From Ashes to Flowers: A Full Moon in Libra

Since the New Moon in Aries, I've been contemplating more messages from the fire, namely, ashes. 

When you have a wood fire, you have a lot of ashes. I've been asking myself, can I compost them? Can I put them on the garden? Can I use them to make soap? What can I possibly do with so many? 

And when will the fire burning season come to a close and when will I be able to put my bare feet on the ground again? I did once so far this year, at the Equinox. We had a fire and released and sowed intentions for the astrological new year. We danced for Spring! Then yesterday and today, wind and snow. And tomorrow it will be 60 degrees again. Spring in Vermont!

Tonight, a walk home in the moonlight, the woods glinting back to me the stars and the frozen mud ice. The trees on my walk hold me like old friends. They warmed me all winter and comfort me on my pensive stroll in the dark or my romp through the woods. I recognize the ones I know. They don't mind transformation, from green to bare and grey to wood to fire to smoke. 

And still, ashes. To ashes. The trees don't mind becoming ashes. They have been teaching me about the ways that I recycle myself. My Aries independence wants to spring forward on my own, but this Libra moon whispers that we need others to make new soil of our burnt up dreams and wishes. Ashes are no good composted on their own. They need to be mixed into the pile in the right amounts. 

What does this mean to how I exist in the world? How do I offer myself? What do I receive? How worthy do I feel to give of my gifts and accept those of others in return?

Ashes are powerful because they are cleansing. Ashes clean silver and sweep up dirt. In the same way, my shadow cleans me. My darkness, once thoroughly burned, becomes the purifying potential of my future self. I can be washed clean by those parts of myself I don't want to see, if I am patient enough to observe them. 

And if Spring relies on anything, it is patience, as the flowers recently shared with me during a plant journey with a client. 

In the Garden with the Flowers

Swelling and blossoming into being
eating and being eaten
growing
sticky and green
we wait to become
who we are
when the time is right
we swell and open
becoming tall
Hollyhock 
Sunflower
Magnolia 
Tulip
Daffodil
stretching out
from darkness
we trust
we know
we will grow into ourselves
at the right time
a message of seeing
potential in the dark
we don't have to fight 
or strive
or stress
the blooming happens
and we are able
to allow our hearts
to grow into flowers
our special nectar 
our essence 
each particular flower speaking.

With the ashes laid in the garden, I prepare the soil. I learn that I only have to prepare the container for what comes next.

I've been offering more timed writing blocks during sessions with creatives. The timed writing container allows for automatic flow of the pencil or pen - too often we break abruptly from the inspiration and don't allow the strand of thought to coalesce onto the page. Setting a timer and writing creates a garden for my words to land in, a fertilized bed.

Next time that you write, don't hold any expectations. Set a timer and sit back and allow. See what comes. What message did you think wanted to come? How are you surprised by what does? When do you think the poem should end, and what comes after you think is should be over? 

This Full Moon was conjunct Venus and my natal Venus. I've been feeling a lot of expansion around my business and my Earth mission - my writings and my offerings. I'm have a few spots for three or six month creative coaching containers. What is a session with me like? 

Can I share how incredibly talented Amy is? First, Amy spent a few minutes talking with me about the herbs in my garden and which of them I had been connecting to lately. Then, we chatted a little about my writing practice and some goals I have around it. Amy led a visualization that took me to my herb garden where I connected with a plant I haven’t learned much about but felt drawn to. The ability to go deep was super-supported by the incredible gift Amy has in creating the loveliest of visualizations. I’m also learning more about this plant (Wormwood) and am looking forward to bringing it into my writing practice and using it to support my health. The final piece in this lovely session was getting a follow-up email that detailed all we had discussed. I can’t say enough good things about how lovely the time with her was. <3

- K.C. in Kentucky

My sessions are all particularly tailored to your particular creative and physical needs and may include meditation, writing, EFT tapping and breathing exercises. Make an appointment here to set up a free exploration with me:

Book a call

The next New Moon in Aries is the first New Moon of this solar cycle, so get ready for it. Empty out those ash buckets!

