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.

Intersections

When I took training in collaborative decision-making—a way to get groups to come to consensus—it became obvious to me that this is the only kind of solution that actually works. It involves giving up only what didn’t really matter to you, anyway, and becoming open-minded on how to get what does.

Solutions That Work for Everyone

In problem solving, if everyone doesn’t get something they can live with, they will sabotage the plan or simply not play. They’ll take their ball and go home. Nothing will improve. Status quo. Much ado about nothing. Time wasted.

Of course, we all know that finding common ground isn’t as easy as it sounds. It takes maturity—none of that dropping the ball stuff. Getting better at finding commonality, over time, is one of the gifts of experience. Success, joy, and happiness in life depend on learning to see where we intersect with others, where we can agree or design a new way to do things that’s OK with everyone involved.

Us ‘n’ Them is so much easier. No one has to put forth any effort except to dig themselves deeper into the rut they’re in and not move. Very little work is involved, especially of a mental or spiritual nature. You don’t have to expand your ideas, entertain the notion that you might not have the only—or even the best—solution. You get to sit on your butt. You don’t have to grow or worst of all, grow up.

Not only does this lack maturity and creativity, it is boring. It is so same-old, same old. Who needs it?

Imagine, instead, starting this chain reaction of vision, all around you: Now the highest part of everyone concerned, in whatever dilemma or challenge, will come up with a fabulous, creative solution, because you’ll let that essence of him and her out to play.

How do we create that environment?

A Safe, Creative, Comfortable Atmosphere

For starters, believe in the best in everyone—that we have a Higher Self able to do amazing things if s/he is simply set free. Identify the goals you want to achieve, and then trust that order will come out of chaos if you just allow group process to reveal itself without any help from you, thanks, especially if you’re the boss, parent, or a controller by nature. Chaos to order seems to be one of those odd pairs of opposites that occur in causal order when left alone. Think of the cacophony of potential sounds that blare in the head of a musical genius before they ultimately become a symphony. If you believe in the Bible, think of the original order out of chaos that only took a week.

Everyone has true genius when goodwill and a good setting are provided for troubleshooting. People love to solve problems and grapple with issues when they are safe, fed, comfortable, and their capabilities are held in high esteem.

One of the greatest gifts from my parents was their trust in my ability to figure things out for myself. “We know you’ll do the right thing, baby” was one of my mom’s mantras. I lived up to it.

In contrast, one of my friends had parents who didn’t trust her as far as they could throw her. They even had her followed and spied on. She lived down to their opinion of her.

Create environments with big intersections, places where people can easily discover their commonalities or become stimulated to consider new ideas and expand themselves till their lanes cross. I remember my excitement when I first learned the word synergy, the idea that the sum is equal to more than its parts. If two heads are better than one, imagine a room full of minds dancing. This atmosphere is best achieved where deadlines are reasonable, the stakes are high, and everyone stands to benefit from the best outcome. Comfort and ambience help-- anything that builds trust and bonding among the team members before or during their solution sessions.

This model can be applied between two people in a marriage, several in a family, lots in an organization—wherever two or more are gathered.

Where in your life can you build a road where intersections are plentiful and people get to a green light together?

What an alternative to road rage or gridlock.

~~~

Photo Credit: © Rudyumans Dreamstime.com

The Training Tape: Debut E- Book by Joyce Mason

Learn the power and perils of how you talk to yourself. Words matter.

Is “The Training Tape” just a short story or a channeled instruction book on how to live? Joyce is offering her first fiction e-book for the introductory price of only $3.00. See Pay Pal button near the top of the sidebar to purchase.

The scene: A woman is traveling by train, a getaway to sort out her sordid marriage—the one that only leaves her with terrible choices. Suddenly, something completely unexpected happens … and nothing is ever the same.

Is it a channeled instruction book on how to live? Even the author doesn’t know for sure. You be the judge.

