R U Sirius? Hot Dog!

July 26th marks the annual heliacal rise of Sirius (meaning, "with the Sun"). This date heralds both the ancient Mayan and Egyptian New Year — for the latter, it also coincides with the flooding of the Nile, which Egyptians believed Sirius' rising caused.

 Sirius has long been known as the "Dog Star". (Trivia: in the Harry Potter series, Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, is an animagus: one who can shapeshift — and when he does, he transforms into a large black dog.) The Dog Star also gives us the "dog days of summer":

Ancient Egyptians called Sirius the "Dog Star" because pictograms of the head of their god Osiris resembled a dog. In Egypt, Sirius shines for most of the summer, and since it's such a bright star, the Egyptians believed the additional light it radiated was responsible for the summer heat. This isn't true, of course, but the phrase "the dog days of summer" springs from this belief.

The Greeks named the star Sirius, which meant, "scorching or burning".

And as we move through the Great Turning, this time that's been prophesied for millennia, it's wise to balance our blazing inner and outer heat with the heart of the dog, which of course is all about Love. Lots more on that in the August issue of my e-newsletter, What Shines.

Day Out of Time: Celebrate Possibility!

Wednesday, July 25th, heralds the annual "Day Out of Time" on the Thirteen Moon Calendar — a calendar on which every Friday is a lucky Friday the 13th! And in this spectacular year of regeneration on every level, it's about breaking through old paradigms and belief systems to align with natural rhythms and human biology, enabling us to access fourth and fifth dimensional frequencies. The daily affirmations (260 in all, referred to as "kin") work on an intuitive level.

What, then, is the Day Out of Time (also known as Green Day)? Here's a summary from the Foundation for the Law of Time.

Around the planet, this day is reserved for festival and community. Central focuses are: Planetary Peace through Culture, 'Time Is Art!', forgiveness, atonement, freeing of debts, purification, and the Art of Peace.

Celebrated annually since 1992, the Day Out of Time always falls on July 25th. On the Thirteen Moon Calendar, this day is not a day of the month. It is a day in between the closing of the previous year (July 24th) and the dawning of the new year on July 26th.

The Day Out of Time is a day to celebrate "Time Is Art". This is what hundreds of thousands of people who follow the new calendar do every year on Gregorian calendar July 25^th. And since art is the basis of constructive peace, this day is also celebrated as International Peace through Culture Day. Peace through culture is a fundamental premise of the Thirteen Moon Calendar. When you celebrate time is art you are promoting peace through culture.

Here's an article about How to See Yourself As An Artist, and one about using the questions of the 13 Moons: Embracing Paradox Can Help You Beat the Clock

The energy signature for Wednesday, July 25, 2012 is White Rhythmic Mirror, and sounds like this:

I organize in order to reflect

Balancing order

I seal the matrix of endlessness

With the rhythmic tone of equality

I am guided by my own power doubled

I am a galactic activation portal…enter me

On this Day Out of Time, we can join kin around the world in deepening our commitment to the truth that Time is Art, and that we can free ourselves from the oppression and confusion of mechanized time. As we liberate ourselves from its distortions, we awaken from the 5000-year spell of history, re-membering (making membership again) our connection to the galactic time magic residing in every human heart. And from this connection, true prosperity can flower.

The Law of Time site says: "Give the human a harmonious standard of measure and then a harmonious human will walk a harmonious mile.

Harmony ~ that's what the day of time is all about."

What To Do When You're Dying Inside

The operating system on my older Mac suddenly quit on Tuesday. Over the next few days it quit about 20 times, and I watched myself freeze in anxiety each time the screen overwrote my work with a message saying I needed to retart my computer. My browsers, Mail program and Word all took turns capriciously joining in the fun. One browser even sent me to a PayPal site in South Africa! I wondered if I had a virus (Macs are much less prone to them than PCs). This morning I was waiting at the door when my tech opened for business, hoping he could reinstall the OS and that would resolve the issue.

With practiced fingers he explored Mac's settings and said, "I think your hard drive is failing; that happens on computers that are about this age. I can replace it with a refurbished hard drive that will be like a mirror image of your existing drive." He wrote up the work order, I left my machine and went home to rest. Immediately the metaphor for now clarified:

Our operating system ~ the old way of being in the world ~ is failing. But simply reinstalling it won't solve the problem, because the real issue is larger than that: the entire hard drive (culture) needs an overhaul. We can replace what now exists with a "mirror image": we look in the mirror, reverse who and how we've been, and with refurbished awareness, can continue in the same "body" ~ we needn't actually die, but undergo a symbolic death/rebirth. Caroline Casey refers to this as "the ongoing death and resurrection show."

Much more in-depth info on this and related aspects of our creative evolutionary quest in the July What Shines, out next week (when I have my refurbished laptop back!).

The Leadership Test

I had two interesting encounters with receptionists this morning. Arriving early for my meeting with a prospective client in a café nestled in a small office suite, I had time to creatively quest a copy machine. I wanted to copy a 7-page magazine article, and intended to pay for the privilege. The first office I entered didn't even own a copy machine. At the second, as I stated my request, the receptionist looked at me coolly for a moment, then said, "Let me go ask HR." I thought, "Ask Human Resources if someone can copy a few pages?" But I held my tongue. She came back and suggested I try the company upstairs.

