Was sitting up in bed this morning, listening to birdsong and enjoying the cool (ok, COLD — this is Wisconsin) breeze drifting in the windows…. ahhh…. when my cute little monkey mind noticed that my back hurt.

Very slightly. In one spot.

The pain had started in January and I’d finally done healing on it in May. My back has been recovering nicely since and doesn’t hurt anything like it used to. I’d slept wrong, though, woken up in the dark to find a tinge of the old pain from my odd arm position. I’d shifted my body and gone back to sleep.

And now as I sat, simply being, receiving birdsong and breeze, my mind noticed that my back felt slightly… off.

Next, my mind next remembered that my back had hurt there! And it had not been pleasant! Whoa!

To the mind, the memory of hurt is pretty much the same thing as the hurt itself, isn’t it? 

With this morsel of data, off my mind raced! A second later, it had dug up a related feeling of being punished.

“I hurt, therefore I’m being punished,” it insisted.

In my state of calm ease and peace, that thought seemed quite odd. Really? My back hurts because I’m being punished?

I let it go, like when the three-year-old announces that people are really cats in disguise. I simply observed my mind’s thought, neutrally suspended in the beauty of the morning.

Meanwhile, the mind decided to wake up the Curiosity Department. “Why do I think I’m being punished?” the CD wondered. And the CD sent little bundles of curiosity-consciousness out like ants to scour the landscape of my mind for crumbs.

“Because,” it announced a few seconds later, and quite proudly, “When I was little, the only time something hurt was when I was being punished.”

Hmm.

The mind is so cute, like a small child doing its best, adorably clumsy, simply due to its state of development. The mind can be especially entertaining when I am in a wordless place and can watch it run about busily comparing, contrasting, ranking, and reliving events from the past as if they were present.

It can be particularly irritating, however, when I am firmly ensconced in other thinking and judging parts of the mind itself, and cannot detach from these other thoughts.

But this morning, I patted my curiosity on the head and told it, “Nice connection. Good job.”

And I let it go, continuing to breathe birdsong and breeze for a short time before getting out of bed.

I don’t believe its idea, of course. What about all those bike wipeouts, the clumsy bumps, and the toe I jammed the day before 12th grade? Not punishment.

The trouble with the mind is that other parts of the mind like to believe the stories it comes up with. And that usually doesn’t lead anywhere useful.

When we practice a state of pure receiving, it becomes easier to stay neutral to the mind. Whether you call it meditation or listening or contemplation, the more we practice, the less the mind bothers us outside of practice, too. Then we can enjoy the mind’s machinations like we might watch busy squirrels play in the yard.

It is not possible to get rid of the mind. It is a layer of our human consciousness, and pretty handy for driving across town or figuring out how to change the batteries in your new electronic toy. But we can make peace with the mind, learn to recognize its favorite games, and practice stepping into a deeper form of consciousness in order to avoid the snares of monkey thought.

The delightful irony, of course, is that we must use our minds to develop this practice.

May you find ease in developing your practice.

© Daria Boissonnas 2013 All Rights Reserved. Please email us about reprint rights.

Share Your Wisdom

• Have you struggled with your monkey mind?
• What is your favorite method or practice to avoid getting caught up by the thinking mind and its stories?

Leave a reply, below!

‎”Pain is a part of life, but suffering is optional,” said the guest speaker at church a few Sundays ago now, a Zen Buddhist spiritual teacher.

Though I’ve heard it a zillion times, I love this saying. It reminds me that it is not life itself that is painful as much as my demands and assumptions about what happens (or should happen) that really makes me miserable. It’s not what happens but my grasping expectations and demands about how life should be that hurt.

We suffer when we hold on to our wouldas, shouldas, and couldas. We suffer when we grasp tightly to what used to be or what might have been. Our choices make the difference, and this quote says suffering is a choice we can make or not make (whether we choose mindfully or through unconscious habits of thought doesn’t really matter here).

Whatever happens, we can choose to heal. I love to be reminded of that!

But Wait, Isn’t Pain a Form of Suffering?

This morning while washing dishes, a new thought snuck into my mental landscape, however… It wondered, “Isn’t pain itself…well, inherently painful, a form in fact of suffering?” When I am in pain, I am miserable. It hurts, darnit. I am physically suffering! When I am depressed, I am suffering mental/emotional/spiritual pain. Ouchies! So isn’t pain the same as suffering?

But that thought seems to contradict what the quote says. If pain is a form of suffering, the first part of the quote implies that suffering is a part of life, while the second half says suffering is entirely optional, not necessarily a part of life — we do not have to suffer.

Ut oh. I have contradicted the quote I love.

Interestingly, since the first half of the quote says that pain is always a part of life, the quote implies that pain cannot be suffering.

Whoa. Though my theory is now that pain and suffering are one, the quote implies that they are two unrelated things.

Already I’m super curious as to how exactly one can experience pain without suffering, and I have only washed two dishes.

What Does No-Pain Feel Like?

In detaching, in letting go of the grasping that causes pain, does life then stop hurting? Does your bum knee start to feel great again? Does thinking of your dead loved one bring only a smile to your face, without tears and sadness? What would a life without pain (aka suffering) even look like?

That depends on what you think pain is. After pondering my experiences as an energy healer, it is easy to conclude that yes, in fact, pain ONLY arises from attachment, from hanging on to expectations, from demanding that the world be somehow other than it is.

As they say in energy healing, pain is stuck energy. In my experience, I have found you can heal severe pain by eliminating these thought patterns and aberrations in the energy field, allowing Life Force to flow unimpeded once again.

THAT I can totally believe, based on what I’ve seen of pain and its causes in my healing office. Physical pain seems to filter down from other levels of our conscious being, such as fears and doubts that come from or create attachments.

Pain is stuck energy. The important question is now: why is the energy stuck?

In a perfect world, energy, consciousness, and information flow freely as life unfolds. Acorns become magnificent oak trees. Baby otters grow up to become adult otters, without anyone instructing them in otterness. The only way this beautiful process of unfoldment and evolution gets stuck and therefore painful, is because of an attachment. An idea or thought or action that stopped the free flow of energy and consciousness in our divine unfolding.

Whether it was a thought you created yourself or one you downloaded from the collective consciousness, there it is, a tether, holding back some part of a divine or natural process that cannot be stopped.

But life happens, relentlessly. As you continue to move forward through time and your life evolves, this tether or limitation starts to gum up the works. It becomes a sticking point, and requires you to cope with it. It can manifest in your life as a mental limitation (“I’m not good enough”) or a bum knee. Eventually, this tether causes so much interference between you and your perfect unfoldment that we come to understand the feeling of this interference as pain.

Ouch.

Pain is a symptom of attachment, of limitation, of not allowing life to unfold in its brilliance, whatever form that takes. Pain is a result of trying to control and dictate Life itself.

Of this I am sure.