Lots of Green Love,

Amy

P. S. If you liked my flower channeled poem here, you might like to join my Patreon! I just offered Seven Spring Poems to my Earthlings tier and above. 

The Fire Inside: A Full Moon in Virgo

While living with a wood stove, I have learned so much about fire: how it burns and revives, dies and returns, burns slowly and steadily or roars and devours. The other night I dappened down the fire down so much that when I opened the stove in the morning, a puff of smoke escaped and the blackened wood gasped for air before roaring back to life after a whole night of waitings. This describes how I have felt this past week, as if my own energy were just waiting to be released, and the fire behind my projects rekindled. Poof! Smoke out, smoke in, a sudden burning, a warming of the surroundings and, I am awake! I saw the shadow of smoke on the snow. For now the fire burns inside.

I need to ground the flame. My dreams around this Full Moon have been intense and restless. I dreamed I was wearing a yellow apron. I dreamed I was back in school, learning. I dreamed I was teaching, which I'll go back to in real life this week. The night of the Full Moon, she woke us up when she was exact. The following day I drew the Hermit card. In Tarot, the Hermit card represents Virgo, and this noble Virgin said to me:

Look inside for the fire inside. Outer reaching only gets us so far.

This is a lesson from the plants too. The heart of growth lies deep within the seed. A reminder not to take too much in. All I need are a little light and air to blaze again.

In a session with a client recently Sunflower came to me. She offered me a golden oil which she poured down my throat, soothing and reviving me.

A Gift from the Flowers

Sometimes our fire inside can feel terrifying, obsessive and dark. Our addictions may come to light, those things that we burn for that do not do us any favors. Our desires may sometimes feel taboo. But your fire inside need not scare. Our passionate desires can light up the dark and burn away shadows, even the ones we'd rather not see. Your fire inside feeds your growth.

The fact that light casts a shadow remains one of the paradoxes of fire. Flame also produces smoke, a kind of shadow too, yet we were born to face this conundrum, thanks to the fire inside of us. We are both dark and light.

Our own shadows can feel heavy at this time of year. As I write this, I am sitting through another snow squall, witnessing March coming in like a lion. I'm turning to the energy of Pisces to sooth last month's excessive Aquarian energy. The Sun is in Pisces with Venus, approaching Neptune, Venus' higher octave, so reality may at times feel dreamy and watery too. We can allow ourselves to be rocked in these watery energies within us, our fire finding balance. The seed needs both too.

Believe in Spring

One morning last week the weather was so warm I forgot to stoke the fire. I was caught up in doing and I forgot that at this time of year, the fire always needs tending. The last few months have felt like that. My inner fire needed some tending, and this school holiday has given me that. I needed some time to rest and feel into the warmth that was growing. I needed to believe in Spring.

Flowers are surprising. Pictured here is an image of Cleomes I drew last Summer, strong and sticky. I don’t know Cleomes very well. I was pleasantly surprised when, the other day, thinking of my business and how I wanted it to grow, going through old notes, I discovered this drawing I had forgotten I had made, on a warm, sweet day, of a strange, exciting flower. I look forward to the blooms that will grow with me this Summer. I dream of connecting to them and sharing my musings with you in the coming months.

Let me know if you would like to discuss a Spring collaboration. I have a few spots available for three or six month one-on-one creative coaching programs, to support you as you rise into the Spring on the wings of your inner fire. What will the Spring bring for you? I am currently working on a creative writing project with a client and a green business venture with a curator turned entrepreneur. You can make an appointment to speak with me about your project here.

In the meantime, keep stoking your fires!