This time, I chose to frame my request a little differently. I smiled as I approached the friendly-looking receptionist and asked if I might make a copy of an article I wrote in order to send it to my parents, as the subject matter concerns them (it's about aging in place). She glanced at the magazine and said with a tinge of wonder, "You wrote that?" [Apparently being a writer still carries a certain cachet in some circles!] I said, "Yes, and I'm happy to pay for the copies. It's just 6 or 7 pages." She said, "Oh, I wouldn't even know what to charge you." When I said most copy places charge 10 cents, she waved my offer away, then had a thought: "We probably have that magazine right here." I looked on the rack by the entrance, and sure enough, there it was. I said, "So, I could just clip out my article?" She answered, "No, go ahead and take the magazine." What if someone else wants to read it? I inquired. She smiled and shrugged, "Take it."

I don't know if either woman has managerial or entrepreneurial aspirations, but my money's on the second one, who took the decision-making reins, thought creatively, and arrived at a solution that was beyond satisfactory. To me, this was a microcosmic lesson in what leadership looks like. What do you think?

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Coda: I realized the next day that this creative response came from the company on the third floor — I had to go right to the top, where she made an executive decision! I laughed out loud as I made the final connection; Spirit has always amused me with its inimitable sense of humor.

Solstice: A Sensuous Bonfire Initiation into Love

The Zombies once sang, "It's the start of the season for loving." Of course their name was a bit of an oxymoron. Today there is no way to both awaken and remain a zombie! It is, with bells on, the season for Loving.

Stargazer Li says the burst of Gemini activity, beginning with the May 20th Solar Eclipse and June 5th Venus Transit, followed by a second New Moon in Gemini leading into the Summer Solstice, "brings much learning and an expansion of communications through words and stories that become integrated into our approaches to living our journey. What we think and say has the power to create, to crystallize something new. Being effortless and magical in our approach, relaxing into the experience of living our amazingness is the gift being offered. Let's be willing to receive it."

Earth-based spirituality pioneer and prolific author Starhawk writes, "This is the time of the rose, blossom and thorn, fragrance and blood. Now on this longest day, light triumphs, and yet begins the decline into the dark. The Sun King grown, embraces the Queen of Summer in a love that is death because it is so complete that all dissolves into the single song of ecstasy that moves the worlds. So the Lord of light dies to himself, and sets sail across the dark seas of time, searching for the Isle of Light that is rebirth. We turn the wheel and share his fate, for we have planted seeds of our own changes and to grow we must accept even the passing of the sun."

And planetary priestess Ariel Spilsbury, co-creator of my much-beloved Mayan Oracle book and card set, writes, "As a collective we now find ourselves perfectly poised and balanced, like a tightrope walker over the Abyss of the Unknown. We have practiced for lifetimes not going into fear, staying centered no matter what appearance arises, so that we can face this initiation of stepping through those appearances into freedom, not in some other lifetime, but in THIS one! Each of us is now facing our personal piece of shadow that is being vibrationally activated and amplified with the intention of clearing it for ourselves AND the collective mindfield of Earth, that we may transition personally and as a species, from the sleepy caterpillar into our awakened, soul butterfly selves. THIS IS NOT JUST A METAPHOR! 



This is actually happening alchemically now on Earth. Within the chrysalis, we are being re-tuned and rewired from the inside out, as a natural part of the vibrational process of evolution, which is dissolving in Solutio, the fractally repeating, shadow material that has dogged us over lifetimes, as a gift of Grace! That isn't to say that we aren't taking radical responsibility and supporting that process with our personal choices for freedom. If we are intending to become the freed butterfly, we are doing just that, through our vigilance in embracing IN LOVE the persistently attached shadow when it arises, rather than denying, judging and rejecting it! (I embrace my shadow, as I embrace my light!) In Alchemy this process is called Umbra-solis...the sun AND its shadow complete the Great Work. Please deeply consider that it isn't the 'getting rid of' or healing shadow, rather the full, loving embrace of it that will complete the Great Work we are engaged in personally and as a species at this time! This is the final clearing of the patterns that are no longer serving our LIBERATION! In this process, Light Itself Can Be Seen as the Final Veil! 



Feel the sensuous, energetic ripple from inside your personal chrysalis that is now inviting you to begin to birth your transmuting self into a new world! That evolutionary potential is being offered through the Divine Feminine portal that opened on the Venus Transit on June 5th 2012 that will be complimented by the male portal completion on Dec 21, 2012. What this open window of evolutionary potential represents, is the unprecedented opportunity to clear, forgive and embrace shadow and simultaneously birth ourselves into a new and expanded frequency of soul expression on Earth, entering the Mystery of the birth of the Blue Sun within our own hearts. 



The result of the birth of that inner blue fire will be the transmutation of our DNA and thus our blood into Sangreal, holy blood, literally changing the valence structure of our blood, so as to sing a Love Song to the Divine One! (If you wish to accelerate this process, watch the following video Solfeggio Harmonics - 528 Love hz). Remember that the heat and passion of Shakti, kundalini, the activation of the blue and gold dragon fire current of life force that moves up the spine, is that which is igniting the collective bonfire for the transmutation of fear into love on this planet. As we practice and embrace this transmutation, it will literally change the way we see reality, as the ecstatically flowing river of light that it actually is. In this moment, I invite you to stop and breathe in the alchemical, golden ecstatic, blue fire, dragon current, this river of light, to ride your blood into pure alchemical gold. Breathe that possibility in! Open to the golden alchemical frequency that is now available, whose intention is the loving release of whatever may still be residual in your being, that cannot stand in or contain this much light. Allow it to be lovingly consumed in the light of Divine Love! These are not just beautiful concepts or words. I encourage you to meditate to experience their truth directly and to personally experience and feel the frequency of alchemical gold light that is now available to transmute anything less than the vibration of unconditional love! 

