Joyce of All Trades

Master of a Few!

© 2010

By Joyce Mason

This post complements an important announcement on my other blog, The Radical Virgo. I have re-opened my Inner Growth Work “astrology-plus” practice which also includes tarot, dreamwork, and flower essence consultations. All the details on finding out what I do and how to work with me, if you’re interested, are linked there. On Hot Flashbacks, I’d like to focus on something different. Namely, the mixed blessing of being an eclectic person. If you’re a Suzy, Jill, Sam or Jack of All Trades, and sometimes wish you could be more single-focused, this post is for you!


Very Versatile

In my last post, Very Verse-a-Tile, I talked about my lure back to poetry. In fact, these last three posts have been about going home to people, places, and things from which I had taken a temporary vacation. I realized midway that I was building up to the announcement about reopening my practice.

I have always had a multitude of interests. Several of my friends are still working on “finding themselves” in their 50s or 60s. When I listen to them, I understand, but it is so outside the realm of my experience to be limited to just one; I have to wonder what that would be like. It makes me ponder the greener pastures of a less complicated life.

When I don’t feed my various needs for spirituality, art, family and friends, I feel all out of whack. It’s a malaise that puts me on edge far more than the challenge of juggling several passions.

In trying to find a graphic for this post that fit my feelings, I had several to choose from. Some were prettier, sexier, or more humorous than this one. I insisted on only one thing—that the woman depicted had a look of joy or happiness on her face. This crazy pace and complex life actually makes me happy. When I found the photo I ultimately used, I “got” why. Writing plus all of the things in my Inner Growth Work practice are my “gifts.” As we embrace the wisdom years, it’s our job to give back what we’ve learned. I can’t give you just one gift—writing. I have to give you all five—writing, astrology, tarot, dreamwork, and flower essences. How convenient! This woman is juggling exactly five packages!



Women and Multi-Tasking

While there are, of course, individual variations, I have observed that in general women are better at multi-tasking than men. I saw this up-close when I had a job that required keeping so many balls in the air, it would have worn out the most seasoned juggler. We hired a man to co-pilot the program with me. He was so linear by comparison—one thing at a time. We operated in very different ways. Seeing this on a day-to-day basis made me appreciate our inborn differences and the ways men and women complement each other. I have had oodles of conversations about why women are wired for multi-tasking at the biological level. Some reasons are obvious. If you’re trying to manage several children, keep house, and gather food—that would require a juggling act even back in the Stone Age. Add the modern necessity for most women to work outside the home and their unwillingness to give up their own interests and fulfillment. Suddenly, the creative feminine energy has to be whipped up to a whirling vortex of amplified life force.

When it becomes “too much” involves the difficulty many women experience in saying no—in the appropriate reining in of their creative forces. The whole act goes to the Dark Side when we lose ourselves in the process. The only way this eclectic lifestyle works is if the owner of that energy is completely centered in who s/he is, what s/he wants, and in taking care of him- or herself. It’s important to remember that creative energy, AKA “the feminine” is the animus in both males and females. It’s an energy, not a gender or not the sole realm of one gender, even if women often “come in” with more of it. The best way to remember its ever presence is in the yin/yang symbol. Each has a drop of the other in it—females have a drop of masculine, their animus, and men have a drop of feminine, their anima. Some have more than a drop. Vive les differences!

Just One Glass …


When we get in trouble with all this juggling and jumping around, that’s when we have to downsize—at least temporarily. There is a huge difference between being stimulated and fulfilled and being overextended and utterly exhausted. We have to know when to say “uncle.” In my case, I was a workaholic for many years. I had a 40-hour-a-week day job, a half-time metaphysical practice, and an international astrology newsletter I did three times a year (more like a mini-magazine). This was in the ‘90s before all the whiz-bang electronic and print options of today. On top of that, I wrote articles, organized at least one international astrology conference—and that was just work. Once I remarried in ’98, something had to give because I wanted time for my relationship. I got a clear calling from spirit to put astrology and my practice on the back burner.

I was at the peak of my career in that realm. I had worked hard, and I did not understand why God was asking me to do this 180-turnaround. Still, I honored my inner wisdom. I honestly thought I’d never be back. (Are you laughing yet?)

In She, his wonderful book on the psychology of the feminine based on the myth of Eros and Psyche, Dr. Robert A. Johnson says that all women must learn to go down to the metaphorical river and take just one goblet of water. This comes from the four rites of passage Aphrodite, the Greek version of Eros, must complete in order to develop fully as a women. Only in her case, she has to fill a single goblet from the river Styx. Styx was the mythological river that marked the boundary between Earth and the underworld. According to Dr. Johnson, this means that a woman must learn at some point to focus on a single item at once from the vast choices in the universe. At the height of my one-woman Ed Sullivan Show, the idea of going to the river and choosing only one—in my case marriage—was a great comfort and necessity that cried out from all the cells in my being.

At some point, a woman must learn to focus on a single item from the vast choices in the universe. ~ Dr. Robert A. Johnson, She

However, this is not what a woman does always or what the feminine or anima does normally. Creativity is the “wild feminine.” What one glass?

The Eros and Psyche myth and the one glass metaphor illustrates the same point as the wonderful song from “My Fair Lady,” Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? There are times when a woman must know intimately her drop of the masculine. She must own her inner male. She must be linear and become a good father to herself, including grounding herself in more ways than one.

The Renaissance Woman’s Dilemma

Multiple interests and gifts are great, but they require a strong, grounded core of energy to pull off the jugging act in daily life. They also may require a time-out, that grounding of another kind.

Here’s the bonanza of insight from my personal adventure with the river, one glass, and grounding. I’m back in a new and better way. My creativity is on fire! I have matured in the process and gained more self-confidence. I feel like the theme song to LaVerne and Shirley. Nothing will stop me …

… except myself, if I fail to ground all that activity by rest, meditation, inspirational reading, walks in the woods, and all the things a creative whirlwind needs to keep her life and self from blowing away from her like a hurricane.

Our multi-media world gives us so many choices, it’s hard to make them all. I can barely decide which e-mails to read or delete. How much harder it can be to decide where to put our most precious resource, our creativity—the God-stuff—the energy with which we co-create and can make the world a better place.

Ponder your yin/yang balance and ask yourself, now and then, if you need a one-goblet break to prepare you for your next personal renaissance.

~~~

Photo Credit: GIFTS © Bliznetsov | Dreamstime.com

Quarterly Astrology Forecast and Winter Solstice Exercises to Warm Your Heart and Light Your Way

Happy Winter, Cool Insighters!

In case you haven’t noticed in the sidebar, I am now writing a quarterly astrological forecast by sign for one of my favorite sites, Perrie Meno-Pudge. You’ll learn a lot about winter, what it is and isn’t good for, and find out what’s happening in both the General Sky as well as the Outlook for your Sun sign. Check out what winter holds in store for you at Perrie’s Planetarium – Winter Solstice 2009.


Get a taste of the fabulous Winter Solstice celebration I held on December 21st with my Solsisters friends. Two of the regular exercises we do each year—I call them “astrologizes”—are replicated on Spirited Woman blog, where I am also a guest blogger this week. The articles are called Astrologize: Exercises for the Winter Solstice to Warm Your Heart and Light Your Way. Here’s #1, Ceremony of Recognition and #2, Burning the Old.

I’d like to close with this quote from the Revels and my wish for you:

And so the shortest day came
And the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing
To Drive the dark away.

Let’s all proclaim together—Welcome Yule, WELCOME YULE!

~~~

Photo Credit:  WINTER STAR CONSTELLATIONS © Solarseven  Dreamstime.com

The Four Elements: I Dig Earth!

Part 4 of 4

© 2009 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved

Give me dirt, and I’m in my element. As I’ve mentioned on other posts like Gettin’ Earthy, this is literally true. From my Earth- heavy astrological chart to my Earth imbalance in Chinese medicine, where Earth is my “causative factor” or CF, I am an Earth Girl. To be even more accurate, I’m a spirit on an Earth mission. And I really dig it!

