NOT MISSING OUR LIVES
We miss so much when we're wishing it was going a different way, which is so much of the time. It seems so human to do this, to arrange our circumstances, or try to, and keep trying to, for an entire lifetime. As I wrote about in the newsletter last week, so much of our lives includes transformation, or at least opportunities for it. Nature is constantly inviting us to transform, on all levels. This is one thing Astrology names - the invitation of transformation on psychological and spiritual levels.
When we wish someone wasn't dying who is, we miss out on being fully present with them for the life they have left. When we wish our bodies were different - thinner, differently-shaped, healthier, etc, we miss the overwhelming magic of how they are functioning, digesting, breathing, regulating temperature, moving us around in whatever way they can, etc. When we wish we had more money, when we wish Trump wasn't in the white house, when we wish it wasn't so foggy, we are missing a lot of what is in front of us.
But, if we don't want things to be different, how will things ever change? If we're in full acceptance of the way things are, we are more clear-headed. Then we have psychic space to take action. And we are less likely to miss the marvel of what is taking place that is full of love and strength.
It can be a relief to stop trying to arrange circumstances, to always be wishing things were different. It is exhausting to be wishing for life to be different from how it is! I encourage you to experiment with this yourself - to see what of it feels true to you.
I'm into not missing our lives, and I want to not miss it with you - all of it - the entire life, whether it lasts a few more minutes or a few more decades.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - When do you feel free to be generous?
Meditation - generosity.
Assignment - Sometimes you can get caught in unconsciously thinking you need to conserve your energy or resources in someway that makes you feel like you can't be generous. Like you can't give others your time or attention or some other resource. Practice holding both things to be true this week, that you can in fact be generous any time you want, while also containing / holding what you need. The more conscious you are of what your real needs are, the more you can fulfill those, and then you have more time and space for others. Look into what it means to be generous for you, and how it feels.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What patterns serve you and what patterns hinder you?
Meditation - patterns
Assignment - Patterns are found in nature everywhere. We are made of patterns, patterns surround us. What are your patterns? What spaces do you move between or in throughout a day or week? Make a map of your movements this week. LOOK at what you are doing. Include things that feel really unimportant on the map. Just to be able to see what is going on here. Especially for things that feel unimportant because that is what constitutes a lot of our time. You tend to be a creature of habit, and that is not a bad thing, but habits are unconscious patterns. The more conscious you are of these, the more wellbeing you have access to.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What is the original source of your energy?
Meditation - the source.
Assignment - An image for how your attention often works is like the thousand ends of a firework almost landing in the water. It's beautiful and interesting and the light captures your attention. The spread of the light is the firework's power. But if you are feeling depleted, it can be because your attention is spread too thin, too often at too many tail ends of the light. Pull your energy back this week from spreading and diversifying. Get curious about how the energy is made for the firework itself, your own energy body. If you attend to this foundation, you can trust that your energy will spread in all the important ways.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - What are your most prominent fears lately?
Meditation - fear as communication.
Assignment - Listen to your fears this week. Notice what they tell you. Write them down as they arise. Look back at what you wrote. What is your relationship to your fears? How often do you name them consciously? How often do you avoid them? Fear is a part of every psyche, it is not personal, it controls us less the more we look at it. Use this week as a time to look at your fears, as neutrally as you can - and try to befriend them.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - When is your entitlement serving you and when does it hinder you?
Meditation - flexibility.
Assignment - Leo - you're good at knowing your worth and demanding what you need and want. You understand that people are entitled to dignity, yourself especially! This helps you in your life. But sometimes the expectation of it can get in the way of your happiness. It can confuse you into thinking you can't be happy without a situation changing, someone understanding something about you, someone changing their lives, etc. This is not where your true happiness lies! It lies in remembering that your dignity is present whenever you remember that it is. It's not based on all these circumstances of other people understanding you or not. So when you remember that, you become instantly more flexible, and actually more able to be a friend to anyone around you, because you are no longer trying to get them to be a certain way. This is the magic of looking within for your own dignity and happiness.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - How much of your time is your own?
Meditation - uncompromising
Assignment - Sometimes you need to say no. You need to say, 'I'm not going to do that thing that you want me to do, that I usually willingly do." Sometimes you need to take back your own time, this could be from other people you have over-offered it to, it could be taking it back from your own outdated rules about productivity, it could be taking it back from self-critical thoughts. Don't think too much about where you are taking it back from, just let yourself do that.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - When do you pull your attention inward?
Meditation - inward.
Assignment - All the other people's thoughts and how they are feeling and if they are upset will be there if you take a break for a minute. Pull back from other people's thoughts, or rather, what you are imagining other people's thoughts to be, this week. This is always a good reminder and practice for Libra. Pulling back from thinking about other people and what they are thinking is not being selfish, it's aligning yourself with the law of right place - you are staying in your business and having enough faith in other people that they too are capable of staying in their own business. And in fact that is the only way any of us learn, is if we deal with our own business.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - How often do you assume the worst?
Meditation - letting the mind quiet.
Assignment - You understand so much about power and how it operates. This works to your advantage so much of the time. And sometimes it causes you to expect the worst of people, to assume, when there is a question about their motives, that the worst one is the only one present, or that's the place they are acting from. The developmental challenge for Scorpio is discernment - discerning what of your intuition is habitual and outdated assumptions that people will use power against you, and what of it is real. What if you discerned what to believe by going with what feels better? How does trust feel in your body? How does distrust feel in your body? Be very slow and gentle with this, don't rush anything. At the very least try to give yourself permission to not need to know everything about everyone's motives for a bit, and see what happens.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - When is your speech specific?
Meditation - specificity
Assignment - Get specific with your language, with your communication this week. You can be lofty and big-minded and focusing on specifics won't separate you from that. It will expand your reach of who and how you can communicate, and help you feel more connected to others instead of less. You might think you are already being specific, but look into this more, and see what you notice - see what feedback, direct or indirect, people give you about this. There is the power of intimacy in specificity, so try it out more.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - What do you eat that you love?
Meditation - nourishment.
Assignment - Returning to the body (always)! Letting the mind have a break. Insisting that the mind put its feet up. Go to the store, pick some foods that you love, that nourish you in any way. Don't overthink it, just let yourself get things that you love! That feel easy. That feel alive. Then eat those foods without looking at your phone. If you do it with someone else, just make sure that you aren't talking the whole time so that you miss the experience of eating your food. Ideally eating alone or in silence a few times, so that you let yourself experience the pleasure of it, and the nourishment. This is so important.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - What's happening with your ankles right now?
Meditation - body as messenger
Assignment - Pay attention to your ankles, to how they connect you to the earth, how they work with your feet, how they connect your feet to your lower body. Bring your awareness down lower into your body, over and over this week. What information is there for you? What awareness, understanding, intuition is there that you might neglect by being up in your head so often? Attend and attune to your body, your lower body, your ankles. See what happens when you do this every day for a week.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - When do you harbor emotional wounds beyond their time?
Meditation - release
Assignment - Listen to music that helps you let go of old emotional wounds. Time is not linear for you so you might find yourself emotionally charged about something that seems too old to bother you. But emotional wounds don't work like that. They are present when our attention is on them, and then not. Over and over. Especially for water people like yourself. But just because emotional wounds arise, doesn't mean you have to do a lot of 'work' to release them. You don't have to look at them in some involved mental way, you can just acknowledge them fully and then say, Thank you for the lesson, you can go now. If music is helpful in this realm, to encourage your body to shed, then use it for that this week!