So what about the initial quote? Do I still agree with it? Yes, but I might rephrase it for clarity. Try this one on for size:

“Pain often happens in life due to habitual or unconscious grasping, controlling, and attachment,
but (once you notice it) continuing to suffer because of these limitations is entirely optional.”

Yes, I will still use the initial quote, since mine is pretty unwieldy. But this newly realized rewriting is the deeper meaning I will give to that quote when I say it.

So, what did you think of while washing the dishes this morning?

© Daria Boissonnas 2013

About 14 years ago, I enthusiastically started what may be an unusual spiritual practice, one that seems very simple yet has challenged me and fascinated me ever since. This practice also has brought tremendous relief and inner peace as it has helped me see the world as a nonduality or unified whole — a friendly place.

I stopped believing in causality.

Yep.

This is such an odd practice, it may be hard to imagine at first. It took quite a bit of effort to slide into at first, to catch myself thinking in terms of “what caused this” and “who is to blame?” But let’s take a look at this practice and its benefits.

What Does No-Causality Look Like?

How about a nice concrete example to ponder –

Suppose you fall and scrape your knee by tripping on a heaved sidewalk tile. Without causality, you did not fall because of the heaved sidewalk tile. Nor because you happened to be thinking about a recent painful fight you had with your best friend which distracted you so that you didn’t notice the heaved section. There is no because. All three things are one, like different facets on a cut diamond. They are all the same diamond, seen from different angles at different (sequential, as we experience them) points in time.

Consider the scraped knee, a place in the body that bends and flexes and supports forward movement. Now it is hurting.

Consider the fight with a friend, their inflexibility about something that triggered your inflexibility about their inflexibility and the angry words you tossed back and forth. Perhaps you are afraid the fight will end your friendship, which has been a great support to your changing directions in life.

Consider the sidewalk, which helps us move forward in a straight line, to go where we want to go more easily than treading on grass and stones. It is heaved, its even pace broken, as broken as you feel with this new rift in your friendship. You and your friend took different positions on the issue, like the two squares of sidewalk that no longer meet eye to eye. (See the common threads?)

Not believing in causality means that what we would usually separate as cause and effect are one. Both what we call the cause and the effect are expressions of some latent pool or system of energy and consciousness. In the stream of time as we experience it, we happen to see one (which we call cause) before the next (we call that effect). But, like telephone poles along the road, they are all actually there the whole time, we just experience them sequentially.

This is an easy world of 100% responsibility, and it makes for a very pleasant place to live. Of course people in this world care about the “consequences” of their actions, or, shall we say, the far-reaching aspects of the energy and consciousness that their actions were a small part of. They know they are connected to everything, a part of everything, belong to everything.

This world is a place of deep peace, a blameless stillness and ease which allows one to focus on positive reactions.

The Effects of No Cause and Effect

OK, that subhead was a pun. There is no effect of not believing in causality. The shift transcends the mindset of blame and you simply experience the world without this filter, as it is.

For me, over the years, what I have experienced while not believing in causality is that I tend look at the world increasingly as a metaphorical representation of energy and consciousness that we happen to perceive largely through our physical and mental perceptions. What happens becomes less important than what it means and what it tells me about my resistance and hangups and how I am not experiencing the world as a safe and loving place. It has also helped me become a crackerjack interpreter of dreams, daydreams, persistent mental images, hangups and more (so my clients enthusiastically say).

I believe this shift in consciousness has empowered my healing, in a sense by allowing me to step aside more easily to let more healing flow through me. And I simply love looking at the world in this way.

It was not an instant shift, but took place over many years of catching myself in old thinking habits of blame and causality, and then applying my new philosophy of no-causality to see the situation from that viewpoint. Eventually, my habits shifted and the world became a beautiful, harmonious place of oneness.

May it become so for you, too.

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas  All Rights Reserved

My friend is putting together a class on clearing clutter, and this perennial struggle has been top of my mind.  Then this morning, my meditation gave me an unexpected insight into the piles and disorganization we call clutter.

As I sat in meditation enjoying an unusually deep peace and nothingness, I began to see myself sitting at my desk, as if my eyes were open.

Oh dear.

I’m still in the throes of removing the large desk (and emptying seven large drawers) in my office. Stacks of paper dot the office countertops as well as my massage therapy table.  Evicted empty drawers huddle in one corner.  The shredder has been throwing a week-long confetti party on the far side of the room.  And a few accretions of miscellaneous… I’ll be nice — stuff… are now seeping across my desk like a glacier field.

As I “saw” this (with eyes closed), I could vividly feel how stressed I used to get about clutter.

Clutter used to drive me nuts.  Whenever I needed to concentrate or start a new project that required thinking or creativity, I would instantly become super-distracted by things out of place in my environment.  (Coincidentally, I lived a fairly ordered but cluttered life, so there was lots to be distracted by.)  The piles around me would scream: “You don’t have time for THAT, you have to take care of THIS.”  And send me reeling into uncertainty.

Ugh.

But this morning, in that lovely meditative place, I felt my old reaction with compassion and love.  (Awww…)  Then the stressed feeling faded completely, and I was looking at my office clutter while once again feeling that kind of deep peace you can only experience far out in nature or in meditation.

Peace? Amidst clutter like this? But… yes. I could feel Peace in the desk, in the papers, in the… stuff. Peace. Stillness. The scene suspended itself, as if it was waiting for me.  And I got it: clutter is OK.  Clutter doesn’t matter.  Only what I thought and how I felt about clutter made it miserable.  Inside the clutter is stillness.  Inside me is stillness.  Inside each atom of clutter is Tao, Presence, or God.  Inside chaos is the deepest Peace.

And I can (and may) find that stillness, in the midst of any chaos.

I sat with that for a while, until I felt I could reach it again in a non-meditative state. Even now, hours later, I feel deeply peaceful.

Do I still want to create systems so clutter does not build up in my life?  Of course. But this I know: should clutter creep up on me, like when I’m moving furniture around or when I get too busy to file for a while, there will be stillness and holiness in the center of that clutter.

Today I activated this insight by plopping my laptop on top of the clutter and peacefully writing this out for you.

How can you find Peace and Stillness in your clutter?

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you have a romantic partner or not, let’s ponder and honor all the things that are so lovable about you! (Get ready for a long article.)

Nah, scratch that.

The details don’t matter. Here’s the truth of it: You are simply loveable. You were born lovable. Every bit of you.

How do you feel about that?

If you are having a hard time buying this idea, consider this: The divine essence of you is not only lovable, it may be Love itself. Your essence is infinitely lovable. Divine Essence, Life Force, Grace, All-Encompassing Love, Presence, God, Tao: it flows through your veins and along your nerve and energy pathways.

Therefore, the rest of you is lovable too, as an expression of Divine Essence. Every bit of you.

Love is simply who you are, from the inside out.

