Releasing What No Longer Serves Me: A Full Moon Ritual

This beautiful Full Wolf Moon greeted me this morning.  

Part of my commitment to my word for 2018 - Focus, is returning to those rituals that serve me. Using Raelene Byrne's Full Moon Ritual, I used the quiet of the morning to write, consciously releasing from my life what no longer serves me and those things that I need to be free of.    I forgot how freeing it felt to burn the words, releasing all those things weighing down my heart.

Full Moon Facts:

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, "the Full Moon for January was called the Full Wolf Moon. It appeared when wolves howled in hunger outside the villages."  Both of January's Full Moons are Supermoons.

What needs to be released from your life so you can begin living your life with intention?  Try this: light a candle, play some quiet, meditative music, then invite Spirit (or God, Universe, whomever you believe in) to help you release what is no longer serving you.  Consciously begin writing everything that comes to mind.   When you feel you have written everything down find a safe place to burn your words, allowing them to be released from you into the Universe.  Let me know how you feel afterwards.

Weekly practice

Connecting with Spirit

Sunday is the gateway to the week ahead.  I have committed this year to the practice of connecting with Spirit for insight to my intentions for the week and entering appointments and to-do lists in my planner.  I  am taking time for self-care by giving myself a manicure and taking a long, soaking bath of eucalyptus infused Epsom salts to detox my body.

How are you starting your week?  If you dread Sundays , as did, perhaps changing how you approach Sundays can change your week. 

Light a candle, play some meditative music, take several deep breaths, and write.  Get everything out out your head unto the paper. Then fill the tub and soak for 10 - 20 minutes.  You will be amazed at how the stress simply melts away.

How are you entering the week?  Please share your weekly practices and insights.

Feeling Estranged from Myself

I didn’t realize it at the time but being unemployed gave me the distance I needed from the constant busyness of work.  I didn’t have to deal with the constant stresses of meeting all the mandated teaching requirements which spilled over into my personal time.  I had nothing but personal time.  And while I did not use it as wisely as I should have – squandering hours watching TV instead of being creative or getting projects completed; I had personal time, something that I hadn’t had in a long time.  While teaching, even my summers off weren’t really mine because I spent them getting things done that I wasn’t able to during the school year.  I spent that time playing catch up- always feeling behind, never simply enjoying the moment.  While I was unemployed I had things I should be doing but work was not stealing away MY time.  This awareness makes me realize I really do need a change; I need to get away from this dysfunctional work environment because it is making me dysfunctional.  It permeates everything I do, all my thoughts, my creativity is stifled… it literally is stealing me away from ME. 

In the book Choosing Happiness, Dowrick states, “Being busy is a kind of addiction.  It reassures us that we are “someone”.”  “But being constantly busy estranges us from ourselves.” (Dowrick, 131)   This is how I feel, estranged from myself.  Today I read this statement and it stopped me in my tracks; “Let yourself fully imagine the life you want to be living.  Until you can imagine it, you will never achieve it.” (Dowrick, 135)  I can’t picture what it is that I want to do.  I think this is why I find myself stalled.  I don’t know which direction to go so I’m going nowhere.  I’m stuck in this spot waiting for some epiphany to strike or green arrows to suddenly light up a path for me to follow like that investment commercial on TV.  But I know from my past readings that this is NOT how it works.   I have to start moving in some direction, any direction with the intention of finding my life’s purpose.  Movement requires ACTION.  I have found myself standing squarely in front of my word for 2014.  I now have work to do, another ____ to add to my list for this year.  Instead of feeling dread I feel a tingle of excitement; excitement for what is to come.  THIS is why I do the morning readings, for this type of insight.  This is why I’m doing Your Little Word, for accountability for those insights.

My 5 Random Finds

1. A lot of napping took place when we found ourselves snow bound.

2.  Our pets have this radar that tells them someone is on the couch with a blanket.  They appear out of nowhere then blanket-hog.

3.  When the sun isn't shining, it helps to create a sunny, yellow ATC.

4.  Forcing myself outside just for a few minutes to snap a few shots cleared my head.

5. While Cleo loves it when we create this "race track" for her around the yard, it was just too cold to play outside this week.

