I’ve had dark hair all my life. Until this last June, that is. I talk a lot about being authentic and thought it was time I accepted that my hair is now silver. Each time I look in the mirror, I don’t recognize myself even though it’s been six months.

There are so many facets to being authentic.

Sometimes we don’t know who we are until we act. Am I the marrying kind? Am I the kind of person who gets a tattoo? Am I a dog or a cat person? Am I so thoroughly a Midwesterner that I’d be miserable if I moved to Florida (the answer to that one was a resounding yes)?

Other aspects of being our true selves are trickier. Do I strive to always tell the truth? Can I accept that I can be a real grump? Can I admit to some of the awful things I’ve done? Do I set firm boundaries? How often do I go along with what others want for the sake of harmony? Do I have confidence in my values? In my opinions?

We fear others won’t like us if they know the real us, but don’t we all have someone in our lives who is unapologetically authentic who we like just fine?

Each of us is an integral part of the Universe. An orchestra needs strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion—not squid. Similarly, the ocean depths don’t need a piccolo.

What’s holding you back? For me and my silver hair, it was facing my age. Maybe you don’t want to seem too smart, so you dumb yourself down. Or perhaps you curate your image on Facebook so that no one knows you’re not perfect. Do you refuse to take a break when you’re tired or in pain because you don’t want to appear fragile?

This week, look at where you’re trying to deceive yourself. And, if you’re up for it, where you’re trying to fool others.

The world will not come crumbling down around you when you show your true colors. In fact, the Universe will applaud you and show you your purpose.

I’ve talked about bibliomancy before, where when you need an answer, you grab a book and open it at random. You then close your eyes and point to a place on the page, wherever feels right, open your eyes and read the word, phrase or sentence you’ve pointed to.

Here’s another fun and slightly more involved method.

• Rip a page at random out of a textbook, novel, essay, or magazine. You can get a book at a thrift store, or photocopy the page if you don’t want to ruin the book.

 • Light a candle at your desk or table, or cleanse the space with incense or sage.

• Once you have your page, start striking out words or phrases. Don’t overthink this process. Let your subconscious guide your hand, leaving only the words that call to you.

• When you finish crossing things out, rearrange the remaining words into a new piece of writing on a new sheet of paper. You can create prose, a poem, a prayer, an invocation, or a spell. Feel free to add new connecting words if needed.

• Notice what wisdom, or insights are revealed through the rewriting. You can read your creation out loud to close the ceremony. Leave the new writing on your altar or place it in your journal to remind you that you’re never truly stuck.

I carry a skeleton key on my keychain. I also have one on my altar. They’re there to remind me that should an opportunity knock, I have the key to open the door to it.

I realized this week that I have also been carrying around a doorknob for the last thirty-some years. I have no idea where it came from. It has traveled from house to house with me and it never stays packed away in a box in the basement. I always know where it is.

The other day it occurred to me that it is as symbolic as the skeleton keys I always have handy.

You know how sometimes we’re offered an opportunity, but we can’t see how to grab hold of it? It might be the perfect job—across the country from your family and friends. Or a program to master something you’ve always been interested in—but you don’t have the tuition. You get the picture.

By having a doorknob, I’m letting the Universe know that I’m ready. I’m (symbolically) open to what it has in store for me.

You don’t need a doorknob, of course. You might prefer a small steppingstone. Or a tiny ladder. Or a little bridge. It can be anything that lets the Divine know that you’re ready and willing to co-create.

So, what will you use to signal to your spirit team that you’re eager to see what it has in store for you, where it wants to take you, what the next door/step/rung on your journey is?

The bustle is over, which makes this the perfect time to pull some cards for 2025.

You can use your favorite tarot or oracle deck for this spread. Go to a quiet room. Put your feet on the floor and get centered. Shuffle the deck while focusing on each question, then cut, draw, or drop to get your card.

1. What was 2024’s biggest lesson for me?
2. What do I need to release from 2024?
3. How should I best transition to the new year?
4. What is 2025’s theme for me?
5. What opportunities are coming my way this year?
6. What will be 2025’s biggest challenge?

Here’s what my spread looked like.

1. My lesson from 2024 is the Page of Pentacles. I faced a lot of physical challenges. I was meant to learn how to meet them with an excitement to learn something new. This is an important thing for me to remember as I move into 2025.
2. The Hierophant is about conformity, so what I need to release is strict adherence to approaching things the way others do. I think this will play out most in my approach to spirituality. I want to make it less stuffy and more fun.
3. The way for me to transition is to choose carefully. Stay or go? Stay the same or change? I should be cautious as I move forward, but I should consciously make a choice.
4. The Wheel is 2025’s theme for me. Life is always changing. I’ll need to let go and go with the flow of it. That’s always a tough one for me.
5. What opportunities are coming my way? The deck I chose to pull from has a wild card called the Artist. It’s about being a visionary, an interpreter, a creator, and someone who’s passionate. Bring it on, 2025! I love it.
6. My biggest challenge this year will be Justice. I hope it doesn’t mean the law, which is the literal meaning. But it also means karma, accountability, cause and effect, and remembering that actions have consequences. 

