Tag: self

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Stay With That Shakiness

“Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about.

…To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior. We catch ourselves one zillion times as once again, whether we like it or not, we harden into resentment, bitterness, righteous indignation — harden in any way, even into a sense of relief, a sense of inspiration.”

~ Pema Chodron,
When Things Fall Apart
Heart Advice for Difficult Times

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Emotional Full Moon in Cancer

Full moon in watery, emotional Cancer, the nurturer. After many months of pandemic chaos and confusion, bruised and battered parts of your psyche need to be held close and nurtured now.

You may feel the urge to take care of family, friends, your community – the entire world. But the nurturing needs to begin with you.

Give yourself space to express any feelings you submerged or suppressed in 2020. You did what you needed to do to survive job shifts, financial insecurity, election mayhem, lockdowns and loneliness. Use this full moon time to grieve and make peace with everything that has happened to you.

Honor yourself and your journey. Take time to grieve and release the traumas and dramas of the past year. Make peace with 2020, so you can experience more joy and love and peace in the new year.

“Tears are a river that take you somewhere… somewhere better, somewhere good.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

💧🌙💧

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Kiss Your Demons and Heal

This is a good morning to kiss your demons
and change them into dark angels.
Do not drive them away or they will return.
Lust is not a demon but a dark angel filled
with un-created star nectar.
Anger is not a demon but a dark angel of healing fire
dancing in your amygdala.
Grief is not a demon but a dark angel bearing
seven oceans of love in one jar.
The demon of depression who lives underground
keeps Wisdom hostage, binding
her dark angel bones in delicious mycelia.
The dark angel of addiction brings gifts
under one broken wing, and uses the other
to help you fly, for one of yours is broken too.
If you do not bow to your dark angels, they will
possess you and you will have to act them out.
So breathe them in, let them become your
shouts and sighs, pants of lust and terror
in your lungs. Now exhale and dissolve them
into the clear ocean of awakening.
They don’t possess you, you possess them.
Your dark angels have become the blue sky,
a swirl of hummingbirds, tree frogs
discussing everything. But beware
of enlightened teachers who claim no darkness.
They will lead you into a deeper darkness,
the shadow that hides from itself.
Against your beautiful demons a true teacher
will never set your heart.
A true teacher will empower you to kiss them
with that kiss which the mind gives
to its most terrible thoughts,
so that names, images, teeth marks, hieroglyphs
of veins scrawled on the cave of your liver,
neurons twisted into Sanskrit
etching ancient spells into your hippocampus,
the rippling gristle-flower of sound in your bellybutton,
all disappear into one Body, this Body,
where you taste the starless wine of night itself
and give birth to tomorrow’s sun.

~Fred LaMotte

🌙

Image: Michelangelo

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The Blanket Around Her

maybe it is her birth
which she holds close to herself
or her death
which is just as inseparable
and the white wind
that encircles her is a part
just as the blue sky
hanging in turquoise from her neck
oh woman
remember who you are
woman
it is the whole earth

~ Joy Harjo

🌎

Photo by Ruthie Martin
on Unsplash

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New Moon in Scorpio

New moon in Scorpio, queen of watery depths, secrets, storms and magic. Jupiter and Pluto are playing together. Mars just went direct and Venus passed through a moon gate…

Whew. If you’re feeling wrung out and emotionally exhausted, you are not alone. What a wild and stormy time!

Create a calm, quiet space to nest and rest. Think soft blankets, warm comfort foods, happy movies, slow walks in nature, long hot baths. Nurture yourself. And if tears come, allow them to flow. Scorpio can be quite wet and watery.

Every new moon is a wonderful time to set intentions for the next cycle. After nesting and resting awhile, consider what you want to focus on or create in the next month.

🌙❤️

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Change Ourselves, Change the World

“The world which men have made isn’t working. Something needs to change. To change the world, we women need first to change ourselves – and then we need to change the stories we tell about who we are. The stories we’ve been living by for the past few centuries – the stories of male superiority, of progress and growth and domination – don’t serve women and they certainly don’t serve the planet.
Stories matter, you see.”

~Sharon Blackie 
🌙

Photo by Benjamin Lossius

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Powerful New Moon in Libra

New Moon in Libra, champion of justice, balance and equal relationships. But imbalance and chaos rule right now in the outer world. The crazy roller coaster of events and emotions continues day after day.

The Goddess of Justice reminds us that true justice and equality are rarely easy to achieve. People who have amassed power and riches from playing by the rules of the current system will fight to keep the system as is — even as the unfairness and inequities of the system are being exposed to everyone. As Machiavelli noted centuries ago, “power corrupts.”

But the Goddess of Justice also reminds us that true power is not about status or position or money. True power flows from within. True power is grounded in knowing and trusting in one’s self and one’s gifts. And standing in a place of true inner power, one person can change the world. Remember Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lasting change grows out of people standing in their power and their knowing.

Get off the roller coaster of news and rumors for awhile. Focus on you. What does your heart need right now?

Allow yourself to feel everything that this time is bringing up in you; fear, rage, confusion, despair, hope, love. Those feelings are markers pointing you towards what matters most to you – and what parts of you need extra care and healing right now.

You can cultivate your internal power and knowing by listening deeply to yourself and all your fears and desires. Inner balance, peace, wisdom and power lie just beyond all those difficult feelings you’ve been trying to avoid.

Your Soul is always there, beneath the outer noise. Listen.

🌙