True, perhaps, from time to time, you might fall into an old reaction, an old habit of thinking or behaving… and then you might not act so lovably. You may yell or worry or cut someone off in traffic. You might think or do something mean. You might fear, feel insecure, or get defensive.

But how you act and think is a mere derivative of the Essence of you. And, yes, sometimes fears and lower energies can get in the mix. But at your core, you are Lovable.

Nothing in your Divine Essence can truly be lost. It is all there, like an acorn holds all the information to become a tree, whatever happens to the acorn. You are complete. Completely lovable. In every moment, in every situation.

If you are lovable in your inner core, then you are lovable in every cell of your body, and in your energy field. Love flows through all you are and do.

Listen to that Love. Can you hear it?

How can you tune into the song of Love within you, every day, in every moment… and hear it so distinctly… that you absentmindedly begin humming the tune for others?

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

Last weekend someone asked to come see me for some healing. They said, “How about Monday?”

I gulped.

Between clients and especially on weekends, the massage therapy table in my office can become like a kitchen counter — a magnet for stuff that’s “between locations.” This time, I knew, it was particularly full. The boxes and papers from my new computer were all over the table. I’m also planning to remove the large desk in my office and have started to build temporary piles while I sort through everything. (You know how things get messy before they get better?) Also also, I knew my dining room table (visible across from my office) happened to be piled high with art projects and kid stuff, and the living room was strewn with games (7, I counted later), and I never managed to dust in January and and and…

I shrank into myself as I felt how messy my house was — waaay too messy to have someone in my home office so soon! So I started to say, “No, how about Thursday?” to give myself a few days to tidy up. Maybe an hour a day or so…

But as the words formed on my tongue, the Universe went…

“Ahem.”

And I heard it. I was putting my ego and perfectionism before their healing. My somewhat messy house was more important than their getting healing right away on Monday? No.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “OK, great.” If I had to throw stuff in boxes and stash them in a closet for a few hours, I would open my doors Monday morning.

Turns out, I spent an hour tidying up the massage therapy table that morning and easily cleaned it off properly. I left the games in the living room; we do have four kids after all. I didn’t dust (and I didn’t apologize for not dusting, drawing their attention to it like I used to, lol). And after the appointment I even showed the client some of the kids’ art that was piled in the dining room.

All that cringing was not about my house, it was about me and my insecurities. About the “rule” that echoes from my childhood that you are not worthy in the eyes of God unless your house is spotless. (Cancel, clear!)

Thank goodness I have all I need in every moment. Thank goodness I have an office and spectacular healing skills to offer to someone in pain. Thank goodness I live by the principle “healing first.”

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

Continuing from last week, we are exploring an often misquoted saying from the Gospel of Thomas, which erroneously is quoted like this:

INACCURATE:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  (emphasis mine)

In the last article, we considered what the first part of the official translations mean, as a writer, artist or healer, and came up with three intentions for Awakening.

Now let’s look at the second part of the quote.

Part 2: The Thing about the Thing that Kills You

Consider the same five official translations for the second half of the quote (emphases mine):

Thomas O. Lambdin:
(70) “…That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you.”

Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer:
70. “…If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson:
(70) …(2) “If you do not have it within you, (then) that which you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

Pico Iyer:
70.) …What you do not have within will kill you.

Coptic Ecumenical Project:
70. …If you do not have that within yourselves, this which you do not have within you will kill you.

In this part, the misquote almost restates the official translations of the first part: suppressing your gifts will kill you.

But in the official translations, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do any more. This part says you either have it, or you don’t. And not having it will somehow end your existence. Not having… something… has dire consequences.

What does this mean?

Know Your Gift, Divine Purpose, or Calling

One of the things I love about spiritual teachings and truths is that they can be interpreted in many ways or on many levels, and, if the teaching is deep enough, each of these interpretation provides valid insights. There is no “wrong” interpretation. (Just don’t mangle the teaching to say something else, lol.) So if you have other interpretations, please comment them below.

One way we could understand the correct second half of the phrase is like this: if you are pretending to be something other than what you are (that is, if you do not have within you what you are putting on the outside of you), it will kill you.

Well, ain’t that the truth. We have probably all done that at some point in our lives, moreso in our youth. Note to self: be genuine. Or, as I tell the kids, truth gets you much farther in life than lies.

What else does this teaching mean? To me, it’s all about seeing your own divinity, your own divine creative gifts, your own natural Inner Healer.

I bet you can think of a few incredibly gifted people who cannot see their own gifts. They don’t seem to appreciate how deep their abilities go or how much the rest of us, not having these gifts, treasure their abilities and their help. What I have observed in my clients over the years is that when you are truly living your gifts, it’s easy and fun. Effortless and enjoyable. The divine gift you bring to the world is so easy for you, in fact, that it can be hard to appreciate… or even notice at first.

Now let me ask you this: if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to notice it, has it really fallen?

That is, if you have a divine gift inside you but you never see it, is it still there? Isn’t your gift, in a sense, absent from your being? If you do not look, do you really “have” it?

This teaching says to me that if you do not know what you have within you, for example if you do not explore your inner divinity, life purpose, calling, or Inner Healer, that omission will kill you. (You can interpret “kill” any way you like, from make you miserable to end your life.) If you never find out who you are, whether you get up the guts to express it or not, it you will simply cease to be.

Cease to be you.

This, in turn, reminds me of some of the oldest spiritual advice in the world, inscribed in the temple at Delphi: Know Thyself.

Know Thyself

When we get sucked into our angst, drama, and depression as writers, creatives, healers, and intuitives, we get pulled away from seeing that which we have within. We get sucked into a downward spiral of ego and insufficiency and crushed intentions. That is not the road to happiness, a meaningful life, and the joy of helping others.

Happiness comes from exploring, awakening, and expressing what you already have within. We know from the first half of the teaching that, whatever it looks like, what you are inside is GOOOOOOD. Take your time. Enjoy the chase. Enjoy the expression of your true self.

In a sense, fully investigated, this teaching of Jesus turned out to be even better advice for artists, writers and healers than I assumed.

What do YOU have within?

A few months ago, I went looking for that quote from the Gospel of Thomas — the one that artists, writers, and healers love — the one that says something like: if you do not bring forth what is within you, it will just kiiiiiiiill you.

Oh yeah.

In the throes of our artistic angst, especially when not doing our art, our teaching, or our healing, we can identify with the feeling of slowly dying.

But when I finally located the quote, I discovered it was misquoted. Among the three main scholarly translations and several others I found, none translate logon #70 the way I have seen it on facebook and twitter.

Here is the misquote, directly from BrainyQuote.com (a website that any serious writer or facebook quoter avoids like the plague):

INACCURATE:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  (emphasis mine)

Instead, the real quote speaks of something deeper and even more profound. 

What do official translations say?

