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ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Find Your Heart’s Desire!
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: Find Your Heart’s Desire!
MONDAY’S POEM: Gaia, The Dark Womb
I am working with a new card deck with artwork by Susan Seddon Boulet and her amazing Goddess images. The other day I drew Gaia; the image, the words about Gaia by Michael Babcock and Lao-Tzu’s Taoteching inspired today’s poem:
Gaia, The Dark Womb
Gaia holds us in all of our empty states:
She bathes our soul in her deep dark water;
She sustains our physical bodies when we emerge
As breathing life in her atmosphere;
And, she welcomes us home into her moist warm
Soul (soil) when we are finished with these bodies.
There she nurtures and gestates us again until
We are ready to free our spirits completely
And merge with her Loving Presence.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Settling In
This phrase has been popping into my life since the New Moon and New Lunar Year. It seems it comes to mind every day as I write my Morning Pages. I catch myself writing it and wonder, what’s this about…
And I realized today, as I wrote it once again, that I am settling in. There are many aspects to this, not the least of which is settling in to the new energies coming in with the New Moon and New Year. It’s different. Is it just me who is feeling and sensing the difference? Do you sense it?
So, I am settling in to this New Year, the Year of the Wood Horse, or Green Horse. In the Chinese Medicine Five-Element system one of my dominant elements is Wood. With the New Moon we left the Water Snake Year of 2013 behind and moved into Wood Horse. There is an energy about this Horse coming in; some have said it is galloping in! And the Wood energy is hitting right on top of my Wood tendencies. What this means is lots of energy for me and I am finding myself needing to dampen it down; adjust. I am settling in to this New Year and I expect it to take more time. After all the Chinese celebrate the New Year for two weeks, until the Full Moon, which is still a week away. Maybe it takes the two weeks to settle in to the new energy.
We are also still setting in to our new home. We spent some time yesterday moving filling cabinets so we can more easily file and re-file paperwork for the business, church and personal lives we lead. We are still finding places to put things and still looking for things misplaced! Settling in.
And it occurs to me that this is what life is really about. We are always settling in. Do you feel this way? And it’s a good thing. Settling in is becoming present. It is sensing our environment and getting comfortable with it. It is getting in touch with our bodies and settling in. It is examining our emotions, our heart-feelings and settling in to whatever arises: joy, sadness, grief, gratitude.
There is also a settling in of our mental state as it ebbs and flows from alert awareness and high functionality to drowsy calmness as we get ready for sleep. I even find myself settling in to the rhythm of time, adjusting to what seems to be shortening days (can they really still be 24 hours long?).
And spiritually I am becoming very settled. No, not complacent nor dogmatic, not fixed in anyway but very open and always questioning. Yet at some level I am accepting that I will likely not find the answers to my all my questions in this life. I’m not settling for this as a final conclusion, but I am settling in to this possibility.
I have a greater sense of calm around this notion of settling in. I’m in this for the long haul – and it could be very long, if the reincarnationists have it right! So, why not settle in and enjoy the journey!
This phrase seems to be following me everywhere. Even in my yoga class last evening we were led to “settle in” to our bodies during shavasana. And I knew just what to do.
I hope you are not settling for anything. But do find some peace and settle in to your life; it’s so much easier that way!
Have a great weekend!
The Year of YOU! – Richard’s Commentary
Rosemary is nothing if not provocative. She wrote her Ezine article last week after coming down from her very successful Possibilities Playshop during which she led our group through an afternoon of meditation to meet a guide for the year, more meditation to clear blocks and cut cords, and most importantly to get in touch with our “bodacious wish” for the year. Then we created a “roadmap” or a “guidebook” to move us through the year to help us make our “bodacious wish” come true! So, I am not surprised when she states:
This year make a pact with yourself to BE WHO YOU CAME HERE TO BE. If that is your only resolution, goal, to-do YOU WILL BE AMAZING this year!
The Playshop was all about being. We did not use our left-brains; we did not plan; we did not schedule; we made no resolutions. The only “to-do” was to continue to work on the Guidebook and add detail selected intuitively using our right-brains and our own inner guidance.
