2016 as the Year of Inspired Service, Joyful Creation, and Life as Ceremony
I’m calling 2016 the year of Inspired Service, Joyful, Collaborative Creation, and Life as Ceremony. We are re-awakening, remembering in a modern context the oldest human religion—animistic spirituality, shamanic spirituality, a spirituality that mends the broken web, the great gap between Earth and Sky, Masculine and Feminine.
We are waking up to the distortions of the Dream that has been handed down to us and we are cultivating our capacity as Dreamers of our Own Reality to radically shift the Collective Dream. We are finally seeing the power of our individual and collective intent to affect change at the most radical and fundamental of levels.
As emerging alchemists of a new era, we are discovering that when we observe the whole pattern from an integral perspective, we can make tiny, precise changes in divine timing with ripple effects across the entire web of creation.
Jupiter and North Node in Virgo
The clearest messages coming through for humanity in 2016 are being delivered by Jupiter and the North Node, both in the sign of Virgo for much of the year. Jupiter shows us our collective dharmic path and the “fast track” to bust through obstacles as well as the area fostering greatest inspiration and enthusiasm. The North Node re-aligns us with our soul’s original intent, pointing true north toward our destiny.
Five Virgo-Inspired Questions to Get the Most out of 2016
Am I Integrating the Sacred Into My Life? What are my daily, weekly, monthly practices that touch me into the Sacred? For some of us, this might be meditation, or blessing our food, daily prayer for self and others. Virgo asks if our spiritual practice actively forges a stronger connection between us and the Earth and Sky, the rhythms of nature and the Cosmos.
For example, I have begun daily practice of going to the top of my hill with a rattle and cornmeal or tobacco offering. I open the seven directions (North, East, South, West, Above, Below, Around) with song, NAMING with gratitude and praises the many local animals, plants, water bodies, land forms, as well as the stars, planets, etc. elements, and ancestors. This practice brings the sacred streaming down into my body and heart, bringing joy and balance, and I feel deeply rooted.
For a time, I began this practice pre-dawn by singing to Morning Star Venus, Mars, and Jupiter when they were all close. I did this for a week, following a period where I’d felt very ungrounded and disconnected. I then traveled to Nevada for a week. One morning during my travels in a meditation I visited the land around my home and saw myself there in my home and felt how deeply my root chakra was grounded into that land.
I also saw a circle of deer all around the property, and they were thanking me for my morning blessings. I had not seen deer since we moved to the property five months before, and I was delighted—as it was the deer, showing up in a dream, that had guided me to the mountains in the first place. In my meditation I asked—please come visit me when I return!
Two days after returning home, one morning in the field I saw the silhouette of a mama deer and two young ones just about 50 yards away, gazing at me. The land does speak to us when we actively bless, love, and cherish it. This is as true when we live in the city as it is in the country—perhaps even more so!
Am I Honoring the Feminine Within and Without? Virgo at its root reveres and embodies the Divine, Sovereign Feminine. Virgo upholds Women’s mysteries. The Feminine Principle is always in the process of “involution,” Spirit moving into bringing consciousness and love and light into matter.
We might ask—am I staying stuck in my higher chakras in a more “masculine” orientation, focused on lofty or abstract concerns that remove me from the physical dimension? Am I taking time to move into my lower chakras? If I look over 2015, did I integrate breath and movement into my life? Did I connect to my sensual, sexual nature, my primal life force energy?
Did I take time to dance? Did I slow down enough to experience and infuse my surroundings with my spiritual essence, my full presence? How might I spend more time in feminine receptivity, spiritual presence and embodiment in 2016?
This year many of us will be called to learn skills practiced by the ancient Priestesses and Priests dedicated to the Goddess. These might include coming of age, birth and death rites, sacred sexuality, ceremony and ritual in all its forms. It might include working with the Solar and Lunar cycles and the night sky, with dreams, plant medicines.
We might feel called to cultivate our intuitive and psychic abilities, our abilities as seers and oracles, so that these skills are grounded and of practical benefit to ourselves and other.