When I’m gardening, I feel closest to Spirit. From childhood on, there has always been something about mud pies, plant roots, and clumps of dirt that heals whatever ails me. Earth ruled from the Beginning. It wasn’t a Campfire, Waterfall, or Breezeway of Paradise—it was the Garden of Paradise. It had trees, flowers, and probably chirruping birds. Earth was its primary element.

The astrological Earth signs are Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn.

But earth is more than dirt, and quite frankly, as a Virgo, I can only play in it so much before I have to clean up! Earth is associated with our physical bodies, our planet that’s named after this element, and a variety of practical skills, as well as sensuality. I have always gotten a charge out of the title of the wacky 1988 movie, Earth Girls Are Easy. Um, yes, we certainly can be especially at the height of our hormones!

The Native American Medicine Wheel represents the Circle of Life. On it, the Earth element is associated with the direction North, the color blue, and the season of winter. One resource on Native American Spirituality calls winter the season of sadness, survival, and waiting. This speaks to both the downside and ultimate triumph of the element Earth. Everything “natural” on the Planet Earth ultimately dies. That‘s literal just once, but meanwhile, throughout a lifetime, little deaths of things in their current form give rise to resurrection in both a literal and figurative recurring springtime. Earth is the anchor element of all four—some would argue the sweetest. The temporary nature of life here makes everything so poignant. One of my favorite moments I’ve mentioned before comes in the John Travolta movie, Michael. Playing an angel completing his mission who is about to return to the heavenly realms, he surveys the beauty all around him and says, “I’m really going to miss this.”

Thanksgiving is an earthy holiday where we gorge ourselves with food to nourish and bring pleasure to our physical bodies. We are grateful for Earth’s bounty. We revel for living on a planet that supports our life form, not just in a so-so way, but with bawdy abundance.

This holiday, spend a little time contemplating your relationship to the element Earth. Get down ‘n’ dirty in whatever form appeals to you from digging in planter boxes to the sensual side of Earth’s blessings.

One of the greatest gifts of Earth is grounding. May your roots be deeply planted and closely intertwined with Gaia, the spirit of the divine dirt upon which we are privileged to live and share and have our being.

Happy Thanksgiving!

~~~

Photo Credit: MAN HOLDING SEEDLING © Markross |Dreamstime.com
 
For more on Thanksgiving inspiration with an astrological spin, read Jumpin’ Jupiter, Happy Thanksgiving on The Radical Virgo.

Four Element Series
Air - Air Born
Fire - Hearts Afire
Water - Wetting Reception

 

The Four Elements: Hearts Afire

Part 2 of 4


© 2009 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved.

Chances are early man first observed a naturally occurring fire from a lightning strike--some say, as long as 40,000 years ago. It may have taken many generations before Homo erectus figured out how to strike two rocks together to start a fire on his own. Once these early men got that know-how, they had overcome one of the biggest hurdles to evolution. Life would never be the same. Now meat could be germ-free, and eating it would take less gnawing, which led to a smaller jaw and teeth. With more digestible nutrients, both their brains and bodies increased in size. Fire allowed creation of better tools for more effective hunting, ensuring a steady food supply. Fire kept carnivorous animals at bay that preyed on humans for food. It provided warmth and comfort.

And that’s just on the physical level! We might still be squatting in caves without it, and, ladies—heaven forbid—cavemen might still be dragging us around by our hair bearing a club. These are reason alone to light candles on our altars, paying homage to the element fire. We wouldn’t be here now—in our present shape, form, freedom, and capabilities—if it weren’t for the fire discovered and perpetuated by our earliest human ancestors.

Fire is this and so much more. When we’re excited, we say “we’re all fired up.” When we’re passionate about something we’re doing, we’re “on fire.” When stress takes it’s toll, we’re “burnt out.”

These expressions all suggest what Fire means in Chinese medicine. I have used acupuncture as one of my main healing modalities for nearly 25 years. In that system, Fire rules the heart and circulation. Before traditional Chinese medicine practitioners knew about the nerves and glands, they called these systems The Triple Warmer or sex energy. A person with excess fire in Chinese medicine terms is high-strung and highly stressed. Conversely, a person who lacks fire would feel burned out and may suffer fatigue, restlessness, and disturbed sleep among a bevy of other potential symptoms.

It’s the connection to the heart that makes fire so important. It is our spark and the seat of the warmth we are able to give each other. There is no love without fire.

The astrological Fire Signs are Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius.

One of my favorite songs of all time is Hearts Afire by Earth, Wind, and Fire. (Could I really do a series on the elements without mentioning this band I fell in love with in the ‘70s? I’ve always loved their astrology-inspired name.) I was mad for the TV series of the same name starring the late John Ritter, Markie Post, and Billy Bob Thornton during its short run from 1992-95.

Passion is heat, whether it’s sex or anger. We refer to a sexy man or woman as hot or a hottie. When an e-mail or internet post is angry, mean, or spiteful, it’s flaming. It’s often not easy to contain, that’s why the astrological fire signs have their challenges with reeling in their anger or urge to go forward (the Aries temper and impatience), their pride (Leo boastfulness) or opinions (the Sagittarius know-it-all).

In Native American spirituality, Fire is associated with the direction South. Its color is white for peace and happiness. Its season is summer, a time, of plenty. Perhaps the old “rule” for wearing white only in summer till Labor Day came from this association.

Fire is Eros—our life force. In mythology, the god Eros is the patron of male love. (Aphrodite rules the love between men and women). Still, sexuality is only one aspect of Eros, even though the term erotic is derived from it. Eros is our flame, the passion that fires our work in the world, and our life energy itself. It’s what makes us shine and fires us up to get the job done. In one of the astrology books that most changed my life, Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets, Barbara Hand Clow links eros with the kundalini or awakened life force. The idea is to have this energy flow freely through all our chakras from the base of our spine to our third eye. The kundalini rises naturally at the Uranus Opposition, according to Clow, which happens when we are around 40. The Uranus Opposition is one of the midlife transits that associated with "midlife crisis." The sexual side of that energy is often what causes otherwise “normal” people to leave spouses, have affairs, or buy a hot red sports car! Ultimately, when kundalini rises through all seven chakras, we have harnessed the life force in its full possibilities and become balanced, warm, and often overtly spiritual people.


Don’t play with fire, but do experiment with it! From candles to a roaring fire in the fireplace, watch it on your gas range, barbecue, or try some Tiki torches on your patio. If there’s a controlled burn or an unexpected fire in your area, watch from afar and see what you learn just by observing this element. It’s fast and furious, it can be quickly destructive, but it also can provide everything that nurtures us—hot food and drink and a snuggly temperature for hugging.

Fire is the life force, and most important of all, the love force. Of course, there’s no difference:

"The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire." ~ Pierre de Chardin

~~~


Photo Credit: FIRE HEART © Silverv |Dreamstime.com


Four Element Series


Air - Air Born
Water - Wetting Reception
Earth - I Dig Earth!




References

How Was Fire Discovered
Fire and Early Man
Fire Chinese Element Symptoms
Native Spirituality

The Ordinary Life

I was afraid of living an ordinary life, and I realized that’s what we all get. We all get an ordinary life. And it’s good enough.  ~ Garrison Keillor

Recently, my husband and I finally got around to listening to a PBS special we had TiVoed some time ago, "Garrison Keillor: Man on the Road in the Red Shoes."

Even if you’re not already a fan of A Prairie Home Companion, this is a slice of Americana you won’t want to miss, especially if you’re an American, a reader, a writer, or an old radio lover. As all four, it hit a home run out of the ballpark with me …

… but Garrison’s closing punch line about the ordinary life stuck in my craw, demanding I digest the contents and share any emotional/spiritual nutrition I derived. That quote is turning out to be one of those health food drinks with a shelf full of vitamin additives.

I never saw myself as ordinary, nor do others see me that way. I definitely don’t see Garrison Keillor as ordinary, and I’m sure most other people don’t either. So, my question to me—now to you is: Just who are you on the continuum of ordinary to unique? Why does “owning” both of these seemingly opposite designations matter?

