Here’s a great blog post by Jaden Rose Phoenix of Alchemy Wisdom. I love that she talks about connecting to your passion for life!

Lupercalia was the original pagan festival that Valentine’s Day replaced –a festival of the she-wolf. The festival celebrated spring and fertility. Young men would strike women with goat-skin strips  to bring fertility and easy birth.

While Valentine’s Day is today a much gentler holiday, with kisses instead of blows, the commercialization and sentimentalization of love that surrounds much of our experiences of this holiday comes up just a little short of what we could be experiencing.

What we can retain from the earlier rites is the passion! Yes, passion! And not just lustful passion.

A celebration of fertility is a celebration of life, specifically the large powerful force of procreation.  A wolfish lust for living, the desire for propagation, is the life force itself being creative.

Individually, we may want children or not, but the life force within us desires creation–whether it creates by flesh or by idea or by changing reality itself, creation is a key energy of the spring festival of Lupercalia.

Our life force is compelled into creation, but we are also driven–when we listen closely to our deepest longing–to live fully, wildly, and freely!  Lupercalia is this celebration of wild freedom.

While modern Valentine’s Day can be a sweet way to connect with those we love, I plan to connect more deeply into the full and wild passion of life!

Connect deeply with Passion!  Join us on for a special activation–Passion Invigoration–February 13th at 6pm Pacific Time.  Read more or register here.

Creative Commons (c) 2012 by Jaden Rose Phoenix and Alchemy Wisdom.

February 2nd was the day of honoring Imbolc/Candelmas and also the Festival of Brigit (who is a beloved saint/goddess of the Celtic and British). This is a great time of year to rededicate yourself to Spirit.

Here is a lovely Sacred Ceremony by Barbara Biziou of JoyofRitual.com. The intention is for rededicating yourself to Spirit and your spiritual pursuit.

You’ll need:
Purple candle
Black candle (or any other color)
Coins
Piece of paper and pen
Small bowl of water

Start by calling in the Light. Ask God, the Angels and the highest Guides to be present and to bless you and your sacred actions. Center yourself and ask, “What does my intention to practice the presence of Spirit really mean to me?”

Light the black (or other color you chose) candle to represent the old you; your past; all the things that have brought you to the present.

Take some time to see what is out of balance in your life. Are you working too hard and not having enough fun? Is your body out of shape? Are you spending more time doing than becoming? Are you clear on your spiritual goals? Write down the specific changes that you are willing to commit to.

Call on the power of the Divine Mother to illuminate and bless you today. Imagine waves of Violet light surrounding you with love, compassion and forgiveness.

Take a handful of coins and sprinkle them with water. Pray for the changes you hope to bring into your life. When this ceremony is over, give them away as a symbol that you are willing to give up whatever you need to in order to move out of stagnation and imbalance.

Blow out the first candle and light the purple one as you say, “I now make a sacred covenant with Mother/Father God to live a powerful life and to accept myself as a unique voice of Spirit.”

Rededicate yourself to the wonder of Spirit and bless yourself. Contemplate your inner divinity and then lightly touch your lips and vow to speak only words of kindness; touch your eyes and vow to see with new eyes; touch your heart and vow to open to love.

Our angels see the big picture and know what is best for us. It can be hard to deal with that sometimes when all we want is the answer – and right now!

One such case of this was when my Himalayan cat, Rusty, had an infection in his mouth. This was due to a couple of teeth that needed to be pulled. We always had to be careful with Rusty as he was thought to be a hemophiliac or “a bleeder.” Something as simple as extracting a tooth could cause him to bleed to death. Yet, it was dangerous if the infection ran through the rest of his body. The vet and I just didn’t know what to do. So, I went to our nearby Japanese Garden where I found connecting with the angels so easy. I sat with pen and paper and asked what they wanted me to know about Rusty’s situation. They told me to remember that Rusty was not young and would not be with me forever, and that I have had a wonderful life with Rusty and to cherish that, as well as each moment I now have with him. They also told me how much Rusty loved me and loved being with me. They wanted me to run the energy healing, Reiki, on him and use visualizations as healings. So, I asked, “Is now the time to ask whether I should get Rusty’s teeth worked on?”

Their reply was not what I expected:

“No. Trust the process. We’re here; we aren’t going anywhere. We’ll help you with that answer later. Trust the process. Let your heart be at peace. Things will be fine; do not fret over it now. Otherwise, you will muddle up your frequency and things won’t be as clear for you. We don’t need to continue this communication now. Enjoy the nature here. Breathe in the beauty of this place. It will be healing for you. Bring some of this healing and beauty home to Rusty, and to your family. We are helping you to blossom. So, go now and appreciate the blossoms here! Have a wonderful time! We love you.”