Obviously, I’ve condensed my interpretations. I’ll want to journal on what came up and keep those pages handy to reference through the coming year. You will, too.

Let me know what comes up for you. Were there any big surprises?

Who are you today? What have you done with your life this last year? Do you want 2025 to look exactly the same? When I look back on 2024, I see that for half of the year I was either sick or in pain. I had covid for the first time and barely knew my name. I had some other (minor) illnesses. My vitamin B-12 levels were so low, I had to start getting weekly shots. The arthritis in my hips necessitated both lidocaine and cortisone shots. Do I want 2025 to be a repeat? Hell to the NO. Something has to change. When we do things the same way we always have, we can’t expect new results. And yet… we do. How long has it been since you rocked a new hairstyle or color? Changed the way you dress (Do you have any clothing that’s more than ten years old? Be honest.)? Do you eat the same way you have forever? Do you tend to take the same vacations? Watch the same TV shows?  How long since you rearranged your furniture? On an emotional level, do you react the same way each time someone cuts you off in traffic? When your spouse or partner cuts you off mid-sentence? When something unforeseen upends your day? When you get bad news? Or even good news, for that matter? If what we do and think and believe remains constant, so will our lives. You’ve heard the quote Be the change you want to see in the world*. Be the change. Change. We have to change if we want anything to be different, be it ourselves or the world around us. This is the perfect time to reflect on the past year. And to envision a new you. How do you want to feel? Peaceful? Delighted? Curious? Lighter? New? Courageous? Sara Walka, the founder of the Sisters Enchanted, says her phrase for 2024 was Don’t Fucking Flinch! because she wanted to be fearless in 2024.   I want to hear your word or phrase for 2025. I’m still working on mine, but it might be Healthy or die! *Here is what Mahatma Gandhi actually said. “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

I’m sure I have at least one angel who is smacking her forehead at how slow I can be.

I wrote recently about a dream I had over twenty years ago. There was an angel in it who was helping me to ascend. The angel’s name was Ariaria. I remembered the name because it was so unusual.

Then, maybe a year or so later, I saw a letter to Ann Landers (remember her?) that was signed A Rose Is A Rose Is A… Ann Landers replied, Dear ARIARIA…

As I said, I almost fell off my chair.

A few years ago, I was doing a meditation to meet one of my angels. The name that came to me immediately was Rose. I ended the meditation and felt it had been a dud. Rose? That couldn’t be the name of one of my angels. Oh, well, back to the book I was reading.

That book was Radleigh Valentine’s Compendium of Magical Things. In it he talks about getting to know your angels. He wrote something like, And maybe your angel’s name is Rose…

I knew I could expect my angel to validate his or her name, but I hadn’t expected it to be within minutes. Mind blown.

Here’s what you’ve probably figured out, what it has taken me at least five years to realize:

Ariaria, aka a ROSE is a ROSE is my angel ROSE.

How many times have I encouraged people to watch for synchronicity? Keep an eye out for coincidences, I say. Follow the breadcrumbs, I remind people. Keep a synchronicity journal, I encourage.

It finally, finally dawned on me the other morning while I was lying in bed and letting my thoughts wander. As I say, I can be on the slow side.

D’oh!

Compendium of Magical Things: Communicating with the Divine to Create the Life of Your Dreams is available on Amazon and I’ll bet your library has a copy, too.

And, filed under You Can’t Make This Shit Up, as I was working on this newsletter, this came up in the daily crossword puzzle I do.

One day, I was fuming. I was so angry I could hardly think. I couldn’t think of a way to deal with the person who had gotten me enraged short of strangling them. I stormed out of the house to go get the mail. Wedged between the driveway and the grass was a small slip of paper. It had some advice for me.

Joke. Lighten up, Lady Jane. Don’t take this or yourself so seriously. Find the humor.

There’s something to be said for recognizing Spirit has a sense of humor.
I recently saw a meme that said:

You must nurture The Silliness everywhere your find it. In your mind, in the ramblings of children. In the quirky way an indoor plant grows as it adjusts itself to better find the light. You must nurture The Silliness in all its forms. It is our oldest tool against The Horrors. It is the Harbinger of Hope. Stay Silly. It is the only way.

I found that gem in the Facebook group Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society. It’s a group dedicated to religious and spiritual humor, humor that harms no one. We believe different things and that’s fabulous is one of the rules of the group as is an ethos of kindness and respect. The group makes me laugh at least once a day.

Here’s the thing: Spirit has a sense of humor. And because of this, life is funny. People are funny.

Spirit will joke with you if you give it a chance.

Julia Cameron wrote a book called Some People Say That… God is No Laughing Matter. It’s an irreverent look at spirituality today. In it, she says that God is both more humorous and more humane than we’ve been taught.

