and there’s a storm brewing named Saturn. It can’t get any more metaphorical, can it? Today, at 2:15pm est, (about to become edt) the moon conjoins pluto. It’ll be an intense moment for some, so intense that it has the potential to transform you. Indelibly.
more later. may all beings be safe.
om shanti, shanti, shantihi
Snow on the ground this morning…a stunning reminder that things have changed.
Blessings to everyone…
Practice kindness.
The power came on last night at my yoga studio. Classes resume on Sunday. Come. The door is round and open.
Oh my. I have been struck, hard. My home state. My home town. My zipcode. My topography. All changed.
It’s one thing, to choose to change one’s life, intentionally, deliberately, and purposefully. It’s quite a different thing to be the recipient of another’s choosing. ie Mother Nature or God, or that mysterious Higher Source.
Anyway, I feel a resurgence coming on for attending to my blogs, which if you follow or like or pin me up somewhere you know that I have not been writing much. That just means that there are stories to tell, and lessons to teach.
Today, I am living on the new edge of my old Jersey Shore town. I am blessed to have what I have. The devastation here is wide spread. It’s the entire state at the same time. Locally, I have seen some of this before. The boardwalks in particular. They’re always getting torn up. The trees are dangerous for sure, and some houses were sliced in half. but, amazingly , more misses than hits and that was miraculous. The power outages are the worst, and gas lines are to be expected. The flooding, here, for me was a non-event and for that I am grateful.
The days ahead are sure to be interesting. Maybe I’ll post again tomorrow. I need to be quiet now.
Live! From the dead! Asbury Park lives on!
Here’re a few early morning photo’s taken from my favorite beach spot before they closed it down to the ‘locals’……. wow, it’s a transformational moment for sure. (click on the photo’s for a larger vies) I’ll try to add some more as the weekend unfolds. It’s interesting that it’s all happening under a retrograde Venus and a Solar Eclipse.
Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you ?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?
-thomas merton
Feng Shui requires us to pay attention to: sights, sounds, & smells, too.
It’s MLK Day.
A day of peace?
more war?
inequality?
balance?
When hopes, and dreams, and cures, & kingdoms fail, what then?
For some odd reason of neural wiring, I always seem to link MLK to Gandhi.
Maybe it is because they both have darker skin then me?
How to know anything, for sure, anymore?
We live in a world that debates the definition of the word “is”. And, perhaps, it is a worthwhile discussion to have?
Discussions and conversations give us opportunities to practice ahimsa, and amen to that.
I met Gandhi’s grandson about 10 years ago. He gave a talk on ahimsa and told a story that really helped me to understand the concept, rather than the definition.
Non-Violence in all things is a way of life, that begins again with every breath you take. Start now. Start again.
My teachers taught me how to look at myself, first. Practice.
Ugh.
The Bagua is an ancient map that helps us to understand the world around us. It’s part of the Feng Shui tool box. Light a candle in your spiritual corner today, chant an om or a tone, and meditate on peace.
I’m leading yoga tonite……6pm. Feng Shui Trainings coming this Spring.
Namaste.
So, I’m still living on the Pluto line, but my days are numbered now: Twenty-nine, twenty-four hour periods for CA , give or take daylight savings time and the fact that due north is no longer due north, more on that later. I’m continuing to have multiple outer planet transits to my most significant personal planets and Saturn keeps crawling around in my fourth house stirring up all kinds of ghosts and hopefully, angels. It’s about as hard as it gets,astrologically, yet I’m grateful that my trials and tribulations are mine. It’s the path my soul needs to walk in a human body. It’s not personal. It’s Pluto. It’s time for transformation, again. Scholars, seekers, and scientists have described the pain and suffering of the process across the ages. Yogi’s, healers, and therapists try to minimize the negative effects of the pain and suffering. One way out is death….. and re-birth if you proscribe to Pluto as ruler of Scorpio.
Transformation is often accompanied by some kind of aha, awakening, or sudden unexpected life change. Our old ways don’t work anymore. To continue in the same mode is ridiculous. However, for some, leaving behind and letting go is difficult, arduous, and overwhelming. It helps to have support or to join with others that are of like mind or the common community.
Plato’s allegory of The Cave is a nice metaphor for Pluto. When the cave dwellers realized that their reality included more than shadows on a wall, that there were people outside the cave living in a different world entirely, a ‘transformational’ process began. The old reality is no longer suitable. The new reality is nothing we have ever encountered before. Most likely, old behaviors will not produce the same results either.
to be continued. Today is the start of the balsamic moon phase. Be at peace.
To me, feng shui is a perspective that we cultivate. It’s a way to see life that is impersonal, intuitive, and timely. For instance, My attention was just captured by a young man cleaning up his dog’s solid waste deposited on the concrete alley behind my apartment’s garage. That would be the “root’s” area of the bagua.
It’s an interesting mental exercise to see these seemingly random changes to our environment as symbolic of 
something larger. It’s easy to go into la la land too. But by following the ancient rules and laws of metaphysics, there is a certain truth that becomes revealed from this line of inquiry.
We look outside of ourselves for validation, for information, for pure entertainment. Feng Shui challenges us to look at these same externals and at the same time reference something inside and personal. As they say, outside noisy, inside empty.
Feng Shui, to me, is environmental yoga, a way to bring ourselves into greater harmony and balance with what is.
Notice, today, what changes occur in your yard and home.
Today, for me,( because we’re all on different ‘clocks’, right?), started with the moon……, I can feel the conjunction with Pluto/Nodes coming. My dreams are more vibrant, I am inspired to write again. ..and maybe play the harp, too. My emotional body (manomayakosha) has demanded my attention, yet, again.
It can be exhausting sometimes…..living in the moon.
Pluto is crawling back and forth through the early degrees of Capricorn and anyone with anything there or in the early degrees of Cancer (and, Libra, and Aries) is feeling this magnetic force that is everpresent these days. The airwaves are full of stories about EMF’s and the dangers of just about everything that is needed to survive something or other. There’s nothing new under the sun. These are generational times a’changing which means taking the ‘global’ view of everything. Capische?
This muddle of planets and nodal action is moving thru my personal 6th house these days and it’s true…..Changing my daily routine is really hard to do. How I manage the gazillion things that must be done on any given day reflects my unconscious behavior patterns or lunar behavior. (my moon is in the 12th houses.
Yet change I must. Or not. The 28 day rule still works well for breaking old habits and replacing them with new, improved, habits. Your local astrologer can explain to you how to live life with the lunar cycle. ( If not, find me……it’s been quite a specialty!)
In the end (and when is that coming, you say?) it’s still our choice vs. no choice in how we want to live our daily lives. We live in a world that perceives it’s environment from a dual-perspective. Most of us. Until that changes, and it is indeed happening in my world, not much can ever get accomplished. It’s time for the human race to evolve….regardless of where we began (a sperm cell or a spark from god’s eye), and that’s another keyword for Pluto….evolve/evolution.
One habit that remains in my daily routine is checking the daily horoscope column. There are so many out there that really try to write a good ‘daily’ but no one does it better than my peer, Michael Lutin from NYC. Thanks Mikey for this timely reminder!!
It’s time for pranayama & meditation now. These are the best parts of my daily routine. Om shanti.
That was one of the catch phrases that was popular in the 70’s and 80’s.
It’s really interesting to me to watch how our slogans, cliche’s, and other ‘unconscious’ utterances say so much about who we are (and who we aren’t) as a society and a culture.
Hmmm.
Who among us will be the authors of our history?
Pluto is moving in towards the Lunar Nodes.
May we live in peace.
