career of helping others, too. Until it didn’t any longer. I felt physically crappy, a lot. Eventually I realized I didn’t like donating my light to unconscious people. It was a joyless task. It brought me down. It took a ton of my energy to transmute theirs, became a full time job, and, as to whether it actually helped them to heal, often my energy didn’t make a visible ounce of long-term difference. Plus, there was no room for ME, for what I wanted, in that equation. It was time to think about me.

Slowly, I have begun to understand that while being loving and healing once meant indiscriminately giving my energy to those in need, now the opposite is true. Now… 

When I take care of myself, I am also taking care of others.

Often the most loving things I can do in a dis-resonant energy field, or unconscious dynamics, is to leave it. In offering my light, I’m allowing the dynamic or person to continue at its/their present state. Like buying an alcoholic another drink at the bar, my presence, even “my desire to help” enables them… to continue. In removing my energy from an unconscious situation/person, I am one less energy supporting it. Even if they don’t choose to wake up, I’m helping by not contributing my energy to the situation.

How uncaring, how cold, how unloving…I should be more compassionate…

How many times have I heard myself think this? How many times have my truly caring, sensitive, clients said this to me about their own relationships? Countless. We misunderstand love. Love is not self-sacrifice. Love is not turning a blind eye to the truth, and hanging around for more of the lie. Love is not giving our life blood and light indiscriminately. Love is what feels good to us. Love is truth. Love is joy. Only then are we truly able to offer something of value to another.

Besides, we can never truly give love to another; we can only embody it by standing in truth and light. Think about this deeply, feel its truth. Those who have “loved” you gave you the gift of showing you how to love. It is impossible to give another what you do not have.

By widening our capacity to love our self, to honor what feels right, true, good in any situation for us, we lead by example, saying: See, THIS is love. This is how we do it. 

Because, if it’s not feeling good for me it can’t possibly be feeling good for you. We are far too connected to have anything other than this to be true.

That’s leadership. That’s healing. That’s LOVE.

How different this is from what I was taught, or even the paradigm that existed just a few years ago– one which allowed me to support others by sacrificing my self.

Cancer New Moon Eclipse

This Solar Eclipse in Cancer highlights self-defeating patterns of care-taking and self-sacrifice for the sake of “love”, belonging, family, support, nurturing, healing. Have you been confusing self-sacrifice with “being loving”? Honoring your self with being selfish? Are you engaged in patterns that leave you feeling depleted, invisible, used?

Take it from a Cancer South Node: the classic Cancer shadow is making one’s own needs so secondary to others that you literally become a ghost in your own life. Invisible.

It is time to change all of that. Eclipses are the hour hand of the cosmic clock. They accelerate change. They say: “you’ve been doing this pattern your whole life, and time’s up!!!”. Eclipses do bring a level of emotional chaos and drama, hence, the Ego’s dread about them, but always in the service of changing entrenched, habituated, patterns so that we can take our self-empowerment to the next level. And you can multiply this last statement times one-hundred — since this eclipse opposes Pluto, planet of wounding. Pluto says, “You’ve been hurt, here, many times before. You don’t have to keep hurting.”

And you know what’s empowering? Changing a pattern without needing anyone to be different than who they are. Even if the people we love choose to do otherwise, WE do not have to keep perpetuating unconscious wounding with our energy; we do not have to deny our connection to Divinity. Standing in Light and Truth, we can see that love has absolutely nothing to do with playing by “the rules”, being “supportive”, “compassionate” or “kind”. Love has no shoulds, no requirements. Love never asks you to cut off your corners to fit into a round hole. Love has everything to do with the love we feel, on the inside.

That’s when we know that we are Love. We feel it.