When I started my drive home, the song “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion was playing. Even though I had heard this song many times before, I knew this time the angels were giving me a message through her words. Here are some of the words that really spoke to me: “Where there was dark, now there’s light; where there was pain, now there’s joy; I can’t believe I’ve been touched by an angel with love; a new day has come.” I was given hope. It was so nice to know that my angels were by my side during all of this.

I listened to the angels’ suggestion and did my healing work on him. Periodically, they would give me more information. However, it did get pretty scary for me when one side of his face got hugely swollen with infection. But I had to trust. Our vet suggested I have a specialist look at him. The angels told me that it would now be safe to have Rusty’s teeth pulled, and the specialist came to that same conclusion. My sweet little guy came through the surgery just fine and we had 4½ more wonderful years together.

I am so grateful to the angels for communicating with me and helping me through this. It would have been so much harder without them!

Here’s Celine’s video of “A New Day Has Come”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWmr2MYJeU&feature=related

About five years ago my husband threw me a surprise birthday celebration. But the fun part was that my guests were surprised too! All we knew was that each person should be ready by a certain time and a limo would pick each one up. When we were all in the limo, we were given “party favor bags” which contained a cool wooden box filled with rolled up scarves, some strands of kids’ beads, crazy sunglasses, and a few other things. Oh how fun! We hadn’t even gotten to our destination and my husband was already the King of Birthdays in the eyes of my friends

We were driven to a Japanese garden and taken to one of the beautiful buildings. What was waiting for us was a sweet gal who would be leading us in a “goddess dance”. That’s what our scarves were for! We had so much fun tying scarves around our bodies as our adornment.

We danced and danced and danced, being led through songs that were for each of the chakras. When we reached the crown chakra and danced to “100,000 Angels” by Bliss, I could feel the angels there with us, and my tears just started flowing. Our photos show lots of angel orbs in them (take a look at these).

After our goddess dance, we were driven to lunch. We had a table outside as it was a beautiful day. My husband thinks of everything – each plate had a little box of special chocolates from our town’s chocolate shop.

We all wore our cooky sunglasses and our beads and had so much fun! It was the most wonderful birthday! And my husband got lots of grumbling comments from each of the ladies’ husbands about how he was making them look bad I am lucky indeed!

Whales – Such Amazing Beings

A blessing that I will cherish always was our family’s encounter with a whale while vacationing in Canada a number of  summers ago. We were taken out on a boat where our boating guide would teach our boys to fish and then we’d go see if we could spot any whales. The ride was so good for me – the fresh air in my face, enjoying just looking at all the beautiful trees surrounding the bay, and spying a Bald Eagle atop a tall tree. When we stopped for the boys to try their hand at fishing, I sat in the front of the boat, closed my eyes and found myself with a mermaid in an underwater adventure in my mind’s eye. What fun I had! I’ve never been much of a swimmer, but in my meditation I was swimming and twirling like a mermaid. When the fishing was done and the Rock Cod and Chinook salmon were thrown back into the water, we headed off to see if we could find some whales. As we were cruising along I sent from my heart a lot of love to the whales and told them how I would be so honored to have them show themselves to us. After a bit, I sensed that we would indeed see some whales. Oh, I was so excited then! I continued sending them love as we cruised here and there looking. Our guide would get on the radio to see if other boats had spotted any. It started to seem like we weren’t going to see any. I just couldn’t believe it, as I had such a strong sense that we would. So I asked the angels and guides what was going on! The reply was that we would indeed see whales and that we needed to go towards the left. Oh boy, how was I supposed to tell our boating guide that we needed to go to the left? That my angels and guides told me? I asked them if I had to be the one to tell him and luckily they said that they’d handle it. Phew! In a couple of minutes, our guide heard on his radio that someone had spotted some whales and he turned the boat to the left! (Thank you, my dear invisible friends!) We sped along and I felt my heart soar as we got closer and closer to the whales. When we spotted them, there were a couple of boats of onlookers between the whales and us. We could see the whales come up just a bit to show the tops of their backs and spray out water. (All the while, I was sending more and more love to them and thanking them for the honor of seeing them.) Soon they started swimming in the direction of our boat. One whale in particular swam closer and closer to us. When he was right in front of our boat, he jumped up and breached out of the water. Seeing the whale so close and totally out of the water, we could see how huge he was! For a second, I got a little nervous with this massive creature jumping next to our small boat (with our children on it!) My husband must have been feeling a little uneasy as well, because he leaned over to me and asked me to find out what this whale was doing. I tuned in to the whale, and with a gasp told my husband, “He’s honoring us back!” I could hear our boating guide exclaiming that in all the time he’s done these excursions, he’s never seen a whale breach! Next, the whale was on his side and rolled over a bit to wave his fin at us, and I could look right into his huge amazing eye. It was incredible to be looking into each other’s eyes. He did this a couple of times. All the while I was sending him love and thanks. Periodically, my husband would ask me, “What’s he doing now?” and I would tune in. I sensed that our whale and the others in his pod would soon be heading off, and shortly they swam away. Oh, what an amazing experience! My heart was overflowing. Thank you, God! Thank you, angels and guides! And thank you, my dear beautiful whale friend!