Ordinary Dilemma

A deep truth struck me in the moment I heard Garrison say this. The ordinary life is what we get for starters—but in order to express extraordinary skills and talents, there are often huge impacts on the ordinary life—a big price to pay. That is, until we can learn to hold both of them at once, which we must, each in our own style and way. This is what it takes to achieve balance and happiness.

We doubt this balancing act is possible, yet many celebrities model this achievement for us every day. President Obama talks about how one of the benefits of his job is the ability to have dinner with his kids most nights, something he often could not do as a Senator. Certain stars leap immediately to mind as putting family first. Bon Jovi, a true family man, attends his kids’ parent-teacher meetings, just like any other mere mortal. Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick alternate working, so there’s always one parent who is primarily at home. You probably know dozens more examples.

I have always sensed that I could never achieve my ultimate success unless or until I had a grounded, happy home life. Now that I have it, I sometimes fear that I sabotage how far I can go, because I am afraid of losing my warm nest and grounded routine. These are the very things that nurture me down to my toes and up through my soul. They give me the springboard for going out into the world and doing great things.

Yet, I am still sometimes afraid to leap. I do not want to lose the ordinary things I treasure: my husband’s warm hugs and teasing (alternating between endearing and annoying), kitty whiskers rubbing my face, watching our ritual mystery movie on Saturday nights, getting the mail, or our teamwork on gathering and putting out the garbage one night a week. While some of these things sound boring, they are also the stepping-stones that mark our days and help them feel solid. Breaking out of this routine sometimes feels like throwing off the down comforter on a freezing cold winter morning and forcing myself into the shivering dawn and discomfort for no good reason.

Hints from the Other Kind of Stars

Astrology has helped me understand this dilemma. It offers several planetary and mythical metaphors to help all of us sort out and blend our internal mix of ordinary to extraordinary parts of ourselves.

Saturn represents foundations, structure, and responsibility, as well as wisdom and being grounded. Permanence and self-sacrifice are also its domain, all together, the stuff that solid daily life is made of—or any long-lasting “institution.” However, if that were the entire substance, marriage and/or the family and home life would drive many of us crazy enough to belong in an institution of another kind.

Uranus, on the other hand, represents the opposite archetype—originality, uniqueness, the unexpected, freedom and independence. You can probably sense right this minute whether you’re more Saturnian or Uranian. I thought I started out more Saturnian and grew more Uranian, especially when I moved to The Left Coast in 1973 at the height of the counterculture movement. On viewing my first wedding photos, more than one person has said I looked like “a hippie princess” in my old-fashioned muslin dress and crown of wildflowers. By contrast, back when I was growing up in the 1950s, I thought I was Happy Days typical. I’ve been stunned, quite honestly, to have many people tell me I was “a free spirit” from a very early age. So, when you’re mulling over where you start on the Saturn/Uranus symbol curve, you might also want to get a second opinion from those who have known you for a long time.

Chiron is my astrological specialty, the composite planetoid/comet called a centaur, just like the mythical half-horse, half-human character after which it is named. Chiron is an integrating energy that turns our wounds into blessings, our handicaps into our vocation, and asks us to make lemonade out of lemons. Just as mythical Chiron groomed many famous heroes like Jason of the Argonauts, the powerful Hercules, and Asclepius, the Father of Medicine: Chiron asks us to bring out the best in ourselves by resolving opposites within us. How do you like this metaphor? Chiron is located in space between Saturn and Uranus and acts like a bridging function between the two planets and what they symbolize.

Roots and Wings

There’s a wonderful saying I love:

Two great things you can give your children: one is roots, the other is wings. ~ Hodding Carter

(I’ve also heard it attributed to the famous inventor of the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk. You can tell it’s a great quote if people argue about who said it first.)

I think this never stops being true; adults need roots and wings as much as they did as children. When either of those forces becomes too overdone, the other energy demands reckoning.

I agree with Garrison Keillor that the ordinary life is a gift we all receive. If I were forced to choose one or the other, I’d have to take the ordinary life, even though the free spirit in me would begin to wither and die without expression.

From Either/Or to Both/And

Fortunately, we are not forced to choose. But this is something we often have to discover for ourselves. It reminds me of the game my parents played with me as a child. Little did they realize how potentially damaging it could have been to my sensitive psyche. “Who do you love best, Mommy or Daddy?” If I said Mommy, Daddy would pretend to cry. Vice-versa if I said Daddy. Asking children or adults to choose between roots and wings would be like asking them to pick Mommy or Daddy when they need both.

We are actually charged with integrating the opposites within us, including roots and wings. Chiron—and life itself—teaches us that joy exists in finding out where we are on a continuum. Everyone has this charge. The baby boomer generation perhaps has had the most stark life experience with it. Boomers grew up in the Ozzie and Harriet ‘50s only to have those ideals blown away as irrelevant, as we reached young adulthood in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Somewhere, we had to figure out where we fit between Doris Day and Janis Joplin.