Love,

Amy

Activate Your Desires: A New Moon Party in Aquarius

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

An Offering of Home
Getting in the bath tonight to receive my New Moon message felt like going home. I haven’t shared news with you in so long. I feel detached and I’ve felt detached from myself and from others, how very Aquarian. But that is not really me. As a late decan Pisces with my ascendant at the very end of Scorpio, this New Moon falls in my fourth house of home and I came home to myself. How do I want to share it with others? I have been cultivating my offerings, waiting for them to bloom in their own time. That time is not now, with snow laying all around. The seeds are still slumbering. But I am showing up with an offering.

A Planetary Party
The Moon and the Sun aren’t the only cosmic objects gathering in Aquarius. You can find Jupiter conjunct Venus there, making out on the couch. Mercury is doing back flips off the arm chair while Saturn sulks in the corner. I’m not sure I’d want to be there.

Welcome Back to High School
Teaching teenagers in rural high schools brings me closer to the underbelly of our society, the one we don’t see on TV. I observe how we are raising the children who will carry the world in the future. I find it terrifying at times. My mind spins. How can I bring something to them, these young people who so often already seem brokien by a system that doesn’t do them justice, that constructs machines around them and then teaches them to consume so that it can consume them? The situation seems dire, and I read and overhear despair from others who teach them and from those who look to the stars. The Aquarian Age has not lived up to the youthful hopes and revolutions of the past.

Activate Your Desires
What can I do? In the bath a message to share came to me: Activate your desires. What does this mean concretely? I shine a light on the dark places I observe and ask my students, directly and indirectly, what do you desire? Most of them do not desire to learn French. They don’t desire to be in school. Today a student I passed in the hall asked me what my problem was. He thought I was staring. Sometimes I feel they don’t want me there, they don’t want to be seen at all, let alone be asked about their desires. What then? I speak to my own desires. Even the small ones deserve my attention - a square of chocolate, a cup of tea. One small, conscious desire equals many large diffuse desires or endless cravings for “other” and “more”. My big desires often rhyme with my fears, so I approach them gingerly and lovingly. I take my time.

The Queen of Wands
Today I drew the Queen of Wands in my daily tarot pull. This card is the card of my Sun’s position and always speaks to me of myself - Water of Fire - all opposite of the Air energies surrounding the moon and most of the rest of the cosmos. The current alignments are rare. I was in a muddle all day with what to do with all the mental energy, but the Queen helped me. In the bath I got it: Activate your desires.

The world is only as you want it to be, as you allow it to be, as you see it and allow it to be seen.

So speak to your desires.

Plant Wisdom
The plants teach me to speak to my desire in the moment, most often my desires, however unbeknownst to me, are formulated at the seed or cellular level to encourage my growth. Ah, the sleeping seeds now getting ready to burst under the snow, teach me that I don’t have far to go to allow the seeds of myself to prepare for the new growing season. How do I want to grow?

And it may seem like we do not have a lot of choice in the matter. I too have felt weighed down by the events of the past year, the illness, death and blindness of our society as we continue to run towards our own demise. And I could get caught up in the blur of whirring cogs in my brain, each planet spinning in air, but I stop myself there.

Maybe no one can tell me what to do. Others don’t have the answer and they can’t show me the path to where I want to go. Maybe I simply need to activate my own desires, and when I think this or write this an energy comes, despite the snow. We are buried for a little while longer I think, and I don’t need the world to conform to me, I simply need to let it flow, let the chaos be the chaos and work itself out.

A Pleiadian Message
The stars gave me this message last month, at the time of the violence in Washington, before Biden’s inauguration. I was listening to star song on my walk down the hill, specifically the Pleiades. It was my homework in a class I am taking with Jocelyn Mercado, Music of the Spheres, to connect with them specifically. As a singer of traditional harmonies and a student of the Middle Ages, celestial song never feels far from my conscience, but deciding to listen to specific constellations has brought me great insight, especially from the stories they carry. The Pleiades said, those sacred sisters, let the chaos flow and settle, work itself out. Another way of saying let go. I think that is what all this Aquarian energy asks of us too. Let it flow, go, all of the mess of the world, and I add, as the Queen of Wands, I’ll activate my desires, as seed children in my womb, and act on them. That’s what I’ll plant at this New Moon, my desires, for the kind of world I want to be in, for the protection and safe growth of the planet and the children.

