Get centered and then choose the stack you’re most drawn to.
Stack 1 No Place Like Home, Temperance
Both your home and your skin should be comfortable things to inhabit. Look in through the windows, both literal and figurative. Does your space reflect who you are? Do you like what you see? How about when you look into who you’ve become? If you don’t feel you’re living authentically, get rid of what doesn’t reflect well on you. Clean house.
Stack 2 Imagine, Page of Swords
If you can dream it, you can be it. Spend time daydreaming this week. Mix imagination with emotion. Then write it all down. What does it look like? How does it feel? Imagination becomes belief and belief becomes reality. And until it’s on paper, it’s vapor, so send it up to the Universe in written words.
Stack 3 A Leg Up, 9 of Cups
We cannot find true contentment in isolation. We need time alone, but we also have to align with others. We need help. We need to help. Embrace interdependence and watch the miracles start to happen. Now is the time to accomplish your heart’s desire through the interconnected web of all existence.
This week’s decks are The Wisdom of the Oracle and Modern Love Tarot
You’ll want a word that challenges you or inspires you or keeps you on track. Maybe all three.
It can be a noun like Comfort, Hope, or Infinity.
Or an adjective such as Delighted, Passionate, or Amazed.
Or you might choose a verb like Enchant, Innovate, or Soar. Maybe even Canoodle!
How do you want to feel?
Or maybe we should start with how you feel right now.
During this limbo time of the year, I tend to feel flat. This year, I also feel isolated and lonely since we didn’t get to see my family again on Christmas due to covid. Yet I also feel grateful and immensely satisfied with where I am in life. Accomplished. Loved. Optimistic.
However you feel in this moment, do you want more or less of that feeling? Would you like to lessen or intensify it? Or go in a completely new direction?
Here are some words to get you started.
Amazed
Content
Celebrate
Proud
Wish
Compassion
Romance
Enchantment
Hope
Zeal
Friendship
Happy
Clear
Flow
Disencumbered
Knight
Marvel
Nourished
Organized
Poise
Mate
Power
Refreshed
Soar
Service
Adaptable
Sprouted
Travel
Swanky
Trust
Validated
Peace
Wonder
What grabs your attention? What word did you ultimately choose?
My word for 2022 is shine in all its glorious senses. To sparkle. To stand out. To excel. To rise AND shine…
Let me know yours in the comments. I’d love to hear—and to support you!
Wowza! What a great way to start the new year! This new moon is happening right when we’ll want to set our intentions for 2022. You know you want to create your own reality. Let the Universe know your desires, wishes, and dreams and then make your plan to take the steps you need to co-create and manifest them.
Whether it’s a misheard lyric, an urban legend, or a joke we don’t understand, we can count on the internet to help us understand.
We have access to literally all the information in the world at our fingertips.
Ok, maybe not everything. You won’t find Colonel Sander’s secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, most government records, where you left your keys, or what your next step is. But most everything else is there.
How do we find our next right step?
So often we forget about all the spiritual tools at our fingertips. We can call on our spirit guides. Our angels. Our ancestors who work for our highest good.
When we remember to co-create with Spirit, our next step appears when we’re ready for it.
We all have moments of being in flow. For many of us, it means creative downloads—ideas for books, paintings, songs, and new projects that that come to us complete. For some of us, they happen as we’re working on that something. We’re writing or painting or composing and it’s as if the pen or brush has a mind of its own.
To channel the creative spark, we can meditate. Drop down into the creative well and swim around in its waters. This can be akin to sitting with your eyes closed and trying not to think of a white bear. But as with most things, meditation becomes easier with practice.
We can start our day with an affirmation. “I am clear on where I am headed.” “I always know my next right step.” “New, creative ideas come to me with ease.”
Or we can set an intention as we go to bed. Our dream state is perfect for alignment and creation. Try this for a few nights this week.
Sit on the side of your bed with your feet on the floor. Inhale and exhale deeply a few times. Imagine and feel the green energy from the center of the earth come up through the soles of your feet, into your legs, through your core and your heart center, up into your throat, and finally into your third eye. Then see a white light coming down from the sky in through the top of your head, joining the earth energy in your third eye. This white light contains all the wisdom of the Universe. Your crown chakra filters it so that only the ideas that match your intention come through and mix with the creative energy of the earth. Now set your intention. “It is my intention to receive clarity about…” or “It is my intention to see my next steps to…” or “It is my intention to have a creative solution to…” You can follow that up with “I will easily remember the information that comes to me in a clear and simple way.” And finally, “Tonight’s sleep with restore and energize me.”