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I was out in the ocean with my precocious Gemini niece. She loves the water, but today she was being clingy and climbing all over me. I asked her to stop; being a climbing gym for a five year old just doesn’t feel good! But she didn’t listen. I got frustrated, angry. She became surly. We stopped playing. Later, feeling guilt and shame for disappointing our chance to play in the ocean (which I’d been building up for months), I went back into the ocean with her. We did the same exact dance all over again, but this time it left me with an injured back and a night of missed sleep.

Mars attacks!!!

Mars is retrograding* through my fourth house at this Solar Eclipse in Cancer, both the fourth and Cancer ruling family and home. Of course, my extended family came for a visit. It’s funny how synchronous the universe is in providing a testing ground for Mars RX issues to surface. In the area Mars is transiting in your chart, you, too, are being irritated, having your warrior mettle piqued and triggered.

Mars is about taking action to get what you want. In my early family dynamic there were two choices when it came to getting what anyone wanted or needed. Either you played by the rules and didn’t bother even trying, or your needs compromised everyone else’s. Two choices: sacrifice your self -or- be selfish.

Not good choices. Neither come from an authentic place.

So, it makes sense that my natal chart features Mars in Aries opposed by Pluto in Libra, with my Cancer Sun at the apex. Pluto can sublimate any archetype, repressing its natural expression because that instinct has been deemed bad, wrong, dangerous, untrustworthy. Anger, a natural extension of learning to honor one’s limits and selfhood, was the bogeyman that was never allowed to enter the room.

One thing I’ve learned about anger, in my anger re-education. Underneath it always lurks: fear. Which was appropriate for my situation with my niece… My anger was trying to protect me from getting hurt! But I felt such shame about that anger.

So, when I went back in, energetically, to clear it, and imagined giving myself permission to take care of myself, I could see the alternative. If I had been more secure in the knowledge that I could take care of myself (Sun in Cancer), and calmly redirected her, she wouldn’t have gotten fussy and felt blamed by me. We would play in shallow water where she wouldn’t want to cling. Everyone would have felt better.

What is Mars retrograde teaching you about your relationship to your anger, desire, goals, independence, sexuality, limits and boundaries? Pulled muscles, thwarted action, boundary issues, frustration…these are common manifestations of any Mars retrograde period. But if you go no further, and chalk it all up to “Mars retrograde” you would be missing out on the opportunity to unravel the symbolism, the “why” behind “what’s” occurring. Mars is about honoring your limits, how you hold your warrior energy. That’s why the muscle gets pulled. That’s why the car accident happens.

Maybe your Mars has been wounded in life, too, like mine, hobbling along on one cylinder. It’s not uncommon. Culture is either in love with aggression and desire, or demonizes it. On the whole, unless he’s in uniform (cop, or armed forces) we don’t respect Mars so much. We burn out our adrenals trying to achieve goals. We fail to stand up for our selves, accepting the consequences of that -stress and pain- as “the way things are”. We do things we don’t enjoy instead of taking the initiative to build a life that we do.

Well then, why not use this time to pull over and take a much needed pit stop? To regroup and relate to your Mars, differently? We’ll be given more opportunities to do so– as the next Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on 7/27/18 conjoins Mars.

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*Mars went retrograde on 6/25/18 at 9 degrees of Aquarius, and directs on 8/27/18 at 29 degrees of Capricorn. In your chart, look at the area between 29 Cap-9 Aquarius.

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Every few days or so I’ll receive a concerned email, asking: Are you okay? The Kilauea volcano is erupting, as it has continuously for decades, the last eruption was in 2014, lasting several months. The islands were formed by volcanic eruptions, so volcanoes erupting is part of life here. One resident sums up the destruction of her hometown of Pahoa with a sentiment that’s oft-repeated: “It’s Pele’s. She made this place and she can take it away. We all need to clean house.”

We live in Oahu, where there are no active volcanoes; Kilauea is on the big island. The volcano has affected me, though. As an energy sensitive I FELT this on deep levels. But first, a little background and context about where I now live.