The Playshop, the Guidebook, pictures pulled from magazines, words cut out because they trigger some meaningful thought or feeling or experience, cards pulled from an intuitive deck or Tarot deck are all tools to help us plumb our inner depths. We all know why we are here; we were born knowing. As we grow, get an education, move into a career path, earn our way, build relationships, join communities, we often forget or repress our truth, our purpose. But we know!
Books come into our lives to help us remember. Yesterday evening our Spiritual Exploration Group came together around the topic of books, especially books that were the most influential in our lives. My measure of this is “What single book would you want to have if stranded on a desert island?” We had a wonderful conversation; many fabulous books were discussed and shared. The books that seemed the most meaningful were those that drew ourselves out; set ourselves free; helped us remember who we are and why we are here!
BE WHO YOU CAME HERE TO BE begins with remembering. Find and use the tools to remember. It’s there inside; draw it out.
With this new year of the Wood Horse I am meditating more, dreaming more, practicing mindfulness and receiving incredible guidance. Where does this come from? Inside me; I am remembering. And these memories are beautiful, expanding and powerful expressions of WHO I AM.
And I WILL BE AMAZING this year!
How are you experiencing the Wood Horse energy after the first quarter moon into the New Lunar Year? Are you ready to be who you came here to be? My bodacious wish for you is to have an amazing year! We live in an amazing time of heightened potential. We all have a role to play. I will look for you in the field!
PS: The Possibilities Playshop Rosemary held to create our 2014 Guidebooks, roadmaps for the year directed by the moon and our intuition, was a truly amazing event. And now you can play too! The videos of the meditations and the process for creating the Guidebook are now available; Details Here
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: The Year of YOU!
How are you looking at 2014? Are you still keeping your New Year’s Resolutions? How are doing toward your goals? Do you have a big to-do list for the year?
This year make a pact with yourself to BE WHO YOU CAME HERE TO BE. If that is your only resolution, goal, to-do YOU WILL BE AMAZING this year!
January is a good time for an assessment of where you’ve been and where you’re going. A lot of folks work towards the New Year on January 1 but the holidays and end of year confusion can sometimes make that a difficult time to concentrate on deep desires for the coming year.
How about trying something new this year?
Let’s declare the New Year starting with the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year, with the second New Moon after the Winter Solstice. This way we can move beyond all the end of the year hullabaloo and spend our January recovering or putting away decorations or getting the bills out of the way and then relax and focus on the energies coming in for the New Year.
2014 is a year of the Wood Horse. This is the energy of new growth and charging forward. Are you ready?
2014 is also the year of Transformation that carries us forward on the tide of change that 2012 energized within us. The Big Shift is upon us.
If you focus your Horse Year energy on BEING YOU you can take yourself forward into the life you were meant to be living on Planet Earth. When you go inside yourself and commit to BEING YOU, you will find that all the tasks on your to-do list follow naturally from that Being-ness. Goals follow in the same way.
And there is no need for resolutions because you are learning to trust the inner voice that comes from your inner guidance telling you, reminding you, to be the Light that you already are.
Too often people seem to get excited about goals and resolutions in the New Year and they forget to live in the present moment. They are focused on some time in the future, after they change something about themselves and/or their life. They start living in ‘Someday’ and ‘When X then Y’ thinking.
Here’s the most important goal for you to have in 2014:
“I listen to my inner guidance and commit today to live my life BEING ME.”
That’s it. That’s all the resolution that you need for the New Year. All your goals fall under this.
Once you have freed yourself from creating a list of resolutions that might even be based on what you think you should do, not on your heart’s desires for the year, you can relax into being yourself and following your heart.
What are you greatest dreams? What is your Life Purpose? Do you know your Life Lesson so that you can use it to help you grow and not succumb to it as a blind spot?
What is your ‘Bodacious Wish for 2014’?
Answer all these questions and you will have a blueprint for how you want to be this year.
Once you have identified your dreams and wishes and Purpose you can develop your business plan or vision board or list of goals but they will all be in the context of who you ARE in this year.
Climb onto your 2014 Horse and charge forward, being the YOU you were born to be. This is your year. Live Your Richest Life!