Personally, I think the deeper our roots, the higher we can fly. We just have to be willing to face that initial discomfort of coming out from under our warm, down comforter on a freezing winter morning.

~~~

Photo credit: © Dolnikov | Fotolia.com

Want to learn more about Chiron and astrology? Joyce's new e-book is beginner-friendly and full of hints on how to turn lemons into lemonade, contribute your special gifts (vocation), and achieve fulfillment. Read more and/or purchase Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer on The Radical Virgo.

Oracular Spectacular!

A Primer on the Use of Astrology, Tarot, Dreamwork and Other Oracles

© 2009 by Joyce Mason

At Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights, I often talk about “playing the symbols.” This imaginary one-person band involves putting together everyday waking signs and synchronicities and sleeping dream ciphers for some resounding insights. Alternatively, we can seek guidance from symbol systems or oracles. In this article, also posted on joycemason.com, I hope to introduce you to—or expand—your knowledge of oracles and their value.

Q: What do tarot cards, fortune cookies, astrology, dreams and meaningful coincidences all have in common?

A: All can be used as oracles

“Oracle” has many meanings from hokey to holy. I am most interested in #5 in the Dictionary-com definitions, namely a divine communication or revelation.Oracles are symbol systems that help us receive insights or spiritual communications. I believe the Source of their inspiration follows strictly the orientation of the seeker. When you open yourself up to divine inspiration, the Holy Spirit, your Higher Self—however you see good guidance according to your personal beliefs—those are the forces that will shine through when using these symbols. If you are fearful, or if you want your “fortune told” where you have no power or spiritual backbone to co-create your own dreams in divine partnership, don’t be surprised to find negative energy in a tarot reading or other symbol system consultation.

Toolbox
Like any tool, oracles can be used for higher good or dubious intent. Think of a knife. In the hands of a skilled surgeon or premier chef, this tool can perform miracles of healing or nurture. In the hands of a serial killer—not. Like all tools, oracles run the gamut of agony and ecstasy. Again, the difference lies in the hands of the user. With oracles, the seeker often uses a medium—a consultant—rather than consulting the cards or other symbols directly, although people do both, of course. That’s why choosing your consultant is especially important if you use one.

The Medium Is the Message
Let me start with a couple of bad examples. I once worked with a woman who consulted a well-known, local astrologer on all her investments and life decisions. This was in the 1970s, but I swear, if ATMs were in operation back then, she’d have consulted her “friend” before she made a $20 cash withdrawal.

You can probably predict what I’m going to say without an astrology chart. Ultimately, my workmate lost her shirt by turning her power over to this woman’spredictions. It was a stark lesson about making a god of either the symbol system or the medium. Ironically, the astrologer also worked herself out of a job. They both lost. After all, how could my workmate continue to pay her for advice after she lost everything?The most horrible story I ever heard—same astrologer—was a reading wherein she predicted the exact date and time of a male client’s death—and he died exactly when she predicted! I was utterly appalled; convinced she had literally scared him to death. Few people would want to know this information. To ask for it, is—well—asking for it!

Still, I believe to this day that the astrologer in question abused her power over this man. Astrology can be (pardon the pun) dead accurate, but she would have no way of knowing his fate. Even if she did, “pronouncing” it took away any personal power he had over the outcome, which was not necessarily sealed. Specific predications can be a real power trip. (That’s why I refuse, personally, to make them.) The same symbols can portend literal death or any other major, life-changing transformation while the person remains embodied. Did the astrologer contribute to his death? Depressing thought, but I think it explains why these tools have sometimes had a terrible reputation. It’s all in how they’re used. Fortunately, in general, they tend to be used for higher good by most people I encounter nowadays.

Positive Outcomes
Examples: As a consultant, I have helped people out of thorny dilemmas and have foreseen the potential for happy marriages later realized in tarot or astrology readings. I use oracles directly for myself on an ongoing basis, and now with years of practice my use of them is refined. I am able to see new angles to problems and personal tendencies I want to change. Symbols never cease to amaze me with their simple wisdom.

How Does It Work?
My theory is that oracles work like a symbolic mirror and magnet. Symbols have strong universal meanings. Much is contained in their simple patterns, and more importantly, the person who seeks guidance will fill in the blanks with the personal details needed to make the symbols meaningful.The magnet part: Everything on earth has an energy field; every person and thing resonates. When we seek guidance, we are drawn to the energy—or it is drawn for us through the reader—that matches the frequency of the issue on which we want guidance. When you shuffle a tarot deck, for example, and put the energy of your question into the cards, the “right ones” fall into the layout. Magical!

It’s no different with any of the other symbol systems. We are drawn to want an astrology reading when the vibration of the issue is creating internal pressure for resolution, so we seek out an astrologer when we have significant transits or activity in our astrology charts. Our subconscious gives us dream material, asdoes our internal synchronicity machine, our magnet for meaningful coincidence.Once when I taught a dreamwork class, I spoke about encountering people I was thinking about or repeated encounters on a topic I felt were “signs.” A surprised participant said, “You talk about real life the same way as dreams.” Exactly! When we have the eyes to see, the symbols and signs are all around us. Our subconscious is in constant dialogue with us, and when we pay attention, we can get limitless Higher Direction.

I Want to Try It. Where Do I Start?
If you haven’t done this before or haven’t done much of it, here are my suggestions—probably good for seasoned oracle users, too:

1. What system appeals to you most? Start there. If astrology fascinates you, go there first. If you can’t remember dreams, maybe you need a little more work on bringing the subconscious to waking awareness before you can use this one.Do tarot cards call you? Runes? The I Ching? If you don’t know, visit a metaphysical bookstore where you can look through many of the symbol sets or books on them like a kid at Christmas. Let yourself be drawn to the images or system that calls you.

2. Approach oracles with the wonder of a child. These systems are completely about connecting guidance to your own inner tracking device, your intuition. Play with them and respect them with wide-eyed wonder. Their optimal guidance will flow through your openness.

3. Get trusted referrals for consultants. A personal referral from someone you know and trust who has seen this particular astrologer, tarot reader, or dreamworker is always best. The metaphysical bookstore or resource center isanother source. Try someone at a local psychic fair—the one with the longest line! Reputation rules when it comes to trusting someone to work these channels with you. If someone “doesn’t feel right,” don’t open yourself to that person.

4. Take what fits, toss the rest. This was the advice of my first mentor in all things intuitive, the late, great Betty Bethards, a San Francisco Bay Area psychic and meditation teacher. I have lived by it with optimal results. No “reader" can be 100 percent accurate because his or her own experiences can’t help but influence interpretation, at least a little. That can be handy, if they have like experiences and lessons to learn, or it can put you off track, if they don’t.

While most good readers do their best to avoid putting their own “stuff” into interpretations, the translation of symbols is a tricky business. The analogy I like to use is a ballpark. It’s easy to get into the right ballpark or neighborhood on an interpretation because of the breadth of content each universal symbol holds. That’s what makes them so powerful, like the oak tree contained in an acorn.

However, to find the right seat in the ballpark really takes reaction, dialogue, and sorting from the seeker. If you don’t actively participate, you will suffer pronouncements instead of helpful insights. Which brings me to the final point:

5. Be an active participant in all readings with a consultant. Ask questions. Give your opinion. Say when something feels right or when it feels off. Be sure you walk away getting your key concerns covered. It might not be quite as complicated as being a patient in an HMO system, but the idea is the same as navigating this bureaucratic form of medical care. You have to be your own patient/seeker advocate. The best readers will welcome you as a co-pilot on the adventure of going a layer deeper into your inner growth during your time together. You enter the sacred ground of your psyche together. Your reader needs to respect the inner sanctum, your needs, and your help to make it a meaningful journey.

Sealed with a Ms.
I thought it would be fun to draw a tarot card to seek Higher Guidance in wrapping up this article. At first when this idea came to mind, I thought, “Huh?” Using these tools has made me respect these inspirations, no matter how sillythe light bulb over my head might seem at first.Turns out, I’m also going to be able to illustrate how anything can become an oracle. I “got” that the words I should Google were “tarot oracle.” They led me to a new deck I hadn’t heard of, literally called the Tarot Oracle. Click on the link and look at the Magician Card, that Mystical Ms. She’s for us; I’m convinced of it! She’s juggling the stars and her key words are Intuition, Taking Chances.Take a chance on your intuition. Oracles will expand your sense of inner knowingness and connection to All That Is.


Photo Credit: ESOTERIC ATMOSPHERE © Starblue Dreamstime.com

For more on oracles, including How I Read Tarot Cards and some of my favorite ones to use, visit the Oracles page on joycemason.com.

The 100th Post: A Journey in Frosting, Surprises and Prizes

Join the party and have a virtual cupcake as we celebrate the 100th post on Hot Flashbacks, and I round the bend on nearly two years of blogging. Something you might notice about Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights. We celebrate milestones.

Past festivities include our first birthday party on September 17, 2008. On June 17, 2009, we had a rebirthday celebration, marking a new blog direction. This 100th blog post is close enough to our second birthday—it’s a two-fer!

100th Post Giveaway: The first 10 people to Comment on this post will receive a free copy of "The Training Tape," Joyce’s new e-book.

Now’s a great time to put into perspective what you’ve most liked to read here, what you were looking for that led you here, and, and how our cool saging to spirited living community has grown. Statistics can be a bit of a bore, so I’ll keep it short but sweet like cupcake frosting for the bigger substance later about blogging as a journey.

Growth and Recognition

Visits have quadrupled over the past year and readers have more than tripled. People from twice as many countries read Hot Flashbacks now. Most readers wave the following flags by frequency of visits: US, UK, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, and Australia. I am grateful that Hot Flashbacks has been recognized by fellow bloggers, who double as some of the world’s most avid blog readers, with both Lemonade and Kreativ Blogger Awards. In Fall 2008, I was named one of the 101 Women Bloggers to Watch by WE Magazine for busy women on the move.

Top 10 Articles

In case you’ve missed any of the Top 10, here’s an annotated blogography of the best of Hot Flashbacks based on popularity by volume of visits.

1. The No Soliciting Sign - The popularity of this post—five times the hits of any other and the post with the most accessed via search terms—made me realize I’d hit a nerve and had the potential to fill a need. My sign requests, “No soliciting—religion and religious literature included,” and many people were searching for something like it. While the post shares how I evolved from an angry to a gentle place with my request to respect my privacy and spiritual path, I saw an opportunity to serve. In the near future, I will be selling newly arted version of “my sign” and another one recently designed with a similar, gentle sentiment about solicitations. Watch for it!

2. Venus Girls, Boomer Beauty – The perennial question of how much we “help” nature to maintain our good looks as we age hit a chord with readers of all ages.

3. Auntie Mame: A Tale for Today, Tomorrow and Always – My heroine and favorite character of all time has the one philosophy that says it all, “Live, live, live!” Mame not only tells us about how to live life with pizzazz, but her story covers how she handled the 1929 crash of the stock market and its aftermath, a timely parallel for today.

4. It Runs Downhill - How my dog got literal about a popular expression and continuously proved that dogs are among the funniest beings on earth. They outsmart us, sometimes by playing dumb, while we’re cleaning up after them or laughing at their antics.

5. Boomer Tube Babies – How early TV influenced the first generation that cut its teeth on Howdy Doody and a host of other characters revisited on this nostalgia trip. We were the first kids who were exposed to advertising early in life. How did it form us?

6. Penny Candy: Sweet Memories – A nostalgia trip down Memory Lane with a big color illustration of the stuff we often saved up, and walked miles for, to satisfy our sweet tooth. Flashbacks on Mary Janes, Bazooka Gum, Laffy Taffy, and Tootsie Rolls, just for starters. Includes links to places online where vintage treats are still available.

7. Flower Essences: Emotional First Aid, Boomer Plus Edition – Before I became a certified flower essence practitioner in 1989, I would have said you were crazy if you had told me that a few drops of liquid containing the vital energy of flowers could calm my emotions. A tool for a cool life that’s good to the last drop.

8. The Fairy Godmother – I have the gift for gifts, and in this Christmas season post, I share some of my most original gift ideas. Plan ahead to surprise your loved ones with some nifty gifties!

9. Tone Deaf – How to buy a custom ring tone without breaking the bank, deal with hearing loss and irritating rings, and navigate all kinds of cell phone and hearing things.

10. Dreams—Waking and Sleeping – A primer on decoding the messages in your night movies.


Born to Blog

According to my research, Justin Hall, is widely recognized as one of the earliest personal bloggers. He started in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College. Like anyone before his time, it took the rest of us awhile to catch up with him. When I was first advised to start a blog in 2007 as a way to begin to get readers, ultimately of my books, I had to look up the definition of blog. I had no idea that I’d take to this medium like a duck to water, mostly because I didn’t have any idea what kind of pond we were taking about. Thanks to some fabulous friends I made at Boomer Diva Nation, I got a quick how-to course and was a fast study. Lots of jumping in and swimming in the waters of trial-and-error honed my skills. With a little help from my friends, I became good enough at it to take some huge leaps of faith …

… like starting my second blog, The Radical Virgo. I made that jump blindfolded in March 2009, thanks to encouragement by an avid reader of my astrology articles, housed on other Internet sites. Soon I realized I could repost them and draw people into current contact with me, since the primary site where they were archived was no longer being updated and my contact information there was dated. My return to astrology, at least as a writer, if not a consultant, gave me the strongest feedback that I had really “become a blogger.” I knew I wasn’t just trying my hand at it anymore when the Radical Virgo’s visitor statstics began surpassing those of this more established Hot Flashbacks blog right out of the gate. The Radical Virgo hasn’t even celebrated its four-month anniversary and it has been running in the top 20 of Post Rank’s Top 100 Astrology Blogs, #14 as of this writing. To say I am honored is an understatement. I was beginning to realize that blogging for me is like eating potato chips; can’t eat or have just one, and the more you eat the more you want!

The Problem and the Gift

Therein lies both the problem and the gift. I now enjoy blogging so much, I am neglecting book writing. I keep joking that by the time I get around to doing some redirection and editing of both my memoir and mystery novel, paper books might be passé. Part of me feels I’m in the medium of the future, yet being a baby boomer, I love the feel of paper books and the medium of the past. The great news is that publishing is becoming multi-media. It took me awhile to “get” that all bloggers are not just writers; we are also publishers.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts. ~ Richard Bach

One wonderful aspect of blogging: It’s a test balloon. If it weren’t for my blog, I would have continued focusing my memoir toward a baby boomer audience. It took that forum for experimentation to clarify to me that the real essence of my book is sharing how I learned to play the symbols and the guidance we are presented constantly on how to make the best choices for ourselves. I can’t imagine where I’d be today without dreams, meaningful coincidences, and an assortment of cosmic nudges. Cool saging—yes!—but we can’t even do that in a customized way without those personalized hints from On High.

My adventure into my astrology blog reminded me that I’d been there and done it before in the old paper medium. From 1992-95, I co-edited—later edited and published—a high-quality astrological newsletter called Chironicles. It was dedicated to helping astrologers share information on the relatively new planetary body discovered in 1977, Chiron. (There is so much information on Chiron on The Radical Virgo, I refer you there if you’re interested in learning more about the planet associated with healing, life’s purpose, and wholeness.)

To be able to compare blogging to the publication of Chironicles a decade and a half ago makes me understand why I am so much more at home and in love with electronic media. Things I had to pay a graphic artist and Kinko’s copying service to do back then, I can do myself and enjoy thoroughly. With incredible effort, I don’t think our subscription base at Chironicles ever exceeded 150 paid subscribers. Granted, Chiron was a new astrological entity that appealed to the leading edge and was not yet everyone’s cup of tea, but our following was international. I keep thinking of the costs I save with my electronic blogs, including pricey overseas postage. I am pleasantly surprised how The Radical Virgo has taken off and exceeded in four months by five-fold the readership I worked so hard to build over a four-year period in with Chironicles. If I hadn’t stepped out on faith to create The Radical Virgo, I’m not sure I would have ever connected the dots to realize how much past experience I brought to blogging and how much better it is than the way of the past.

New Vistas

With the launch of my first short fiction e-book, The Training Tape, and an astrology e-book on the near horizon, I seem to be deepening my commitment to what I like to call the eclectic, electronic ink of Joyce Mason.

Where I go from here is a bit up in the air, determined by my good old GPS (God Positioning System), but as the transferability from one writing medium to another becomes more fluid day by day, I can only say: I’m loving this wild ride. I hope you’re “in” for the continued adventure!