Hawaii’s energy is different. It’s a higher vibration. Spend an amount of time here and things in your consciousness that need to be moved out and cleared, accelerate. People can move to paradise and be surprised to have their shit shaken up. My neighbor told me she walked through a glass door within weeks she arrived, earning stitches on one side of her face. She said the island was “testing” her: “It was asking me how badly I really want to be here.” (30 years ago. She’s still here). Another friend spent a few months on the big island and cried the whole time. When I told her I was moving here, she said, a tone of warning, “Hawaii clears energy.” I knew what she meant. What is it about Hawaii- the constant tropical rain, salty air (salt has an ability to absorb negative energy)? Or is it Pele, Hawaiian Goddess of Fire?

Pele is a presence here. A creator/destroyer Goddess, in myth she was periodically attacked by her older sister, and created the Hawaiian islands as a healing sanctuary and refuge. Eventually she died at the hand of her sister. At her death, Pele made her final home in the Kilauea volcano (yes, that volcano). For Pele, “Cleaning house” can mean loss, death, destruction of what you most love. She’s no joke. We can recognize her in any Pluto transit we’ve experienced. Pele has Plutonian logic.

One resident: “As long as Pele is erupting, we say she is dancing,” said Kame’eleihiwa, who referenced the sudden uptick in earthquakes as Pele in labor. “She is giving birth to land.”

My Dance with Pele

As an empath, I feel energies. The interplay between what’s “mine” and what’s in the energy field around me is fluid. The week of the initial eruption, I spoke with a client who was leaving her 30 year marriage, and a friend shared dissatisfaction with her committed partnership. That same week that I was reading about family homes disappearing into fault lines, a major childhood abandonment wound broke through the surface of my life. I believed I needed to leave my marriage. For 9 days, I believed the thought that seemed to appear by as if Divine mandate: “I have to take my next step of evolution, alone.”

It was terrifying. I was in misery. I couldn’t eat. I felt like I was dying. I cried constantly. I thought “Fuck, you move all the way to Hawaii, only to have to give it all up,” -reflecting an Ego belief that the other shoe would drop. I felt I was being torn in half. On one hand I heard a voice in my head tell me that my whole marriage was a mirage, and that I had to leave. On the other, I did not believe it at all. Because, despite what this “voice of awakening” told me, I did not want to leave. I love my husband. I love our life.

Synchronicity obliged my thoughts. In a “law of attraction” way, comic strips, people in line at the grocery, everyone was talking about divorce. I attended an author talk and saw myself in the person onstage years from now, in my own version of Eat, Pray, Love. I was Buddha, Christ, Liz, and every spiritual person who had renunciated all they loved (or had it taken away) in order to experience awakening. This was not a welcome image, nor is this truthful about awakening. I began to understand what it’s like to hear voices and believe them. The difference between me and “crazy” was that I didn’t believe them. Not entirely. I didn’t want to give up everything. I didn’t want to travel the world to find myself.

Paradoxically, I was more compassionate toward myself than I’ve ever been. I was so, so kind. I constantly oriented toward making my body as comfortable as possible. I did not judge myself for what was happening. Amazingly, I was extremely mindful about the whole process, minute by minute asking myself what wanted to be felt, what I needed in this moment, what wanted to be expressed. If I cried, I cried. If I needed to go sit at the park, I did that.

Finally,  I spoke to my teacher about all of this. The first question she asked me was: What have we been learning about truth? Truth always feels good. Even if it requires a change, it will ultimately feel liberating and freeing. So, if you are feeling like you are dying, how could this thought possibly be true?

Within seconds of hearing her voice, I understood. This was a voice of awakening, but it wasn’t my awake voice; this was my childhood conditioning speaking.

The feelings quickly subsided as we spoke, the energy clearing. After we hung up the phone, all I wanted was a piece of berry pie and a swim in the ocean. So I did.

What had happened? I had encountered a core wound in the form of my worst nightmare. It’s core was so icy hot, so dangerous, it needed to erupt to see the light of day, the hot lava to flow, the healing to be experienced, lived and felt, in a more conscious and mindful way.