Let us use the energy of the perfect balance of Summer Solstice as a powerful, planetary acupuncture point, to offer re-balancing to ourselves and Gaia. Celebrate together the powerful window of opportunity that the time we are alive in right now represents. We are entering a new world together ... As the star Maya say, together let us walk the Road of Awe, Xi balba beh into a new world!!

Managing Those Weird Cosmic Aches and Pains…

We're in the birth canal of the greatest shift humanity has ever known. Becoming a light body isn't easy, though it can be a lot more manageable once you understand what's going on! Celia Fenn offers some wise reminders about how the cosmos is affecting us multidimensionally. Excerpted from Radical Shift: The Venus Transit of 2012:

"Venus is the Solar System level of Consciousness that resonates with the Goddess Energy, with Love and Relationship, with Money and with Passion and Beauty. At this time, all these issues are being highlighted and transformed. On a Planetary scale we can see how the Economic system is crumbling, especially in the 'First World' of the USA and Europe, and how it is making space for the 'New Economy' that will take us into a sustainable and co-operative way of living. On the personal level, many people are finding that they are making radical shifts in their attitude towards money, and that the desire for conspicuous consumption has been replaced by the desire to live in an balanced way and in harmony with the Earth. Money is simply a means of achieving a balanced lifestyle, where the focus is on living in the energy of beauty and harmony with all beings and with the Earth.

"In close connection with this is finding work that ignites your Passion for life and is harmony with your soul purpose and brings you Joy. Many of you will be feeling the urge to let go of past ways of work and reaching out for work that is an expression of your Soul and your Passion.

"As far as Personal Relationships are concerned, there will also be tension in partnerships whose basis is no longer in alignment with the purpose of your Soul and the energy of the New Earth. At this point, you will be guided to reconsider your contract in your relationship, or to simply move on to a new partnership that is more aligned with what you are becoming and what you wish to create in your life.

"These energies and challenges will build towards the transit on the 6th, and you may find around that time that there will be some very deep and fundamental changes in your life. Don't panic! This is all leading you towards something better and deeper, and more suited to where you are heading in the time after the 2012 portal!

"You may also be feeling quite intense physical symptoms as your Light Body makes its final adjustments for the Transit and for the later Portal transit. As you bring your Soul Star and Earth Star chakras 'online', you may experience pains and discomfort in the legs, or dizziness and nausea and disorientation, or bouts of flu and colds. These are all part of the process as the DNA activates and the Light Body surges energy through the system to bring everything into harmony and activation. This also activates the Template for Human Divine Perfection in the DNA and activates the ability to go the 'next step' in this ongoing process of Spiritual and Physical Evolution."

If You've Ever Shopped At A Factory Outlet, Read This

Six degrees of separation long ago shrank to three; these days, the connections are so profound it isn't difficult to see how everyone's related, if only by common interest:

A few weeks ago, I decided to take my last pair of Dexter hiking boots to a local consignment store where I shop frequently.  I wore "Dexxies" faithfully as my primary shoes for years; when I purchased this last pair around 2003, I bought several at once, since the Dexter outlet was closing — and even the main store in Dexter, Maine was going out of business. As a consequence, I never wore them; they just accumulated dust on a closet floor, as my shoe tastes evolved. I live "lightly" in terms of possessions, and finally it was time to pass these still-new beloved boots along for someone else to love. So I consigned them.

Today, while reading The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain by Gene Cohen, MD, PhD (one of myriad books on positive aging I peruse both for client projects and personal interest) I was astonished to discover, in a section on late-life philanthropy, that the founder of the Dexter Shoe Company, Henry Alfond, was the author's wife's great-uncle! Alfond is also credited with creating the first factory outlet store. Originally intended to sell "factory seconds," or slightly damaged goods that could not be sold at retail, Alfond soon expanded the outlet concept to include first quality merchandise from previous seasons. Other retailers began mimicking his model, and soon factory outlet stores sprang up across the country. From there, it was a small leap to factory outlet malls.

Unfortunately, in 1993, a year shy of his 80^th birthday, Alfond sold the company to one of its many suitors, Berkshire Hathaway; eight years later, Warren Buffet folded Dexter and its affiliates into another business. Hence, the demise of my favorite shoe company and outlet store. (Buffet later admitted this was "the worst deal I've made.")

Coda: when I learned my consigned Dexters had not sold as of this morning, I opted to keep them and enjoy one final romp in Dexxies, for however long they may last. These boots were made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do…

So keep your mind and heart open to unexpected connections in unimagined places; when they find you, it engenders a cozy feeling of all-one — which of course we are.

Cast No Shadow

The only ones without shadows are usually witches, demons, or Star Trek movie characters. But on rare occasions, the absence of shadow can be a blessing:

Tomorrow's celebrated eclipse is happening conjunct the Pleiades on the day of the solar zenith at Chichen Itza, the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization in the Yucatán.

