A steady pulse / Un polso stabile

Are you still breathing? The Full Moon in Virgo is waning down and with it the eclipse season. And what an eclipse season it was. For me it was a roller coaster of emotions surfacing, relationship issues, wisdom tooth breaking and eventual surgery. It was not made easier by a Venus retrograde in Aries starting during the eclipse season.

In the meantime, Mars, the energy that helps us take action in life, has changed signs and is now in fixed, nocturnal, Earth Taurus. Mars does not like staying in Taurus. He feels it is too slow for his liking. But personally with all the havoc that has been going on, having a constant fixed earth energy beating the pulse of life is a welcome change. 

Mars in Taurus is like an agriculture tractor or a four wheel drive desert jeep…it will not break the 0 to 100 km/h record but it sure will take you to destination. You might feel lazier aided with the dreaming Sun in mutable nocturnal water, but it is a good time to take on those long range projects that need stamina and inspiration to get them done.

Mercury, the energy that helps us communicate and think is leaving Pisces to pass into the cardinal, diurnal, fire Aries.

So just now you will start having your mental process (Mercury) going on fire coupled with Venus, your desires on, do not mess with me. In the meantime, your life force/will (Sun) still in let me merge in the watery cosmos mode and your drive (Mars) quietly doing its job.

Not an easy combination especially since both Venus and Mars are in signs (energies) that they do not like. 

But our job is to somewhat make it work. Bear in mind that just now Venus (your desires and need to relate with others) will take precedence. She is retrograde, which means she is loudly saying, I need all of your attention and I need it now.

Good Luck! 

Image credit: Spanishdict.com

(P.S. So if you feel inclined to know more where and how these energies are taking place in your natal chart please just send me a message and we can book a private session.) 

State ancora respirando? Siete tutti di un pezzo? Ieri abbiamo avuto la luna Piena in Vergine che conclude la stagione degli eclissi…e che eclissi erano.

Per me sono stati come dire, molto interessanti, con emozioni che venivano a galla, problemi di relazioni con gli altri, dente del giudizio che si rompe ed eventuale estrazione…

Tutto questo con l’aggiunta che Venere è andata retrogrado durante la stagione degli eclissi.

Nel frattempo, Marte, l’energia con cui noi prendiamo azione nella vita, ha cambiato segno ed ora sta nella energia di Terra, fissa e notturna del Toro.

A Marte non piace stare in Toro. Lo trova troppo lento per i suoi gusto. Ma personalmente, dopo tutto questo casino, avere un metronomo che scandisce a lungo raggio, il polso della vita, non è per niente male.

Marte in Toro è come il trattore che si vende in campagna, o la jeep quattro per quattro…non batteranno il record della accelerazione da 0 a 100km/h ma sicuramente ti portano a destinazione.

Vi sentirete un pò più pigri..colpa anche del Sole che sta ancora nel segno delle acque notturne e mutevoli dei Pesci. Ma è un buon periodo per prendere a cuore tutti quei progetti a lungo raggio che hanno bisogno di una costante forza ed un pizzico di ispirazione per concluderli. 

Mercurio, l’energia che ci aiuta a comunicare e pensare sta per lasciare il segno dei Pesci e passare nel segno del fuoco, diurno e cardinale del Ariete.

Per cui comincerete a sentire che la vostra mente va a fuoco con i pensieri che si sprigionano. Questo aumenterà il fuoco di Venere, i nostri desideri e le nostre relazioni, che sta nella modalità non mi prendere per i fondelli….

La nostra volontà (il Sole) è ancora nella modalità lasciami mergere con l’Universo (in Pesci) e Marte, la nostra voglia di fare, sta lentamente facendo il suo lavoro.

Non è una combinazione facile specialmente che sia Marte e Venere stanno nei segni (energie) che a loro non piacciono.

Ma il nostro compito è di farli funzionare al meglio. 

Tenete bene in mente, che in questo momento Venere (i vostri desideri e le relazioni con gli altri) a la precedenza. E’ retrograda, che semplicemente vuole dire, che a squarcia gola Venere sta gridando, ho bisogno di tutta la tua attenzione e la voglio ora.