It became clear that this core wound had been given too much authority in my life. I had been re-enacting my childhood training, regarding relationship, “It’s my way or the high way.” The weekend prior, some issues with John came up that triggered this, and pushed me to my edge and that edge cracked. Erupted. Full on fault line. It became apparent: My Soul did not want my Ego to keep believing the childhood message that intimate relationship is an autocracy in which one person must sacrifice essential self parts to survive it. Two people can be whole, together. I had integrated this to a degree, still I had a persistent pattern of abandoning myself. And something had to give.

Astrologically, my natal Pluto-Mars-Sun was receiving multiple transits, and so was my Chiron in Aries. Uranus in Aries was exactly square my natal Mercury-Uranus square, which explained the mental and cognitive aspect . Transiting Pluto hovered around my IC, stimulating my unconscious mind to purge. To be clear, these were triggers for my unfolding, not the planets or the Gods acting upon me. Astrology is powerful, but it does not ever have the power facilitate an event in your life that your Soul doesn’t already want to experience. This was about ME- wanting me heal & awaken.

Interconnection vs. Victimhood

Interconnection is a reality. We aren’t taught to see it that way, though.  We think our childhood relationships are separate from our adult ones, and what happens in one part of the world can’t possibly affect us, here. We perceive the solid flesh of this body confirms our separateness, not our interconnection. We forget that our Spirit is intimately connected to One and All, not bound by anything. An eruption on an island 200 miles away, in the world out there, couldn’t possibly connect to an inner eruption, inside here. A movement of a planet in the sky couldn’t possibly be triggering the next phase of our unfolding. But as those of us who study astrology continually discover… it is all connected.

As I reflected on how to hold my experience, I realized that for those of us who feel soooo much, it is easy to give our authority (for feeling good, okay, happy, bad or sad) to forces outside of our self, which can create victim consciousness. Are we powerless to Pele’s dance… or made more powerful, more centered in Divine Consciousness herself, for being so connected?

Perhaps, in giving authority to forces outside of our self, we are empath-ing a larger field of “belief”. My neighbor suggested the islands test us. There is a fine line between superstition and reverence for Mystery. The idea that the Gods, Goddesses, planets… anything out side of our self… controls our fate, is an ancient one. It harkens all the way back to earliest civilizations, and lingers in the shadow of fortune-telling astrology (so many clients come to me with fatalistic ideas after being told what’s possible – or more accurately, what’s impossible- for them). Yet when we buy into superstition, we give power to fear. When we partner with Mystery, we acknowledge that there are energies beyond our understanding, and we locate the faith and trust to be okay with that.

The fates do not control us. Our Soul directs our life experience. The more we center in that Divine Self authority, the less likely we are to feel victimized when we experience events that rock and shock us.

At this Full Moon, where is your authority? In fear and anxiety, or truth and faith? 

Because this is life, isn’t it? Aren’t we all in the same boat, the one in which none of us gets out alive? Hawaiians say, about this horrific and terrifying volcano event affecting so many lives, that this loss and destruction is a natural cycle. That this destruction is necessary for cleaning house. And, that it’s the aloha of the community, the compassion and love shared for one another, that will create grace for all.

This is Goddess wisdom. This is tender compassion -and- sober realism. The bracing clarity of the Cancer Sun and Capricorn Full Moon require our compassion. Stuff happens that is sad, disheartening, terrifying. And since what we give authority to, grows, how we hold our experience, how we treat our self and one another makes all the difference. Indeed, it’s the only thing we take with us beyond the grave.

When the hot lava bubbled up from my depths, I was terrified. Yet it liberated me into a new relationship with myself. The inner landscape is new, now. Lava boiling up from the deeps, the destruction we experience, creates new land formations and gives birth to more of these gorgeous islands. How’s that for perspective? Every time our own unconscious erupts, as it often does, we also are giving birth to our self. Our Soul directs growth through these experiences. Not the other way around.