Part 1: What Saves You Is What You HAVE… If You Express It

ACCURATE (first half of quote):

Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin:
(70) Jesus said, “That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves.”

Translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer:
70. Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.”

Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson:
(70) Jesus says: (1) “If you bring it into being within you, (then) that which you have will save you.

Rendered by Pico Iyer (Source: The Gospel According to Thomas: With Complementary Texts, ed. Raghavan Iyer, Concord Grove Press, 1983, often miscredited online to a mysterious Nancy Johnson.)
70.) When you produce this within, what you have will save you.

The Coptic Ecumenical Project, translated into English and Spanish by Paterson Brown:
70. Yeshua says: When you bring forth that which is within yourselves, this that you have shall save you. (Again, my bolding for easy comparison to the misquote.)

Three Intentions for Awakening

What does this new understanding mean for those of us who produce creative or healing works?

1. Stop looking for what will save you “out there.” Know that you already have something wonderful inside you, something worth sharing, something can turn your life around, every time you need it to. You will not find it out there, although some of what you find out there may remind you of what you already have inside. Drop any jealousy of other people’s published works, too, because those are mere shadows of what counts. Wonderful though they may be, the works don’t matter. What YOU already have counts for a lot.

Translations #3 and 4 even seem to imply that all you have to do is develop this thing within you, to “bring it forth” within, perhaps by simply exploring it, listening to it, or acknowledging it. Turn inward.

2. Express your something wonderful. If you are a dancer, dance. If you are a writer, write. If you are a healer, heal. Do it behind closed doors and unpublished if you have to at first. Explore what is within you. It’s more important that you acknowledge what is in you and EXPRESS it, than you or your works be seen or approved of. It may be that our most sacred duty is simply expressing what is inside us, if only to ourselves and our loved ones.

Well, all right, we kind of knew that already, but let it soak in: It’s not what you have, but THAT you have something wonderful already. It’s not what you produce but THAT you produce it.

3. And, finally, stop counting jelly beans. It’s not the size of your, er, body of work that counts. Contrary to the misquote, what you’ve produced is not what saves you. The painter with the most canvases hanging in the Louvre does not win. The vast potential you don’t even know you have inside is what makes the difference… if you connect with it. If you seek it and “bring it into being.” So stop counting the other kids’ jelly beans while you focus on your own.

This teaching reminds me of Jesus’s admonition to pray in secret. There, alone, it’s what you do in your heart that counts — what you do when it’s just you and God looking, not what you show to others. This teaching also reminds me of the Tao Te Ching’s saying that, “Those who know don’t talk and those who talk don’t know.”

I had no idea this quote would turn out to be about a lot more than artistic angst. What counts, in my words, is your Inner Healer: your naturally healing gifts and your inner connection to them.

And you will be “saved” by awakening this within you.

Would you like a small challenge to activate this teaching? Take 10 seconds right now, and name ONE thing you can do immediately (or later today) to connect with the real you, inside you. (Whether that part of you looks like what you think other people want… or not.) How could you honor this hidden part of you? How could you begin to explore it more deeply?

One thing.

Let me know what you discover, in the comment section below.

ARTICLE PART 2: THE THING ABOUT THE THING THAT KILLS YOU… next time

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

“I come forth and from the plane of mind I rule.”

I’ve just returned from facilitating another Radiant Life Retreat in Ojai, California. We dove deep and broke through to new, rich ground. What moved me deeply was the moment each woman chose to bust through into new territory. Can you imagine what it takes for a seedling to burst through the soil after winter? These women summoned everything they had to get a glimpse of the light.  Now, today, as the sun moves into Aries tonight at 10:15 pm pacific time, we all get a chance to enter new and stimulating territory in our lives.

We are welcoming Spring into our lives — as we do each year. And each year we get to leave a little something behind that no longer serves us so we can travel lighter and brighter. Both the shedding of winter and the embrace of Spring require DARING. We ask ourselves,”Can I live without that?” Or “If I really dare to launch, spring forth, break through, will it take hold? Will I thrive in the new land?”

Aries’ gift is daring. Sometimes it moves forward too impulsively or with too much effort, but when we ride the energy of Aries with grace, we have the capacity to summon our troupes, march forward, break through and be the pioneer of our own unexplored horizon. It’s inspiring to others. It’s inspiring for ourselves.

At its best, Aries seeds bold new ideas that will grow something worthwhile for all humanity. Aries comes forth with the power of the mind and says, “What about this, mankind? Have you considered THIS.” It offers THE NEW — served up (at times) with a little bravado, strut and a wink that says, ‘and I did it all by myself.”

Of course as an Aries grows and matures, he learns that nothing can be done alone and that while his part may be to plunge in with gusto, he’ll need a ton of support to see it through, to tend and grow his initial brilliant idea into a fully formed YES. Libras are great allies for Aries as they know how to choose wisely, work together and take the necessary time.

This month– daring ones–breathe in hope, innocence and chutzpah. If you have been hesitating, PLUNGE. If you have been sad, diligently search for a little spring in your heart and tend it lovingly. If you have an idea and have been brewing for a time, THE TIME IS NOW to ignite it, spark it, fire it up and send it out.

Come forth, my friends, with what you have to offer. Give your gift. You are, after all, the only one to give it.

Big love.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet. As a practicing astrologer for over 15 years, Heidi takes a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving worldwide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is pleased to offer Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

A Poem for Aries

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O’Donohue ~

Just went to the cabinet to get out some tea. When I opened it, one box jumped out at me and kerplunked on the counter. Kombucha. Detoxing tea.

(What do you think? Anything meaningful there?)

“It means I’m supposed to have that kind of tea!” exclaimed one corner of my mind.

Hmm. I have been feeling a little under the weather with a cold in the last two days. So I asked my body if it would benefit from hot tea right now (yes), and what kind would most benefit it.

Nope. Not that one. Thoughtful, I made the other kind of tea.

All the events around us have meaning, and the greatest meaning comes from tapping the truth within you. Our minds are busy things, but, as you may have learned over and over yourself, the mind is not always correct. It makes best guesses.

The heart knows. Your energy body knows. Your inner wisdom knows. Some part of you always knows the answer to questions about your best interests. Tap into that.

Fate may bring you in contact with a range of people, things, and experiences. Are you meant to engage them all? Not likely. But this I do know: You can learn from each connection.

Intuitively, it feels like I have two… somethings… to cleanse out of my life. A little more meditation, and I’ll soon figure them out. Thanks, tea!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

What struck you about my tea experience? Let me know in the comments, below.

My yoga teacher, Sofia Diaz, recently described the difference between intensity and pain in our daily practice. She said intensity was like a low hum in the body, stretching us to our limits and asking us to let go into something greater than ourselves. Pain is sharp and sudden and an obvious indication we should stop what we are doing. Many of us mistake intensity for pain. We pull back when we should drop further in.

