A Pilgrimage to the Christmas Star

 The long days are now just a distant memory and while we are speeding our way to the end of the year the brevity of each day almost takes your breath away. This time of advent is a time of preparation, waiting for the most important moment of the year, the coming of the light in Capricorn.

We are being asked to find patience and slow our pace of life down. The winter months are a time when Mother Earth stops breathing out and begins breathing in, when everything on the surface seems to have died, a time of hibernation. The outward energy of growth is exchanged for one of germination as the seed goes underground, out of sight and is growing in the earth’s fiery belly.

We are asked to do the same, to go within, to slow our energies and hunker down for the long winter months ahead. This allows us to take stock of all that we have propagated in the year, honed down and harvested in autumn, so that we can fully absorb, digest and process it all, ready for the next year’s spring growth.

It has been a tough year, no one can deny that, but we humans have an amazing capacity for resilience, to make good things out of bad. We all hear about the Blitz spirit in times of difficulty, well this is when we must dig deep and find it again, if we are to survive this dark time.

As a culture, we are terrified of the dark, of feeling unhappy and of death. It seems to be that now we are being asked to face all these fears at once. Although this might feel unbearable, there is not only light at the end of the tunnel but light beyond our greatest dreams. I am not speaking of this year, the journey’s end is still a long way off, but this is worth the wait and we still have a great deal to learn and remember.

This month of Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, the great planet that teaches us how to expand our energy and reach for new heights and scale new mountains, is leading to one of the most important astrological moments in our history. On December 21st Jupiter and Saturn will be conjunct at 0 degrees Aquarius. This will look like one big star in the sky much like the one the three wise men saw two thousand years ago. This has huge portent and if we wish to make the most of what this might mean we would do well to pause for a moment and follow the journey of the sun as it slows and reaches its time of rest; the solstice, meaning ‘sun stands still’. 

This Christmas star, as it has been named, will remain in view like this for a few days, while the sun appears to stop. Then, when the sun begins to move again on the 25th of December we experience the coming of the light. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, of the Cosmic Mind, the time of the community, when the light can be found within us all. Then we may learn to allow our minds to be governed by our heart rather than our heads governing our heart.

This will not hit us like a thunder bolt or a huge shift in our lives. The feelings will be subtle. This is what we are being asked to do; to listen to the subtle energies that we have lost connection with for Millennia. When we still our minds, these energies may start to be felt and the more we feel the more we will be able to feel. We will be able to use our senses in ways we have long forgotten, retrieving many ancient ways of being. 

The Sagittarius archetype, looked at with a modern view, is often seen as the traveller, the one who shoots the arrow to far off lands in search of the truth. Another interpretation of this archetype is to know that the inner, rather than the outer, physical, journey offers far more wisdom with infinite worlds to explore. In the stillness we can expand our lives in limitless ways and discover truths beyond facts and figures, books and words.

In this time of preparation we can only imagine what is to come but the more we let go of wanting to know and learn to become still, like empty vessels, we can allow Jupiter to guide us and expand our possibilities beyond the limits of the ego.

This is such an important time, I truly hope that despite all the fear and pain we see around us we can choose to remember that this must be balanced by the same amount of joy and love in the world. I have faith, in these days leading up to this auspicious moment, that we will open our hearts to the amazing opportunities we are being offered during this incredible time. 

A Silver Lining in the Darkest Sky

How to look for the good in life when things can look so grim? I believe we all have an ability to look on the bright side, it’s a choice we make. I have heard people tell stories of their most painful experiences and yet they can be told with a positive outlook. 

I am aware that life comes in cycles and that we are currently experiencing the planetary orbital return of Uranus, that takes eighty-four years to travel around the sun. Looking back to the beginning of this cycle brings us right back to the thirties and a rise of political extremism.This shadow looms once more. 

A few weeks ago, we entered the astrological sign of Scorpio and here Pluto, the God of the Underworld, is asking us what are we going to do with this. Are we going to bury our heads in the sand and return to old response patterns or are we going to face our fears and choose new paths?

In these times of polarised views and our ability to create ambiguity between truth and illusion with comparative ease, knowing who to believe can become increasingly difficult to fathom. We need to look at this more closely.

