Manifestation Mondays: Music and Mediation

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The theme from one of my favorite movies.

Turn it up.
Listen.
Notice your thoughts. Just notice them.
Relax for five whole minutes.

Fun (and Freaky) Fridays: New Moon in Aries; Aries Energy is Fuel For Change

Major planets move into Aries this weekend, as the New Moon in Aries gears up for April 3. What's a New Moon? As I wrote in a previous post "

“ New Moons dedicate themselves to getting rid of the old and ushering in fresh starts. The sign tells us what area of life we’re being encouraged to restart.  What’s even more powerful here is that – as usual, the sign the New Moon is in, is also the sign that the Sun is in.”

Get ready for the  Sun Aries/Moon Aries on April 3!  Do you feel all that creative and independent "Let's Do It Now" energy? (However, remember that the New Moon is happening in a Retro....so Retro rules apply - you may want to hold tight on the BIG ideas, or at least know that it will become easier to put them in place after the Mercury Retro ends on 4/23). Still, this New Moon pushes us to manifest what

About.com astrologer Molly Hall calls "our own personal radiance."

This New Moon is a great time to manifest your own independence and sheer LIFE FORCE.

You may want to use this time to manifest in the following areas.

  • leadership roles

  • concepts and images about bravery and independence

  • what it means to do your own individual dance in your life

  • what it means to Live In the Moment

  • New identity or self-concept

Aries Key Words:

  • heart

  • bravery

  • self reliance

  • inner motivation

  • self-love or self-trust

  • uncovering your own self - who YOU are, as opposed to who others want you to be

What really gets me excited here is that we have several major planets in Aries right now.

Mercury (Retro) in Aries

,

Sun in Aries

,

Uranus in Aries and this New Moon (A reminder: New Moons only last for 2.5 days but New Moons open the monthly doorway to that planet's energy and potential). While the Retrograde may make us feel slightly held back, and the Saturn in Libra is still opposing these changes. Overall, despite the opposition, we're being ushered into a tremendous new era of change and chance. It's as if we are being given a karmic birthright - and a direct order, even if we don't like it - to rebuild our lives into what we really want. Fittingly, all of this Aries energy is going to push us through the door and both help us and *urge* us to create the kind of life we want.

In Tarot, the first card in the Major Arcana is the Fool, the spiritual everyman who walks through the Wonderland of images known as life. The Fool is creative, direct and innocent. In astrology, the Fool and the Aries sign are similar - they both begin either the Major Arcana or the Zodiac wheel. He, like us, is uniquely posed to reap the benefits of his inner movement and outward manifestation of what he finds.

While these astrological times may seem challenging, they are ultimately liberating. Now, we are directly being assisted to blaze ahead and create from our souls and ourselves the kind of life and truth in which we long to live.

However a reminder. With Aries energy, there's a danger of burnout, of doing too much, of losing our tempers. We can direct the fire of creativity or we can turn it on others. The choice is, as always, up to us.

I, for one, am very excited to see what the next year holds on both a personal and global level.

See you next week for Manifestation Mondays.

take care,

M

Manifestation Mondays (and a Blazing Blog!)

Esther Hicks on - "how patience is not necessary." It's about NOW. Oprah hosted books (hello The Power of Now!). But really? Really? How can that be so? Because patience is a virtue. We're taught that. We must be patient. Wow, I can just hear my inner five year old going "But WHERE IS IT?" Well, Hicks says your energy brings it. Call it out and it comes. Is it that simple? Yep. It just takes a ton of practice (and hint: we make it very hard on ourselves).





And, "it's that time again!" My good friend, tarot card reader and certified professional hypnotist Bob Decker and I host Bob Decker's Blazing Blog every Friday. In this one, I go into great detail about the recent Supermoon in Virgo - and other big astrological changes.




Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come to Happy Ganesh and be a part of it. I appreciate so much your words, your thoughts and your presence.

I did a wonderful event at Gilda's Club today and - again - I am blown away that I get to do what I love. Gilda's Club is personally meaningful to me and I love being able to go back with Happy Ganesh and meet such wonderful brave, fantastic people.

Have an honest and eager week, friends, as we move into Sun in Aries. (More on that next time!)

The Debby Connection (and Writing Prompts)

[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignleft" width="231" caption="Pencil Sketch of mom Debby, done by my father in 1976"][/caption]

 

My mother's name was Deborah. When she died of cancer in 2007, she left me some of her precious books, among them Gibran's The Prophet and a well worn copy of Creative Visualization.

Over the years, my dead mother has shown herself to me in odd ways. Every time I do a professional event for the spiritual and intuitive side of Happy Ganesh , always and without fail the first person that I meet is named Debby, usually Deborah.

Always.

(At the last event I did, I found myself talking to two young women who were both "daughters of Debby." Predictably, their mothers spelled their names Deborah. I was not surprised.)

The day I moved into my office space, her favorite song was playing on the radio.

When I questioned a rocky relationship, I opened a book to a handwritten note of mom's, scrawled on an aging yellow sticky note, which read: "It matters how we treat the people we love every day, not just on holidays."

Recently, I wasn't sure how to proceed with certain career goals. I'd been looking for - and found - mom's copy of Creative Visualization, a book published in 1978, years before The Secret and Esther Hicks's work came to fame. Since I teach visualization and manifestation, I'd been looking for that particular book, never dreaming that it survived the book purges to Goodwill. But it had. I was fearful about my career, feeling worried, wondering how I would keep my head above water. And it was in that place of fearfulness that I opened the book, looking again for answers from my mother. Another one of her sticky notes, tumbled to the floor, all the glue long since gone. When I picked it up, it read - in her backhanded, rounded print, "To thine own self be true." Amazingly, she'd drawn a small heart after the words.