A heart ache is an opportunity to ride intensity, to drop in, to open still further. Our hearts ache when the radiance and potency of the heart meet something other than unbounded love. Our hearts ache because the intensity of our love is met with something we perceive as other than that love. It is in the moment that the heart’s fierce gift meets obstruction that our greatest thresholds can be crossed.

How many of us give up on love because it’s embarrassing or raw or too revealing? How many of us pull back from an another’s eyes afraid to stay too long or afraid what another will think or how we ourselves will react? How many of us make our love ‘nice’ instead or letting it flow like the wild and powerful river it is?

We welcome the sign of Pisces today at 10:18 pm pacific time. This is the final sign of the zodiac. It is a sign of culmination and synthesis. It wraps up the zodiacal year and asks us to leave behind what we do not wish to carry into the next cycle. In many ways, it is a month of surrender — a surrender into a greater love.

Let us remember that the heart can ache as it witnesses exquisite beauty. It can ache as it registers a remarkable act of love or compassion. It can ache because it wants to learn to love ever more. And the month of Pisces is a month to learn to love bigger, deeper, wider, with less boundary, with less reserve. It’s a month to stand open and willing to be touched. It’s a month to choose intimacy rather than escape. And remember– intimacy can be felt as you order your coffee in the morning or as you thank someone for packing your groceries. It’s a choice about how you connect moment to moment.

This month, take the phrase “the eyes are a window to the soul” as a real and tangible truth — and meet the gaze of many. Look deeper. Love more. Let go of all (at least some?) of the emotional baggage or accounts you’ve been carrying. Put them down. Walk lighter. Uplift those you meet. Redeem what you can. Stand in a rain of grace and invite others in.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet. As a practicing astrologer for over 15 years, Heidi takes a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving worldwide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is pleased to offer Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

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A Poem for Pisces

Love Is Not Fragile, by Samantha Reynolds (bentlily.com)

Who taught you
to be sparing
with your love
as though your heart was a bank
as though love could dry up
nonsense
it is as if the ocean complained
it was too
wet
love is not fragile
it is as common as breath
it is play money
it is a race
to give more
go first
say it with impunity
you think you will ache
with vulnerability
but the strangest thing will happen
you will nearly drown
with peace.

What is power? How would you define it?

Recently I read this definition: “Though power most often refers to the ability to influence people (Guerrero, DeVito & Hecht, 1999, p. 314), power is also related to dominance and status (Guerrero, DeVito & Hecht, 1999, p. 315)…”

Hunh? I spend all day focusing on empowering my clients and myself, but I’ve always thought of power as the ability to create healing changes, the kind of power that flows through you. Are we ultimately working towards the ability to influence, dominate, and have status?

Hmm… Well, sure. I like this definition because you can apply it perfectly to most valuable type of power you can develop, an ability most correlated with success — self-power. Power from within means you can influence yourself to write your novel, exercise, meditate every day, practice your art regularly, or get to sleep at a healthy time, even when all you feel like doing is sitting in front of a late movie with a bowl of ice cream.

Right, that power. The power that builds easy self-discipline. The power that takes you out of old, limiting habits and stretches for new habits, and keeps stretching, right through the discomfort stage.

This power is the ability to influence yourself to do what you know is good for you in the long run, when your head is full of reasons why not. It is the ability to dominate your “but-but-but” thoughts. And it is the status that says you honor your health, wealth, and happiness first. Good things come from this kind of power.

Then, when you use this power to take care of you (to put that proverbial oxygen mask over your own face), you will have more power to take care of others. You will empower your Inner Healer.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

How do you define power? What kind of power are you developing? Let us know in the comments below!

When you have a fight or other painful event in a relationship, how do you get back on track?

Many folks would say forgiveness.

I agree — that is a great place to start! However, I’m going to step out on a limb here so you can give your forgiveness practice more power. Forgiveness is not, as many believe, the entire healing process. It is the first step.

But it is an extremely important first step that allows the rest of healing to happen.

This came up for me recently, a little too close to home, when someone I love took dramatic offense and hurt at something I said with all good intentions. They were done with me; I was devastated. Several days later, a friend brilliantly and lovingly asked me, “What else do you need from this situation in order to heal?”

Great question! You can’t go anywhere if you don’t know where you want to go! It’s so easy to get stuck in the emotions of a crisis without looking for the healing solution.

I went within. I… I wanted to be forgiven. Even though I had technically done nothing wrong, they were genuinely hurting. I wanted this person to say, “That’s OK dear, I understand, things like this happen sometimes, I’ll get over it, I forgive you.”

The Power of Forgiveness Is Disconnection

When we are stressed by a negative event, our energy and consciousness freezes. It locks us into the event(s), which is now in the past. Even today, many of us are locked to painful events from earlier in your life. (Some vividly, as if it happened yesterday. Is there anything left from your upbringing that can rile you up upon thinking of it?)

When you maintain connections to the past, you must power those connections with your energy and consciousness. They are distractions and energy drains. You struggle where there could be ease. You feel adrift, confused, or vaguely dissatisfied with life when you tend these old wounds. It is as if you are carrying them around in a massive backpack, bending under their weight.

This I know: the heart of healing is connection. It is connection to that which sustains and nourishes, and disconnection from that which drains and demoralizes.

Forgiveness is a letting go, a healthy disconnection of your energy and consciousness from the painful experience. It is a release of blame and the need to receive anything back. Forgiveness turns you around, from being stuck in the past, attached to what happened, to facing forward again, being present in today, and moving forward into healing.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get over an offense. Hey, things happen and we can move on. But in situations where stress, outrage, shock, hurt, and other emotions have firmly attached us to that original fight or event, forgiveness is golden. It initiates the healing process.

But What If They Won’t Forgive You?

What do you do when you are the transgressor — intentional and repenting, or unintentional — and the person you hurt will not forgive you? What do you when the other person is refusing to reconcile?

You heal. You step beyond this situation, by disconnecting yourself. And the #1 rule about healing is this: you have all the resources you need at all times.

The way energy works, the only way you can experience or perceive someone not forgiving you is if, in some way, you have not fully forgiven yourself. This you must do. As soon and as much as you can.

Surprisingly, and wonderfully, when you forgive yourself — when you disconnect from that event and the pain around it — you make it much easier for the person you hurt to do so, too.

Now THAT is healing. (You healer, you!)

You are not dependent on other things or people for your happiness and spiritual journey. Any thought that says otherwise is Resistance. You can find everything in the world within you, including forgiveness.

I know this spiritual principle, but I’m human and I had gotten caught up in my emotions and forgotten. When I remembered that no forgiveness on the outside means no forgiveness on the inside, I knew it was 100% right. I was devastated and shocked, and had not forgiven myself in the uproar.