How Can I Redesign My Life to Reflect my True Priorities? Virgo is impersonal, discerning, analytical, a master designer, weaving and existing in harmony within the pattern of Creation. Virgo medicine is embodied as Spider Woman in Native American lore. (As I write these words, Spider has shown up on my desk, affirming this!)
Virgo is a powerful Creatrix, and intuitively senses when something is “out of pattern,” knowing how to reweave the web of life in small and precise ways to bring back balance and wholeness.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are a spider, and all about you is the web that is your present life. Consider that the threads of this web connect to all of the following areas of your life (or choose your own!): Body, Spirit, Relationship, Intellect, Work, Play.
Where do you feel strong, healthy connections? Where do you feel the lines go slack, needing to be tightened, strengthened for the good of the whole? If this feels too abstract for you to clearly vision, get out a big piece of paper and sketch yourself as the spider at the center, with lines connecting you to bubbles representing these areas.
You might want to just create stream of consciousness colors and designs in each of the circles that represent the different areas of your life, or draw images, or actually write words or “bumper stickers” that hold the energy of where you’re at now.
The idea is to see and feel what’s in and what’s out of balance RIGHT NOW. The next step is to create a Vision Board/Collage with images, words that highlight how you WANT to experience each of your chosen life realms. This can be your guide for Redesigning and Manifesting your Life anew in 2016.
Am I Engaged in Joyful, Inspired Service?
I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I have experienced the greatest joy and inspiration when I was engaged in some form of meaningful service in a community of individuals with a positive outlook who wanted to make the world a better place.
Recently at the Call of the Sage Vision Council Gathering I attended outside of Guadalajara, Mexico, I found myself in the company of such inspired, joyful, generous human beings, and I realized how much, as a “solopreneur” often focused on my personal practice, studies, writing, etc.—I was missing the experience of collaborative service with others.
Are you giving yourself the gift of being of service to something larger than yourself? The form this service takes looks different for everyone, but it should leave you feeling inspired, and connected, and energized more often than not. This doesn’t mean you won’t have discouraging moments, but overall—you find JOY in your service.
It’s no accident that that the “happiest jobs” in surveys across the globe consistently turn up teachers, nurses, and firefighters. Clearly the focus of this work is on service, there is a lot of positive human feedback these individuals get from their work.
A special note here on extravert and introvert giving: for those of us who are introverts, or straddle the line (and there is often a strong connection here to being an empath) it is essential to find the balance between self-care and service, and to create healthy energetic boundaries when we are engaged in groups. When we don’t do this, it’s easy to get blown out and lose center.
Do NOT compare yourself to the extravert in the room who seems to be able to go and go without recharging. Remember that extraverts GET energy from being in large groups, or being in go mode all the time. It takes energy to be in large groups for introverts, so you might need to pace yourself. The reality is that empaths and introverts DO need to feel connected and of service, the trick is simply to do it in a way that works for your energy system.
Am I Doing my Sacred Work? Some of us know from an early age what our sacred work is. It’s what we would be doing even if money were not an issue!!! Many of us, however, spend our lives seeking and refining and shifting and expanding our definition. Virgo is deeply dedicated to identifying and doing the Sacred Work in all its forms.
With Virgo the sacred work is not about how it looks to others, or ego strokes. Virgo Sacred Work is about devotion, dedication, service, and alignment with our personal truth, and the work that flows from that essence. Virgo asks—how can I grow, cultivate, and master my skills in a given area so that I can bring balance and healing back into the world? How can I approach this with greatest discernment?
When she/he is aligned, Virgo is very, very good at focusing, getting rid of distractions, and plowing into the process of honing, refining, and perfecting the sacred work. What might show up as we step more into this field of Virgo is that we have less interest in, and tolerance for, relationships and social distractions that do not in some way support us in moving more deeply and joyfully into our Sacred Work.
This is not to say that we don’t want to have fun, and play, and enjoy ourselves, and spend time with people who bring out our joyful, playful spirits in areas distinct from our work. The point is that if our relationships are DRAINING us such that it is taking our vital life force energy away from our cherished work and contribution in this world, it may be time to cut some cords—or shift the pattern.
