I am in the last weeks of the Practical Astral Projection Intensive offered by famed astral projectionist and author of Astral Dynamics: The Complete Book of Out-of-Body Experiences Robert Bruce.
Spring is less of a revelation this year than it has been in others. The mild winter was perhaps too kind to Pennsylvania. There was no snow to speak of. No long stretches of low temperatures.
I have always been a fan of seasons. To me, each has its own energy and winter has the energy of air. It is a time for realism and clear thought. At some point over the course of the season, I stop and take stock of things and I didn't do that this year. I'm not sure why but I suspect that in the absense of hard wind and frozen ground, I may have missed my trigger but maybe that's okay.
If winter holds the energy of introspection, spring hold that of action. And there is a fast paced decisiveness to action - a rapidly unfolding plan which makes us think upon our feet and rise above our situation. I am blogging very briefly this week, taking advantage of that amazing energy!
Said Julius Cesar of the Celts:
It was Mary who first called me to the Church and Jesus who called me back in early 2020. One of the first things I did after returning to the faith, was to look for a statue of the Blessed Mother to replace the two I had given away.
I bought my first replacement Mary statue on eBay and was excited to have found an exact replica of the old chalkware statue I had given up.
Unfortunately, when the statue arrived the beautiful face of Our Lady was completely smashed! At first I was upset, and even started to wonder if this was some kind of sign that coming back to the Church was a mistake. But the more I thought about, the more determined I felt to continue in the Faith.
I decided to repair the statue.
It was tedious, painstaking work, but as I reconstructed the statue my attention was drawn the snake that Mary was standing on. I knew that the snake represented Satan.
I thought about the many negative influence in my life - influences that included my fear of snakes and the presence of many garter snakes in our new year. And I started to feel that somehow Mary might help me to face that fear. I wasn't sure how that would happen exactly but I was willing to believe that it was possible.
Enter St. Kateri
A little later that year, a DNA test confirmed that I had a distant American Indian ancestor. While I have no direct connection to the indigenous culture, I've always been interested in Indian spirituality. Now I began to learn a bit more. As I did, I started think about what I was learning had to say about my lifestyle and my relationship to the land.
At that point, I was spending most of my time inside. I got very little exercise and my diet was terrible. My participation in the family vegetable garden was minimal and I had let my own medicine wheel herb garden go. I felt bad about that but the worse the garden got, the harder it seemed to turn it around.
Then I found out about the St. Kateri Conservation Center. According to the website, anyone could transform a yard, garden, school, farm, or parish into a Saint Kateri habitat.
Even people, I thought, who live on busy streets and are afraid of snakes - or maybe even those people especially.
Where I'm at Right Now
Right now, I'm busy working with my son in our backyard. We haven't got to the medicine wheel garden yet but we are making progress with we are working hard on getting our three raised beds ready for planting.
The Mary Garden is still in the planning stages and I am still snake phobic but I wanted to write this post to hold myself accountable.
The image above is of medicine wheel garden not long after we put it in. It is badly overgrown now and needs a lot of work. But I hope to posting on my progress very soon!
I also want to learn more about the medicine wheel and related aspects of American Indian spirituality.
About the Medicine Wheel
The Medicine Wheel, sometimes known as the Sacred Hoop, has been used by generations of various Native American tribes for health and healing. It embodies the Four Directions, as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Spirit Tree—all of which symbolize dimensions of health and the cycles of life.
The Medicine Wheel can take many different forms. It can be an artwork such as artifact or painting, or it can be a physical construction on the land. Hundreds or even thousands of Medicine Wheels have been built on Native lands in North America over the last several centuries.
Movement in the Medicine Wheel and in Native American ceremonies is circular, and typically in a clockwise, or “sun-wise” direction. This helps to align with the forces of Nature, such as gravity and the rising and setting of the Sun. - Excerpted from "Medicine Ways" on the Native Voices Website
When I read about the medicine wheel garden and what it means, I can why I let mine go and why I must return to it.
____________
My journey back to the Church was a long one. You can read about some of it in my post The Long Way Home.
Learn more about the practice of astrology, astrology as a profession and the astrology of midlife and again with professional astrologer, author and teacher Erin Sullivan!
Please note that is is my very first Mystical Pathways interview and there were some issues with my audio that had to be edited out. Luckily Erin comes in loud and clear!
To learn more about Erin, please visit her website at ErinSullivan.com. To order the Astrology of Midlife and Aging, please click here.
Today, I am recording my very first video interview with astrologer Erin Sullivan. This is the kick-off for my new series and I could not have hoped for a better first guest!
Sullivan is a working astrologer, a wonderful writer and the creator of her own video course on astrology. I have just finished her wonderful book, The Astrology of Midlife and Aging, and wanted to take moment to share a bit about what I have learned.
Astrology is not, as Sullivan's work highlights, just about birth charts - it is about the planetary cycles that occur throughout our lives.
Planetary returns (such as the solar return that is our birthday) occur at regular intervals during the lifespan and each of these returns is an influential event. In the Astrology of Midlife and Aging, Sullivan gently but firmly walks us through the planetary cycles that occur in the second half of life helping us to meet our own selves head on.
Astrologically speaking, the time we call midlife begins between the ages of 37 and 41 when Uranus opposes its original place in our chart. This is the time, Sullivan tells us, that "something mysterious takes place within the psyche" causing us to recollect our life, examine the things we have not done, and move forward with greater awareness and purpose - something which I definitely feel I have done!
Drawing on her extensive knowledge of astrology and the work of that great pioneer of the psyche Carl Jung, Sullivan explores this important transition as well as those that come after. She reminds us that "midlife - all life, in fact - is a process...not an event" and then offers an astrologer's perspective on how we might align with the available planetary energies to make the most of this very significant process.
Sullivan goes on to provide specific information for the many crossover events of the latter half of our lives, including the Uranian opposition, second Saturn return and the return of the lunar nodes. This information is organized by birth year - making The Astrology of Midlife and Aging a wonderful personal reference for anyone interested in life after forty (or 37).
I particularly enjoyed Sullivan's wonderful writing, deep knowledge and sincere thirst for self-discovery. "Faith in the gods is good," she tells us, "but faith in one's own deepest self, which knows who one is about to become, is better."
I could not agree more!
*Please check back for Erin Sullivan's wonderful interview later this week!
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