~~~

Photo credit: CELEBRATION CUPCAKE - NUMBER 100 © Dehooks Dreamstime.com

Fear of Flying, Fear of Water, Fear of Flying on Water

I like the ground. As a Triple Earth in my astrological chart (Sun/Virgo, Moon/ Capricorn, Taurus Rising), the other three elements—air, water, and fire—have been scary to me at various times since childhood. Yet overcoming my fear of them was, in each case, a window to living a more spirited life. Here are some of my key adventures:

Fear of Flying (Air)

My first encounter with fear of flying came when I was only six years old. My dad’s boss liked to drive his personal car, a spiffy Cadillac, when he wintered in Florida. My dad’s tough assignment: Drive the boss’s car from Chicago to Florida with Mom and me, and then fly back, all expenses paid. From where I sit now, that sounds like the deal of a lifetime.

I’ll never forget the gentle way my parents told me about the offer. We’d all been taking an afternoon nap, and I awoke from mine and went into their bedroom to see if they were up. They were just ungluing the sleep from their eyes and I crawled into bed with them.

“What would you think about an airplane ride?” Mom asked.

I was so shocked by the possibility, out of the blue; I froze up. I never handled surprises well.

Dad explained the deal to me. Mom coaxed, cajoled, and told me I’d even get to take time off school, which actually did not appeal to her budding bookworm. Before they were done with this low-key sales pitch, I was screaming, bawling, and pitching a tantrum.

“I’m afraid, Mommy, I’m afraid!” I yelled. I would not settle down by way of logic or reintroduction of the idea over the next few weeks.

They didn’t want to force me into something that conjured such fear in me, so Plan B was born. We’d take the train back from Miami to Chicago.

Onboard, I had a most wonderful encounter with another young traveler my own age. I enjoyed every second of the two-day trip, every stop on the milk run, and every nook and cranny of the train. Train travel was “it” for me. My father, on the other hand, complained about that long train trip till the day he died.

Oddly enough, by the time the boss was ready for us to do him the favor again, only a year had passed … but something magical had happened to me in the meantime. My parents assumed we’d be back on the train again, but I said, “No, no! I want to go on the airplane.”

Sometimes if you leave will enough alone, both children and grown-ups mature into experiences that previously immobilized them with fear. My parents were smart not to force the issue, even if Dad didn’t exactly enjoy rail travel with the same passion as his darling daughter—a passion I have maintained to this day.

