Today is a Full Moon in Aquarius and powerful Jupiter Cazimi with the sun, making this a very lucky day. The full moon reminds us to celebrate the things in our lives that are culminating and coming to completion. The Jupiter Cazimi gives us the nudge to ask for all the things we truly want to grow and flourish over the next year. Take some time today to make a list of your dreams and goals and let the universe support you in reaching them.

It has been a busy week of connecting, planning, resting, and playing. When life is busy all the things we are doing can sometimes begin to feel like a heavy weight upon us. Sometimes we need to say no to things and rest and sometimes there are things that need to be done or that we really want to do, so shifting our perspective can help us feel less burdened. The quote above says, “You can do it like it’s a great weight upon you, or you can do it like it’s part of the dance.” Dancing with our plans and obligations feels much more fun that hauling around, resisting, and resenting a great weight. I invite you to find the rhythm in your own daily dance. Find times of playfulness and joy, find moments to pause and breathe, feel gratitude for all that you do have, and make plans to tackle the challenging things, perhaps with a dance partner to help and support you.

I hope you are finding joyful ways to move your bodies despite the heat and smoky air. Summertime in our childhoods often meant running through sprinklers, riding our bikes, splashing at the pool, and getting into playful mischief. As we move into adulthood, our playfulness is often discouraged or we don’t feel we have time for it. Creating intentional time for play as well as taking advantage of spontaneous opportunities is a wonderful way to reclaim our childhood joy.

July is an interesting month of balancing the expansive energy of summer with the need to slow down and savor the abundance of the season, especially when so much is literally and figuratively on fire. As a summer baby I tend to love the heat of the summer, being out in nature, and adventuring with friends and family. I also love a slow afternoon of reading, napping, creating art, or simply watching the clouds go by. When I tune into my own body and intuition I can more easily find that balance within each day and each week. I encourage you to do the same and discover what brings balance for you this month.

There is a lot happening this week astrologically, locally, nationally, and across the world. I am practicing pausing to breathe, holding the easy and the difficult, and staying grounded in the present moment. I hope you are all able to find moments of peace, calm, and joy throughout the intense energy of the week. This Heartbeat Meditation is a wonderful tool to bring us back into our bodies.

This has been an interesting week of celebrating and letting go. My husband and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary and our youngest son is moving to Missouri tomorrow to start a new career. I’ve been thinking about all the ways we have all grown, let go, and transformed over the years, both individually and as a family. It is a reminder of the adage that we are only promised the present moment. The past is gone, the future hasn’t arrived, but this moment, the one right now as you are reading this, is the moment we are promised. It is an opportunity to take a full breath and take in all that is in this moment, letting go of judgement as we are able and offering ourselves compassion and acceptance for what is.

Hello Friends!

This past week I had the pleasure of holding space on retreat for 13 beautiful souls with my dear friend, Andra Brill. While my focus in leading retreats is offering an opportunity for others to turn inward and explore what arises, I had my own epiphanies arise quite spectacularly this week. One of those was around the stories we tell ourselves about our lives that may or may not be true and that may apply to some people but not all. These stories color how we perceive and process situations and can end up increasing our suffering rather than easing it. On retreat I discovered I could pause and breathe enough to recognize some very old stories that were true in some situations, but not nearly as universal as I had been telling myself. Letting go of those stories was tremendous shift in my perspective and weight off my heart. As we move toward the Summer Solstice this weekend, it is a wonderful opportunity to release old stories and patterns from our past that are no longer serving us and open ourselves to the possibilities in the abundance of summer.

The Dan Siegel quote, “May I meet this moment fully. May I meet it as a friend,” has been on my cabinet for many years. I often forget it’s there, but this week it has been jumping out at me. It is an easy sentiment to hold when things are going well. However, when things are challenging, it can be difficult to sit with. Meeting difficulty and suffering directly often feels overwhelming, yet those are the exact moments we are offered to learn more about ourselves and to grow. If you’re like me, you might “occasionally” experience the sentiment that you’ve had “plenty of opportunities to grow, thank you very much!” 😉 Nonetheless, these opportunities continue to arise as part of being human. The more we can practice meeting them fully and as we would a friend, the more successful we are at navigating them rather than ignoring or resisting them. This week, I invite you to practice meeting small moments of challenge as you would a friend, with curiosity and compassion, and see what happens.

This Saturday, 6/6, is viewed in numerology as a portal for self-love and manifestation. The number 6 represents universal love, compassion, and inner balance and when doubled is even more powerful. It is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we are caring for ourselves, including asking for help and seeking care and support from others. Caring for ourselves with fierce self-compassion includes setting boundaries to protect ourselves mentally, emotionally, and physically, providing the resources we need to flourish, and motivating ourselves with kindness and encouragement. This portal is a time to take stock of the care you are receiving from yourself and your community and make a plan for filling in the gaps. You deserve your own love and attention and you deserve the love and attention of others. Scheduling a Reiki and/or Sound Healing session with me is a lovely opportunity to rest and receive what you need.

