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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

New Year's Energy and New Beginnings

This year I'm REALLY feeling the energetic shift of the new year. I usually don't feel that shift very strongly, but this year is definitely the exception. I'm not usually big on New Year's resolutions and a lot of the superstition and such surrounding the new year. This year feels different though. This year I've really felt an energetic shift. The end of 2015 felt quite low. I was really feeling the cold, dormant, quiet, dare I say "dead" time of the year around the Winter Solstice. That is natural and normal for the time of year. I just usually don't feel it so significantly. Since after the Winter Solstice and especially with the new year I've felt a significant shift towards new cycles, waking up, a noticeable and improved energetic shift. I have made a conscious choice to start some things "fresh" and new for the new year. I've made new batches of altar offerings and will be doing a good physical and energetic cleaning of my altar and my crystals and stones. I've started new physical journal notebooks for this year even though there was some room left in last year's notebooks. I even opened up a new set of pens (Sharpie colored pens) for writing in those notebooks, for a fresh start. I wasn't being superstitious, it just felt like I needed to do those things. Nothing crazy or too intense, just a few tangible changes for the energetic shift of the new year.

I've also been exploring some new directions for my spiritual path. One thing that's been bothering me lately has been my difficulties in actually physically being able to do shamanic journeys and meditation/visualization. When I try to do so I end up with bad brain fog and fatigue flares, which I mentioned recently. I decided to do a reading about how to deal with this. I did a 3 card draw with the Oracle of Shadows and Light and a 5 card draw with the Deviant Moon Tarot (borderless edition). While I was shuffling the Deviant Moon 2 cards jumped out and I felt that was meaningful. Sometimes I KNOW I fumbled a shuffle and cards fell out because of that, so I'll just put them back and reshuffle. Not so today... Those 2 cards provided the perfect overview of the entire reading. It was personal so I won't share all the details of the full reading. But here are the two cards that jumped out...


So basically, the gist of the entire reading was that a cycle has been completed and it's time to move forward in a new direction.

I've have been feeling so conflicted over my difficulties with journeying and whether or not it's something I'm supposed to continue to pursue, and what will my guides think, etc. This reading has helped me feel a bit more comfortable setting aside shamanic journeying for now. It doesn't mean permanently, necessarily. In addition to my physical difficulties journeying I've been finding interest in some new things, some new directions. This reading really helped me feel comfortable about pursuing those new directions.

So for now, I'll be focusing on Tarot, working with color energies (including crystals/stones), Druidry, and bioregional nature spirituality work. I'm trusting that if my guides need me to know something I'll get the message how I'm supposed to get it.

There's a couple of quotes that I read recently that I felt were meaningful to me. They are absolutely manifesting in my life right now.
     " I will be willing to release the comfort of familiarity, whenever that familiarity is keeping me from something better. I will be willing to learn new things, and try new things, especially things that are outside my comfort zone. I will embrace change, even if I am fearful."
Unfortunately I can't remember where I read these statements. But they feel particularly applicable to me right now. What's interesting is all I've done is write those down in a few places. I'm not even reading them all that often. There's definitely something to be said for writing your goals and such, for manifestation.

So here's to the New Year, new beginnings, and energetic shifts. We'll see how things unfold and move forward...


http://www.strangeling.com/
http://www.deviantmoon.com/wordpress/

Saturday, January 9, 2016

New Year and Creating a Tarot Spread

I've put off writing my first blog post of the year for a bit. I have been going through some difficulties and frustrations related to my chronic illness. Lately, I have been unable to meditate, do visualizations, or journey. Doing so creates bad brain fog and fatigue flares. I think this is because they are fairly intense mental concentration and exertion. For people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and many other chronic illnesses, mental exertion can be just as debilitating as physical exertion. This difficulty has led me to feel a lot of frustration about how am I going to cope with the loss of those skills/tools with my spiritual practice. I've been feeling very disconnected and out of sorts.

All of that is starting to resolve. I've been exploring some different aspects of energetic healing, mostly having to do with color. I'm not sure how keen I am on the chakras concept. I have a hard time reconciling chakras with what I know of physiology. But I am interested in the concepts of the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) and their associations (Body, Mind, Energies/Will/Passions/Creativity, Emotions) and incorporating color and crystal energy healing into that. So I'll be exploring more of that as time goes on. I feel really called to work with color energy (including in the form of crystals and stones). The readings I've done lately have shown that this is a good area for me to focus on.

I also came up with a Tarot spread today. There's a quote that I've seen several times recently that I've come to resonate with a lot.
     Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.    ~Arthur Ashe
It seems to be a quote that is an energetic focus for me lately. I was doing some thinking this morning and came up with a Tarot spread inspired by this quote.

  • Where am I?
  • What do I have?
  • What can I do?
I did a personal reading using this spread this morning, with both the Oracle of the Shapeshifters and the Tarot of the Magical Forest. The reading was quite personal and VERY meaningful to me, so I'd prefer not to share it here. The reading helped me to make a difficult decision on where to place my focus on some things for now and what I need to let go of for now. It tied into my 2016 yearly overall reading that I did previously. This tied a few things together and helped clarify some things that I needed to hear but are a bit difficult to face. Nothing to worry about it, just some personal stuff. It's a good thing and this new spread was very helpful for me today. So I wanted to share it with you. After I finished the readings I thought of one final question that could be included.

  • How do I start?
I haven't read for that question as I already had a few things in mind for how I might start. But it would be a good addition to the spread.

I hope you are all having a good start to the New Year.