We are not leaves of a tree being blown about at the whims of the wind, planets, Pele or fate. We are the taproot, as challenging as this can be to remember. We are souls on a customized all-inclusive journey, one designed especially for our maximum unfolding.

For all of us, this will include at least one, and more likely many, dances with Pele.

At this Full Moon, take a moment to call back your energy, into your body. Feel it settle into your sitz bone, the root chakra and run through your pelvis, legs, feet, down to the Earth. You are the roots of the tree, the captain of your ship. You are the Divine made manifest, and you are having one of the most difficult, gorgeous, complex experiences a Soul can have: an incarnation on Earth. Savor the dance.

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To the uninitiated, downtown Waikiki is a surprise; people don’t exactly expect a cosmopolitan urban center in the middle of the ocean. One first timer, describing her experience, said it felt like Las Vegas. For many, this part of Honolulu doesn’t match the expectation of “tropical paradise”; for others, this mecca of shopping, dining and drink is Hawaii.

I like Waikiki. Yet some days it works for me, and others it doesn’t. Lunch on Duke’s oceanfront patio with our daughter and her boyfriend was delightful. A few weeks later, in Waikiki, I felt disembodied, like I was in a Japanese sci-fi horror movie and that night it took me hours to fall asleep. I felt so disconnected from myself.

That night, Waikiki wasn’t the right place for me. I knew that, yet I ignored my intuition. Upon reflection, I was distracted by other energies — often why we ignore it. I remember being confused about where to go, old ancient feelings of not being able to get my needs met came up, which were based on the past. Instead of pausing to reflect then, I started thinking earnestly about what my husband wanted for dinner (instead of what I wanted). Then, “Well, we have to eat, right? So let’s just go…”

Ugh. Lack of enthusiasm/joy is a sure sign that we’ve lost touch with our inner compass.

This isn’t an isolated event. The new, super sized Whole Foods may work okay for me one day, but the next, I walk away with a splitting headache.

So what gives? Intuition, in a nutshell. Every time I have an “off”, “bad, disconnected feeling experience with a place, person or activity, it means I have stepped out of alignment with my Soul knowing. I am not listening to my intuition. What is intuition?

Intuition is direct perception free from thought or reasoning. Non-rational, non-linear, non-logical “knowing”. I’ve heard it described as “Spirit knowing itself”. With intuition, past/present/future are simultaneous. There is no time/space distinction, so it is possible to know things about the future, or even about a past you haven’t visited. Intuition requires we get quiet enough to hear it. To go inward, sort out competing thoughts, energies, voices that override intuition’s message.

Intuition is a direct path to what is most right and true for you at this moment. It is the nudge that tells you to go to the library today, where you find that book you’ve wanted. It is the urge to sign up for a class, or to hang a right instead of a left, and go to the park, today. Do this and don’t do that (it’s not always necessary to take action on intuition, as sometimes identifying the message is enough). It usually doesn’t deliver Earth shattering news, though the consequences of not listening can be, instead gently guiding you toward your heart and soul’s highest experience– that’s why it’s such an awesome vehicle for information. Intuition relies on your presence and awareness to this moment, which is why mindfulness helps. Plus, conditions are always changing. What works for you this day may not tomorrow.

And, unfortunately, it’s really easy to ignore.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… it doesn’t “make sense” to the mind. Easy to do, because we live in a world that worships the rational, justifiable, provable, quantifiable.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… we override it with other stuff. We mistake “something smells really off, here” for “oh, maybe I just feel this way because I’m in conflict about the situation etc.” (The old “this isn’t intuition it’s something wrong with me” argument).