Auguri.

Imagine: spanishdict.com

(P.S. se volete sapere come queste energie si stanno svolgendo nella vostra carta natale, non esitate di mandarmi un messaggio per prenotare una seduta privata)

Book Review: The Goddess and The Shaman

As in the pure style of the Goddess world where all is interconnected and nothing is separate, this book came when I needed it most. It came just as I was painfully surrendering to what I perceived as a call from the Goddess and preparing to quit my corporate job.

I read this book in that magical period in between eclipses where time as we perceive it does not follow “normal” rules and the incursions from the Elphame (the name given by the author to the Other World) are stronger and more frequent…if we are paying attention.

So this book was a bit like a manual that had an uncanny way to unfold just as I was reading about it in the book.

It was reassuring, comforting and encouraging to read Kent’s telling of her life in discovering the Goddess and then the ability to cross over in the Elphame. So was her description of the “ontological shock” that is “the mind’s struggle to reconcile and to integrate two diametrically opposed models of reality”. I recognised many such episodes in my life…and I was currently passing through one.

It was a pleasure reading her description of the “Western Magical Tradition” and her referring to it as the “lost shaman tradition of the West”. It felt like it was a reclaiming of our roots and our own land and occult traditions without always needing to go to the other side of the world to obtain a platform on which to allow ourselves to work in and with.

What I feel it is the gift of this book to the modern reader and Seeker, is the author’s weaving in together and blending once again the Western Magical Tradition and The Great Goddess. I have always a hard time explaining to others how, since I was a child, I felt that everything was interconnected and alive. Nothing was really dead or inanimate for me, not even a stone or a computer. It was amazing to read it in a book because it felt it gave me the permission to finally fully acknowledge this innate knowledge and not perceive it as something strange or “heretical” or “insane”.

And as Kent describes in this book, coming into personal contact with the Goddess changes radically one’s life. There is a shifting of values and life purpose and the alignment of the personal will with the Divine will, which is lived in the inner sanctity of oneself without trying to convince any one of anything. That all life’s events have a spiritual purpose, a sentient being  “aware and embodied small part of a greater spiritual Truth.”

I also feel that this book has contributed a very important understanding of “mental health” which I have always felt it was “truer” to me than the concept exposed by conventional medicine. That is looking at what “caused the shattering of the self in the first place” not just popping a pill in the patient’s mouth and that is the end of the story.

Kent brings case studies to support this theory. Case studies I loved reading, not only for the clinical details and sometimes “rawness” of the episodes but because of what emerged from her case studies. According to Kent, “psychotic", “schizophrenic” or commonly known as “mad” persons, who are condemned to live on pills that take their identity away, are actually people who have a heightened sense of the Other World and periodic incursions of the Elphame in their world and do not know how to deal with it. 

In other cases the malady has its origins in the “Other World”  and pieces of the soul has been lost. Through the tools of “magical psychology” Kent was able to help these persons to, not only start living a “normal” life, but also live more happily.

I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to have been given a free copy to review. It is a book I will cherish and re-read with earnest.

A book I highly recommend to those who are on the Goddess path, healing practitioners or simply those who are just curious to hear a different bell about the reality we think we live in.

Published in March 2016 by Llewellyn 

The Fool and an Ayurvedic Massage

It all started with the image of the Tarot card, The Fool and the following words:

“Dance Mage.

Dance on the strings of Fate that the Universe is weaving for you.

Dance…

Cause the strings are Fated yes, 

but it is up to you for the pattern to create.

Dance Mage”

I was the Fool. I was on the precipice of an enormously huge cliff. In front there was another equally huge cliff. 

I looked down. All I could see was an unpenetrable darkness. No end.

There was wind rising.

I had been many times in these last few weeks on this precipice. Terrified of leaving all behind me. Of acting literally like a Fool to society’s eyes…

But this time something had change, as I looked down a thought came through my mind…

“Perhaps it is down you should go and not remain on this plane or fly”.