When I have questions for her, things that only a mother could answer, she seems to collect herself across the gap between life and death to just show up. It's pretty amazing.

Sleepless a few nights ago, I pulled another book of hers off my shelf. God, Sex, and Women of the Bible by Shoni Labowitz, a feminist rabbi. (My mom was pretty cool, I have to say. I feel lucky to have had a mother who read stuff like this - and who shared it with me!) Sometimes I ask books what I need to know, as if their wisdom will help me find answers. I asked this particular book. I opened at random - of course - to the Deborah chapter.

Color me unsurprised.

I've been wondering about, among other things, career improvement. Crossroads. What do I do? That's what I asked. The book "answered" "Once you have discerned what you want and it feels right in your soul, then ask: What do I need to do to get what I want? Then go for it! Passion moves a woman like nothing else can."

That's her way of reaching me. She knows that books are one of my favorite escapes and it makes me happy to know that she will show up in that favorite place of mine, to give me faith.

Writing Prompts

What gives you unexpected faith?

What phenomenon answers your prayers/wishes/dreams?

Have you had experiences where you believed (or in some cases, flat out knew) that your deceased loved one had come back to help or support you?

 

(Crossposted from happyganeshwriting.blogspot.com)

Fun Fridays: YAWP and Perseverance

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Each Book is a Ray of Light. Someone created it."][/caption]I got a rejection letter today - that's two this week. It happens and I've learned that the stack of published stuff outweighs the pile of unpublished. And I love what I do. And I keep going.

Why?

I keep going because I live for the sounds of words, rippling through the air like music. I love words. I love how each word is a poem is like a musical note, and the entire thing forms a symphony. I do this because books, words, novels, and stories are our history. They are proof of our humanity, our shared passions and secrets, our hopes and our ordinary days. When you write a story, even if you are the only person to see it, or if you have a readership of millions, that's your heart, your love, your baby, your truth out there in the world. And your voice, my voice, our voices, our collective voices - they matter.

I began to look for inspiration. Here is what I found.

1) Finding your creative nerve is important. In this fantastic scene from Dead Poets' Society (1989) Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) inspires shy Todd (Ethan Hawke) to find his "barbaric yawp." That's the first step to creating. You have a YAWP, yes you do. Let it out!



"I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world." - Walt Whitman

2)Don't give up. Show your moxie! Rock and roll legend Joan Jett (after she quit the Runaways) was rejected by 23 (that's 23!) record labels before getting picked up. As a reminder, Jett would be the woman who did this.



3) Believe in Magic: Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling worked as a temp for eight years and wrote in between making copies and getting coffee for her boss. She was considering taking a job teaching French when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published. She is now one of the richest women in England, if not the world.



4) Don't Give Up (It's Worth Repeating):Horror megastar Stephen King worked as a English teacher, getting paid a whopping $19,000 a year and  living in a trailer with his wife Tabitha and their first child before his first novel Carrie (1976) was published. Now? He's Stephen King. You've heard of him, right?



5) Follow the Beat of Your Own Drummer: Katherine Hepburn is now seen as an icon of style, strength and women's rights. Yet in the late 30s, she was labeled "box office poison." Then she did The Philadelphia Story and, hello fame. (First she performed on Broadway and bought the rights. Smart!)



6) Be Yourself. There Is Room In The World: Leonardo DiCaprio was told by an agent that his name was too "ethnic" and he would never be famous unless he changed it to something like "Lenny Williams." DiCaprio is now one of the largest names in Hollywood and I assume that agent is slinging hash in a diner somewhere.

Here's Lenny Williams - I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio - in Inception.



Tips and Writing Prompts

1) Keep going.

2) If you love what you do, you're already a success. - my dad (and someone else before him, I'm sure.) What do you love?

3) Keep going some more. Where do you stall? Where do you start?

4) Read about people who did what you are trying to do. You will no doubt find out the several ways that this person was rejected or told by others that he or she couldn't do it/didn't have the chops/wasn't enough. This is only true if YOU accept it.

5) If you're a writer, walk into a bookstore and see every single book in there as one success story. If you're an artist, every painting that you look at for the next week is one ray of light. Don't think about the competition, the economy, or all the "reasons" you have to stop right here and now.

6) Yawp. Loudly. When was the last time you did this?

In the 1977 film Julia, about the life of playwright Lillian Hellman (played by Jane Fonda), her lover, writer Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards) says to her as she battles writer's block, "It's a great time to stop. No one will ever know that you existed." Ouch. Thanks, Dashiell. (Hammett may have been the hard-drinking granddaddy of hard boiled mysteries such as The Maltese Falcon, but I imagine he was not known for his breathtaking sensitivity.)

Still, what he meant was that no one will come to your door and politely ask you if you are ready to embrace your YAWP, if you are ready to live your honest life, or if you are ready to follow your dreams. YOU have to YAWP. I promise. You must do it. You must find that place inside you that believes with all of your heart that you have something worth saying - and that it is worth it for others to hear. And even if they don't want to hear, you commit to saying it. It is your truth and your choice, always.

It's your move and the world is waiting. More importantly, you are waiting. You are. You are waiting to step into your truth and your creative expression.

7) When was the last time you allowed yourself creative expression? Cooking? Singing? Painting? Acting? Writing? How did it feel? How did your body feel?

Go for it.

I wish us all the loudest and fiercest of YAWPS this weekend.

Love.