Solar zenith means the sun is directly overhead and thus casts no shadow. "Prayers that are offered on the day of no shadow are the most powerful," says shamanic astrologer Daniel Gimario. Listen to his informative, inspirational duet with Caroline Casey on the Visionary Activist show.

It's a stellar invitation to eliminate shadow from our lives. What do you wish to kiss goodbye forever? What do you want to invoke (literally, give voice to)? There's never been a more magical moment than right now. As above, so below.

It's time to paint a bold canvas with transmutational fire.

It's stretchy, it's fluid, and we've worn it unaware … until now

Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by the nature of time. The phrase, "time seems both elongated and compressed" rippled through my consciousness years ago, though I couldn't explain what it meant; only that time wasn't what it appeared to be: a unidirectional progression from birth to death, marching inexorably forward. Instead, I felt a taffy-like quality to it; a pliable, stretchy, deliquescence, like Dali's famous clocks. Certainly anyone who's ever melted in a lover's embrace or suffered a public humiliation is intimately acquainted with the one-minute hour and the 24-hour minute!

Gillian Macbeth Louthan's latest transmission carries confirmation that my intuitive perceptions were not only accurate: they'll now be experienced by everyone.

She writes (all emphasis is mine):

"As you are quickened into bonus time cycles, you are also able to access your pasts that stand within the frequency of the future. In the expansion of time, there is a contraction of time. In the moving forward there is a simultaneously moving backward. Forward stretches are always paralleled by backward movement. Getting to the destination of the future can only be entertained through the nuance of the past. All time runs hand in hand. Moving forward is the same as moving backward, and moving backward is the same as moving forward. 

"In the time of the eclipses, there will be a sequence of numerical encodings that are shifted within the common denominator of earth. The numbers held hostage within your chronological age will change. The numbers of your biological age will change. The number sequences that you know and hold within your DNA will shift and change. The number sequences that hold time together will change. The latitude and longitude of where you reside will shift. All will be tweaked. There is galactic movement and time will move backwards. Backward movement is needed in order to re-calibrate the near future. 

"It is similar to times in history when calendar days were deleted and added in accordance with the wishes of those in power. There will be corrections in time and space as deemed by the time lords. Your earth Time has been as a man riding on horseback running beside a train trying to catch up with a airplane. Eventually one horsepower is going to slow. The locomotive represents the galactic perceptive of time. The man on horseback represents the human understanding of time. The plane represents possibility. Nothing in your galaxy runs in a straight line. Everything is curved to gain momentum. Curvatures in time and space are necessary for planetary shift to happen. At the time of the May 20^th eclipse, you will gain momentum in a time alignment.

"The time periods of your earth are limited. The 24-hour day, 60 minutes, 60 seconds and 12-month years were created to confuse and limit you. This time nuance that you are to enter will help you understand that Time as you know it is pliable, malleable, stretchable, and contract-able. Each person will create Time in accordance with their personal wants and needs, sculpting it to fit the situation.

"The energy that your world is based on is holographic of nature, like water that fills a container it fits your personal expectations. Your imagination sculpts the outcome of your life. Allow these nuances of time to escort you into probabilities that go beyond the calculation of what is deemed Pi. The symbol of Pi opens a doorway. This solar eclipse activates dormant light encodings and then you yourself will become as Pi. You will become as a portal, an entranceway for energies of a higher dialogue.  

"Until you actually experience the energies, you will not be able to decipher the language of light. Know that you are the doorway for the light, for the future, and that you are a white hole and a black hole. Know that you are as every sacred place that has ever existed through all time and space. The light shall walk through you and you shall be as a beacon, an airport of light for the higher octaves of the celestial beings and the divine beings to enter into. You escort this higher light to earth by your desire, by the light that is in your heart, and by the light that is in your intent. 

"The 'portal' that you all seek is who you have always been. The key that unlocks the doorway to gaining entrance to the heavenly sphere is you. You are the key in human form. You are the doorway in human form. You are the light of the divine that you seek.  Now it is time to prepare your bodies, your minds, your homes, by releasing what is not of a higher vibration. Whatever is not of the highest Light will scream and kick and bite you until you recognize it and set it free. On this night as you sleep give permission to release all that is not of the highest good. For behold – the Light Comes. Are you ready?"

What the Upcoming Eclipse Can Teach Us About Torture

There's something more insidious than any malevolence we inflict on others: what we do to ourselves, using the one instrument of torture that's available to everyone, every day: our minds.

We become adept at berating ourselves for imperfections, whether physical, mental, or emotional: Why don't I weigh less/earn more/control my temper/have more friends/attract a lover/have a great job…? And that's just for starters.

However, we're living in a fulcrum moment for quantum change. This is the time that's been prophesied for millennia as the Turning of the Age, and so it is. The Mayans were correct, although not as those who interpret their calendars through a linear lens believe: the world is not ending; a world age is. We are moving into a time of consciousness, which is what their calendars measure: human evolution on a vast scale, which in one sense is time. But neither the world nor the calendar "end"; we simply continue, albeit at a higher level along life's spiral.

The upcoming solar eclipse on May 20^th, followed by the Venus transit June 5-6^th, offers us a slightly-more-than-two-week window of omnipresent opportunity. While being in the actual path of the eclipse will enhance its potency, there is no one on Earth who will not be affected — and profoundly changed, whether you're aware of it or not. Anyone who is incarnate now is de facto part of the shift, so no matter what your life "looks like", this is one area in which you can surrender the whip: if you're here, you're helping the planet and all her inhabitants to transform. Thanks for agreeing to play your essential part.