Saturn Neptune Square: Bringing the Dream to Earth
In 2016 the biggest collective astrological transit is the Saturn Neptune Square. The impact of this event began to be felt in December, 2014 and remains in effect until December of 2016. There are a total of 3 exact squares: November 26, 2015, June 18, 2016, and September 10, 2016—this year is the year of biggest impact!
When Saturn meets Neptune we are urged to actively Dream the New Dream. Structure and Form (Saturn) meets Higher Spiritual Vision (Neptune) and when we honor both, and learn to dance the dream down into the physical, we can truly create a new reality.
As we find balance between our inner dreamer and our proactive doer, this can be a time of miracles. Some of these miracles will emerge from experiences of loss and upheaval—especially when we add in the continued dynamic of the Pluto Uranus Square, which is felt most intently in the first quarter of the year.
If we look back to late 2014, when we first felt the impact of the Pluto Uranus Square AND Saturn Square Neptune most powerfully, most of us remember devastating events occurring during that time. We can also look back now and see how we have become stronger, more resilient, more compassionate human beings as a result of these experiences and our response to them.
Whether we have experienced miracles in the wake of our losses or not, the true miracle has been occurring within us, as we have faced the dark night of the soul, and continued cultivating an open heart, courage, tenacity to keep moving forward. We are wiser, stronger, and more capable of holding the precious opposites—life is pain, and life is ecstatic joy—in both hands, gratefully.
Remembering the World Holy Again
This is a time when we use all the tools, resources, and skills we have been steadily cultivating to create beauty, to restore what has been lost, to make the world holy again. We are urged to assert our power and intention—sometimes in the most challenging of circumstances—to choose responses that are life-affirming, uplifting, creative, and generative.
We are given the opportunity to look clearly at the pain, suffering, injustice in the world around us, to allow our hearts to be broken open, and then to CHOOSE to focus our attention, our resources, our energies toward seeking, finding, anchoring and feeding the New Dream that heals, makes whole, renews at the deepest levels.
Here’s the practice I’ve been cultivating for that, which I’ve shared in part before, but want to flesh out more now, as a practice we can truly nourish throughout 2016.
2016 Impossible Headlines Strategy to Dream the New Dream Together
Make a List of the Top 5-12 Issues that Break Your Heart. For example, it broke my heart when I saw that according to poll numbers a significant majority of people in the U.S. are opposed to accepting Syrian refugees—and governors of 30 states are opposed as well.
Choose your top issue. Now over the course of the next week, bring this issue into your meditation, on a long walk, otherwise engage it, for a focused but predetermined amount of time. Look at it directly. Research the issue and be willing to really look the most horrific aspects of this issue in the face. Then let it go. Set the intention that your gaze on this issue catalyze healing and generate energy for you and that it also bring healing to those impacted by the issue.
The point is to feel it but NOT to become overwhelmed. We need a homeopathic dose of the poison, so we can transmute it. This balance can be tricky—intention is everything!
As Without so Within. Look inside to see if this issue reflects a personal issue you need to heal and address. For example, I recognize I have inherited a feeling of isolation, of not belonging, of being an outsider, from my Mom, who always felt different from everyone else.
If I want to be radically responsible and I understand the world outside reflects my inner reality, then I will begin to bring love and awareness to the ways I myself feel like an unwanted foreigner in relation to “mainstream culture.” I can begin to soften and practice seeing how I belong, how I am welcomed into many diverse communities around me.
Look for Impossible Headlines: Now MAKE UP A HEADLINE or search actively for news, organizations, information that challenges the assumption of your chosen issue and/or supports its healing or resolution.
My Make Believe Headline is this: “Majority in U.S. Welcomes Syrian Refugees.” I am looking for people and organizations that are countering Islamophobia in creative and effective ways. I am actively seeking PROOF that this reality can become so.
Feed the Dream. Meditate and visualize this reality taking place with all of your senses. If you feel so moved, you might also want to take a practical action to support the organizations or causes that are hard at work making YOUR Impossible Headline a Reality.