How great to focus on our bliss!

In her Choosing Beauty blog, Liv Lane invites us to write a short Bliss List. Taking notice of the things that have brought us joy during the week is similar to a gratitude list. I love this! Come and join the party and play along

The things on my Bliss List for this week are:

• Our camelias are blooming!

• I love when our kitty and big ol’ Newfoundland hang out together.

• We actually have leftovers from last night’s dinner – no cooking tonight!!

• I felt so energized after my sessions with clients.

• Had fun making uplifting graphics.

What’s on your Bliss List?

OK, so I like color and I like pretty.

I’ve found simple ways to add a little zip to some of the boring things we do in our day-to-day lives. Imagine adding a little fun and beauty to the job of filing papers. I seem to have had a little resistance to filing – stopping what I was doing to make a folder for whatever it was that I needed to file. It was just easier to put the paper aside for later. Then the next paper would get put on top of that one, and soon my desk would have piles of papers all around. But I have found that having pretty or colorful file folders to choose from has really helped! I really enjoy picking the folder for what I’m filing. One day I may be choosing a bold design for a class I’m taking. Another day I may choose a soft and peaceful folder for notes I’m compiling for meditations to record. Of course a floral pattern would be perfect for my flower essences! And each coaching client gets a different style of folder. It’s really rather fun and it keeps my creative juices flowing, even in this simple way

Often when my boys ask for hints for things to buy me for my birthday or Mother’s Day, I’ll tell them to get me decorative file folders or pretty note pads. I used to keep a boring white pad in my purse until someone gave me a pretty, colorful one. Now I’m hooked! Even if a pretty pad costs $3.50 compared to a (boring) white pad at $0.25, it’s something that makes me happy. So why not? What’s $3.50 when it comes to making you smile? This Christmas I asked for some pretty shopping bags. All my shopping bags were just so blah. With my new bags I’ve even had grocery clerks comment on them!

So, try jazzing things up in your world!

Three Questions That Make a Big Difference

Each day we make choices that influence our pace and quality of life, and often we are completely unaware of the choices we are making and how they affect our life balance. So often we are operating from habit, instinct or need.  While it’s a good thing that we don’t have to think about every little choice we make, when it comes to creating a balance between all of our roles, it is critical to be conscious and deliberate about our decisions.  Otherwise, we find ourselves feeling the negative effect of our unconscious choices by feeling overwhelmed, out of control, stressed, or even sick.

As you start your new year, become more aware of the many decisions you have to make in a day and ask yourself these three questions:

1. Is this moving me toward or away from a balanced life?

2. Do I have a choice?

3. If I don’t have a choice, what can be a positive perspective around this decision?

Approaching the new year by consciously asking yourself these three questions can make a big difference in your personal and professional fulfillment.

Is it a Dream or is it Real?

Having a balanced life feels like an elusive dream for many of us and every year it is high on the list of things to change.  There is no doubt that our lives are filled with demands pulling at us from many different directions, sometimes with no end in sight.  But as you enter into the new year, you can choose to make small changes that can ultimately make a big difference in getting your life back into balance. 

Here are some simple choices you can make in your day to achieve more balance and fulfillment:

• Choose your leisure activities wisely. You only have a limited number of hours in the day for fun, so spend them on things you really enjoy.
• When someone asks you to do something, don’t just say ‘yes’, only to regret it later.  First consider how that thing will impact your work-life balance.
• Plan at least one task every day that you know you will complete, and that you know you will feel good about. Then do it.
• Identify the most stressful things in your life, and make simple changes so they feel less stressful.

You have the power to make these small, simple choices throughout the day for big impact. Set the intention this year and consciously move toward creating the ideal balanced life that you desire. You will indeed Replenish Your Spirit!

Life balance is something that we all aspire to. And every year we resolve that this is going to be the year where we gain control of our life instead of it having control of us.  Imagine living a life in which your time is your own and where your opportunities for fun and enjoyment are equally balanced with opportunities for work and family.

Try making these simple changes to reclaim your time and achieve more balance:

• Decide that when you do something with friends or family that you will be fully present and engaged. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by other things or have a negative attitude. You will find yourself enjoying the time and activities much more.
• Re-evaluate your traditions – If the old ones are causing you too much stress, too much money, and too much energy, choose some new ones.
• Choose to be “out of pocket.”  We need to choose to be out of pocket more often. No cell phones, no email, no texting, and no appointments.

How nice would it be to have more of your time be your own this year?  Give these simple changes a try.