Current Energies, Transformation, and Bears, Oh My!

July dawn beam. Just like food is the original medicine, self-care is energetic nourishment.

The eclipse season starts tomorrow with the new moon total solar eclipse (visible in South America) and Mercury goes retrograde on Sunday. It’s not just getting hot outside, the inner realms are getting hot, too! I’ve been experiencing lots of shifts on all layers and feel like June couldn’t possibly have been so full when it flew by so fast. There’s much about completion right now from deaths to jobs to personal patterns to karmic patterns. I’m seeing it in others, hearing it from others, and experiencing doozy level completions myself. If you’re interested in seeing what resonates for you in the current astrology, check here to see the astrologers I follow.

Last week I had a brief but clear dream full of nonhuman animals, with the closest and most prominent being a large bear sitting in front of me staring at me. I felt no fear, just a very matter of fact sense of being in the presence of a bear. The following morning Lilly and I met a friend for an early morning hike where we saw a huge bear walking down the trail towards us. We stopped, bear stopped. And eventually the bear turned around and walked back down the trail with one pause and glance over the shoulder at us before disappearing around the curve. We waited a bit before proceeding along the trail. The bear had left the trail at some point and we neither saw nor heard any more from a bear on our hike. For this to occur in the space of deep transformation I am currently experiencing feels potent. It is summer and I normally see lots of wildlife, but the past month has been rich with wildlife. Typically I don’t feel that the nonhuman creatures I see or hear are messengers, it’s more that they remind me of the webs within which we exist, and the similarities and differences among all of us as parts of the whole. Especially in a time of transformation, the support that I feel from so many reminders helping me remember and know I am part of the whole is priceless and affirming.

How are you currently navigating and/or experiencing life?

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Are You Grounded? What Does That Even Mean?

Yellow Mountain June sunrise.

While being grounded is something I’ve always been able to do, or really be, with a fair amount of ease, I am always (still) exploring it and ways of describing it. Grounded can have different meanings. Typically when people talk about being grounded, they mean specifically grounded in the earth. But for someone who does not have earth as one of her major elements, being grounded in earth can actually be a big interruption of flow. We are here in this human experience physically connected to this planet and we need to maintain that physical connection to the earth herself. But we don’t have to be weighed down by it.

I find that a different perspective or way of describing being grounded is: the flow in connection here in this body. If you’ve worked with me, you’ve, more than likely, experienced gold and brown light flowing through you, the connecting energies between your higher self and the earth. This is your manifestation in the physical plane. And this is an important connection to maintain. For many folks who don’t have earth as a major element, shifting the definition of grounded to a connection between higher self and the planet can make a huge difference. It is suddenly not an interruption of your being or a burden, but a connecting flow allowing you to be you.

Another aspect of being grounded which is less about the earth element and more about your major elements, has to do with being fully of the essence of the elements that are your major elements. This allows you to have a very different support within your energy structure. I used to specifically offer a short guided meditation for discovering your major elements where part of the discovery was receiving a shortcut to shift you into the space of sensing that support in your energy structure. This specific meditation hasn’t been called upon recently, but it’s suddenly come back into the light.

While being grounded has been a theme recently with clients, it’s also timely with the bigger energies. This week we’ve got the full moon (full earlier this morning at 4:30am) and the solstice on Friday at 11:54am. When the bigger energies, or people without healthy boundaries are pulling you off kilter, find your way into your elemental structure and you’re able to more safely and comfortably navigate the world.

Be sure to get outside to lie, sit, walk, dance this week. I have been feeling a pull to lead a solstice walk Friday evening, but so far have only receive a vague bit instead of details. If this interests you, please let me know and we’ll line it up.

~Namaste

Timing, Rhythms, and Paths

Blue grosbeak

When you pay attention to timing, rhythms, and paths, you find where you intersect with others. On our morning walks this is literal. While the time of our walk shifts with the light throughout the year, it’s a pretty gradual shifting most of the time. Who do we intersect with? Four deer cross our path at the same spot for much of the year. Grasshopper sparrows and meadowlarks are in the same areas of field and fence as we pass by from spring through fall. The adult foxes have slightly more variable rhythms but we often see one or know one has just crossed our path. This year the blue grosbeaks are nesting close to our path and this morning we got to see the male in a display with head feathers spiked, tail feathers dragging the ground, and wings moving slowly out and in as the female watched from the fence. He was just ahead of us and didn’t seem perturbed by us. We stopped to watch (just as we stop for the deer to cross) and he eventually flew up to where the nest seems to be. For me, awareness of where I intersect with others who are wild(er than I) really helps me know I am part of the whole. I can feel my part in the symphony of life. Who are you intersecting with and where?