Forgive Yourself and Free Yourself to Heal

After a nice meditation of self-forgiveness (“I choose to forgive myself, I choose to let this go, I hand this situation over to God for resolution, I choose to forgive them for not forgiving me,” etc etc), I felt less upset. You may choose to take a physical action of forgiveness, too, like a donation to a relevant charity or sharing your newfound wisdom with someone.

I will repeat this meditation a few times. Connections of energy and consciousness are a bit insidious. Once built, they tend to resonate with similar connections and entwine themselves where they don’t  belong. To truly forgive and fully let go, it helps to repeat your forgiveness exercises and touch on the situation from a variety of angles. You might want to get help from a healer or counselor.

Once you have forgiven yourself, you will be able to freely look at the situation and see what you reacted emotionally to and do some healing (eliminating or rewriting patterns) around those issues. Sometimes this stage is so easy, once we let go/forgive, that we assume forgiveness was all that was necessary. Hallelujah!

When I am done with my self-forgiveness, I will no longer need forgiveness from the other person. I have not abandoned them or the situation, but I will have completely let go of the source of the painful rift between us. It will be water under the bridge. And I will rest in that wonderful place of genuine spiritual independence, where others truly have no power over my happiness.

I pray for them to find this inner release, too.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Have you struggled to forgive yourself? Do you have advice or a different perspective? Please share it in the comments below!

Is there some area of your life where you know you need to make a change, but you just… haven’t… done it yet?

Maybe you’ve been intending to lose that extra 10 pounds, start a newsletter for your business, finish your book, or do that scrapbook.

I bet you give yourself grief for not taking those steps. (You do, don’t you?) You might feel bad, criticize yourself (even in front of others), punish yourself subtly, or worse.

Stop it.

Right now.

Your intentions to change are actually great news, even without the action step! Congratulations, you!

Here is why. When we make change, we generally move through three phases. Wanting to change while not taking action is the second step. And any progress beyond the first phase should be applauded!

The three phases of change look like this:

Beginning Phase: Nothing is wrong with me. I don’t need to change. What are you staring at?

Middle Phase: Uh oh, I noticed something I would like to change in my life. Ugh. Wow. How long has this been here? Why didn’t someone tell me? Oh, you did? Ack, just how pervasive is it? Oh, wow. Let me soak this in and get used to the idea. Let me look at it from all angles. I really want to change this, but I’m not sure what I want instead.

Final Phase: I am ready to do something about this issue. In fact I am doing something! I am really excited to start a program this afternoon. I already have done the first three exercises in the workbook. I looked at a lot of options, and I do believe this is the one for me. I am committed to this change, and have created a reward system for myself. I am doing this for me, and will enjoy the outcome.

Tips for Surviving the Middle Phase of Change

Yes, it’s GREAT to want to change, even if you are not yet ready to do so. Here are five ways to make it easier to survive–and graduate from this phase.

1. Celebrate. If you know you want to make a change, but you aren’t doing anything, you are in the middle phase. It’s OK, in fact, it’s great! Congratulations! You made it out of being stuck! Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate your moving forward! And let go of all that guilt. Just because you had the idea does not mean you are ready to live it… yet.

2. Get Clarity. Discover exactly what you DO want to change. Often, it’s not what you think at first, when you first move into the Middle Phase. This phase is about clarification. You see what you want to fix or eliminate, but what do you want to replace it with?

Sometimes, your original goal (eg. lose 20 pounds) is just a hint at what you really want, and your real goal (love myself enough to find a romantic partner) is something different. Dig deep. Go on retreats, consult with proven intuitives, ponder and dig around until you identify the real dream at the core of your desire to change. Keep moving forward.

3. Look At Your Options. Look around for solutions, but don’t buy anything yet. Especially don’t buy something just because it came along–it might have come along as a form of resistance, not a godsend solution. Take a good look at its merits and costs. Try programs out first–almost everyone gives away a free recording or exercise or something to try. Are you ready to stick to a schedule and do the work?

4. Give Yourself Time. Right now, you are analyzing the situation–and it’s never as cut-and-dried as it seems. You need some time. Allow yourself to have it.

If you get antsy, set a date to decide what you will do about your desire to change. If you don’t have the information or if you are not fully connected to creating a solution, set another date and some things to do or learn before that date.

5. Get Help If You Get Stuck. Yes, it is possible to get stuck in the Middle Phase, stuck in your resistance and fears and doubts, not moving forward when you want to. Get help, bounce your fears off others, and while you are exploring your resistance, be kind to yourself.

We do not punish second graders for not knowing high school math. Second grade is a phase, a stepping stone. Enjoy it. What right do you have to be mean to any of God’s children, yourself included?

When you let go of the guilt, self-criticism, angst, and self-sabotage you are raining down upon yourself, you open up a lot of energy to constructive uses, including healing. You can progress more quickly through the Middle Phase of Change and reach your end goal. Then you can celebrate once again!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Have you ever thought of change this way before? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below!

It is the worst feeling in the world when you unintentionally cause someone else pain. You wish you could rewind, unsay, and erase, erase, erase.

It is like lightning striking your relationship, too. It hurts both sides.

I’m at a loss to understand or amend what happened between me and a very important person in my life. This morning, my emotions are crippling my ability to think straight, so I’m doing what any writer might do to pull myself out of it. WRITING.

Sadly, the situation keeps making me think of a dramatic story I read in one of those emailed-to-everyone-and-their-brother chain emails. With the email long gone, I’ll retell it here (and please let me know if it comes from a book with copyrights, thx).

Once upon a time, there was a boy and his dad, some arrows and a fence. The boy opens the story by picking on another kid with his friends, as kids do. He badly hurts someone’s feelings without, like most kids, fully understanding what he has done.

So the father asks the boy to shoot a few arrows into the fence, and the kid does. The father explains that the arrows are like the insults he lobbed at the other kid. The arrows damaged the fence, and those comments hurt the kid, too.

Light bulb starts to go on in the son’s head. He wants to run apologize to the other kid right away.

But first the father asks him to pull the arrows out of the fence. They leave gaping holes and splintered wood. “Can you fix the fence?” asks the dad. Horrified, the kid realizes no. Even if you fill the holes with putty, they are still there. The fence is permanently damaged.

Lesson: When you hurt someone, you have created a wound that, even though you smooth it over later, is still there in some form. Permanent damage. Therefore, do everything you can to never hurt someone on purpose. Bite your tongue. Go for a walk. Let the vitriol cool off. Get some healing. Make the better choice, and love your neighbor.

But what about healing?

It will never, ever get better? Omg, what a depressing story! But so is my personal situation, in its recent rawness. It feels irreversible. I feel like our relationship will never be the same because this horrible, awful misunderstanding happened. There will be holes in the fence. We will always remember this.

Wait.

Sure, the dad’s demonstration helped the kid better understand THAT he hurt someone. But is it really true? Do hearts and humans, like wooden fences, never heal?

Is this an outdated, incorrect story? Is this one of the common cultural myths we are learning to heal beyond?