Your Desires
How are your desires? Would you like to listen in? The plants can help. I offer flower essences, flower essence consultations, tarot readings and astrological conversations on your star chart and your aspirations. I also have a few spots for long term coaching if you’d like to engage with your desires as a creative process of growth with the help of the green world around you. Well, it will be green soon. Make a free appointment to discuss this work with me here.

Stay warm star children! Let me know how you activate your desires!

Love,

Amy

A Daisy Crown for the Sun: The Solstice and a New Moon Eclipse in Cancer

A Wild Garden
As I’m writing this, the Moon is still in Cancer, taking me into a cool evening after a hot day. The garden has exploded in a typical Vermont way. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking, won’t it be nice when the leaves are on the trees, and suddenly, everything is green. The ground nut and other vines have strangled the poppies and I’m rescuing peonies from the rain. I’ve let the garden go wild, with just a bit of space cleared around my vegetables patches. I’m watching the three sisters grow, my dream of planting an indigenous garden here a reality. In May, my then very new love and I planted mounds of corn, peas, beans and squash. Since then I’ve been watching all of us reach into an intertwined life; a nice parallel between my green garden and my growing relationship. The pea plants found the corn without any help and now there is a single purple pea flower on one of them. They don’t seem to mind the heat. I think to water, and then see that they are doing fine. I weed the carrots. The lilacs have bloomed and the wild phlox, feeding what seemed like hundreds of swallowtail butterflies. I could take lots of pictures of irises, foxglove and the tangle of blackberry bramble and strawberry and blueberry bush which, in addition to feeding the birds, I hope will give me some fruit. In the morning, the bumblebees roll in the rosa rugosa blooms that grow up the side of the house. I’ve planted sun flowers. I feel thankful for this abundance and my life in my hot little house. I’ve started making sourdough bread.

A practice shot - the actual ceremony was not photographed. Photo by A. Blackhawk

The Summer Solstice
On the day before the Solstice, I went and greeted the Sun as a lover and made a daisy chain crown that I imagined I placed on his head, reflecting on how the flower is like a small sun, a miniature representation of a cosmic force we can only observe in awe. The Sun is reflected in the daisy, yellow center surround by rays of light, the circle which rays out. I made two round solstice loaves, a Sun and a Moon, and on the day of the Solstice, one which we brought to an Abenaki Fire Shooting ceremony which was magical even with masks and social distancing. There, someone shot an arrow into the Sun, and we gathered and talked as people must have done here long before there were lawns and strip malls. It feels good to give back this way to the land. I think it recognizes us, some of our words, songs and actions, and feels relieved that there is still ceremony as the sun moves from the longest day back towards eventual longer nights. At the Solstice, the Earth starts to breath out. I am reminded that blooming is brief and takes the effort of many, but when it is time, blooming is divine. The Sun says, every day is divine. The herbs gather me now - it was traditional to gather yarrow at the Solstice, but here it is not yet blooming - I gather clover and roses. On my walk to greet the Sun, a hawthorn bush peeked at me through the hedge, its blooms already swelling towards berry. The small green apples are hard and seem to blow up a little more everyday. Like the Sun, the daily dawn chorus is also divine. The peepers are done and the birds have the early hours to themselves, greeting the day with a jungle of sounds. When the Sun is up it calms, with only the sounds of the news of the day, warnings or cheers, preparing for heat. The mornings are wet and cool. I go for barefoot garden walks.