PS: Are you ready to BE YOU? Here’s a way to get some insight into what it means to BE YOU: Rosemary is offering a video recording and all the bonuses from her 2014 Possibilities Playshop she held last week. It’s a great way to move into self-discovery about how you want to BE this year. Details Here
MONDAY’S POEM: Heaven and Earth
I don’t know about you but I’m still basking in the energy of the New Moon and the New Year! And it’s going to be a great year; just look at my post last Friday: ADVANCE!
I wrote today’s poem on Lunar New Year’s Day, the 31st, with references to the I Ching Gua I cast for the year and the “moonth.”
Heaven and Earth
Six line, three strong
Heaven below, Heaven on Earth?
Support for the Way
Wood Horse gallops forward.
Six lines, three weak
Earth above, Earth on Heaven?
Lifted upward, floating on water,
Flowing peacefully ever onward.
Six lines, auspicious Gua;
First Gua for the New Year.
Tidal Gua in its rightful place;
Rough ways smooth, returning.
Six lines, Advancing;
Auspicious for prosperity and peace.
Remember, Advancing leads to
Hindrance, Heaven above, returning.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
I Ching Gua for the New Moon and New Wood Horse Year: Tai-Advance!
I love my new “habit” of casting an I Ching Gua just after the new moon of every month (moonth). And with this new moon that we experienced yesterday (4:38 pm Eastern time), the new moon in Aquarius, we also ushered in the Lunar New Year, the Chinese New Year which is the year of the Wood Horse. What better time to do a divination using the I Ching and the yarrow stalks I manipulate to cast a Gua or six-line hexagram to help sense the energies coming in to support our journeys?
And I am very excited by the Gua I cast. It is pictured here as three solid, yang lines on the bottom, the trigram for Heaven, and three broken, yin lines on the top, the trigram for Earth.
The Chinese word, Tai, is very auspicious. In fact Alfred Huang, author of The Complete I Ching writes: “Tai is one of the most auspicious words in the Chinese language.” It has many meanings, including peace, safety, security and good health. It originally meant “more than” or “most.” It indicates the condition of being “more than great.” Master Huang chose the meaning “advance” for Tai. The image he paints from the ideograph for Tai is one of “running water proceeding forward smoothly and with great ease.”
There were no changing lines in this Gua. Sometimes this can be inauspicious indicating stagnation in the energy. In this case I think what it means is we can expect the energy of advancement in a peaceful way for the entire year! It is a Wood Horse year after all with lots of energy coming to us for strong support.
Another indication that this Gua extends for the entire year is that it is a “tidal” Gua, which means it is associated with a particular lunar month of the year, the first month; in other words the exact month for which I cast it! Not only is the Gua itself auspicious, it is in an auspicious place, its natural place, for the year.
There is also a strong meaning of cooperation held in this Gua. Heaven, the lower trigram seems to be in the opposite place, below Earth, the upper trigram. The meaning here is that Heaven and Earth are working together to support humanity, just as Horse and Human work together for great productivity, advancement!
This energy is already beginning to play out in my life. Last weekend Rosemary held her first annual Possibilities Playshop, a gathering to create a guide book for the lunar 2014. She and I worked together to conduct and video the Playshop so we could share it with people who couldn’t attend in person. It was a great success and people who did attend gained great benefit, clearing blocks, gaining a guide for the year and laying out the lunar year, all 13 moonths, beginning with today. We are letting the moon energy guide us through the year!
And with this tremendously auspicious Gua, I am ready for a fantastic year!
Do you feel this “advancing” energy?
Get Ready for the Big Shift! – Richard’s Commentary
You’ve been hearing about this “big shift” from Rosemary, many others and me for a long time. We talked about it leading up to that momentous pivot point of the Winter Solstice of 2012. And we have been talking about it for more than a year since that point. Is it coming? Is it here? And most importantly:
Are you excited about taking a quantum leap forward in your life?
I am excited! And I do sense this is the time. Rosemary says this:
Now is the time! The world around you is showing you in not-too-subtle ways that you have turned the corner into the place where you are facing the biggest shift of your life. Are you willing to shift?
But notice something here: she is not talking about something on the outside; this is not necessarily a change that is coming at you. She says, “you have turned the corner.” Indeed we have all turned a corner and we now have to embrace what we have generated.