Do you think it is possible, with forgiveness and genuine healing (not repairing), to fill those holes and restore the relationship? Do you think the dad is teaching his kid the wrong principle, which, in reverse is this: when you get hurt you will never be able to repair yourself?

I myself believe that this story is old thinking. After 15 years as a healer, I know it is.

I know that genuinely healing a harmful relationship event (not fixing, not undoing) can transform the relationship by taking it to a new place of understanding, deepened love, and appreciation. It’s not quite “learning the lesson” in the event — it is transcending it to a place where it does not matter any more.

It’s easier to understand this by thinking of little things that are easy to forgive and forget, like a toddler wobbling and spilling your coffee on your lap. Unintentional, easy to let go of (maybe after you change and mop up). So can the BIG rifts in life be, with healing, true healing. To begin, you just have to ask how you can get to that bright and healed place.

Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for helping me pull out of my old attitude.

I am feeling better already.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Friends! The Sun moves into Aquarius today at 8:10 am pacific time. We leave the silence of Capricorn to rally our passionate troupes. Here’s the big question: Who do you want to be playing with this year? With whom do you feel most alive? Who inspires you, lifts you, awakens you? This month is the time to summon your allies.

Aquarius is the sign of the water bearer. Its phrase is “Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.” Aquarius as the world server wants to pour forth its gift for all in need. But Aquarius is particularly interested in offering up this water of life with his true peers. This is the sign of group collaboration and nothing thrills an Aquarian more than the opportunity to build something together.

Cautionary note: It is easy to feel like the lone wolf in Aquarius as well. When we try to collaborate, all kinds of wretchedness can surface.

We might feel that there is no one that gets us, no one that sees as we do, no one as passionate about what we are passionate about. The moment we give into these inner monologues, we have begun to radically limit ourselves. We must dare to sound our most unique LEO note consistently, summoning those of like mind and heart. The response may begin with just one steadfast ally, but if our LEO song is true and generous and powerful and meant to “pour forth for thirsty men” then be patient and sing. Before you know it, you will have a whole “da-who-doray-Grinch-Who-Stole-Christmas” chorus of allies singing your song.

Carolyn Casey, one of my favorite astrological allies, suggests we speak this out into the world:

“Let the winds of change blow through my life, bringing the most radically enlivening thing that could possibly happen. I am hoisting my sails. Parasail me into the place where I can connect with my allies, and together we can do the most good.”

Here, she is writing about Uranus, one of the rulers of Aquarius. She speaks not only to the willingness to dance with change but to actually strongly invite change into our lives so that it can do its work without our resistance. Bring on the change! Bring on the allies!

And remember, Allies aren’t always our best friends. They may be someone like Carolyn Casey who whispers to me through her excellent writing and inspires me to forge ahead on my journey. And remember too the words of David Whyte as you begin to sound your call:

….anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

Aquarius is the final air sign and wants to distribute, circulate and gather. Stay open. Be curious. Talk to people. Join forces. Do it differently. Gather for salons and share your creative genius with your pals. SHARE. Come down from your mountain top and offer it up. Experiment. Improvise.

Be the lightening rod for your bolt out of the blue. Then speak that inspiration, share it, dance it, engage it, sing it. Take a breath and in that silent moment between inhale and exhale, listen for the sweet sound of your approaching allies.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet. As a practicing astrologer for over 15 years, Heidi takes a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving worldwide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is pleased to offer Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

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A Poem for Aquarius

Everything is Waiting for You – David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Just who was it that said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”?

According to wikiquote, this quip is most often misattributed to:

• Benjamin Franklin (perhaps because he was insane for flying a metallicized kite in a lightning storm),

• Albert Einstein (because the internet believes Al was a Law of Attraction guru who said everything that’s cool), and

• Mark Twain (maybe because he had the same hairdresser as Einstein and we get the men mixed up).

But no, sorry, none of those wise men said it.

Don’t Seek and You Won’t Find

Seriously, according to wikiquote, the earliest occurrence of this quote is a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous booklet, and might have come from Alcoholics Anonymous. Next, it can be found in the writing of Rita Mae Brown, but to be polite we will not ask her where she got it.

This quote works when we are in denial or stuck in a negative loop, doing the same thing over and over, wishing our problem would magically go away. In this case, it is time for new tactics.

We could rewrite the quote in a catchy new phrase: “When your steps go round and round, another option must be found.”

Or make a great T-shirt out of: “Wishing is for fairy godmothers. Move your a$$.

A New Meaning

But hang on. Is it in fact nuts to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Maybe not. Not always, anyway.

In fact, I find we often need more of this kind of persistence-against-all-odds in our lives. Instead sapping our mental health, doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a new result can be an expression of our highest goals: healing, trust, and faith.

To attain healing, for example, you must think beyond the current situation and the results you expect to get. You must leap beyond them and expect, even if you don’t know what it looks like, a very different result — something new.

We celebrate the fact that Mark Twain, after receiving tons of rejections, sent out even more letters trying to publish his writing, expecting a different result from those same tactics.  Today, over 100 years after his death, his books are still required reading in high schools and sell like ice cream on a hot summer’s day.

Hooray for Einstein persisting in sharing his inside-out ideas until others could see  the world through his eyes and physics could evolve forward into a radical new paradigm that gave birth to quantum physics.

Thank goodness Annie Sullivan kept trying, over and over, against all odds and expectations, to help the deaf and blind child Helen Keller to understand sign language! By doing so, she helped enable Helen Keller to become a beloved writer and lecturer, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the face on Alabama’s 2003 quarter coin.

Make the Leap, Step by Step

What kept them going? Hope? An inner knowing? Love? Inspiration?

Something did, something that helped them transcend all those rejections and failures, and shift into a new and better unexpected outcome. Add this magic into the mix and you no longer have insanity. You have faith, transcendence, and healing.

How about you? What new goal are you currently stretching for, or would like to reach? Do you need encouragement to keep going, to send out a few letters, or try one more time, even if your dream results feel impossibly far away?

Find the faith or a spiritual principle to hang it on. Identify a motive, a higher ideal, a reason why, source of curiosity, a reminder quote, or other fount of inspiration.

For me, I just reread Helen Keller’s story again. Wow. That helped me immensely. Where can you find your magic fairy dust to help you fly over the rainbow?

Yes, as you reach for your goal, it may be wise to learn and refine how you write those letters/teach your pupil/share your vision. But the advice is the same:

To create miracles, connect to the Potential within your dream (not the specifics) and take ordinary actions, over and over, while solidly and unfailingly expecting a surprising result, even a miraculous one.

This is what creates healing.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

What has helped you to transcend rejections or overcome old expectations? Share your story and wisdom with us in the comments!