Think of small or large actions you can take to bring about this change within your sphere of influence. For example I’ve decided to start posting positive articles about Islam and Islamic people and communities.
Venus in Leo Cycle: Cultivating Sovereignty and Self-Love
As we move into 2016, Venus remains in the Morning Sky, midway through her descent cycle on her way to the Sun, and her Underworld initiation. She is in the window of the Heart Chakra Gate Activation January 1, and will be clearing and releasing at the 2nd and 1st Chakras before completing her descent, passing behind the Sun and into the Underworld from April 1 to July 12 of 2016.
From July 12 to the end of the year Venus will be in her ascent phase, steadily moving through each of the Chakra Gates, gaining in strength. With Mars completing a Libra cycle in May and Jupiter moving into Libra for the last part of 2016, humanity is moving into a phase where we are learning to act as empowered, collaborative leaders to create change in the culture around us.
Leo Venus as well as Jupiter and North Node in Virgo remind us that we each have the responsibility to claim and stand in our sovereignty. This year it is time for us to know our internal strength, to know ourselves as whole and complete. We do not require the permission, advice, or go-ahead from others to focus in and do what we are here to do.
We will continue to see the dramatic flourishing of new forms of collaborative economy, new structures for synergistic, sustainable communities, and new forms of individual and collective power. I was recently considering the Leo Feminine way of expressing power, and began to think of the Old Rules of Power vs. the Leo Feminine Rules of Power.
I share some of that in the 2016 Astrology Report Audio the part on the Virgo in Leo Cycle-—enjoy!
Seeing the Shadow in 2016
We can look at the South Node in Pisces, Saturn and Mars in Sagittarius cycles, and Venus in Leo to perceive the old habits and patterns that no longer serve us individually or collectively. The South Node in Pisces release points are activated all year but especially during the Total Solar Eclipse March 8-9, and the Penumbral Eclipse September 16.
Shadow Pisces shows up as the martyr, the over-giver, the overwhelmed empath or psychic who cannot distinguish “what is yours” and “what is mine.” If we’re operating from an old Piscean mentality we might glorify suffering and pain, and martyrdom, believing this is the only way to prove ourselves or our spiritual worth.
We might get mired in feeling and lose our ability to act decisively and effectively. We might suffer from substance, love, or sex addiction, craving the experience of ecstatic merging and loss of self, yet not have the tools or skillset to experience these states in sacred rites, through prayer, dance, or other ritual whose purpose is to help the individual surrender to the Divine.
I see imbalanced Neptune/Pisces in a conversation I’ve had several times with friends who regularly use plant medicine. At some point the plant communicates to them in ceremony that they need to stop using the medicine until they’ve strengthened their meditative and spiritual practice.
In other words, they need to cultivate the spiritual container within which to have the transcendent experiences, rather than giving themselves over to the experience of surrender without the balancing muscle of cultivating consciousness and mindfulness and other advanced states of awareness without external substances.
If we are operating from shadow Pisces we might project our own values and beliefs onto those we love and feel betrayed when they express different beliefs and values. Or conversely we might become a merge-master and be so successful at merging with others that we take on their feelings, beliefs, priorities as if they are our own, losing our center and sense of self completely.
We might practice “giving to get.” In this shadow Pisces way of being, we compulsively give to others not as choice, or from a place of internal abundance and joy, but giving with a “hook” with attachment to receiving from the person we are giving to. The reality is that people can always feel this kind of hooking energy, and resent it. If we are caught in this trap it is essential to step back and ask—where is my giving coming from? Is it given freely, without attachment?
Between the Saturn Neptune square and North Node Virgo/South Node Pisces dynamic we’re being pressed in 2016 to practice discernment. To continually ask ourselves: by what proportion is this thought, belief, perception, action aligned with the truth of this moment, and by what proportion is it propelled by my projection and fantasy?