Hallowe’en, or Samhain in its Pagan form, is the time when we are invited to follow Pluto into the Underworld and look at our demons, stop limiting ourselves to just the physical view of the world, but look beneath the surface and see what lies beyond the veil. In order to do this we need to block out the noisy external sounds in our life just long enough to feel what's within. This is a subtle energy field, where the feminine sensual aspects of ourselves come alive, a world lost to most of us, as we are bombarded with the harshness of modern day living. 

This invitation to slip beneath the surface of our awareness and allow ourselves to connect with vibrations that pervade our every moment with nonverbal, non audible communication can be a revelation when we allow it in. There is a wisdom here that cannot be so easily twisted, that teaches us how to listen and respond with a depth most of us are not used to.

It seems to me we have all settled into the idea that things have improved hugely since the terrors of the Second World War. What if that was also an illusion? It seems to me that all the improvements have only been made in our physical lives. Yes most of us in the West now live more comfortable lives, however, as the wheel turns once more I believe we are being asked to question if that’s enough. Are we only engaging with what goes on above the surface? Pluto, who isn’t so interested in the individual, is showing us what still lies below, what still lurks in the shadow of our culture.

When we truly pull back the curtain we see how the many of the improvements are just superficial, how racism is still a huge issue for those of us who are not white-skinned, how the power of the masculine stills rules with a tight rein over the feminine. 

- It is also important to remember that it is not the power and beauty of the sacred masculine that holds the power here but the fearful, domineering aspect of the masculine which is out of balance. This is the male energy which resides in us all. This is not a gender issue, this is the division that splits our heads from our heart, our actions from our feelings.

We just have to look around to see how we, through our consent, our non-action, allow so many people on this Earth to be harmed and so much of our environment to be destroyed.

This is what Pluto is asking us to examine with eyes wide open. 

It’s time for real change, to choose a positive outcome, and have a sense of command over what that could look like, rather than choosing to do nothing so we then have no choice when change is forced upon us.

Photo Mark Brookes 

A Question of Balance?

This month I am looking at balance and what that means for us as a community. Arriving in autumn we have the Autumn Equinox which offers us a chance to embody this beautifully. A time when the days and nights are of equal length and we have the Spring Equinox, the moment where we started our journey, coming into view as a reflection of where we are so far. This is the first month where this mirror is available to us. 

This year has been such a rollercoaster and feels like it’s hurtling towards its close at a ridiculous rate. Yet we are being asked, more than ever, to step up, in whatever way we can, to shift the problems in our society we have been ignoring for so long.

This month, the astrological month of Libra, is represented by the scales of justice. It is demonstrating fairness and judgement in the best sense of the word, where we can weigh up our situation and make the best choices. This is an air sign and we are very much in our heads being asked to create the best and most beautiful idea of the world we wish to inhabit.

It is at this time that the leaves are turning and for some this is the most beautiful time of the year. The colours are going back through the chakras from green to red, back to source as we are shown that, as this month corresponds with having reached adulthood on our lifetime journey, while we are now learning to live we are also learning to die, but that this is beautiful. 

Understanding what it means to be adult, to step into our heart chakra and use the metaphor of the mirror to feel the ‘others’ in our life with empathy and love, enables us to start waking up to the beautiful world we can create. 

The last six months were all about childhood where life is very self-orientated. We, culturally, have built our modern world around this mindset so we have lost the initiations and mechanisms to ‘grow up’ and feel what true balance means. In this way our lives are out of kilter and we are left feeling isolated, fearful and helpless to make changes.

Unfortunately there is no one out there who is going to do this for us, it is only something we can choose to explore ourselves. However, as the desire for change is growing, there are plenty of groups emerging who are offering online workshops and discussions, XR’s Trust the People Project, Conflict Transformation and Collective Trauma and Food Revolution workshops to name just a few that I have got involved with.

Of course none of these are of any use unless we bring the skills we have learned there and become engaged in our community, find a positive attitude that encourages us to be responsible, active and creative citizens. This doesn’t have to be a chore, when we get involved we start to feel like we belong and that we can, together make a difference. Our neighbours become friends and we can choose what kind of community we live in by being an integral part of it.