Self-representation
As I write these words that describe my green days, I wonder if it is okay that I am not visually documenting my life. I haven’t wanted to. I needed a break from social media. Things were changing for me in the Spring and I needed to rethink how I was representing myself. I needed to consider why my posts weren’t growing my audience in the way I wanted them to and which part of me wanted to be ignored. I decided to take myself out of the game while Venus retrograded in Gemini, leaving the night sky too. Five planets are now retrograde, including Mercury, so a turn to inner work seems appropriate. I have enjoyed the pause and not getting lost in the Instragram scroll. This also coincided with the feeling that other voices needed to be heard more urgently and it felt appropriate to step back a little because of that too. I understand a little better why it is hard for me to show up there, and to show up with my business in general, so I think I will come back with more consciousness around what and how I am sharing, and hopefully less self-sabotage. I was interviewed for a podcast (coming soon!) and I’m going to take a course by the wonderful Sabrina Monarch called Online Presence as Performance Art (!) and Venus moves forward again on Thursday, so hopefully my time away from the scene will allow me to infuse my online presence with a new energy. Maybe I am moving into being more comfortable being seen. This has been the focus of my magic for a while. This New Moon in Cancer has me wondering how I am showing up for myself. Is it with compassion and trust? I want to show up like that for the people in my life as well as in public, but how can I if I don’t show up that way for myself? The Eclipse, and end and a beginning, adds drama to the question of how I’m being seen and how I see myself, while Cancer makes it all more emotional. I’m aware of how my words do or do not adequately represent my inner, watery worlds. I want something new, in any case, and I’m working on it. I’m starting by opening my eyes and ears to myself. The outside world gives me keys to how best to see myself.

Being seen
As I turned into my garage tonight, I saw a doe and her fawn walking up the road. they stopped to stare and then ran, tails wagging. We saved a baby phoebe; it was flopping on the grass and I placed it gingerly back into its nest. The mother still doesn’t trust me though, every time I go check she flies back and forth peeping at me. I wonder if she knows she owes one of her babies’ lives to me. There are five little birds crowded in there, no wonder one fell. It must be hot. They don’t mind that I come peer at them. They don’t mind being seen. The mice in my house too give me clues to how compassionate I can be to myself. If I can live with them, I can live with my own fragile truths. I can put this out into the world and they become less fragile, more firm. How comfortable are you sharing your magic? I’d love to help you work on your visibility, as I work on mine. Do you want to share more of yourself but wonder how? Make a free appointment with me on my homepage. I’m currently only available Thursday afternoon and on the weekends. Contact me if you need to arrange another time or send me an email describing the kind of work you want to put out into the world and why you struggle to do so. A good flower essence for self-expression is Self Heal. You can buy some here.

Solstice blessings to you all. I hope you feel the wild potential in these painful times. The veils are lifting and shifting. Be kind to yourselves!

Love,

Amy

My wild garden

No Such Thing As Disconnection: The Gemini New Moon and a Message from Valerian

Wild Valierian - From Basilius Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis

A New Moon Harvest
This long weekend, I took a little more time to get my New Moon download than usual. Now it is already Wednesday and the moon is a swelling crescent in the sky. I harvested Valerian on Friday, when the New Moon was exact, and my house is filled with the smell of drying leaves. The root, white and tangled, smelled pungent and ripe like Spring. Some people hate how it smells. I loved it, and loved harvesting it. Let us know over at Flack Family Farm if you would like some! You can also just email me. Valerian is wonderful for sleep and relaxation, perfect for these anxious times. In my last post, I talked about how she helps us see the connections between the dark and the light. This week she teaches us how to heal our disconnection from the Earth.

A particularly beautiful Valerian root - you can order some from me or Flack Family Farm

Venus Retrograde in Gemini
Since Venus retrograded in Gemini, I have been social distancing from social media, contemplating how I want it to serve me instead of feeling like a slave to it, and I feel like as a result it is taking me a little more time to know how to share what I want to share. Venus is in her dark phase, no longer in the night sky, completing her 8-year-long flower dance, and like her, I wanted to delve into the darkness of my own sky, to see what there is behind the veil, and disappear for a while.