~~~

Readers Write:

A thought-provoking, engaging read with Joyce's signature and special twists. This one is sure to grab your attention and not let go! -- EW, SF Bay Area

I love the flashback memories and the humour that subtly deliver an important message in such an enjoyable, easy read. They really give the story depth. It’s gripping, I enjoyed every minute of it! Recommended! – SB, United Kingdom

I STILL keep thinking about the punch line … thanks again for the reminder of being so careful about what we say to ourselves! –TW, Carmel, CA

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

Follow Your Dreams—and You Won’t Have to Chase Down Inspiration!

Joyce Mason on Dreams

Listen to the replay of Joyce's interview with Eileen Williams from The Feisty Side of Fifty on Blog Talk Radio that took place on Monday, July 20, 2009

Your dreams are more than a personal movie provided nightly by Metro-Goldwyn-Maker. Learn the relationship between dreams and increased creativity, inspiration, and problem-solving. This may be both the dreamiest and most practical 15 minutes you’ll ever spend.

Click on the Feisty Side of Fifty Radio/Joyce Mason interview link.

You've got a GPS (God Positioning System). Find it in your dreams!

Nailing the Truth

Hot Flashback
Earlier this year when the economy was making its first impacts on our family, I decided that my gorgeous acrylic nails had to go because of the cost of upkeep. My nails grow like weeds anytime I wear acrylics, requiring fills every couple of weeks. I was willing to do my own manicures most of the time, although I knew my natural nails would probably never look nearly as good.

For awhile, I did China silk wraps—more natural feeling and flexible—the latter being important to me as a nonstop typist. However, I was hard on them; they were always breaking; and the couple that owns the neighborhood nail shop talked me into letting them paint on the stronger acrylic.

“Will it weaken or ruin my own nails underneath?” Silk wraps supposedly didn’t, so I wanted to know if the same held true for modern-day acrylics.

“No, no,” they both said. When I’d done acrylics many years before, they had certainly left my own nails as weak as tissue paper when I took them off. When Mr. & Mrs. Nails told me that wouldn’t happen, I assumed that newer and better materials had been developed since then.

To put it bluntly, they lied. (Some of the heat in this hot flashback is from anger.) When I had my acrylic nails taken off at another salon (lack of forthrightness being one obvious reason I’ll never return to Mr. & Mrs. Nails), my own nails were pathetic, worse than the wreckage of my last acrylic-to-natural transition 20 years ago. The process of getting them off was grueling. It required soaking my nails for nearly a half hour in undiluted polish remover and prying off the false nails with a variety of implements. Then my own nails broke to the nub and peeled for weeks. It was painful to watch and sometimes painful, literally.

Flash Forward
Today I treated myself to a French manicure. My nails look nearly identical to this picture. I can’t stop admiring how great they look—the best in my whole life. I kept thinking; there’s a lesson here.

Cool Insight
As we peel away the false layers of ourselves and remove with great purpose any part of us that’s “plastic,” our psyche’s are as tissue-paper fragile as my nails wrenched of their protective covering.

We work hard on our fragile emotions. As I did with my nail rehab, we do the psychological equivalent of filing down our sharp corners, put on hand cream to smooth out the roughness, and work on nipping those pesky, irritating hangnails. Our ego balks at having to give up looking pretty. It’s hard to hide on our faces that we feel lousy.

After awhile, we begin to understand that being ourselves is the right decision, even when it doesn’t look so hot. Once we stop obsessing about how we appear to others, nature—and healing—take their course. Eventually, we stop thinking constantly about our wounds, hang-ups or hang nails, and one morning we wake up better than ever.

I admit; I didn’t go it alone on this healing miracle. I had Vaseline Healthy Hand and Nail Conditioning Lotion. Maybe for our emotions, we have counselors, clergy, best friends and other salves that help us make that transition when we’re so exposed and tender …

… but when we stop being so self-conscious and let the Great Healer Above and Below Within Us take over, it’s no surprise that nature takes its course and returns us to renewed strength and wholeness.

I love the hidden meanings in language. Who knew I’d learn so much from a manicure? “Man, I cure.”

~~~

Photo Credit: FEMALE HAND © Mikep 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.