Winter Solstice Reflection: A Year in Review?
Q: Winter Solstice Reflection: A Year in Review?
A: This journal entry was written for and published on Joan of Sparc … enjoy!
We cannot change the world until we accept we are the world. This is the new conversation.
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The definition of a rumble is a continuous deep and resonant sound. And a living semblance of an auditory configuration emerging from the depths of my psyche means either one of two things to me. 1. A dragon has awakened (which interestingly enough we have now entered the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese New Year. or 2. Change. At this moment, I am deeply present to the latter and am asking myself - “again”?!
Deep ancient ravines of contextual matter are surfacing for me this week. And Chiron has a lot to do with it. If you don’t know what Chiron refers to, it is an indelible asteroid named after the mythological centaur teacher of Achilles and Asclepius. His life is a profound story of making gold from the gutter and of not only having survived cosmic traumas but thriving in becoming a wisdom keeper and a true guiding light for many heroes throughout Greek Mythology. Wherever this asteroid lives in your chart, it is teaching you about your core wounding and how you can transmute it for both your own healing and eventually become the wounded healer for others in your life. Any healer you’ve ever been to is only a healer because they’ve healed themselves of something…
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Is today your birthday? The odds point to no, yet if it is, the happiest of solar returns to you! PS Many of you who see me for Astrotherapy have asked me what a Solar Return reading is. It is a reading that reveals the themes for the year ahead by casting a chart that is indicative of the sun being at the same degree as on your birth chart which could happen the day of, before, or after your actual birthday. I don’t often share this but you can indeed shift your solar return chart depending on where you spend your birthday toward a more favorable reading. And trust me, I do take this into account when deciding where to celebrate mine every year…
The first new moon of the year, a powerful gravitational pull into the Capricorn sphere of vigilant and strategic footing. This is your life. Take a moment and look around. What do you see? Who is there? What is the tone? What is your mood? And is it changing?
Taste, texture, sound, smell, motion, and vision…through what other ways do you perceive the world? How about through silence? Or perhaps stillness? Sometimes they come together and at others, silence and stillness may live on opposite spectrums of an experience. Sound is a world, and motion, another…And what about color, do you gravitate toward a palette that infuses your day-to-day? Your home, clothing, chosen environments and even your preference for nature are all pigments of your imagination when you become attuned to the possibilities…
Can you imagine a water cocoon? I recently had a dream that I was inside of one. Maybe if I were a whale I would just call it home? Anyhow, a dear friend of my heart reminded me when I shared this with him that this wasn’t the first time I had been in one of these. Rebirth is near, which means this year has been so much about death, release, and honestly, endurance…
This time of year offers a powerful reflection if you’re daring enough to witness yourself on the cusp, the in-between. In these moments, the veil is thinner and we are less apt to choose self-deception if our heart is aligned with the truth. That doesn’t mean it is easy, it means that this time has the potential to be very raw and blazingly authentic. The Winter Solstice is known as a crescendo of darkness in the Northern Hemisphere and yet it is also the opening to the expansive light ahead…
(Raises hand up in the air.) I wonder how many of you out there feel the same way? While this time of year is traditionally so festive and an extrovert's dream, I often find myself pulled into a deep state of inner process. A journey that calls me inward as if following the whisper of the Solstice lullaby bringing me home to myself…
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I love this question because what else is there but now? I mean, despite that most people either live in the past - lamenting, dwelling, yearning to change, or traumatized by what has come before, or live in the future - hopeful, daydreaming of, or worried about a time that has yet to come - now is all we ever have...
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Life is beautiful. It is such a gift, perhaps it’s the biggest gift of all…to be alive. And yes, it comes with a full spectrum of human experience that is both shattering and exhilarating, expansive and terrifying, possible and trying - all at the same time. How is it that I get to wake up every morning to this glorious mystery and experience something completely new and different if I so choose (to become aware of the new and different)? Am I in fact free to change my mind and life at any moment? Am I not free if I forget this?..
Memory is such a deep well of exploration. Each of us carries it very near within, not to mention throughout the fabric of our psyche in every ravine, crevasse, and mountain pass that we may stumble upon while traveling through the inner landscape of our beingness. Astrologically our memory is associated with the 4th house and where Cancer represents in your personal chart. And let’s be clear, memory isn’t just about recalling where you put your car keys or only used for ‘memorizing’ words for a middle school play. Memory is an ancient doorway to the past which is where most of you lives…