Tarot Strategies for Life Change

Honor Your Body, Honor Your Spirit

Some of us who are spiritual seekers dwell on the otherworldly. But if you are here reading this blog post, you, like me, are firmly planted on the Earth plane. And that means we have to take care of all of the physical requirements our bodies require. 

So if you want to honor your spirit, an excellent way to begin is to honor your physical body. 

I was thinking about that when I was completing my daily walk. There is an abundance of literature exhorting us to exercise regularly. That spending as little as 30 minutes a day in a brisk walk 4 or 5 times a week can have a huge impact in preventing the onsite of diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. 

And since I am not getting any younger, and walking 30 minutes a day isn't going to kill me, I decided to give the regimen a try. 

At times, it is difficult to squeeze 30 minutes out of the daylight hours, but I've come to look forward these daily walks. 

Normally I walk late in the afternoon or early evening, but knowing that rain was coming, I decided to get my walk out of the way in the morning.

Aside from the timing, today's walk was like many others. It gives me a chance to explore the neighborhood. You see many more things on foot than you do from the windshield of a car, especially when you are driving.

So, I noticed the sign on the window of a local thrift shop saying that they will come to pick up donated items--an increasingly rare service in these parts. And I watch the progress of the new Walgreen's that is being built.

I observe the landscaping and the flowers of my neighbors whose houses are built similar to mine. I see neighbors with their kids on their stoops and patios. And I watch out for kids who ride their bikes on sidewalks designed for pedestrians.

This downtime, so to speak, is also a time to allow thoughts percolate. I let my mind wander, unforced. Often a stray thought comes up which contains the seeds to the solution of a problem.

And when I return, I feel more energetic, balanced, and connected. 

Opening a Bank Vault and Cleaning out the Garage

It's a funny thing about bank vaults.

Bank vaults open very easily at the right time; the time the bank programs them to give access. With the right combination, the heavy doors open with the push of a finger. Try to do the same thing at 3 am, and you'll need heavy explosives.

Life change is like that.

For months I had been dreading the necessary de-cluttering to reshape my house to serve my needs. The clutter depressed me and made it hard to be productive. Its sheer emotional weight and physical presence seemed insurmountable. 

Finally, I did what people eventually find themselves doing when sufficiently pressured by Pluto. I surrendered. I hired an organizational consultant.

Thus far, the bank vault analogy is working. We cleaned out a garage in 4 hours whose floor hadn't seen the light of day in 40 years. And the Gods were with me in helping me clear out one particularly large and heavy, but no longer useful, item taking up valuable space in the basement. 

A neighbor saw me hauling out an old, ratty mattress and inquired about it. He had just moved in and was sleeping on the floor. I didn't think anyone could want it, but you never know until you put it out for trash. He took it.

I told him about the basement item and asked if he would want it also. He agreed to move it out. By the time we were underway, his brother joined to help. We got it out after removing the door. By then they decided they didn't want it anyway. 

So it sat with the other trash. 

After returning from Thanksgiving dinner I looked out of my window. The item was gone. 

The gods were with me.

Life Change, Job Change, Bank Vaults and Timing

Life change is a funny thing. 

You can feel the necessity to change and then you feel resistance. When the change is large the obstacles can seem insurmountable. 

I remember being in my late 20's working at a job that I hated. It didn't start out that way. For the first few years I worked at the company, the management was enlightened and it was an oasis for a young woman trying to build a career in a predominantly male industry. 

But then, for a variety of reasons, there was a turnover in management and the new management made life very unpleasant. This period coincided with a retrenchment in the industry so few jobs were available. Not having other employable skills at the time, I felt trapped. 

Finally I began to investigate other fields and so began my three month odyssey in real estate sales. That's another story.

In my spiritual development circle, I kept receiving messages that my guides were working on getting me out. It was happening, but not yet down in the Earth plane. Just chill, they said. It will happen for you when the time is right.

Think of a bank vault. When the vault is locked, its heavy doors will keep anyone out that didn't have powerful explosives. But at the time when the vault is programmed to open, you can open its heavy doors with your pinky finger. 

So I whined and waited.

Then one day there was a call from a headhunter. It led to a phone interview, then a face-to-face interview, then a job in another state that was a big step up from the one I had.

And, it, too, ran its course.

De-Cluttering Continued

The Pluto/Saturn Gods smiled as my professional organizer worked with me to clean out the garage.

You couldn't walk from front to back without climbing over things. And there was all kinds of stuff in there. Two old pay phones circa 1980 when my Dad and my younger brother went into a less than successful venture trying to generate some income by installing pay phones in various locations. And then there was old medical equipment that had to have been at least 15 years old. Old school photos of relatives who died before I was born and whose names were not known to me.

Truth be told, I had grown up in that house and the garage was always full.

There were treasures, too. Such as an aluminum cookware set in excellent condition. And then items with some value, but which I didn't need. Those made it to the GoodWill location later that afternoon.

We divided the items into three sections. Section one were the keepers. Section two were the throw away items. And Section 3 was where we put items to be donated. 

The pile of trash bags grew and grew. Finally we had sorted through everything. We moved everything out and, for the first time that I ever remember, the garage was truly empty. 