Very grateful for having an extra week to stay at home from school.  Thank you Mother Nature!

Happily linking up with Kim’s Friday Finds and Nancy’s Random 5 Friday.

Dowrick, Stepahie, Choosing Happiness: Life & Soul Essentials.  New York: Penguin Group, 2007.

Adding to My Morning Reading Ritual

Swapping

Here are some of my latest swap creations:

New year ATC 

Private swap: Create

Color Association ATC: Yellow

Glitter Snow ATC: 

One Sentence a Day Journal: December 2013 (mini composition book)

About December

Simple Deco Swap:  My theme is Purple

 Morning Reading Ritual

I have added another book to my arsenal of morning inspiration; Get What You Want: The Art of Making and Manifesting Your Intentions by Tony Burroughs.  This book was actually given to me last Christmas by a very dear friend.  Because of her spiritual gifts, when she told me I was meant to have it, I knew it to be true.  I started out reading it with good intentions but it simply wasn’t “working” for me and at some point I stopped reading it and it found its way up in my office, shelved.  Two days ago while doing my morning reading the message came that I needed to get that book out.

It is a different kind of book; it uses the process of “bibliomancy,” or book magic.  Stay with me here…  It is not meant to be read cover-to-cover.  You set your intention then open it to any page, and read.  The message that comes is intended to answer your intention.   It “will give you clarity and guidance for whatever is going on in your life at any given moment.” (Burroughs, xix) Wow!

Here is the process: “Pick up the book and hold it for just a moment.  Take a breath or two, let your thoughts settle, and be open to receive.  At this point, you can either allow the book to hone in on the perfect message that is for your Highest Good, or you can pick a situation in your life that you’d like clarity or resolution on.  Then say, “I intend that everything needing to be known is known here today and that the messages and guidance I receive from this book are in total alignment with my Highest Good, the Highest Good of the Universe, and Highest Good of everyone concerned.” then, open the book to any page and start reading.” (Burroughs, xx)

After reading the message there is a “My intention For the Today Is:” and you read that.  I actually copy it down on an index card and carry it with me.  

I am looking forward to the messages and manifestations that come about from this venture in 2014. 

My next post will be about my One little word for 2014 and the changes I hope to incorporate in my life for new 365 days.  

What changes are you planning on making for 2014?

Burroughs, Tony, get what you want: the art of making and manifesting your intentions.  Berkeley: Viva Editions, 2012.

Nighttime Ritual

Monday Mugshot:

PROMPT: Winter Wonderland

Shoot a mug in a monochromatic white/cream theme

Snow taking on an unusual texture from the falling ice

Pieces of fallen ice littering the walkway. 

Stress plays havoc with my sleep.  Out of sheer exhaustion I will fall asleep on the couch while watching the evening news or shortly thereafter.  My husband wakes me up to go to bed around 9:00.  I will wake up for the day anytime between 12:15 to 1:30 am.  I grade papers, work on lesson plans or get things done on the computer until 5:30 when I start getting ready for work.  I come home from school about 4, change, take Cleo for a walk, cook dinner then stretch out on the couch to watch the evening new and the cycle begins again.  I am exhausted! 

In order to gain control of this exhausting cycle I have created a nighttime ritual.  I must give credit for this idea to Victoria Moran’s book, Younger by the Day; 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit. While is seems very logical, without self-discipline it is difficult to maintain on a nightly basis, and even more so when you are exhausted!

                          Grooming

                          Spiritual Practice

                          Reading

                         Affirming a good night’s sleep

                         (Moran, 121)

I notice a difference when I don’t follow it, only follow some of it, and when I diligently complete the entire ritual.  I am working on my self—discipline to insure I get all the steps done and don’t slip back into the habit of lying out on the couch.

How are you sleeping lately?  Do you have a nightly ritual which helps you sleep better?

Linking up with Monday Mugshot.

Moran, Victoria, Younger by the Day; 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Celebrating the Winter Solstice, surviving Mother Nature's latest fury, and Christmas.

December 22nd

My plans to celebrate the Winter Solstice got way sided by Mother Nature’s latest ice storm. 