Fear of Water

My mom was afraid of water. She had good reason. When she was 13, she nearly drowned. Ever since then, she was very leery of this particular element. It was difficult not to “catch” her anxiety.

To make matters worse, I attended Catholic school and like most parochial schools in the 1950s, ours didn’t have the facilities or economic luxury of a physical education program, much less a pool. “P.E.” was running around on the playground, and, if you were lucky, your mom took you to one of the public pools during the summer that had cropped up in the suburbs. Mom wasn’t keen on water, so it was only when her best girlfriend could talk her into “taking the kids to the pool” that I ever got wet outside the bathtub.

Fear of Flying on Water (Air and Water)

When I was a pre-teen, my folks bought the cottage across the street from my Uncle Bob, Dad’s brother, who lived on a spring-fed lake in southwest Michigan. It was a three-hour drive, but we did it nearly every weekend during the summer. Uncle Bob had one of those spiffy, classic wooden Chris Craft boats. Everyone who lived on the lake shore water-skied. My cousin, Bob’s stepdaughter, who was a few years older than I was, skied like a pro. She could even slalom—ski on one ski. I wanted to ski in the worst way, but (a) I was afraid of water, and (b) I was not a jock given my lack of physical education. I was lucky to be able to I hopscotch, jump rope and play softball, all activities conducted safely on the ground.

Soon we had our own fiberglass boat, and my dad encouraged me to give it a whirl. I’ll never forget my mint green one-piece bathing suit, era-modest, and clinging to my nose plugs. Of course, I wore a life jacket. Even if Dad hadn’t insisted, my fear would have demanded it.

I couldn’t count the number of times he hit it, I got half way up, and then sank. His patience was legendary. We must have gone through this routine dozens of times over many weekends and our two-week vacation during the summer of my 12th year.

One day, all the failures just gave way and I rose on those skis to the top of the water. I was flying—on water! It didn’t last long the first time, but I gracefully skied to a stop while Dad circled around and picked me up. Once I had actually achieved “flying on water,” the rest was practice till I got actually half-way decent at it. In this era of my life, the right course was encouragement to keep trying to overcome fear and a sense of being out of my element—one trial at a time. As a not very physical person left to my own designs, this was one of the sweetest personal victories of my life. I can still feel the breeze in my hair and the wow of accomplishing something I was beginning to believe I simply would never be able to do.

Fear of Fire

I should explain that my fear of fire was more figurative than literal, although I never much cottoned to the personal handling of 4th of July firecrackers. I thought sparklers and punks were plenty, thank you. What I mean here is the heat of summer. On the physical level: I always had an intuitive red light against broiling my body on the beach, something that has saved me from the skin cancers plaguing many of my peers.

On the emotional level: The summer months often held my most intense growth experiences and my most painful losses. It got to the point that I hated to see summer coming. Not being a jock, and if I only could look forward to a new load of emotional pain, summer was not exactly my favorite season—and isn’t to this day. I didn’t relate to all those songs about the Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer or lines like, “It’s time to live and have some thrills.”

With time, I was lured into the mysteries of life. I learned from my first spiritual teacher in my late twenties that summer is the growing season. Spring sets up our lessons for learning during summer, and in autumn, we harvest their bounty. If we’re wise to the seasons, we use winter as a time to rest and recuperate before running another cycle of inner learning.

The lessons get gentler, too, as we grow. We don’t have to learn everything the hard way. We learn to put on sunscreen, buffers that protect us from overexposure to harmful rays, whether the sun’s or certain people’s negative vibes. We learn discernment—people, places, and things to avoid that will burn us.

I don’t know if it’s the magic of maturity, but I don’t have nearly the number of difficulties during the summer that I used to have as a kid—except for the fact that I chose to live somewhere that hits triple digits often during the season. I have lived here 36 years and don’t intend to move. You can’t say I haven’t learned to adapt to fire.


Elemental Balance

Our world is made up of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. From an astrological perspective, each of us has a different elemental balance, which is a simple metaphor for the way we handle the parts of life the four elements represent. To give examples of each: earth (body, physicality), air (mental pursuits), fire (vitality), and water (feelings).

My elemental adventures spanned different eras of my life. I doubt that they are hard-wired into a certain age, but I suspect that the developmental sequence in handling fear is the same: avoidance (airplane), toe in water/begin to face fear (water skiing) and dealing with fears head-on while developing discernment (intense-growth summers).

It’s fun to learn your elemental make-up through astrology. Lots of fire, little water? Lots of air, no earth? Some people are evenly balanced. There’s metaphorical gold in finding out. Even if you don’t know how your elements fall in the system of astrology, you probably have or have had affinities to one or more of the four elements and discomfort with others. The elements have seasonal associations: spring (fire), summer (water), autumn (air) and winter (earth).

Maybe you still have trouble with one element. Overcoming your fear or messages of can’t-do might be for you like water skiing was for me—an accomplishment that taught me how to overcome fear and limitation thanks to one patient father.