It’s easy to ignore intuition… there’s a time gap between our direct knowing and the consequences of our experience, so we don’t always link the two together. This can be as simple as saying yes to a lunch date even as we get that “off” feeling, and then two weeks later having a negative experience on that date. We don’t often connect the two, but in hindsight we can go back and identify where we overrode our intuition.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… when what you “know” requires you to be honest about, and take action on, something that will be uncomfortable for you. What if your knowing tells you that you need to make a big change — but that change will have an impact on others, requires you to take a new action that feels scary?

That last one is my Alamo. I’ve avoided, or prolonged the agony, of quite a few my inner knowings for this reason. If I admit this irrational, intuitive, soul knowing into my consciousness big changes could happen! This can feel threatening to the Ego for various reasons, and those all need gentle exploring when you unravel why it feels so scary to listen. But especially if you are an intuitive type, not listening to your intuition can have dramatic and far more uncomfortable consequences than listening to it. Especially since your intuition only has your soul’s best interests at heart.

A few weeks ago, we were due to take a previously scheduled boat ride. The day before the ride I became extremely carsick while on simple errand. It was such a strange aberration, I knew it meant something, but what? I interpreted it as “get Dramamine and take ginger”. But the morning of the event, I awoke at 3 AM knowing I didn’t want to go. I went anyway. The moon was full. The water was incredibly choppy, rocky, and the boat was full of party people, exacerbating everything for me. I vomited the entire time.

Upon reflection, here were my 3 AM thoughts:

Ugh, I don’t feel at all well about this. I feel unenthusiastic and physically off about this. (Feeling bad is a warning sign that we’re headed in the wrong direction)

I don’t want to disappoint my husband. He has been looking forward to this. I have already moved this same boat ride twice! (I’ve got my compass pointed in my husband’s direction, not my own– which is a big warning sign for me)

I am being “too sensitive”, too “diva”, too “finicky”. (Ah, the old, “I’m too sensitive, it’s got to be a problem within me,” pattern)

I’ve come to see these types of thoughts and feelings as my “check engine” lights, a warning, if you will, that I’m about to go off the rails and off my inner guidance.

Notice that sometimes intuition functions as premonition — information about what’s to come. The carsickness the day before, an aberration, was a premonition. I’ve experienced premonition as being realllly sleepy, feeling tuned out, disconnected or feeling drugged.

And, yes, I’ve learned more about intuition by ignoring it than I have listening to it.

Why talk about intuition now? Gemini Sun season stimulates minds, restlessness, confusion, distraction and the potential to be all over the map doing a million things with no particular centering. By Sagittarius Full Moon we need to sit on the mountain top, get perspective, to find our coordinates on the map again. Neptune straddles this Full Moon, suggesting that our best guidance comes from Neptune, ruler of intuition.

It’s easy to be confused about our life when our attention is pulled outside of our self, in a million different directions. This Full Moon is an invitation to center, go within, to know thy self. What message have you been ignoring? Are you waiting for a big sign, instead of the little nudges or revelations you are getting?

In addition to my internal “check engine” lights, one of the most powerful things I do for strengthening my intuition is to simply notice when I’m feeling a little bit “off”, then become willing to pause and go a little deeper into inquiry. What am I doing, or thinking about? Am I ignoring a deeper message from my Soul? Most of the time it’s little stuff, like, let’s work on this, today, I enjoy this more, so let’s move away from that…

We often think of a psychic power, like intuition, as something supernatural that has to look a certain way; as though the only one capable of “knowing the future” sports a head wrap, crystal ball or even an astrological chart. But that obscures the truth, and your intuitive power. Everyone is intuitive. Everyone has access to inner knowing. Your knowing about “what is” is immediate and right here, and, with practice, it can be as natural and second nature as knowing it’s breakfast or lunchtime.

Intuition can only give you information one step at a time. We need to be practical and common sense about it. Listening to this moment means being patient with what we do not yet know, too. When we set the intention to partner with our intuition, and to walk in faith and trust with what we receive, we are flowing with the Divinity of our True Self, and that’s when we feel like the f***n Goddess rockstars we are.

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