In 2016 we can’t get away with forgetting the details, and nuts and bolts of daily, physical life. We can’t get by with habits (or lack of habits) that keep us spacey and unfocused, and relying on others for our cues. We are called upon in 2016 to practice sovereignty, and wholeness. To live our lives with a greater sense of self-responsibility—for our own health and wellness, our diet, our financial well being, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, Virgo is absolutely the person you can rely on to be of service, to be a giver, to quietly make sure everything essential is taken care of, without really needing the credit—merely the satisfaction that he/she was able to get the job done and be of service in an effective way.
However, part of the reason Virgo can be so giving and reliable is because she/he has all his/her ducks in a row first, so they have the bandwidth to support others in their time of need. If our systems are inefficient and we’re always operating in the moment, we don’t tend to have a lot of extra to offer others because we can barely keep our own boat afloat.
So ironically Virgo, the sign that truly is one of the big givers that makes the world go round, is also extremely pragmatic and practical when need be. We are prompted to look at what needs doing and simply do it.
Design and process is important to Virgo, but the purpose for design and process is so that we can accomplish more with least effort—NOT get caught in processing and never take decisive action. That’s shadow Neptune or Pisces—and in 2016, again, that’s not going to cut it for us.
We must assess the landscape, actually survey our surroundings and see what is out there, and from that broader, bigger perspective, make choices and take action in order to accomplish larger aims. If our systems are functional and they are interconnected then we can truly accomplish what to others might seem impossible.
Saturn in Sagittarius: Reboot Religion in 2016.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Capitalism.
These are the four “isms” of our modern time and they are all at the front lines of our current environmental, cultural, and spiritual crises. With Saturn in Sagittarius though all of 2016 and Mars beginning a new cycle Death and Rebirth Sagittarius Cycle in May, we are facing a moment where we must REBOOT these paradigms, inspired, again, by Jupiter and North Node in Virgo.
All four of these belief systems carry distortions BECAUSE they lack fundamental reverence and consideration for the Feminine and our living Earth. As with the Saturn/Neptune Impossible Headlines practice above, can we begin to seek out, focus and feed with our attention all the areas within these religions that are beautiful, life-honoring? Where can we see them evolving, with Earth-reverence, and honoring of the feminine?
Rebooting Christianity
I was just speaking with a dear friend recently who helped to remind me that open-minded Christians often face judgment and ridicule from the broader progressive community. This criticism might come from those who identify as spiritual but not religious, have turned to Eastern religions or earth-based spirituality, or are agnostic and carry a lot of animosity toward Christianity because they feel it has been shoved down their throat.
I think it is natural, as many of us have been immersed in Christianity as the only accepted, dominant faith, to carry resentment, or trepidation, or frustration with the religion as a whole. Many of us who identify with earth-based spirituality seem to remember at a gut level what it felt like to be burned at the stake or otherwise brutally punished for being pagan, or witches, or Other than Christian.
For me, part of the radical reboot of Christianity, raised as I was in a very traditional Christian home, involves the messy process as follows. I am dedicated to weeding out self-shaming voices and stories that emerged from the patriarchal rules and beliefs passed on to me. Yet I also want more and more to fully claim, name, and honor the many gifts, wisdom teachings, and practical benefit provided to me by my Christian family and their faith.
Truth is, from the ages of 18 to 20, I was a born again Christian, which, when, considering my Sagittarius Venus, Sun, and Mercury, was a kind of coming of age spiritual investigation for me. I left the faith when my little sister came out as gay to me and I realized there would be no tolerance, or understanding offered within the Christian religion for her experience and innate attraction. I am glad to see this is beginning to change!
Those two years shaped me deeply, as I was living in Philadelphia during that time, and encountering shocking poverty. I often felt lit up by Jesus and this kind of joyful call to serve the poor and look out for those less fortunate, and practice loving kindness. I spent a lot of time talking to homeless people and bringing them food and just spending a lot of time connecting with people who were very different from me in race and life experience.
That was the version of Christianity I felt come alive inside myself, and I sometimes miss the pure compassionate innocence I lived in for that period. I honor and respect the quiet, steady Christians—and there are many—who volunteer so many countless hours serving those in need, and for the valiant Catholic workers who put their lives on the line in Central and South America and across the globe working for social justice.