And there are multiple levels working. A few luminous takes on the eclipse include the current newsletter of Gillian Macbeth Louthan, whose Quantum Awakening site has been a beacon for 26 years and counting; this message from the Star Elders through Aluna Joy and this brilliant piece on the esoteric aspects of aligning with our Great Central Sun, Alcyone, in the Pleiades. I expand upon these topics in my own inspirational newsletter, What Shines. You can read the current issue on the Venus transit in Second Rock from the Sun, and a reprint of the eclipse issue on SpiritCrossing.org: Down to Earth.

A personal ah-ha: According to the 13-Moon Calendar (interwoven with the Mayan sacred calendar known as the Tzol'kin), which helps us attune with natural rhythms and return to biospheric alignment, the eclipse takes place on a 5Eb day. Eb, or Yellow Magnetic Human, happens to be my galactic signature/solar seal, which means it is my personal Mayan "sign". Each solar seal also has a "guide", and on 5Eb, the guiding energy is (drumroll): the Sun! (The Sun is one of the 20 Mayan solar seals; its Mayan name is Ahau). So, do I feel internally held and guided by the imminent eclipse on May 20^th?  You know it!

Finally, for all of us regardless of solar signature: each month in the 13-Moon Calendar consists of 28 days, or one moon cycle, and is thus referred to as a Moon, also carrying a specific energy. The life-altering May 20^th eclipse takes place during the Spectral Moon of Liberation, whose core question/action is: "How do I release and let go?" And the totem animal is the Serpent.

We're evolving Eden anew. This article delineates each of the 13 Moon inquiries: Embracing Paradox Can Help You Beat the Clock and this web page introduces you to each Mayan glyph in depth.

One more piece: The sacred Mayan cycle known as the Tzol'kin is 260 days long: the same cycle as Venus, and also the exact length of a human pregnancy! I expand upon these themes exponentially in my e-course for women on awakening to the Divine Feminine and celebrating life in a female body, Loving Our Lunacy.

So, dearhearts, let us release our attraction to suffering and free ourselves from self-inflicted torment to rise in love, eclipsing what no longer serves our growth, both individually and collectively, as we allow the planet of love to bathe us in her radiance and complete our journey into a greater awareness and allowance of union than we've ever known.

Blessed Be!

Beltane: Dancing the Sacred Fire of reUnion

May 1st is Beltane: a time for celebrating the beauty and sanctity of all life. Today is a moment for reclaiming your power, balance, and inner strength.

Beltane is one of eight Shabbats on the Wheel of the Year. The others include the Solstices and Equinoxes, Lammas (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st), and Imbolc (February 2nd). Beltane breathes renewal into our cells as we acknowledge the Nature Kingdom and the advent of summer. [For our Southern Hemisphere allies, the Wheel of the Year is reversed: they now celebrate Samhain.]

In the West, we have an unfortunate tendency to water down our sacred days to become mere children's celebrations: Samhain, ushering in the dark half of the year, becomes a specter of itself as Halloween; Imbolc, heralding the return of the light on February 2^nd, morphs to Groundhog Day; Beltane becomes a day to dance around the Maypole. Yet the deeper meanings reflect our lost connection with natural rhythms, with the seasonal shifts we actually embody.

As Samhain honors the power of death, so Beltane honors the cycles of life and rebirth. Beltane takes place in Taurus, the zodiac's most earthy, sensual sign, and focuses on exuberant sexuality: the pollinating of flowers, the lush cornucopia of fruit-bearing plants and trees, the reproductive cycle of the entire natural world, from birds and bees to humans. It's a celebration of fertility in all its forms — and thus we dance in homage to Aphrodite, the Goddess Herself.

Although traditionally observed on May 1st, astronomical Beltane arrives about the 5th, a nice sync-up with Cinco de Mayo, giving us an entire week in which to renew, dance the fire back into our beings, and open once again to a sacred reUnion of our masculine and feminine selves. Mythologist Kathleen Jenks provides a page rich in Beltane lore from around the globe.

Ignite your Light!

Scared to Sacred: Falling in Love with 13

In high school English I learned a 64-carat word for a common ailment: triskaidekaphobia, "fear of the number thirteen." The elevator in my grandparents' apartment building omitted the thirteenth floor. Apparently the assumption was, nobody would have wanted to live on it. It was a fashionable New York City address; fear and loathing cross all perceived boundaries. I also recall a series of horror movies with "Friday the 13th" in the title.

A society steeped in superstition and a materialistic value system will find it easy to assign anxiety to anything that threatens the status quo. Thirteen is the number of movement, of change — a wild card — and that can be very scary. But it's our lost connection with the Divine in everyday life that gives rise to such distress. Divorced from our origins, terrified of our own power, we profane the sacred: thirteen becomes unlucky, evil, a curse; symbolic scapegoat of all we're afraid to embrace.

When we can take the thirteenth step, however, we're on the first step of the Stairway to Heaven. With the courage to look, we find thirteen stitched into the very fabric of our culture. Thirteen colonies gave birth to a nation. The first American flag bore thirteen stars and stripes. We were on the right track back then, grounded into the roots of our heritage.