The larger Father/Mother—or however you perceive Spirit—is infinitely patient with us as we seek to become all that we can be. What a great universe where season follows season and we have so many cycles of growth and opportunity. Some day you’ll wake up, no matter what time of year, and know no matter where you are or whatever the weather: you’re in your element.

~~~

Photo Credit: LEARNING TO SKI © Jlumley Dreamstime.com

Happy Blog ReBirthday!

Celebrate Spirited Living

Broader Scope, Same Cool Insights
As promised in my

Reconstruction Zone

post, today is the rebirthday of this blog. Welcome to the new Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights!

Once aimed primarily at baby boomers, Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights now emphasizes practical spirituality, women’s issues, and the development of our intuitive gifts as guidance, what some people call “women’s intuition.” Not just women have or want to develop their sensitivities; men on this wavelength are welcome here with enthusiasm.

There are no age limits on a lifestyle that runs the full gamut of emotions and experience. This blog is about full-tilt living. The directions for finding our way and getting the most out of life involve learning to read the signs: synchronicity or meaningful coincidences, symbols both waking and dreaming, and how to weave those universal or cosmic hints into a synthesis of “getting it.” I call that the sort-it details.

Definitions
I get regular key word searches leading to this site from people who are asking the question, “What are hot flashbacks?” What a perfect time to define the title terms of this blog.

While a hormonal transition may have intensified my “hot flashbacks,” menopause was only a triggering mechanism. Many readers assume this phrase refers to “the change,” but that’s incidental. I had hot flashbacks before, during, and after my hormonal crash. (Whew!) Here’s the hot ‘n’ cool of it:

Hot Flashbacks – Moments in your past that light up in your
mind and yell at you at the decibel level of a four-alarm fire,
This incident is significant!

Cool Insights – You “get” in the present: the pattern, purpose, or meaning of the experience or experiences that your mind has lit up for you.

Hot flashbacks and cool insights go together, hand in glove. They are those light bulb moments that lead to deep understanding, as well as personal and spiritual growth.

Since I’m changing directions midstream, I want to share why. Here’s the back-story about what brought me to this new slant. You’ll find—no surprise!—it was a hot flashback and a cool insight.

Too Close to See It
I started this blog at the suggestion of a literary agent to complement my memoir, also called Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights. The agent thought a blog would be a great way for me to start gaining an audience for my writing in this genre. (Memoir was new to me.) I had many loyal readers of my past articles in astrology, flower essences and on other spiritual development tools and topics. I saw myself going more for a mainstream audience—seeking new readers who didn’t know me by prior reputation or works.

Like most memoirs, mine has episodes from various eras of my life, dowsed with the humor that helped me live through them. My book has three parts: Hormonic Convergence, about the cancer scare and emergency hysterectomy that took my already smoldering intuition over the top. While crashing into surgical menopause spread the bonfire of my sensitivities, the real flames I discovered were in the theme of my life—passion. Flashbacks on Passion is the middle section about my most formative life experiences involving passions of every kind from the heat of young hormones to right work—writing, my life’s passion. Sexagenaria recounts my struggles as my physical fire began to wane somewhat. In this section, I pondered how to keep the fires stoked to live a sizzling life all the way to the finish line.

With the book ending as Social Security was in sight for me and given boomers are a huge percentage of the population, this stage of life seemed like a logical focus for this blog. I figured other boomers would want to share discoveries about how to explode the old Old. (Consider the alternative!) Besides, boomers buy a ton of books and are “the” sought-after demographic with money to spend.

In the end, the universe had other plans for me. The details are too long to get into here, but I got crystal clear direction that I was missing the point of my own book. My GPS or God Positioning System works with those same tools I mentioned: synchronicity, signs, and symbols. It keeps “telling me where to go.”

I wasn’t supposed to give up my spiritual orientation in writing about my life or life in general. Spirituality has been my area of expertise for decades. In fact, there are existing posts on this site where I’ve talked about it plenty, but I just didn’t “get” that this was the point. My inner guidance? Come out of the closet, put it out there, and draw my core audience. Wow. So close to it, it went right over my head.

There was also a practical consideration. Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights was not growing at the rate I’d hoped as a boomer blog. Prior to the nudge I got about changing this blog’s focus, I got an unexpected inspiration to start an astrology blog. I had been away from astrology in any formal sense since 2002. When The Radical Virgo overtook Hot Flashbacks in hits and unique visitors less than three months after I launched it, I could not ignore the light bulb: I play the symbols. It’s my gift to share. That’s why Hot Flashbacks is rededicated to seeing, hearing, and feeling those directions that are right in front of us—you know, the kind I had missed myself at the beginning of this blog.

Even though I finished my book almost a year ago, I have been dragging my feet on pursuing publication. Now I’m glad I did, because this redirection is right for Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—both the book and blog.


New Quote, New Slogan
While I’m redefining this blog and defining some of the terms bandied around on it, I’d like to do the same for the new slogan:

Live a Spirited Life! Look both ways for signs at the crossroads.

We encounter many crossroads every day of our lives. Some of them add up to huge intersections, where we get to make big decisions about our life’s direction. We simply need to look around for the hints at every crosswalk. The signs are posted. Some of them, I’ve already mentioned and will define further:

Synchronicity. Synchronicity or meaningful coincidences show us how life is supposed to hum. When synchronicities are popping, life is in harmony. They are direct signals that you’re headed in the right direction. You run into that person you haven’t been able to get out of your mind. The lyrics to a song on the radio “solve” a dilemma and dissolve your angst. You need a good repairperson for a major household disaster. Before you can even ask around for emergency referrals, a trusted friend starts talking about a great worker who just finished a project at her house. Oh, and he exceeded all expectations at the right price.

Signs. Many signs in life direct us to full, rich living, if we have the eyes to see—and if you’re a little nearsighted at the moment, don’t worry. This type of vision can be developed. (For some tips, read these previous posts:

Insighting a Riot and Believe Everything You Hear.) There are many types of signs—dreams, waking symbols that come to you—and of those you seek out. Symbol systems such as astrology, tarot, and other oracles can enlighten you when you’re looking for guidance.

Sort-It Details. We’re lucky when insight comes spontaneously, like combustion, but in real life, getting the point of our experiences usually takes a lot of self-reflection, thought, and analysis. Journaling is one of the key ways to do it, but, hopefully, this blog will be a forum where we can share how we “go figure.”

Spirited Living! One of my favorite parts of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s blockbuster memoir, is the scene where life literally brings her to her knees. She discovers her personal, direct relationship with God and apologizes in advance to people who don’t see Him/Her/It in exactly the same way. Same here. I like to use terms that are as generic as possible when talking about spirituality, knowing how loaded language can be around people’s beliefs. I respect all paths and take wisdom wherever I find it. My personal orientation is universal, yet personal—kind of like Tevye talking to God directly in Fiddler on the Roof. Even if you don’t believe in anything bigger than the human spirit, the same fire leads to lively living.

Quote: Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. I discovered the Kierkengaard quote in the Hot Flashbacks banner by synchronicity: Someone had posted it on Twitter. What a testimony to why we look back to understand the past to live well in the moment and create a positive future.

Bringing It Down to Earth
One of the most important factors in looking Up for guidance is bringing the information back down to earth. That’s why grounding and practicality are my guideposts when I “play the symbols.” I write on this blog about everyday life: how we can get the most out of what we experience. How to live well, play fair, and enjoy our stopover on this beautiful planet.

If we forget this, dabbling in all this “sign language” can leave us looking like a caricature of what I call a smiley-faced metafoofoo—someone who speaks in tongues of platitudes but hasn’t woven the principles into making their life work better. I’m all for feet on the ground and “value added.” I write from the synthesis of using the tools of spirited living. Often I don’t even mention them. I just share the results, like the answer to a math problem, without all the figures and head scratching. The tools are always in the background, but the bottom line is how they make life better.

Boomer Features
I’ll keep a recurring “cool saging” feature for the generation I’m proud to be a part of. After all, much of what I know is because I have lived long and have had a wealth experience as teacher. In addition to these occasional posts and keeping a Boomer Links List, I’m a founding member of Boomer Authority on Twitter. I have volunteered to monitor posts on the topic of spirituality.

It’s Not About the Stage of Life; It’s About the Stage of Light
Welcome readers young, older, and in-between. If light is your goal—both ongoing learning and lightening up with humor—I hope you’ll find plenty of juice on this blog. I seek to create a light socket, a power source. Thank you for being part of my transmission grid!

As we share here, may we spread a lot of light and Spirited Living.

OK, light’s covered--candles are lit—but we can’t have a rebirthday party without gifts:

The past is a gift; it has the answers for the future. That’s the present.

~~~

Photo Credit: SIGN BOARD © Picstudio Dreamstime.com

Comment Contest! Don’t forget the Blog Comment Contest

through Friday. Comment to enter a drawing for a women writers’ mystery anthology, including Joyce’s humorous offering, “Digital.” See sidebar for special, additional prizes to the first three people who comment on this rebirthday post.

Spring: New Beginnings, New Blog!

Baby boomers should kiss Spring like a long-lost cousin. Every Spring, we get a new chance at life!

Spring is the “natural new year,” the time to plant the figurative seeds for what we want to grow more of in our lives between March 20, 2009 and March 19, 2010. The dormant season of winter is over. It’s time to sow our creations, whether they involve love, health, wealth, a new project, or a new point of view.

Nature doesn’t run on the Gregorian calendar. As I’ve said before in other posts, we have been off-cycle with the seasons in our January-December way of marking time for 500 years. None of us knows how many new years we have left, whether we’re 18 or 80. So, let’s make the most out of the powerful planting season spring represents and do a Cool Insights Exercise on what we want to manifest for the Natural New Year.

Exercise: Planting Your Seeds of Growth
In this activity, you’re going to create a seed packet. I like to use colored envelopes the size that fit a standard greeting card. Even if you’ve got some “plain vanilla” leftover envelopes from cards you’ve received, that’s OK, because our next step is redecorating!

Draw, paint, or collage onto your envelope whatever inspires you. You can name your seed packet for a project or something high on your list of things you want to manifest: Love Seeds, Prosperity Seeds, or in my case, the name of my new blog, The Radical Virgo. (More on that below.)

Now, find yourself some slips of paper—whatever appeals to you. My friends and I have used colorful ones, round ones, plain ones. On these, you’ll write your metaphorical seeds for growth. Take some serious, quiet, and contemplative time to do this exercise. It’s the reverse of the winter “burning bowl.” Instead of burning what you want to get rid of, these pieces of paper will contain the fiery seeds of your new beginnings.

Place your packet in a special place—your altar, nightstand, near your computer—wherever you’ll see it often enough to remind you of what you’ve planted—what you want to grow and expand this year. I take my seeds out often and look at them thoughtfully to see how they’re growing. You can also “plant” them--put them in a special box or a pot. Whatever makes the metaphor real for you.

A few tips:

~~ Seeds are simple. Keep to a few words or small phrases.