I agree. How about you?

I’m guessing that looking from the outside, my life trajectory looks like dust in the wind. My college major was linguistics and languages, I was a chef, then had a series of office jobs. Now I do intuitive counseling. I’ve moved many times.

And yet, from my perspective, I’ve been deliberate in many of my choices. I knew when I was five or six that my goal was to speak at least seven languages. In my early twenties, I decided I wanted to have children, and I wanted them out of the house by the time I was fifty. I knew I wanted to live in different parts of the country and the only place on my list that I didn’t get to was New England (there’s still time, right?).

Often in both this newsletter and in our Facebook group, I pull cards that encourage doing something concrete today to move you towards your goal. What I may incorrectly assume is that you have a goal or a dream. Do you?

My clients range in age from just twenty to almost eighty. At the lower end of the age range are people who feel they’re too young to have concrete goals. At the upper end, we have people who feel they’re too old to dream. I can’t start over at my age!

Guess what—Julia Child was fifty when she wrote her first cookbook, which launched her career as a celebrity chef. Harlan “Colonel” Sanders franchised his chicken restaurant when he was sixty-two. Grandma Moses began her prolific painting career at age seventy-eight. I transitioned from a twenty-year career as a wedding officiant to what I do now when I was fifty-nine.

So, what’s your dream? Did you want to go to college or graduate school? Take dance lessons? Open a catering business? Learn to draw? Work with children? How can you make that dream a reality?

It may not be as complicated as you think. Look at schools online to find a program you’re interested in. Find the local dance studio and see if they have classes for adults (most do). Offer to cater a friend’s party—for pay. Take an art class at the community college. Volunteer at an elementary school. You get the picture.

Take that first step. Live deliberately.

As the poet Mary Oliver said, Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Many years ago, two coworkers and I decided to try to meet up in our dreams one night. The following day when we got to work, we compared notes. Two of us had dreamt about the other but the third friend had been absent from the dream world.

Dreams have always fascinated me.

I’ve had dreams that warned of a future event, in this case, being rear-ended by a red car. I’ve had spiritual dreams, like the one where an angel named Ariaria was helping me ascend to a higher level. (Months later I read a letter to Ann Landers signed A Rose Is a Rose Is a… She replied, Dear ARIARIA. I almost fell off my chair.)

I keep a dream journal and I also love reading about research into dreams. So, I clicked immediately on this article: In a first, two people communicate in dreams while sleeping.

The two people were lucid dreaming (dreaming while being aware that you’re dreaming, sometimes even able to control the dream). The company conducting the experiment tracked the brainwaves of the participants, who were in separate homes at the time. When one participant entered a lucid dream state, they were sent a random word via earbuds. The participant repeated the word in their dream. Then, when the other participant was in the right state, the same word was communicated to them. They were able to remember and report the word upon waking.

While I think there’s still a way to go before we can truly call this capturing dream communication, it’s a start. I don’t doubt that there are people who are able to communicate with one another when they dream; it’s proving it scientifically that’s more difficult.

What about you? Do you remember your dreams? Do you have lucid dreams? Are you ever able to control your dreams? Has a dream foretold the future? Helped you solve a problem? Given you spiritual insight?

Would you be willing to try out a simple dream experiment where we send each other a shape or color or word?

I was working with a client the other day, one I hadn’t seen in a while. Her mother, a brother, and a sister all came through from the spirit side, which was validating and lovely.

Suddenly, I felt a magnificent presence and I knew immediately that it was Archangel Michael.

I work with the archangels, and I typically sense that they’re with me when I call on them, but this was different. Tears sprang to my eyes. I felt humbled, like I should be kneeling. I had trouble finding words.

“Do you work with Archangel Michael?” I asked my client. “I mean, do you talk to him and pray to him?”

She smiled and said, “I talk to him and pray to him. I even get together with a couple of other people to work on chapters from a book of transmissions from him*. He’s the MacDaddy! He told me that once.”

I couldn’t believe she had just called Michael MacDaddy. What I was feeling could only be described as awe. There was nothing cute about it. MacDaddy seemed almost blasphemous, somehow even more disrespectful than calling God the Big Cheese or Top Banana.

I have experienced awe (with a small a) before, like when my children were born, or at the opera, or even working with clients when a dead loved one comes through with an uplifting message. But this was my first encounter with Awe. Awe (capital A) is reverential. It commands respect mixed with wonder and a touch of fear.

Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written a book on awe (aptly titled Awe), says, “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.

It’s vast, sure. But it can also be simple. Go out and look at the night sky, especially when there’s a full moon. Go to the zoo and watch the lions. Listen to an amazing piece of music. Deepen your spiritual practice.

I’m sure you have experienced awe with a small a. How about with a big A? Tell me about it.

*The book is Archangel Michael Speaks: 33 Living Transmissions from the Archangel of the Sun by Melanie Beckler