If you are frustrated with what you see in the world but feel you have no voice, this is the time to get inspired by the work thousands of people are doing and start balancing those scales. It’s one thing to want a better world, have the ideas and beautiful dreams, but there’s nothing like putting those desires into action., However small your part feels, with the actions of everyone else playing their small part, together it creates a field of energy that is vastly greater than the sum of its parts. 

This is much more than a few words printed on a page, this is what our hearts are yearning to feel. Let’s be the change and create a balanced and beautiful, fair world. I know it’s possible and it’s exactly what we are being asked to do. 

photo Mark Brookes

Choosing to Heal

And so it comes to us all, the time when we are required to grow up and look to the future. It can happen at any stage in life, but this year in particular the need is truly upon us. Whether we are in our teens or nearing the of life we all have something to offer and it as now that we are being asked to step up.

The summer is coming to the end and although it is unseasonably hot for the time of year, it is time for us to get in the fields and bring in the harvest; reap the rewards of the summer’s fruits. We are being asked to get back in touch with Mother Earth and get our hands dirty. Our sickle and scythe should feel comfortable in our grip while we can discern the wheat from the chaff, what is good to keep and what to throw out.

We have the long winter ahead and we need to prepare well. For many people in this country, this might well be the most challenging winter we will have experienced to date.

On our lifetime journey this archetype represents the apprentice, the university student, preparing for adulthood. We will be honing down our skills and learning what our particular gifts are; what we have to offer the world. As individuals living in our community we can begin to see how these two states of being are inseparable and the skills we attain help to shape and heal our own lives, just as they heal our world around us.

This year is our chance to work some magic, as it becomes imperative to bring our skills together and make sure everyone in our community is looked after, and not left out in the cold.

After holding the energy of the Leo lion, where we are king of our domain, now we are the peasant, or the secretary to the Managing Director, here we can ensure all the details are dealt with and the minutiae well organised. When we can learn to balance both states within us then we can begin to shine as individuals and as a community.

This is my dream, that we understand that we have to become responsible adults, responsible for ourselves and those around us. That way we all are looked after by those who know and care about us, rather than some distant overseer who has no clue about are needs or the way we work. When we continue to expect everything to be done for us and take no part in the running of our lives we will continue travelling away from each other rather than choosing to come together, discovering the unified field we are all a part of.

I am an optimist, I believe we are capable as a species of amazing things and I believe we can turn this pending disaster around but only if we step up, plug in and takes the reins of our lives once more. This means we have to start breathing and feeling into our bodies, being honest with ourselves and start talking to people in a caring and compassionate way. The body is a great healer and it holds all the memory of our pain and joy, our grief and love. 

Virgo holds the energy of the healer, this is the most amazing potential that we carry in our body. The sexual and loving healing that can bring life back to parts of ourselves that have been cut off and frozen in trauma is one step away from being transformed. That first step is simply choosing to rediscover the power latent in us all. I am choosing to heal, choosing life. Once that door is opened we can just walk the path and the more of us that make that choice the easier it is to walk together.

 

Standing Tall

What an extraordinary summer we are having, in all senses of the word. This month we have reached a time of extremes with the weather and with emotions running high from fear and anxiety to a sense of party time. Like a jack-in-a-box we, those who are feeling comfortable that is, have been allowed out to have a break from the constrictions of the past few months.

For some this has been very measured and for others not. We have seen over crowded pubs and beaches, cars driven at ridiculous speeds and the trashing of our countryside with fly tipping, to name just a few examples. 

What is this kind of behaviour teaching our children?

This month we are astrologically in the sign of Leo. It is a fascinating sign, full of contradictions and it is the sign we are being asked to inhabit fully.

Here we have the lion embracing the fact that he is lord of the jungle. However, in this energy he doesn’t need to do anything but tend the fire; just be fully in his power. 

When we understand this, we realise that we have everything we need within. This encourages us to be like the ruler who is generous to his populace and kind to his neighbours. Sadly this is a rare attribute to be found in our leaders today. I feel that this truth lies at the heart of our problems today. We have been disempowered over the centuries, the millennia, and while trying to reclaim this we realise we have forgotten what real power is and how it works. We are trying to gain more control rather than power, more force rather than learning to let go. Where is this is getting us?