Think about it: thirteen has traditionally been cause for celebration. The thirteenth year signifies a coming-of-age, also across all perceived boundaries. In the Jewish religion, boys make their Bar Mitzvah at thirteen. This ceremony, which involves reading from the holy Torah, marks a boy's entrance into manhood.

Girls generally begin to menstruate at thirteen. Cross-culturally, it's common to commemorate the first blood with an initiation rite; here in the West, this significant threshold is at last beginning to be recognized as a powerful, sacred passage. (My e-course, Loving Our Lunacy, is an embodied initiation for all women.)

In fact, there are even thirteen sun signs in the Real Solar Zodiac — which is not the one used in conventional astrology. Ophiucus, the serpent bearer, has been omitted from the oversimplified Tropical Zodiac used in the West. Yet the serpent denotes transformation — and on the Winter Solstice of 2012, Earth will be directly aligned with both Ophiucus and the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Thirteen, then, is a fundamental Earth rhythm, manifested in our physical bodies as well as the heavenly ones. To reject thirteen is, perhaps, to reject or deny some core aspect of ourselves as human beings.

How can we reawaken to our true purpose and potential, beyond the fear and perception of separateness? By reclaiming our native knowing.


One way that resonates for me is following a 13 Moon Calendar. The 13 Moon Calendar shows us a path to walk to restore right relationship in our lives, to re-member (make membership again) our journey as one Earth family. Based on an annual solar cycle of 13 moons (months) of 28 days each (the female menstrual cycle), plus one "day out of time" in which to reflect and regenerate, the 13 Moon Calendar is synchronized with Earth rhythms and human biology. It's expansive, intuitive, juicy, flowing: life, in all its harmonious chaos.

The beauty of this apparent paradox lies in learning to honor the both/and: life is orderly and messy, pragmatic and unpredictable, spiritual and material. Living in tune with these innate contradictions, we breathe in our own magnificence, and feel nourished and held in the body of the Great Mother.

Our Gregorian calendar, by contrast, models scarcity, so we always subtly feel we're starving: if you get what you need, there might not be enough for me. Living a compressed, alienating, sterile existence, our spiritual lungs squeezed for air, we evince these invisible shackles in the way we treat each other and Gaia. Time-is-money, me-first, bigger-better-best, I want it yesterday, are the credos of mechanistic time. Pursued by the clock, separated from our humanity, we've forgotten that time is creativity, that women carry time in their bodies, and have come to accept the clock as king.

Another Earth-based analogy may also help: I've observed a fairly rampant homeowner disgust with the "lowly dandelion", scourge of suburbia's well-manicured lawns — when in fact, dandelion is one of the most healing herbs available to humanity, offering itself in abundance wherever we dwell. It's a supreme liver tonic, known to help detoxify the body's "processing plant." If you want to release that pent-up rage in a healthy way, the remedy is probably available, free and easy, right in your own backyard.

Dandelion is so plentiful that I find it also acts as de facto compost within me: surrounding and helping to decompose back into rich loam that which no longer serves. Yet we curse the weed and uproot it, spray poison to keep the green carpet unsullied. When we can stop "livin' for the lawn," focusing predominantly on the external, and make the subtle shift from ego mind to Universal Mind, we see with such great clarity the incredible gifts all around us.

In the 13 Moon Calendar, the number thirteen, like dandelion, grows everywhere; it's the key thread on which the harmony of the calendar is woven. And on a 13 Moon Calendar, there's always a Friday the 13th — in a 28-day month, every second Friday is Friday the thirteenth!

Astrologer Judith Goldberg offers an additional planet-positive note for this Friday the 13th: Mars, which has been retrograde since January 23rd, goes direct. Judy writes:

"Demonstrating an auspicious sense of timing, Mars entered the sign of Virgo, the healer, on 11/11/11. It began its bi-annual retrograde motion on January 23rd, 2012, the day of the Chinese New Year. Usually transiting in a sign for a few weeks, because of the lengthy retrograde, Mars residence in Virgo lasted 5 months until it turns direct on Friday, April 13th. Each of these movements of the red planet takes on an added significance because of these cultural, spiritual or energetic synchronicities. Now, as Mars turns direct, we are in a 5-day period between April 12th and 17th, that is a powerful energetic nexus, or core, which greatly enhances spiritual practices.

"This is the perfect time for daily meditation to open yourself to the highest possibilities that will take you into your best new direction. With Mars direct it is time to begin taking action again, to turn those possibilities into new realities. In fact, the remainder of the year between now and the Solstice is a fulcrum point, a time when we can gain the necessary leverage to do the heavy lifting that will facilitate new changes in our personal lives, in our collective reality and propel mankind and Planet Earth into the Age of Aquarius."

As our evolutionary readiness dissolves old superstition around the number thirteen — and all it represents — our collective mindfield makes a quantum leap from mindless fear to aware acceptance of thirteen as the sacred number of the spiral, the energy of kundalini awakening, the step to transformation and growth. Unified in time, living on purpose, a metamorphosis occurs as we attune to a higher frequency.

Metamorphosis means going above, beyond what existed before. The Sufi mystic Rumi said, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there's a field; I'll meet you there." In this quantum field, we midwife moth into butterfly. Scared into sacred. Each of us into our true purpose and potential.

What is this time of profound transmutation helping you bring to birth? Whatever it is, may it be in beauty, for the greatest good of all.

Oh, Baby!