A Planetary Download
To get my cosmic insight, I took a bath just as the New Moon was exact. I actually took two baths for this one (baths are my grounding portals of planetary intuition - make an appointment with me to talk about how you can tune in!), one the day before, with salts, and one with my Valerian harvest. What came up for me was the theme of disconnection. Choosing to disconnect from the internet may be a way of coming back to ourselves, to draw ourselves within, and this has been particularly necessary at this time of social distancing. Meanwhile, disconnection is another type of pandemic, one perhaps more damaging to our world than the virus itself. Disconnection could be at the root of its spread. How did we forget, in our race to be more connected, the life-giving connections that sustain us, to the water and land, to the plants and the animals around us? When did we forget the care that is necessary to maintain them?

Disconnection
I believe that disconnection is fundamentally an ecological problem. That is to say, because we are disconnected from the Earth - as humans we experienced at some point in our long history the Earth as hostile to us and survival as a challenge - all other disconnection followed. The patriarchy arose, and we became disconnected from the Earth, from the feminine, outside of us and inside of us as well. We reject parts of ourselves, and disconnect from them. We disconnect from feelings, feel overwhelmed by them, and are no longer able to process them in the body. We disconnect from the body. We don’t want to feel the suffering of the past, in our own lives and in the lives of others. We experience “species loneliness”, which Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. As a society of the industrialized variety, we no longer feel connected to beings outside of our own species. I remember the feeling when I first starting working more intimately with plants that I was never alone. My loneliness disappeared. I was surrounded by an abundance of green friends.

Gemini Energy
Gemini is an energy I am familiar with because my natal moon is in Gemini. I want to learn a lot, I want to do everything. I don’t want to focus. You could call it the attention deficit disorder sign, and though I’ve never been diagnosed with that “disorder”, I do relate to how the brain functions with a multitude of sensory inputs. This Gemini energy can make me feel disconnected, with too many choices, and too many things I want to do. I am curious and a fast learner, but I can get overwhelmed by all there is I want to know. This New Moon was illuminating this energy for me. Mercury is also in Gemini, where it was conjunct Venus last week. My mind rattles with questions. What do I want to do? How will I choose? Why am I doing what I am doing? Disconnection is also a mental energy. We disconnect when we activate our rational faculties, when we analyze, when we ponder. And I wonder, do we have to? Is there another way of thinking that doesn’t disconnect but connects?

A Pandemic
Within the context of our current pandemic, many of us have disconnected from our routines, our daily lives of hustle and bustle. I was already pretty disconnected from this mode of living, and I don’t think I could go back to it, but not everyone can choose to do anything else, and this is part of the problem. Our current workaholic world of disconnection is the norm, a fait accompli, without which the economy and the society it feeds would crumble, or so many believe. What are our options? Throw out your TV? Get off the grid? Go local, local, local, that is what the books I am reading say and have been saying for years (see Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy or David Fleming’s Surviving the Future), and I see the signposts in my immediate surroundings too, in a sign in my small town telling us to stay safe and buy local; in the the way people are leaving free stuff out everywhere instead of having yard sales; in those giving away masks and making sure their neighbors have enough to eat. We need to learn how to grow our own food and eat the food at our doorsteps. We need to help and support each other. These changes are now happening in real time, and that must be how we change the larger paradigm. These are my Gemini thoughts, like so many shivering, shaking leaves.

A bath with Valerian

A Bath With Valerian
In my second bath, with Valerian, I asked the spirit of the plant about disconnection. It showed me a bed. There is nothing you need to do to feel connection in this time of separation, it said, except for to allow yourself to pass through the veil, to sleep, to feel your connection to everything that is outside of yourself, to feel connected to the non-human realms. Perhaps this is the ideal time to do so, to acknowledge all that surrounds us, in the dream time and in the forest, in the park and down the street, in the square of grass (for more on this listen to this recent David Abrams essay on the Emergence podcast).

Heart Thinking
Later I felt into the fact that often my feelings of frustration, of longing, of separation, come from my feeling of disconnection. In other words, I wouldn’t feel frustrated if I felt connected and remembered that I am always connected. What kind of thinking allows me to remember this? I feel this when my thinking is not just mental but heart-centered. Some say the heart thinks too, some argue only the brain thinks, but whatever science decides, I know that my understanding grows along with my capacity to use both in my daily life. My feeling of connection is only as expansive as the size of my own heart.

