The snow started to fall here in Northeast PA on Wednesday morning and continued through the day, covering the garden, and softening the untended edges of the yard.  The woods behind the house filled with snow and the path that leads up the hill was buried.  And I was glad to see it.  

I love the changing seasons and the rhythm our circling earth supplies. But I know that each season brings its own unique set of opportunities and challenges and that this is especially true of winter.

For me, winter is a time of clarity and inspiration.  A time of creativity and deep thought and blinding illumination.  Winter opens the mind to new things, things we would have never thought of in other softer seasons, things that can put the whole rest of the year into a meaningful perspective.

But winter is a time of limitation, too.  Those of us living in the colder climates may feel hemmed in by snow or cold or icy roads.  We might not get outside as much as we would like and even when we do go out - the days end early.  This can affect us in many different ways and some of us may struggle to keep our spirits high.

I have found that the best way to keep my spirits up is by celebrating the unique energies of this very special season.  Here are a few tips that have helped me:

Cyber space is littered with orphaned blogs, after all, and most ordinary people (or dilettante bloggers) aren't especially troubled by that sad reality.

But I haven't been a dilettante blogger.  I have been a two or three times a week for four years at the same blogspot url blogger.  And my blog has become part of who I am.

So why would I quit?

Several reasons actually.  But the main one was burnout. 

My blog, at its best, was informational AND experiential.  Sometimes that experience came from books but more often it came through doing things - taking psychic development classes, studying with the spiritualists, running various groups, reading cards for others. Doing those things changed me but there was a certain amount of weight to doing them as well.

I decided that I might scale back a bit on the doing and focus more on the writing.  Writing helped me learn, helped me focus, helped me stay on track.  It held me accountable, yes, but it helped me understand my personal spiritual experience, as well.  Writing led to insights and those insights beamed right back into my conscious awareness from the eureka moment magic of my computer screen.
 

I decided to keep blogging on October 23rd, 2014 but only if I could do it on my terms.  

As it happened, this October 23rd was an auspicious day.  It was the day of the solar eclipse.  The day that the sun and the moon sailed into Scorpio together.  The day that the new moon was born in a sign that looms large in my chart. I decided to get a real dotcom and redesign the blog.

As I worked on the site, I searched for a new blog name, brainstormed with those who were close to me, made lists and charts and name maps and sketches.  I spent hours searching for available domains on GoDaddy where each dotcom I looked at was worse than the one before. MysticReview.com was taken. Of course.

I didn't give up but I was really, really beginning to want to.  I was struggling.  Struggling not only with blog names and templates, but with bigger things to - like my decision to be writer, and the entire trajectory of my personal journey in spirit. As I struggled, however, something interesting started to happen.  I started to learn things about blogging - things I probably should have figured out a long time ago.

I learned, for example, that I could point my old blogspot URL at any dot com without resetting anything.  I learned that blogger blogs could have menus just like websites and that my best posts didn't have to be buried.  I learned that cool templates were available for 21 dollars if you could make them work on your own.  I learned that my blog could be saved and how it could be saved and, in some instances, I learned these things almost immediately before I was about to make that might have been the virtual death of my blog.

As the days passed other non-blogging things began to fall into place.  I realized that I loved the mystery of earth and sky just as much as I loved the mystery of spirit, that I liked ancient wisdom more than I liked new, that looking in was better than looking up, and that I had reached a place where I was no longer exploring mystical information. Instead, I was beginning to live it.

As I did, I realized that experiencing things isn't about going out there to do things. It's about what happens in between those things.

The truth is - real transformation isn't about doing at all.  Real transformation is about energy. The energy that knocks things over and out of our way, the energy that helps us find the tools that we need most, the energy that shows us just how to apply what we have learned.  This is the energy that helps us rebuild. This is the energy that makes the things that we build stand up all by themselves.

This energy is there for us, of course, but we in we have to learn connect with it.  And in the time between the new Moon in Scorpio and its sextile with Neptune, I learned how to ride the great wave of personal change.

And then, on day 28, I searched for my domain again and found it waiting.  I checked my spelling three times.  I felt my heart thumping as I added MysticReview.com to my cart.  And I took that small miracle as a sign that what I'm building here will stand.  

But I didn't stop.  The energy was still flowing and I let it move me along.  

Today is day 30 and I am just starting to put it all together or maybe, more correctly, starting to let it all fall into place.  I have a new template which is still just a bit buggy but it has opened up the blog, making all those old half forgotten posts much easier to find.

There is more to do, of course.  Designing.  Updating.  Defining.  And building.  But the true power is not in those things.  The true power is inside, in the place that real magic happens.  And incredibly, joyously AND magically that process is ongoing.

My advice to the creative person looking to redefine and revitalize their creative identity? Think about where you are and give yourself the space to discover just where you'd like to be.  Set your intention at the right point in time.  Honor the process that is unfolding. Trust in the universe. Do the groundwork. And believe in the magic!