Out for a walk on Easter, I met a young woman holding a very cute baby. The mother seemed tired, and the baby wasn't that cheerful, either, although I surmised she (the baby) had perhaps recently awakened from a nap. The mom told me she also had an 8- and 5-year-old, though this child was more difficult for her, because she was raising her alone. The little girl was only four months old, so I thought, either her partner didn't plan on a kid, or, as seems to happen often in these extraordinary times, the couple came together just long enough to combine their DNA, because this little Light was needed on Earth.

As her mother and I were conversing, and after I mentioned the baby's subdued demeanor, she looked at me in the way babies do: staring, never breaking eye contact.

And then she began to laugh.

Huge, rollicking, endless laughter emanated from this tiny bundle. I stood transfixed, feeling my mouth curving irresistibly into a smile and then into my own laughter ~ it is contagious, after all!

Her mother said, "She likes your soul," and I appraised the mom as clearly a conscious being, equipped to raise a Light such as the one she held, and I said as much.

I felt blessed, renewed, in some way redeemed, by this infant's unquenchable laughter. I was in the rapt presence of a baby Buddha, and received her sustenance as manna. What an amazing gift on a day of rising: Yeaster, a rite of passage. It is a benediction I share with you through our cyber connection. May you receive the pure holy joy of laughter in your life when you least (or yeast) expect it, and may it renew you in every cell.

As I walked away, I offered the baby's mother, "May you have an easy raising." I didn't even realize the full significance until this morning.

Spring Clean Your Life Teleclass!

Step up to your greatness in this momentous year. Take the deep dive that says, "I'm alive!"

Join us on Monday, April 9, 2012 @ noon PDT, 3 pm EDT (find your local time here) for a complimentary telegathering (telephone class), Slouching Towards Enlightenment: Hold the Vision Until the Vision Holds You!

Come swim masterfully with the current of our sea change in consciousness. All the details are on the LiveYourLight website, here.

Can't make it then? The class will be recorded. But, you need to register in order to receive the recording — and there will be special offers for those on the live call.

Looking forward to co-creating a transformative adventure with you!

Lights Out! And More Power to You

I encourage people daily to Live Your Light — and we're all letting our light shine more brilliantly than ever before. As we reclaim our inner radiance, it's ever more crucial to reduce our man-made light to co-create a sustainable future. This Saturday is your chance: the 6th annual Earth Hour.

What began as a one-time event organized by World Wildlife Fund/Australia in 2007 rapidly rolled out to countries around the globe. In 2011, Earth Hour saw hundreds of millions of people across 135 countries switch off the power for an hour. But it also marked the start of going beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action on climate change.

There's now an awesome Earth Hour dare: an "I will if you will" YouTube channel that showcases the creative and amusing extent committed planetary citizens will go to for environmental action.

So set your clocks for "lights out" at 8:30 pm local time on March 31st — and let it be your inspiration to shrink your carbon footprint for good.

Blessings!

How to Defy Gravity

With Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr has written an eloquent book about the journey to self-knowing that's decidedly non-religious; a refreshing loom of spiritual authenticity on which to weave your own awakening odyssey. He gives voice to that which doesn't translate easily into language, so powerfully and truly that from the Introduction alone, I was nodding with inward recognition. I wish I'd written it!

In the Coda, he quotes Thomas Merton with a poem written a decade after his fabled The Seven Storey Mountain, when Merton had moved into his own "second half." The piece encapsulates the essence of Rohr's offering with such spare significance that it will be a deep acknowledgment for those on the far side of the journey, who understand viscerally what it means to own "poverty" as success ~ and an inspired meditation/guide for those yet to travel and unravel:

When in the Soul of the Serene Disciple

When in the soul of the serene disciple
With no more Fathers to imitate
Poverty is a success,
It is a small thing to say the roof is gone:
He has not even a house.

Stars, as well as friends,
Are angry with the noble ruin.
Saints depart in several directions.

Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares.
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.

Here you will find
Neither a proverb nor a memorandum.
There are no ways,
No methods to admire
Where poverty is no achievement.
His God lives in his emptiness like an affliction.

What choice remains?
Well, to be ordinary is not a choice:
It is the usual freedom
Of men without visions.

How to Have a Happy Orange Life

I once heard a story of three monks who had only one orange between them. The first blessed it and passed it to his brother, who blessed it and passed it to his brother. The trio kept on like this for hours, until the orange was brilliant with light, and the three of them were sated well beyond any hunger of the stomach.

I recalled this parable yesterday after a series of mini transformations. In this incredible time of awakening, the smallest act can lift us up or plummet us — and this energy affects everyone.

I was at a gas station, and the squeegee didn't seem to be working very well; I had drips running down the windshield. Mumbling about worn-out tools that needed to be replaced, I got back in my car and was preparing to depart, when I noticed a man re-doing my windshield ministrations.

Astonished, I asked, "What are you doing? Do you work here?" I realized he was the driver of the truck at the pump in front of me. He replied, "You seemed a little upset, so I redid it for you. My dad taught me how to clean a windshield without streaks." I said, "You’re amazing, thank you so much!" My mood did a 180 and lifted towards heaven with this simple, selfless act. As I drove away, we both wished each other a wonderful afternoon.

It wasn't until later that I remembered I'd spied a disabled woman at the library just prior to getting gas, whose shirt label was sticking out, and asked if she'd like me to fix it. She responded as though I'd offered to buy her a house: "Oh, thank you so much, sweetheart!"