This Sunday we will experience a Blue Moon in the constellation of Sagittarius. A blue moon is a rare second full moon in a month and provides even greater opportunity for us to shed our old habits and assumptions, opening ourselves up to new adventures and opportunities.

This week a treasured member of our community and a dear friend, Raetta Holdman, passed away. I am grateful to have visited with her several times in her last weeks sharing healing energy, laughter, and stories, as well as telling her how much she was loved and appreciated the day before she died.

This Saturday is a New Moon in Taurus that opens a dozen days of transformative energy. It is an opportunity to listen to our intuition and pay attention to the information being presented to guide us into the next steps on our journey. It is a time to take action on those ideas, big and small, that have been percolating in the back of our minds, to release the weight of burdens and expectations that no longer serve us, and to declutter our spaces to create room for growth. There is often a sense of struggle in these opportunities for growth. However, if we can shift our perspective to see them as openings to do things differently, we may be rewarded far beyond our expectations.

This weekend we honor the beautiful women in our lives who have mothered us. For some this may be our biological mothers, for others it may be stepmothers, aunts, grandmothers, colleagues, neighbors, friends and even ourselves. For many Mother’s Day brings grief as well as joy. As we honor the mothering energy in our lives, may we also hold space for the grief, disappointment, and anger that may also be present. Holding all of our experiences with equanimity allows us to honor our whole selves and the full humanity of our mothers as well.

When the world is overwhelming, rather than pushing through sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to float. Letting ourselves rest in the buoyant support of our communities, knowing we are held with love and kindness. Slowing down and tuning into our breath we can feel its ebb and flow nourishing and cleansing our bodies like the waves of the ocean. Pause, breath, rest.

I have been enjoying the one minute dance party videos of Khadaura on Instagram that offer silliness, joy, and dancing as a way to release stress and be present in the moment. Dancing with abandon and letting go of expectations and judgements of ourselves is a simple gift we can give ourselves. Often we go through the motions of “appropriate behavior” due to the many layers of shoulds and should nots we have absorbed in our lives and forget that we can choose to do something different, to be different, and to listen to our own authentic voice. Dancing can offer us a sense of freedom and joy that transcends the responsibilities and realities of life.

The events of this week have me thinking about courage. The courage to stand up and speak out for what is right, to stretch our comfort zones, and to take risks. Each small act of courage we take supports us in taking the bigger steps when they arise. It is my fervent hope that the leaders of our country will have the courage to stop the many types of destruction being perpetrated by this administration. Calling and emailing them is one way we can each demonstrate our own courage and encourage them to act. I implore each of us to be courageous in the ways we are able to do the good in front of us and support others in their own courageous choices.

This week the concept of balance came up repeatedly in conversations and was even a focus of Wednesday’s Full Moon in Libra. We often think of balance as a singular point, but in truth it is a fluid space. When we hold a single leg pose such as tree or eagle, our bodies are making constant small adjustments to keep us balanced. The same goes with the responsibilities of our daily lives. Finding our personal balance is an active choice we make over and over whether through our physical posture, the tasks we take on or let go of, or time we spend doing or being. Saying yes to the people and experiences that bring us joy and no the those that drain us is a great place to start. What do you want to say yes to today?

Today I am reflecting on the small joys and gratitudes that bring our lives beauty and meaning even in the midst of difficulty. Connections with strangers, visits with dear friends, generosity of family, blooms of spring flowers, the warmth of the sun on our skin, and the fact that we are alive another day. So much of our lives is spent in default mode, just going through the motions day after day. Pausing to appreciate all that is can help balance the perspective we see and hear in the news. While our brains are wired to look for danger, practicing looking for the good, the kind, and the generous can bring a sense of ease in all the turmoil of the world.

My heart is heavy again this week with the onslaught of violence by our government extending its reach across the globe. Holding onto our humanity and compassion during these times is an essential act of resistance. It can be easy to get sucked into retaliating by dehumanizing those who are perpetrating the violence, but then we become complicit in their story. Sending lovingkindness into the world creates a shift in energy. If we all take a few moments each day to do so, we can start the ripples of peace that will eventually become waves. I invite you to practice with these or your own lovingkindness phrases.

I experienced a bit of a set back last weekend when I broke my ankle walking down the sidewalk, go figure! It was a truly bizarre and freak accident that seems unbelievable. As I reflect on the experience I am incredibly grateful for my family in getting me to medical care, the privilege of having access to that care and to health insurance, and that I am able to rest and heal without worrying about working at this phase of my life. It is also a reminder that we must continue to fight for everyone to have access to quality medical care, not just those of us privileged enough to be able to afford it.