An Expansive Heart
Lately my heart has been expanding. Venus’ dance has brought to me a unique experience of love and balance, and that is what I am seeding with this New Moon, balance between the heart and the brain, the masculine and the feminine. I am reminded of how potently the world can reflect our own cycles of healing and growth, and that we are not separate from the Earth. She is always reminding us.

As long as we see the earth as something other than ourselves, we forget that Gaia herself is conscious and intelligent, carrying the instructions we need for restoration and healing, for creating a human presence here on earth in service to all life. - Chameli Ardagh

How do you get connected when you feel disconnection? Write to me, I’d love to know! I’m observing, loving and releasing doubts about my purpose and self-worth and moving beyond the idea of disconnection in my head and my heart, thanks to the flowers.

If you’d like to discover how flower essences might help you do the same, make an appointment with me here. With a flower essence consultation, you will receive your own personal essence, but you can also browse my flower essences and their beautiful messages here.

During this cycle the plants helped me understand that as we live sometimes in duality, we may find ways of embracing our polarities and those around us or in others. For another good read on the separation that currently surrounds us, and how to transmute it, see Charles Eisenstein’s latest article, “The Conspiracy Myth”.

I had lots of reading and listening suggestions for you this week! Maybe that is also because I am spending less time thinking of what to share on social media. The internet is a magical place when it comes to in-depth and inspiring content. I hope you enjoy them.

Would you like to discover how the flowers might help you on your own creative projects? Make a free appointment with me here to talk to you about it creative coaching with me and the flowers. I only have a few more weeks of an open calendar before I begin some temporary summer work, so book an appointment with me now. Here’s a testimonial from a satisfied writer I am coaching:

Imagine if you had your own personal guide to help nurture your creativity, build your resilience, pursue your passions, and address the challenges standing between you and your goals? As a creative coach, Amy is unlike anyone you've ever met. She combines ancient wisdom with cutting-edge practices. She distills her deep connection with nature into a tonic for the human soul. She has an extraordinary intuition for what we need to hear, how we should learn, who we can call on, and where we can go. 

Guided meditations with Amy have breathed new life into my creative process, and she has helped me to remove obstacles in my daily life that were impeding my progress. Her gentle suggestions, practical guidance, and astonishing insights have changed not just my creative output, but the way I approach my life. Amy's respect for her clients' dignity, privacy, and trust is a reflection of her grace, humility, and values. 

If you find yourself at a crossroads, at a stop sign, in a dark tunnel, or on a long and winding road, Amy will light your path -- and help you go farther than you could imagine going alone. 

- Amanda in Geneva, Switzerland

That’s all for now I think. I can’t wait to see what this cycle will bring for you and for me. With green love,

Amy

Sensing into Autmn: Venus Retrograde, Full Moon in Taurus and Shadow Work

The leaves are falling, the flowers are sleeping in their seeds, and we are turning inwards again on the wheel of the year. I flew to Geneva again for some seasonal work, leaving behind the golden mountains of home, and jetlag has given me some strange productive hours. There are many things I want to share, for the first time in a while, and I will try to weave them all together here.

Shining Light on Our Darker Places

Yesterday the Sun moved into Scorpio, shining light on our darker places, the obsessions we'd rather not have and the pain we would rather bury sometimes. But I've been there for a while; Venus has been retrograde for a few weeks and she's been bringing me events from the past to survey, times when I didn't feel good enough or loved enough. Tonight, at the Full Moon in Taurus, Venus will cross paths with the sun, forming one of the points of her star shaped movement through the sky and reflecting back to us the beauty of our wounds. I've been working with my shadow for a while now, since she first went retrograde at the beginning of October, and this time around she's brought to me an even deeper compassion for my darker places.