Tiny actions; huge returns.

Then I drove to the park, taking my travel soap along to wash my hands after pumping gas. Once on foot, I walked past the home of an elderly gentleman who often sits in his driveway on nice days, enjoying the view from his wheelchair. He hailed me, and I stopped to chat. Seeing the front door open, I asked if I might use the kitchen sink to wash my hands. He said, of course.

Inside, his caretaker emerged from the back of the house and said, "Do you just walk into people's houses and use their facilities?" My experience of her has been like this before; she is clearly a very unhappy person. I was feeling so good from the previous encounters I didn't want her sourness to steal my joy, so I politely responded that Harold had given permission for me to come inside, then quickly dried my hands and left.

Walking in the park, I stopped to stretch, and another walker smiled and remarked, "You have beautiful hair!" This comment prompted me to share the extraordinary series of encounters that had just taken place, and the incredible power we all have to shift energy. If we're having a down day (or a down life), we don't need to siphon off anyone else's light, I reminded him (and me!); we can simply "dial direct." There's plenty of Light to spare.

Wishing you a happy orange life…

Spring Equinox: Stoking the Fires of Transformation

Did you know that on Equinox, you can balance a raw egg on end, because everything (day and night, and thus, the world) is in balance? This is the lore, anyway; I've not yet tried it.

Spring Equinox 2012 (Autumn Equinox for our Southern Hemisphere allies) is an Equinox like no other: a time when the world is breaking open to a new age, when what breakthrough biologist Bruce Lipton calls "imaginal cells" (each of us as cells in the body of Gaia) reimagine ourselves/our cells into greater harmony, joy, and the regenerative power of possibility, beyond patriarchy and domination to limitless co-creative play, purpose and passion.

It is the time of the Ram, as transformation fans our inner flames into a bonfire of celebration. As you e/merge from your personal egg into the Light of the new, what will you bring to the Cosmic Egg as we dream a new world into BE-ing?

Should You "Beware The Ides of March"?

Five centuries after Shakespeare's astrologer counseled Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March!" we still shudder at the thought that March 15th might harbor some hidden hazard.

But it's just another day, albeit one that was part of a convoluted calendar. In ancient Rome, each month had an "ides." In March, May, July and October, the ides fell on the 15th. In the other eight months, however, the ides fell on the 13th.

Maybe Julius meant to follow the advice, but got his months mixed up. Or maybe he just didn't place much store in prophecy.

In recent history, the rock group, The Ides of March had a hit with the upbeat tune, Vehicle. The lead singer went on to superstardom as the founder of Survivor. Yet the Ides continued to play and record. The group's now been together, with all the original band members, for 45 years.

Mythologically speaking, the ides of March can transport you where you most need to go. If you pay attention and pay your dues, you won't pay the Piper — and you may just hit pay dirt.

How to Save Time Forever

This month, approximately 75 countries worldwide will create an annual illusion: saving time. We move the hands of our clocks ahead, and think we've harnessed the sun. In the U.S., our participation begins at 2 am on Sunday, March 12th.

How time flies when we perceive it as linear. By contrast, cultures that live in tune with natural rhythms do not alter their clocks, because clocks do not define their time. The seasons and the stars do. I once heard thought leader Deepak Chopra share how he explained existence to his three-year-old granddaughter as they walked along the beach at sunset. Essentially, he told her she is made of starlight, and that the spirit of the stars is reflected in her eyes. Tara was silent while she digested this information. Then she said, "Nanna, look up!" When Chopra asked why, she replied, "The stars want to see themselves!"

Time is elastic. Athletes know this. When athletes move into the space known as "the zone," time slows down. They see every move or play with perfect clarity, and execute the correct maneuvers as if in a dream, sensing the favorable outcome. Something expands within them that translates into success.

How many people do you know who never seem to have "enough" time? We are each gifted with the same twenty-four hour cycle to use as we choose. People who are time-deprived are exhibiting one aspect of our pervasive scarcity consciousness.

Psychologist Maria Nemeth writes, in The Energy of Money, "Scarcity is a reality in the physical domain. As a minister friend of mine once told me, 'It's as though we got bored living without limits. We decided to incarnate — which means, literally, to turn into meat. We further chose to work with the limits of form, time and finite energy. This was to see how much of the divine we could bring into the mundane before it was time for us to leave.'"

As paradoxical as it may seem, says Nemeth, "We reach the infinite through living fully in the finite. The infinite is not reached by trying to ignore limits, as many of us try to do."

And in Eastern Body, Western Mind, chakra expert Anodea Judith observes, "Manifestation requires an acceptance of limitation. A boundary allows us to contain, and thus collect and build."

So holding the "both/and" is a prerequisite to freedom, whether from the constraints of the clock or the tyranny of the paycheck: "We must accept limitation in order to transcend it." This is what zone athletes do.

My articles, Embracing Paradox Can Help You Beat the Clock and 'Om' Is Where the Heart Is suggest ways to shift your beliefs about time and creativity.

I also include extensive information about using natural time to reclaim our feminine power, passion and purpose in my e-course, Loving Our Lunacy.

As we set our clocks ahead, on Saturday night or sometime soon, let's look out at the stars and remember what we're made of. Recognize the expansive possibilities that exist within the limits of form.

There is enough. It's all a question of consciousness. Choose to embrace the both/and, and you'll grow with the flow!