Reflecting this archetype to our lifetime journey as humans, this time of year represents the teenager, adolescence. Here we have become fully grown physically but not yet emotionally grown. Here the contradictions and the paradoxes become fully present. We are feeling very powerful but without the tools to wield it in a mature manner. 

I feel this what we have in our culture today. Adults not having received the initiations and education needed to understand the power we have and the power we lack. The power we have is fuelled by emotions that have not been appropriately developed so they become led by fear and anger. The power we lack is actually all there within us but we have been separated from our understanding of it.

It is time, I feel, to choose differently, to decide to stop and reboot. We are running head on for a collision course with ourselves, unless we take a moment to take stock and reevaluate, and remind ourselves of what is important in life.

The Leo lion in its positive aspect is self sustaining, self reliant and fully responsible for itself and those dependant on it. In its shadow side, like the dysfunctional teenager, is self-obsessed, full of angst and lost in its black and white view of the world. 

The astrology wheel is constantly inviting us to find balance, balance within and balance in our world. The Leo opposition is Aquarius. This is all about community and when these aspects in ourselves are in balance we become the shining self fully engaged with its role in society. 

It is my hope that we learn to reach out for whatever we need if we are feeling lacking in anyway to create a supportive community for ourselves. Asking for help, giving and receiving is all the makings of a coherent society. This is what I believe this year is asking of us. Isolation, we know, creates problems with mental health and our sense of disconnection. We are really only just discovering how huge this story is.

Like a single sunflower, standing tall and following the sun amongst a whole field of sunflowers, when we work together in community we are strong. 

 

Coming Out Of Your Shell

Things are moving so fast at the moment I am having trouble keeping up. I have always been one who is last to any movement. I believe I would have been one of those tutting at the first Impressionist exhibitions, something to do with my Taurus moon I believe, always struggling with change. Now change is upon us so fast that each month brings a new story and this time it is really starting to feel positive. 

Last month I planned some discussions about conflict in my local community and they have been slowly gaining ground. At the same time I was invited to join an online conflict transformation summit which completely supported my work here. It felt like I was being lifted along and I am so grateful to all those who engaged with it across five continents over five weeks. 

As I was choosing to step up into the idea of working with conflict, something I have always been scared of, Black Lives Matter took to the streets just like Extinction Rebellion did last year. Now, once again, it feels that we cannot turn our back on this. The door has been opened and we have to step through. But this time I am not hovering in the background, I am ready to come out of my shell and meet this issue head on.

I want to take a look at what is happening in the natural world at the moment, the world that spins no matter what we do and watches our actions without judgement or fear.

The astrological sign of Cancer is the first water sign, the first sign of the emotions. Ruled by the moon our mother, we are looking within to understand our true nature. At this time of the year we experience the Summer Solstice, when the sun ‘stands still’ for three days before it begins its journey southwards; the coming of the dark. Now the days are growing shorter and the nights longer.

It is called the sweet spot of the year when the flowers are at their most beautiful and the honey is being collected by the bees and the scents are perfuming the air.

However, the solstice is taking us deep into the southernmost point of ourselves. It teaches us how to connect to our emotions, to the aspects of life that connect us to all living beings and those who have gone before. We can learn about our ancestors, who we are and where we’ve come from. We can journey deep into our inner feminine wisdom, something we have denied in ourselves for centuries, maybe even millennia. However, in the depths of our being and the heart of our world vibrations are shaking us out of our sleep walking and we’re remembering things we’d forgotten we once knew.

The symbol of Cancer is the crab, its shell protecting it against the cruel realities of life that we have become so fearful of. This month we are being invited to truly nurture ourselves and find our feelings of compassion and empathy that will strengthen our inner resilience. This is the preparatory work we need to do so that we can step out of our shells and create a future where difficult conversations must be had and the walls we have built in our lives to protect us against our own feelings of fear and pain can start coming down.

Those in positions of power (and I’m not just talking about leaders here, I am talking about all those who follow their lead. Being a white, middle-class person of privilege, I include myself) have created huge systems to protective themselves from the ‘others’ in society. Creating these divisions between us and them removes all empathy, allowing them to inflict pain on others without remorse as if they have a had a heart bypass.