New Trends in Christianity
For me, looking at the Virgo directive of remembering the holiness of the Creation, I consider the following: Christian Animism:http://www.christiananimism.com/is a fascinating website, and the beginning of a conversation Buddhists like Joanna Macy have already begun but Christians need to enter into as well.
Or consider Pope Francis, whose views on climate change, poverty, and community (all issues deeply linked to the divine feminine/women’s issues) diverge so wildly with past popes’ perspectives. http://ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/where-pope-francis-stands-when-it-comes-women
Rebooting Islam
Following recent Paris terrorist attacks, hate crimes against Muslims in Canada and the U.S. tripled, according to the FBI to 38 per month. Rhetoric by prominent politicians in the U.S. including Donald Trump have acted to inflame and condone Islamophobia. It is time for a reboot of Islam—yet for those of us who are not Islamic, it is also time to reach out and seek to understand the religion and the people who practice it.
Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam has clear patriarchal patterns that run deep in its cultural and religious DNA, with devastating consequences for women and the Earth. Yet here there is also deep wisdom and truth to be found within this religious paradigm and certainly within the millions of individuals who practice the faith.
It is essential to not only focus on the shadow expression of Islam, as is so frequently the case in the U.S., but to seek to understand and shine a light on the layers of Islam that promote peace, ecological well being, and honoring of the feminine. I think what is called for most of all for those who want to challenge Islamophobia internally and externally is to become curious, ask more questions, conduct our own research into the history and practice of Islam.
With hate crimes against Muslims on the rise there is an increasing need for non-Muslims to become allies to the Muslim community. This might mean visiting your local Mosque to introduce yourself as a friendly neighbor, volunteering with groups that serve immigrants from Islamic countries, or simply seeking out and posting articles and information on facebook that shows a full picture of Islam and Islamic communities to counter the narrow media storyline.
Check out this organization: Eco Islam: http://www.ifees.org.uk/. Or the Marda Permaculture Farm, a project I helped to found with Murad AlKhufash in the West Bank of Palestine: http://mardafarm.com/mission-2/ Or consider this conversation about Muslim Feminism—yes, there is such a thing. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/common-ground-news-service/muslim-feminism-definition_b_2566693.html
Rebooting Judaism
When I see the grave human rights abuses continually enacted on the Palestinian people by the state of Israel and the suppression of any criticism against Israel by the Jewish lobby here in the U.S., I must never forget that the Israeli State and Jewish lobby do NOT represent the views of many within the Jewish community, including Israeli Jews.
I remind myself that among the most visionary figures of the past century we find an extraordinary number of individuals who were Jewish by birth and or faith. Some of our greatest progressive change agents have been Jewish. Think Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Paul Nader… Jon Stewart continues this tradition as well. As with Islam, we must refuse to lump all people of one faith together and point the finger, considering that this tendency is truly at the root of the bloodiest wars and conflicts over the past 5000 years of patriarchy.
Secular and religious Jews have been at the forefront of our cultural revolutions over the past century. Yet a core and powerful segment of the Jewish community is bound by and reacting from deep fear, fight or flight, and the trauma of the holocaust and other historical trauma. So a reboot on the Jewish faith and culture requires deep cultural healing and a new story of empowerment, healing and wholeness, not victimhood and “us vs. them” mentality. This is certainly happening already.
I look to these organizations and trends as supportive to this goal: Jewish Voice for Peace: https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org, Tikkun magazine: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/fear-and-consequences-healing-from-jewish-historical-trauma. And there are many others.
Rebooting Capitalism
The need for a radical reboot of Capitalism is nowhere more evident than in the current spectacle that is the buildup to the U.S. primary elections. Donald Trump’s popularity speaks to the capitalist religion that holds sway across the globe and is anchored most deeply in the culture of the U.S. Trump as a High Priest of Capitalism (Sagittarius Moon) whips up a certain kind of fervor that can only be equated with religious zeal.