Enjoying facebook yesterday, I found this poster. If you can’t see the visual, it says:

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.” ~Albert Einstein

Hmmm, Einstein? I doubt it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love the sentiment. And I have been a huge fan of Einstein’s since high school, when I read his little 1916 book on Relativity (delightful little volume). The man invented the field of theoretical physics and innovated how we view the world.

Einstein looked at the world from a new perspective, one in which things were not fixed and stationery, as western science typically viewed the world.  For instance, western science has said the hardest substance in the world is a diamond, while eastern philosophy names water as the hardest substance because over time it can eat away anything. Though this is changing, Western science has tended to take a snapshot view of things, dissected and frozen in time. (Physiology was such a great step forward from anatomy! )

Einstein moved us into understanding that perspective mattered, that the same thing can be validly, scientifically experienced differently from two viewpoints. It was radical.

So where did this Law of Attraction-sounding quote come from?

Granted, I am a lay person, a mere fan of Einstein and not a scholar. But, sorry, I don’t remember Einstein’s theories on the Law of Attraction. Attributing quotes about magical manifestation and subtle energy to Einstein is, in my opinion, going rawther overboard.

Therefore, I would like to see the source of this quote. Anyone have a footnote? (Please comment with your source. The source of the poster was not mentioned in the post, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who owns the copyright to it, please also comment with your information, too.)

This quote is not in wikiquotes, for instance: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_einstein.  (But the disputed and misattributed sections of Einstein’s page are enlightening.)

Why Am I Picking on This Quote?

I am not trying to be a party pooper here! On the contrary, I have been a student of energy healing, consciousness, intuition, manifestation and many other “soft subjects” for a decade and a half, if not my whole life.

But I am disturbed that we are relying on a fictional quote to inspire us, when the truth is so much stronger.

Share this inaccurate poster, and this quote can be debunked and used to debunk anything else you stand for, too. Why bother?

We don’t need fictional quotes.

We don’t need to induct Einstein into the New Age to make the New Age valid or “real”.

Einstein did worlds of good exactly as he was. And we can do good exactly the way we are, too. Those who are ready will recognize the truth in this quote, without the Einstein byline at the bottom. Let it go.

A false attribution weakens the quote, weakens your argument, weakens your reputation, and weakens the public opinion of what you are doing.

The truth is so much stronger.

The lesson here is this: check your sources before you post. Even if you LOVE the sentiment, make sure you are accurate. (For example, in my first book, Gift of the Healer, I even use a  quote often misattributed to Einstein, but I note its vague source.)

The Truth is all you need. It is the only thing that sets you free.

The first step to awakening your masterful Inner Healer is to Know Yourself. It is the oldest spiritual advice on the planet and the most important.

When you know yourself, you know what it is that you love to do that shares your healing gift with the world. You develop a groundedness and centeredness in yourself that pushes negative, draining, harmful energies and events far from you. You develop charisma and confidence. It is easier to love everyone and find miraculous solutions.

Knowing yourself connects you to the Universal Essence we all crave. This Essence or raw Potential is where all healing comes from. Knowing yourself — and holding open that connection to your greater Self as much as possible — opens your healing channels. It allow more healing and more powerful transformations to flow through you.

To be a better healer, that is, to create more permanent positive change in the world: know and love yourself.

Action Step for Healing

Yesterday, at the DreamU Inspirational Speaker conference I’m attending, branding expert Brad Stauffer shared an inspiring video from singer Jessica Andrews, along these lines. Take a listen below.

1. Jessica Andrews lists a few things in the chorous that help her remain anchored or centered in her true Self. What are they? How does she find herself by looking outward into the world? List them out for yourself and consider them.

2. Now list five things that keep you centered and grounded in yourself. Five ways you stay connected to your higher self or true self. They may be very different from Jessica’s, and that’s delightful.

3. For each of these, list two ways you can activate this more or more often.

4. Implement them.

 
You are a powerful healer. As always, I would love to hear what you say in the comments here!

“I choose the way which lies between the two great lines of force.”

The Sun moved into Libra today at 2:05 am Pacific time. The Fall is upon us. Libra is a cardinal sign which means it has a ton of initiative.  But unlike Aries which is a very solo, pioneering initiative, Libra uses its dynamism to create right equality and right relationship.

Libra is the mid-point of the zodiac. It is the cesura or resting point as we travel through the signs. The danger of Libra is that we hang out in the pause, that we don’t commit, that we weigh things endlessly, that we metaphorically SIT ON THE FENCE. It can be pleasant and relational and lovely, but can be hard to make choices that result in action.

So, how can we best welcome and use this beautiful Libran energy? Saturn is still in the sign of Libra for a few more months which puts extra pressure on all the relationships in our lives. This month in particular, we will be focused on RELATING. We choose those with whom we wish to relate. We build  partnerships. We ask if we could do something better — together. We marry. We unite. We hold hands. We try to live ‘the marriage in the heavens’ — which is in fact the marriage of the soul and the personality. Then too, we break up. We end relationships. We choose where to put our energy.

Libra also brings the qualities of fairness, justice, equality. It brings the Law. So, we could say we bring the Law to all our relationships. We weigh them. (But not forever). And then we commit whole-heartedly to those that speak most deeply to us.

The esoteric ruling planet of Libra is Uranus. Uranus is the planet that demands freedom and authenticity. It asks us to bring our whole selves and our soul selves to the relationships in our lives. It asks us to show up with the truth — not just pleasantries. It asks that those relationships that have been inequitable become more fair or balanced. It asks for radical relating — truth-telling, engaged self-expression and innovative collaboration.

The phrase for Libra is “I choose the Way which lies between the two great lines of force.” This is a razor’s edge. We find the Way only after oscillating for many many years. We swing in one direction fully and then the other with just as much commitment. We feel one way and then the other. We search for balance. The most important word here is CHOOSE. If a Libra is willing to choose with clarity and commitment ‘the noble middle path’, there will be tremendous support as he/she walks the Way. All manner of people and events will conspire to support the choice. The danger zone is in the endless oscillation between EXTREMES.

So, this month:

• Make decisions.
• Jump off the fence.
• Grab someone’s hand.
• Head down a noble path.
• Show up fully.
• Offer up your radical, full, authentic self.
• Again and again and again.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet, and has been a practicing astrologer for over 15 years. She has a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving world-wide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is proud to have Heidi as a regular guest columnist and highly recommends her retreats and services.

A Poem for Libra:
Clarity Is Freedom by St. Teresa of Avila

I had tea yesterday with a great theologian,
and he asked me,

“What is your experience of God’s will?”

I liked that question –
for the distillation of thought hones thought in others.
Clarity, I know, is freedom.

What is my experience of God’s will?

Everyone is a traveler.  Most all need lodging, food,
and clothes.

I let enter my mouth what will enrich me.  I wear what
will make my eye content,
I sleep where I will
wake with the
strength to
deeply
love

all my mind can
hold.

What is God’s will for a wing?
Every bird knows
that.

St. Teresa of Avila