This “change energy” is an internal potential. The calendar has little to do with it other than to focus our attention and intention on a specific time. Yes, there are many factors pointing to this time as important: a Mayan calendar change, a rotation of the wheel of the Zodiac through to a new sign, other calendars, other potential physical shifts in galactic space, even a potential shift in the Earth’s magnetic poles.
But the shift Rosemary and I are talking about is a shift in consciousness. Yes, this shift may be influenced by one or more of these external factors. But, the important shift comes from within. This is a shift in awareness. This is a shift in who we think, and feel, we are as conscious beings.
So, the question of being ready does not motivate building a bomb shelter, stocking the basement with a year’s supply of food and water, getting all of our affairs in order or preparing in some physical way for impending earth changes. Preparation is an internal check-in; it is a matter of preparing our bodies, emotions, minds and spirits for the next phase of human evolution.
If you are reading this post you are a “cultural creative”, you are on the leading edge of expanding human consciousness. And you are key to this coming shift!
How do you get ready? That may be a personal question you must answer for yourself; you are likely already preparing, may even be fully prepared. Here’s what I’m doing:
I am meditating more – more frequently through the day and for longer periods of time. I am reading through the Kalachakra Tantra Rite of Initiation by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Jeffery Hopkins. I am practicing yoga and qigong. I am practicing the six Transcendent Perfections of Buddhism (as best I can). I am attending to my body, speech and mind. And I am planning to attend the Kalachakra Initiation of 2014 in Ladakh, India this July.
I may not be ready for the “big shift” but I am “being the big shift.” I am practicing what I can to be prepared. And I am excited!
The Moon is new today at 4:38 pm Eastern Time. This marks the end of the old Lunar year and a shift into the Year of the Horse. I feel the energy gathering and galloping in. I am as ready as I can be for this shift and the bigger shifts to come.
I hope you are ready with me!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Get Ready for the Big Shift!
Are you ready? Are you prepared to shift? Are you excited about taking a quantum leap forward in your life?
Now is the time! The world around you is showing you in not-too-subtle ways that you have turned the corner into the place where you are facing the biggest shift of your life. Are you willing to shift?
Or are you feeling a bit scared and wishing you could turn around and go back to the way things were?
Think of a baby in the midst of the birthing process. What if the baby decided to turn around and stay inside Mommy? It might be thinking, ‘I don’t know what’s out there so I think I’ll just stay here where it’s comfy and warm.’
That is what you do when you choose not to grow, when you opt out of your next quantum leap, when you try to keep things just as they are.
It is easy to look around for the quantum leap when everything feels as if it is falling apart in your life. This is the point at which you might as well leap because there is just nothing for you if you stay stuck where you are. It is more difficult, though, to leap when things seem to be going smoothly and you don’t want to take a chance on ‘rocking the boat.’
Ah, that’s when the quantum leap is most powerful, however!
You are always at a point of choice about your life and how you will live it. You can always choose to resist the tide of change and remain stuck where you are, not doing the personal growth work that is available to you. But this choice takes so much energy that you will exhaust yourself and still be stuck. Why choose this?
When you decide to GROW you face a field filled with possibilities that beckon to you to leap in, choose a path, try it and decide to stay on that path or choose another one to try. When you fully participate in life and go for the quantum leap, even more possibilities will open up before you.
That’s how possibilities work. If you feel as if you are looking through a narrow field into choices that look like ‘either-or’ choices, one or the other opportunities, then it is your field of view that needs to change first. There are always possibilities, even if you cannot see them in this moment. There are plenty of possibilities that are the ‘and’ kind, the ones where you can have this AND that. But if you only look through the lens of ‘either-or’ you will miss all the other options!
This is a time filled with great potential for each person on Planet Earth. The energy field is shifting. The magnetic field, the poles, the very Planet herself – all are contributing energy to support you in making your Big Shift.
We are in the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy, looking out in every direction at the rest of the Galaxy. Where would you like to leap? You have the power to move forward in any direction.
Shift and leap. Examine the possibilities in 360 degrees around you. Reach out beyond the first ones that you see and look for the possibilities that might seem to be just beyond your reach. Make bodacious claims for yourself about who you are and who you can be.
Shift. It is a choice and there is an amazing world of possibilities just beyond your view. Leap into it!
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: The Big Shift is Coming!
My Two-Minute Video for this Week: The Big Shift is Coming!
Men and The Goddess 