The rain began early in the morning on the Winter Solstice.  It was disappointing as I had planned to spend the morning taking photographs of the snow covered fields at the nature reserve down the road.  At noon I wanted to take photos of people’s shadows when they were at their longest for the year but Mother Nature didn't cooperate when she covered the area with fog and rain.  Plans for celebrating the solstice with a bonfire were also waylaid as the cold rain was coming down in sheets with the wind blowing and howling making it impossible to light a fire let alone keep one going. 

When I awoke the next morning I thanked the angels as our electricity was still on and Christmas break began one day earlier when school was cancelled for the day.  I stayed safe inside sipping my morning brew and whispered another thank you to the angels that we were all safe and warm while other's where not so fortunate.   I spent the time enjoying my morning reading ritual and working in my journal. 

Dec. 24^th

The morning sun came out shinning and the world suddenly took on a look of a crystal chandelier; the once deadly ice now sparkling like prisms. Perhaps this was God’s way of softening the Grinch-like perspective people were left with after being without electricity.

Fresh snow made for a literal “winter wonderland”. 

Random 5 Friday

Here are my randoms for the week:

• Thankful for family; that the young still want to spend time with the old.

My mom and son frosting Christmas cookies.

• Unearthing old treasures of the past that hold with them a multitude of memories of Christmases long ago.  

While stationed in Germany, I feel in love with these cookies.  I have never found anything like them since.  Now the box holds my boy’s handmade ornaments.

• Driving through the county park, enjoying the lights on Christmas eve.

  

• The simple pleasure of watching Cleo "getting acquainted" with her new Christmas toy.

• Christmas cards from friends, family and fellow swappers.

This one arrived from Russia just this week.

What a week!  Very thankful we had electricity and were able to open our home to my parents who found themselves without.  Did Mother Nature disrupt your preparations for Christmas?  What random finds did you discover this week?  Please take a moment to share in the comments below.                               

Linking up with Friday Finds & Random 5 Friday

Getting back on track…

The chaos of playing catch-up in my morning reading ritual and daily journaling

Yesterday I posted my concerns about returning to a hostile work environment.  I spent a very sleepless night tossing and turning with my brain running bad scenario after bad scenario. I pleaded to the angels repeatedly to help me turn these thoughts off and let me sleep.  I did finally fall asleep for a short while but awoke with a stress headache.  Getting out of bed I acknowledged, “ENOUGH!  MESSAGE RECEIVED!”

I made a pot of coffee, lit my candle with a pray for insight from my readings.  I then got out my journal and morning reading books and spent a quiet morning reading, gluing, and writing.  The calm slowly returned the more I wrote. 

After the chaos; feeling the calm of getting it out of my head & onto the paper.

Messages from Choosing Happiness (Stephanie Dowrick):

Ø  “Trust in yourself flows from self-knowledge.”

Ø  “Self-knowledge lets you find your strengths and develop them.  It lets you recognize your passions and embrace them.  It lets you see what’s tripping you up and how you can learn something from it.  It lets you live in the present, rather than the past.”

Ø  “Listen to yourself.  Know what your moods are and how inevitably they will affect everyone around you. When you don’t like what you see, change it.” 

Ø  “…what you keep harking back to, whether you think other people have more power over your life than you do: these stories shape your character, temperament and sense of what’s possible.”

Ø  “…and a switch in attitude can bring a different “ending.”

Ø  “Notice what affects your moods negatively, what thoughts are driving your fearful thinking.  Moods are driven by thoughts; not the other way around.”

Ø  “You will be abundantly rewarded by spending just a few minutes each day or evening reflecting on: “What did I learn today?”  “What surprise me?”

 

Anxiety at an all time high.

Listening to the messages and getting them down on paper.

I made this list of ways to stay positive:

·         Do my morning reading ritual

·         Journal at night while watching the evening news: gratitude, “What did I learn today?” “What surprise me?”

·         Practice generosity by leaving RAK envelopes.

·         Strive to get closer to God by:  communicating the nuts & bolts of my day, silent thank you’s, quiet acknowledgement that I am not alone.

Found these fun stamps to journal with at Joann Fabrics

I need to take this feeling of calm with me as I enter into the chaos  and stress on Monday.  How do I do it?  How do you leave the chaos and stressors of work behind?  Please leave any advice you have in the comments below.