Let me know what downloads you receive from Spirit using this exercise. I’d love to hear.
How do you perceive the world? What biases do you have? This is the perfect time to challenge them. It’s also a great time to explore anything you’re curious about. There are so many new things out there to try!
Yesterday we drove from Frankfurt to Hamburg. I thought I saw squirrels’ nests in the trees but it turns out it was mistletoe, great big bunches of mistletoe.
Holly, ivy, and mistletoe are the plants associated with Yule. What a wonderful reminder for me to focus on nature and its cycles instead of on buying gifts.
Yule is one of the points on the wheel of the year that mark the seasons and the midpoints between them.
At the end of October I wrote about Samhain. The next sabbat, or festival, is Yule and it starts on December 21st.
Yule marks the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a time of reflection and thought. A time to look back on what happened in the last twelve months. It is a time to remember that even when things look dark for us, we can persevere.
It can be difficult to find time for quiet introspection when we’re decorating, shopping, baking, and beating ourselves up for not being holiday-perfect.
It is also a time of joy as we celebrate the starting point for light to enter the world again. A time of death of the old and birth of the new. A reminder that all our lives are made up of cycles and seasons.
How can we celebrate Yule in a Christmas world?
Does that last sentence make you feel like I just added something else to your endless holiday to-do list?
What we need to do is harness the Santa-energy.
Santa doesn’t make the toys. He doesn’t decorate or bake. He creates lists and delegates. He uses magic to expand time so that he can get everything done at midnight, his eyes twinkling all the while.
If you truly enjoy wrapping gifts, wrap. If you’re like me and you hate it, hand off that job.
Instead, get out into nature.
Walk and reflect.
What have you accomplished in the last year?
And don’t append “but” or “except” to your achievements.
My list looks like this:
–I kept up with physical therapy, got stronger, and can walk again.
(not “…but still have a long way to go.”)
–I learned how to use Mailchimp, Facebook Live, Teachable, Canva, Zoom.
–I wrote my tenth novel.
–I survived a bathroom remodel.
–I helped many people around the world by clearing their energy.
Go ahead. Make your list of achievements, gains, and positive lessons learned.
Where did you shine in the last twelve months? Let me know. I’d love to share your wins with you.
I loved everything about summer camp when I was young. Well, almost everything. I wasn’t a fan of the latrines. But other than that, I loved it.
I went to a camp near Eagle River, Wisconsin, called Northern Hills. It was a Girl Scout camp, so no boys.
When we arrived, we chose a camp name that everyone called us for those two weeks. Mel. Kermit. Farm. Dusk. I was Felix.
Each day we’d swim in the freezing cold lake. We’d learn about the native plants and trees. We’d hike. We’d sing. And we’d do all sorts of things with fire.
We would cook over the fire. And I’m not talking about weenies on a stick. We made some pretty sophisticated fare using a reflecting oven.
There were contests to see who could build and light a fire the fastest. I was good at that.
There were huge bonfires at night that we would sit around and sing.
It was magic.
Being drawn to a fire seems to be hardwired into us. We have fireplaces inside and firepits in our yards. We love to cook over a fire on the grill. For romance, we light candles. It’s the heat. The flickering and ever-changing light. The smoke.
Fire can also be used for ritual magic. For releasing. For cleansing. Here are some ideas.
Write an intention on a slip of paper. You can decorate it to deepen your connection to it, if you like. Place the paper under a candle in glass. These can be found in the Latinx section of many grocery stores. Or you can use what are called chime or altar or spell candles. They are bigger than birthday candles but thinner and shorter than tapers. You’ll need the proper holders for those. Either way, put a plate under them because you are going to let them burn all the way out. As you light the candle, speak your intention.
I like to light a candle to mark the start of a sacred time such as before meditating or at the end of the work week to remind me to take a “sabbath.”
If there are emotions you’d like to release, write them out. I find it’s best to be as raw as you’re feeling. This isn’t the time for flowery prose. If you want to scrawl Fuck forty-seven times on the page, do it. You can then burn the pages in a fire you build, or light them in your kitchen sink, or in a cauldron. Just remember: Safety pays in many ways.
You can send a desire off into the Universe to be fulfilled by writing a word or two on a leaf or tying a small piece of paper to a sprig of herb. Use lavender to attract love and devotion, for example. Or spearmint for wealth. Or rosemary to help you make a decision.
Fire can also be used for meditation, staring into it with a softened gaze, entering a liminal space where ideas and answers can flow to you.
There is also magic to be found in simply sitting by a fire with those you love, either romantically or platonically. It opens our souls to the mysteries in the depths we share and allows us to feel connected.