I felt joyous and light to be free of the burden of all of this stuff.

The metal closet that blocked the garage opening, was moved to the very back. It would have a second life as a storage container for my art supplies. A small number of items lined the side. These were items that would be dragged out on trash pick up day.

But for the first time, the garage could take on its primary function--as a place to park the car.

Scorpio and Clutter Continued

It felt good to sign the contract with my personal organizer. It felt like a big step. Now I could go back and blog and tweet about it while patting myself on the back.

I managed to pick away at some items in time for weekly trash pickup. But nothing substantial. Still every paper that is shredded and every item that makes it out the door is a step in the right direction.

Tomorrow I face reality. My organizer is coming and we are going to attack the garage. To echo my inability to run away, the moon is traveling through no-nonsense Capricorn while the Sun continues its journey through Scorpio. The combination echoes the Saturn/Pluto square now in force.

To be continued.

Meditation is Finding Respect in the Medical Community For Its Many Benefits

Meditation has long been associated with many spiritual and religious practices coming from Eastern traditions where it has been practiced for centuries. While it is widely used for spiritual enlightenment, in the West it is even more widely used for health and wellness purposes.

Meditation works by calming and centering you. As you fill your lungs with air, your heartbeat slows and that relaxes the body. You pull your mind inward. Over time you come to realize you are not the same as the mindless chatter running through your head.

The effect is to reduce stress, an aggravating factor for many mental and physical problems. People seeking relief from physical ailments as diverse as fibromyalgia, heart disease, cancer and other chronic illnesses report relief from meditation.

Also, meditation finds itself in the arsenal of those trying to manage pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression.

The scientific community is convinced that meditation is a useful tool. And except for a small number of people with certain psychiatric conditions, it is considered extremely safe.

Nonetheless, researchers have not been able to figure out conclusively why it works although they have found a relationship with meditation and changes in brain function.

Respected sites such as WebMD speak highly of meditation. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, has long been studying it.

They think that meditation might work by slowing the sympathetic nervous system which mobilizes the body for action and increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system which causes heart rate and breathing to go down.

With such strong physical and psychological benefits and so little risk, there is little reason not to meditate. Here is one source to learn how to use it for its physical benefits and spiritual growth.

More Thoughts about Scorpio, Pluto, Death, Life and Personal Power

The best use of astrology is using the energies in play in a constructive way. The following experience illustrates the point.

Last week I felt very proud of myself. I did something I long resisted. I broke down and called in a professional organizer to help me organize and rid my house of the clutter that has been choking me.

As a creative person, antiseptically clean and neat desktops and shelves were never my style. And clutter grows naturally. An old boyfriend called the clutter in my living quarters "organic." 

But after the death of my father a year-and-a-half ago, I was only partway through reorganizing my house to have it suit my needs. Enough clutter occupied the space to make it difficult for me to do some activities I've long wanted to do. Like create a painting studio and making my office a more functional and comfortable place.

And while I resisted spending the money, it was costing me money every month in storage fees that had gone up once again.

And I was hitting a brick wall. I was finally ready to let go and bite the bullet.

So I made the call. The person I called was a professional organizer I had gotten to know from an old networking group. Back then, I felt too self-conscious to have anyone I knew even casually take a peek at the garage, closets and other spaces in their glory...

Being the astrologer that I am, I took a look at the ephemeris after we had made the appointment. Sure enough, the appointment coincided with Sun's annual conjunction with my natal Saturn in Scorpio, we were coming up to the annual Scorpio New Moon and Transiting Saturn was square to Pluto. Saturn is about structure and constriction, Pluto is about purging. 

And just to cap it off, the Moon would be finishing its transit through Virgo at the time of her initial consultation.

Much is written about the difficulties of Pluto and Saturn energies and I have personally experienced my share. And going forward with my de-cluttering project does not inoculate me from Saturn or Pluto's harsher effects. But signing that contract felt right and I felt lighter knowing that I was finally going to face this issue head-on. 

The hard work begins.

Thoughts about Scorpio, Pluto, Death, Life and Our Own Personal Power

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. ~ Alice Walker 

I was taken by that quote, so appropriate for this time of year when the Sun meets the Moon in the dark recesses of Scorpio. Pluto ruled Scorpio, after all, is all about power. It is also about purging, ruthlessness and eventually healing and transformation. And in the process, Scorpio's energy allows us to step across the boundaries separating the physical from the spirit.

It is no accident then, that so many mediums, intuitives, and psychics have a a strong dose of Pluto, 8th House, or Scorpio in their birth charts.

The gift of Scorpio is to look at death in the face and not flinch. By doing so, you can see past the dying into the essence of what makes us unique yet connected, our inner light, our soul... This is where we find our connection to the Divine--and each other. 

But sometimes we cannot access it until we have been stripped bare. In other words, it isn't until we face severe challenge and hardship and are forced to give up our external trappings of status, wealth, or the loss of someone or something very dear that we are forced to go inward. When the outer world fails us that we have no choice but to find our inner light.

It is through such experiences that we become wise, and connect to our personal power. But that does not come without going through the purging and the pain. Because we find out how strong we really are.