Those of us who are managing to reconnect to our hearts and bodies, are having to do the hard work of feeling again, and my goodness, how it hurts. 

It’s not a pain that requires sympathy but it is time to understand that the vulnerability we all feel when we open our hearts leaves us open to rage, anger, guilt, shame and many other distressing emotions that need to be worked through and help is often required. 

If we choose to stay in our shells then violent conflict will never go away. It is important to note that this is not about removing conflict from our lives, just the violent aspect of it and our inability to work through it. Recognising that conflict is a part of life and to stop building walls when we can’t find ways to resolve issues, would be a step in the right direction.

I believe, it is time to build some resilience, prepare ourselves for an emotional journey that is going to strip us back to a place of humility and integrity. Although this will leave us wide open to feeling vulnerable, at the same time it will enable us to become greatly empowered by our own sense of self. We will no longer feel the need to have power over others as we will have a true understanding of what power is and how power with offers us all so much more.

Obviously this is going to take time and energy and will need a great deal of practice, undoing thousands of years of learned behaviour. We will make mistakes and sometimes lose our way. But this is too important to take lightly and perseverance is key and so is compassion for everyone involved.

There is so much to gain from this; the chance for humanity to become what it was always meant to be; a unified connected being that understands love and compassion at its core.

Are You Confused .com?

It’s the third month of lockdown and we’ve reached a point where people are either bored of it, are not even sure the virus exists (like we’ve all been duped!), or are still very fearful. And of course there are all the stages in between. 

How are we to learn from this experience? There are those who have suffered enormously, those that just want to get back to normal and those who really want to use this time to create something beautiful. And why not? The perfect self-enforced cocoon to give life to the butterfly we are all capable of transforming into. Could this go some way towards honouring those who have lost their lives.

This month we are in Gemini and this dualistic, polarised mindset is clearly symbolised by its archetype. The twins, the id and the ego, and the conversations we have with ourselves at this time, could be key. 

Gemini, is ruled by Mercury, the messenger god, and is the only one that can travel, carrying information, between the two worlds. But he is also the trickster, he plays the fool and we have to be careful of the information he brings. If we think we can outwit him then we are in trouble.

This is the state of our communication system we currently have working. The Media has become more corrupted, distorting the truth, than most of us can imagine and the Internet sits at the pinnacle of the Media tree. 

The more we engage as we try and understand more, the deeper we fall into the quagmire of game playing and fabrication. The manipulation that’s behind the veneer of ‘truth’ and ‘information’ is only creating more chaos and raising more tensions. 

The time to strip off the acceptable ‘face’ that covers what is really going on behind the scenes is absolutely now and crucial to our growth. This face that we have learned to wear as we go about our business too often morphs into the beast that trolls the social media and feeds the underbelly of the Internet, the subterfuge that sets the algorithms to create pandemonium.

If you want to get a feel for this in one quick hit, I am reading Ben Elton’s ‘Identity Crisis’ and as usual he sums up the situation in a fast, humorous and terrifying thriller of a book.

Leading up to the lockdown I had been enjoying a few online videos, and yes I know I have to be careful here, where people who have been caught up in some quite vicious arguments, usually on Facebook, have taken all this on board and played the system at its own game. One intelligent man, realising that the algorithms were feeding and validating his viewpoint, created a new identity of an opposing nature to see what he received from the new echo chamber he had entered. The information that was fed back to him, ratified all his fears.

His answer to it all was to get out, stop playing the game, and talk to people face to face. I believe, the street has to be the new Internet until we can find a way to communicate in a healthy way that is kind and from the heart. While we continue to buy into the Internet as it stands, the beast that has grown over the past decades, is not fit for purpose if we wish to emerge from this year into a better place.

I understand that we have created an online world that is almost impossible to dismantle, like our cars. But the lockdown showed that life continued without most cars and planes for a while and we simply adapted. We are adaptable beings and aren’t we worth the effort it might take to choose to make changes that will benefit all in so many ways; our mental health, our physical and our emotional well being.

What will it take?