Existential Kink

A gentle place to start exploring the shadow is through the book by Robert Johnson, a Jungian thinker and analyst, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1991). He explains what the shadow is in a reassuring way, from the perspective of its Jungian source; we all have one, it's okay, we can represent it for ourselves in concrete ways in the material world and rise above it's tendency to bite us back when we are least expecting it. I didn't begin with a gentle exploration of the shadow though; I jumped right in a few years ago with a practice I learned from Carolyn Elliot, in her course INFLUENCE, which she has coined Existential Kink, EK for short. This practice basically entails allowing your body to find its ecstasy through the fulfillment of desires it usually refuses, in a completely safe way and on its own terms. It's based on the premise that having is a sign of wanting and it turns around our tendency to feel like the victims of our lives. Allowing the body to relax into and enjoy the painful events of the past is liberating in a way that is hard to explain - you have to try it! It's probably best to hear Carolyn herself talk about it:

https://www.dreamfreedombeauty.com/witch-carolyn-elliott-on-shame-the-heroines-story-why-not-to-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-episode-54/

I think she's writing a book about it, so hopefully more people will have access to this powerfully transformative way of dealing with trauma. The practice has felt especially healing for me lately, so this Venus retrograde in Scorpio period that I was apprehensive about has actually been extremely liberating. I feel more free and accepting of the past then I ever have before, which is helping me be less troubled by the troubling events of our present, if that makes sense. There is a breath in, a breath out, and a real reaping of my introspective work, which has often been heavy and daunting, lasting for days if not for months sometimes. Phew. Shadow work pays off.

Not Blindly Giving Our Power Away

On the plane over I read another Robert Johnson book, Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection (2008). This short book was also very healing, and I learned again the importance of recognizing when we are putting our gold into someone else's lap, and the need to be conscious about drawing our soul light back, standing in our own light when we can, and not blindly giving our power away because we don't want to or are unable to hold it. In the sky, in the dark, I held my light in my lap and cried, one step closer to accepting myself and my life's learning journey. I wrote this poem a few months ago, but it expresses this current calling back to myself of my desires:

So I'm calling all my desires back to myself,
Every one wanted and then refused.
Every cell, blood red, that went out to gather
Vampire-like, ill-used, I call back to myself.
Every body touched and hurt
in darkness, every sun that shown
on my desired one, every wish fulfilled or spurned
every one, I call back to myself, as one.

I think it's a spell. I suppose I cast it back then, and now, here I am living it. I'm grateful, a step closer to feeling my wholeness, which I sometimes forget is there.

Embodied Earthiness

The sensuousness of these experiences are brought to you thanks to this Full Moon in Taurus, where she shines ample and worthy, embodied earthiness. See if you can feel into any of the discomfort she might illuminate. It might appear in the form of frustration, anger or animosity towards yourself or others. She is conjunct Uranus at the moment too, so our feelings may feel especially electric, new, or charged. As you sound them, see if you can use this energy to shine a light in the darkness and bring a playfulness to your story, however challenging it may be.

Lunar Wisdom

Enjoy her healing light tonight! Some lunar wisdom I've enjoyed reading that moves in the same direction as this and might bring you even more healing introspection are:

Sabrina Monarch, at Monarch Astrology
Mystic Mama, at http://www.mysticmamma.com/astrology-full-moon-in-taurus-october-24th-2018/
and Anandashree Astrology, for a soothing Vedic take https://www.anandastrology.com/blog/full-moon-soak-it-up-ashwini-vedic-astrology

If you want more of my writing on the shadow journey, as Persephone's choice, read https://badwitch.es/heroines-journey-persephones-choice-embracing-shadow-rewriting-myth/

A prose piece of mine, “Origins", which is largely the product of my own work with shadow and myth, was just published in Dark Mountain: Issue 14, TERRA, https://dark-mountain.net/product/dark-mountain-issue-14-terra/

I'll be writing more as the flowers are sleeping! I'm looking forward to sharing. Keep connecting! Our sparks in the dark.

(Originally published October 24th, 2018)