On the other hand we have Bernie, whose popularity stems from his passionate call to reboot our capitalistic economy in the U.S. and elevate the needs of the people, communities, and the environment above profit. Which shall we choose in 2016? In my view this is a perfect situation where our focus and attention is needed to manifest the “I’mpossible Headline” Bernie Wins Democratic Primary!!! And then Bernie Wins U.S. Presidency!”
When I attended a “Hautepreneurs” conference this fall, an event celebrating and supporting female entrepreneurs, I was deeply inspired and reminded that when the feminine (whether women or men holding feminine values) steps into the marketplace with her full heart and feminine power intact, her abundance and success will always have a ripple effect, positively impacting the community around her, uplifting other women, and supporting families.
I was also pleased to remember that I simply love the energy of entrepreneurs—-their innovative ideas, creativity, positive focus, and ability to take risks. I think that we must focus on our strengths here in the U.S. and build them and part of that is celebrating our entrepreneurial spirit, while integrating people and Earth care into the equation.
Trends we can see in that direction include the rapid growth of the Sharing Economy (Uber, AirBNB are the two best known examples but there are many others). This broad category is also called the peer-to-peer” business model. It is still in its infancy and we are seeing the shadow side of it already, but in my view it is a positive development.
I love the Gifting Economy conversation and many modes of practice that are rising within the U.S. and other developed nations. At the Vision Council in Mexico my heart was completely blown open by the experience of providing workshops and free readings for no monetary gain, yet receiving an extraordinary number of beautiful gifts—material and immaterial—as my reward.
After leading an Active Dreaming workshop in a park in Guadalajara after the Vision Council, I was showered by gifts—earrings, homemade organic face cream, delicious homemade muffins, chocolates, a heart necklace, a painting. I literally cried. I had not expected anything and the feeling of love and sharing and abundance from that moment has stayed with me still.
There is something deeply healing, perhaps especially for those of us who are small entrepreneurs who have had to heal old scarcity wounds and embrace financial abundance within the context of a flawed economic system—in finding ways to give our services without cost to those who will receive it fully and with great gratitude. It’s essential to sometimes step out of the box of money exchange.
Indigenous Wisdom Taking the Lead
We can see now, like an enormous wave, increasingly large numbers of individuals in the modern world turning to indigenous wisdom to remember the sacred back into our lifeways. Indigenous elders are stepping forward from every community across the globe saying it is time to share their wisdom that the world is in need of it now.
Sourced in indigenous knowledge, many of us are finding our way back to an Earth-reverent spirituality—again, now strengthened with North Node and Jupiter in Virgo—through the doorway of universal human practices that reweave the sacred. These include dream work and journeying, work with native herbs, ceremony with the land, shamanic astrology, restoration of women and men’s rites of passage, creating sacred songs and dance.
Many of us may also feel drawn to study permaculture design, the transition movement, or other areas that help us bring our life patterns and basic human needs into alignment with our surrounding Watershed, Foodshed, ecosystem, and into greater connection with human community.
Special Note on Buddhism and Hinduism and Indigenous Spirituality
Hinduism and Buddhism are also undergoing needed changes: It is easy to see only the light and no shadow in eastern spiritual traditions for those of us coming from a western view. Yet these two religions also have patriarchal biases, and can be expressed in ways that do not honor the feminine, or nature, especially in times and places of stress and economic hardship.
It is also true that while indigenous traditions and wisdom are leading the way, helping us all remember the earth-based roots of our original spirituality, there is shadow as well and some patriarchal patterning within indigenous spiritual systems, just as with any others—-though of course the feminine and matriarchal dimension is more deeply embedded than in the modern religions.
It is healthy and honest to speak to the reality that there is shadow in every spiritual and religious tradition, and historical trauma has created distortions within all of them. In most cases rebooting the religious paradigm has to do with healing the cultural historical trauma that has evolved in tandem with, or is at the root of, the development of the religion.
Part of what Virgo and Venus in Leo calls on us to do is to recover our own divine spark, our own sovereign connection to the Godhead. It is time to take full responsibility for our spiritual path and not give our power to any spiritual teacher or guru, or medicine man or woman, but to access that wisdom on our own path, messy though that might be!