~~ If you are tempted to plant many seeds, as they germinate, you will “thin them out,” so that the most robust ones have the opportunity to grow to the fullest. Few of us can do in one year all the things we “plant” in spring, and it’s OK to set aside seeds that naturally seem to need more time to germinate.

~~At Summer Solstice, we will look at the seeds again, and I’ll talk about them in a post. The idea is to see how they bloom; then at autumn equinox, we can see what’s ready for harvest.

To give you an idea how the planting and culling process works: I just checked my seed packet from 2008. Of my eight seeds, one has grown into a plant—my completed book—and I’m making major progress on four others. Two need to germinate longer, and I have let one go, recognizing it isn’t important at this time.

Making Seasonal Sense
In my Calendar New Year post, Things to Bear in Mind as We Round 2009, I talked about how we need to slow down, even hibernate like a bear in winter. If you did not take that rest, don’t be surprised if your energy doesn’t rise with the tree sap as quickly as you’d like. It’s not too late to reverse it! Put on some eye shades and block out the growing light while you make up for lost winter nap time. You’ll be happy you did when your energy level bounces back for the effort. A little down time in late winter/early spring means a lot more bounce between now and the Summer Solstice in the third week of June. You’ll have high energy!

If, like me, you resemble Sneezy the Dwarf this time of year, it’s time to have a summit conference with your sensitivities, the flowers and trees—and your medicine cabinet. I hope you won’t make my perennial mistake of allowing myself to be miserable rather than to take some medication, natural or prescribed. I have missed some of the best of the spring season by being unwilling to put on my big girl pants and take my medicine. Allergies sap your energy. A head that feels like it’s about to explode will not be able to focus on gathering seed energy for a creative burst. Congestion is not conducive to springing forward into the new.

Joyce’s New Astrology Blog
Speaking of new: For those interested in or curious about astrology, please visit my new blog, The Radical Virgo. It launches with its first full post on March 21 to catch the spirit of the Equinox seed energy. Until then, there are a couple of short posts and a link to an article I wrote for Inner Sanctuary blog, “Your Cosmic Tractor Beam.” It explains how and why like-minded people are drawn together.

I am very excited that I have been guided back to writing about astrology, guidance which has been coming slowly into my consciousness over the past six months. While I am unlikely to do individual astrology readings in the future (I have been retired from that work since 2003), astrology will always remain a tool that has brought me closer to the Divine and to understanding the magnificent workings of the universe—everyone and everything that’s a part of it. I love writing about it and the lively exchanges among my fellow star trekkers. (Ironically, the woman who used to do a Star Trek radio show and headed the William Shatner fan club was also named Joyce Mason.)

In the near future, I’ll be posting an article in the SkyHints Sidebar for people whose experience of astrology is primarily reading their horoscope in the newspaper. Newspaper horoscopes are a very limited version of what astrology has to offer, so for those who have an inkling that “there’s more out there,” I hope to give you a taste of how most modern astrologers use their knowledge of the sky as positive a psycho-spiritual tool. Psychiatrist Carl Jung used astrology extensively in his practice.

Meanwhile, I hope blogging in two “solar systems” here on Hot Flashbacks and The Radical Virgo just continues to make me a better writer and blogger and doubles the benefits to my readers. This is one of the spring seeds I’m planting. Let’s share how both yours and mine bloom in summer, then reap their fruits at the autumn harvest. Hope to hear a lot of “seedy” comments, now and in the future!

Happy Natural New Year! Hoe-hoe-hoe!

~~~

For those who also want to plant the real thing this spring, here are a few seedlinks: Burpee (largest and oldest), Seeds of Change (organic), and Victory Seed Company (heirloom).

Cool ‘Phinsights!

Ms. Mascot
Meet Eva, the new poster girl and dolphin mascot for Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights. We met at Dolphin Quest on the Big Island of Hawaii on January 2, 2009. Eva has more than an archetypal feminine name (Adam and Eve, Wall-E and Eva). She is the oldest dolphin of the twelve that make their home at this seaside attraction in the Hilton Resort complex, yet she can jump the highest at 38 years old!

It’s difficult to translate dolphin to human years, but “domesticated” dolphins can live into their forties, which makes our girl no spring chicken. As you can see, she’s quite adorable. We met her whole family, including “husband” Lono and daughter Pookie. Eva, my husband Tim, and I had a great time together, and she splashed lighthearted energy and vitality. Not only is Eva the embodiment of cool later living; she also weighs 300 lbs. and carries it off with complete grace and confidence. You don’t hear her whining about losing 30 lbs. before she’ll allow herself to be seen at the beach. She eats nearly that many pounds of fish a day!

I knew there was a reason why Tim and I drew Eva for our dolphin experience—to inspire my blog followers—and me. She has a Mona Lisa smile and a bubbly laugh. She knows much more than she can tell us, given our language barrier. I just know she’s full of cool ‘phinsights. I’m sure the many she inspired in me were simple reflections of our psychic connection.

Why Do Dolphins Fascinate Us?
Frankly, I never felt compelled to swim with the dolphins; it was Tim’s big dream. Scientists believe dolphins originally lived on land and left for the sea. Even though my experience was in the Pacific, I like this short history of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, if you want to learn more.

Tim kept asking of the dolphins’ earth-to-sea exodus, “What do they know that we don’t?” I have heard it said that humans are the sentient beings on land; dolphins are the sentient beings in water. We share a connection in consciousness. For me, this connection translated into a feeling of relatedness, as if Eva and I had always known one another and always would … like we were part of the same extended family and shared genetic material that transcended words or explanations. We just “got” each other.

As our trip approached, I recalled my dear friend Dana’s photos and rave experiences at the very same place with a different dolphin. Soon I had dolphin fever, too. By the time we got to Dolphin Quest (DQ), I was as jazzed as my husband. I figured myself for one of the luckiest people on earth to get the opportunity to meet some of these fellow mammals face to face.

Even so, we both worried about the appropriateness of taking dolphins out of the wild. Tim was concerned about what might happen to them, as they got too old to play with the paying tourists. We were reassured these dolphins are never “put out to pasture” and have a home for life at DQ. I am convinced by our experience that the staff is utterly devoted to them--and by our quizzing our handler and reading the DQ website, that these sweet and brilliant beings have a good life.

Captives’ Audience
Domestication in any form is a tradeoff between freedom and an easier, more protected life for the animals on some levels. There are passionate arguments both for and against it. We make a similar tradeoff when we domesticate dogs and cats, something humans have done for so long, few people think twice about it. The healing aspect of the interspecies bond is one of the pluses researchers don’t need to “prove” to anyone who has ever loved an animal companion. A lovely family with a handicapped daughter got a big, heartwarming dose of dolphin medicine the day we were at DQ. Dolphin Quest on the Big Island is sensitive to special needs. Those of us who needed a little extra help were literally tagged and treated as VIPs.

Looking Up
As usual, it was astrology and the sky that cued me into the principle I was seeing at work--the opposite concepts of wildness and domestication. Wildness, freedom, and revolution are represented by Uranus. Uranus is expansion, whereas Saturn represents contraction, confinement, and responsibility. Youth is Uranus; aging is Saturn. Life is sweet when this pair on the continuum of experience is balanced. There can be a lot of freedom, even within boundaries.

Growing older is scary in spots, especially as we see some of our physical abilities decline and medical conditions creep in. This hit home hard on this trip as Tim used a wheelchair for the first time at places that would have required long walks. We may not always have the complete freedom of “the wild” as we grow older. We may have to live in more contained environments, such as assisted living—with or near relatives. Even an “active 55-plus” community is a choice to limit our immediate neighbors to a group of people based on age and age-related attributes. I struggle whether or not a more homogenous community would be good for me … and if or I how I would handle the need for assistance at some point, if it becomes necessary.

Eva taught me that even within the safety of a more protected environment, happiness and social encounters still can thrive. Sure, she jumps and does tricks for the fish. (When people jump through hoops for their meals, it’s called a job.) Nevertheless, Eva was completely engaged with us, her human playmates.

I don’t doubt for a minute that she also jumps for joy.