So I took the step in the void of thin air…

A small white parachute opened softly lulling me in the winds of change, suspending me for a moment or two where I could see the  horizontal plane and the spot from where I had just walked to oblivion.

I softly started my descend…whilst repeating the phrase, perhaps it is down where I should go…

The light of the Sun grew dimmer and dimmer as the walls of the two cliffs started closing on me.

I had no idea where I am going…and yet I felt, perhaps free of the known world and its shackles.

Darker and darker it became. I couldn’t even see my feet. I could feel the warmth radiating from the cliffs that I could feel were slowly burying me in the sweetness of Mother Earth. A burial?

I stopped looking upwards…no need to. My known world has vanished, for never to be.

I looked downwards towards my feet.

At first I thought my eyes were playing on me but as I descended further I could glimpse shimmering globes of light. 

I started again discriminating the rocks reflecting the yellowish light coming from what seemed a valley.

I could discern other features too, as if, sort of, a long market, lining the narrow valley.

I could see green lights and people walking around. Some looked up…waving.

I landed softly on the field near this market, gladly touching solid ground. People came to greet me with huge big smiles. As if they were waiting for me.

The people were smaller in height than I. Strange beings that felt like elves.

They guided me to the market, which was made of a long series of stalls, some built in the caves, some built with beautiful wooden structures with plants climbing around them.

In wonder I paused at every stall, to observe what was inside.

The first stall was full of astronomical tools. The shopkeeper turned bemused towards me, picked a small golden telescope and gave it to me.

“Mage, this is for you to look at the stars whenever you want and feel the need to”.

Placed the shining telescope in my hands, smiled and bowed.

I turned round and the shopkeeper on the other side of the stall, that sold books, came towards me and gifted me with a small leather book. It had blank yellowish pages.

“Mage, this is for you so you can write what you observe, so you may learn to weave your own remedies and the music of the Spheres”.

He bowed and smiled.

I moved forward to the next stall full of crystals. A woman came to greet me. In her hand she held a  necklace with a dark oval crystal dangling from it.

“Mage, this is an Amethyst cut just for you, for protection and healing. Keep it always on you.”

I bowed and she clasped the necklace round my neck. For a second I saw the Amethyst flicker as if to say hello.

I turned round and there was another women with a freshly baked loaf of bread in her hands.

“This is for you Mage. It is an eternal bread so that you may never feel hungry” .Tears of gratitude welled my eyes. She smiled, caressed my hands and bowed.

Next came a man that was filling some small bottles with strange florescent liquids. He put the corks on and he placed some in my hands. Clasping both my hands, he whispered:

“Mage, these are your first aid kit, for you and others. Use them wisely”.

He smiled and bowed.

Turning round I saw a woman coming towards me with a leather flask. She had just filled it from the spring water that was coming down from the rocks.

“This is for you Mage, so that you may never feel thirsty. Remember water is the first healing remedy”

Another woman approached me with a dark leather satchel. 

“This is for you Mage to carry. Pay attention what you place inside for there it will remain. With time you will learn how to manifest things from inside.”

A man and a woman approached me with a beautifully woven mantel. On the rim of the dark blue cloth were woven golden symbols and flickered as if alive.

Both clasped the mantel on my shoulder. The woman breathed:

“This is for you Mage. It is an Invisible Mantel so you may always be warm and safe”.

Then a man handed me a red wooden long staff with a pointed white translucent crystal at the top.

“This is for you Mage, so you may always feel supported and thread safely through your journey”.

The crowd then slowly parted and I saw a tall wise elderly man waiting for me with a smiling face.

“Welcome Mage. I was waiting for you. Your journey has just become”.

With that Great Horned Owl and Lynx appeared on either of my sides and I started walking with the Elder towards a precarious-looking bridge that hanged on another precipice. 

The mist was rising from the precipice and between haziness I could vaguely make out a castle rising on mountains covered with thick forests.

This journey I experienced whilst I was having an Ayurvedic massage at 13:30 CEDT, the exact time of the New Moon in Aries conjunct Uranus, just off by two degrees from my natal Chiron that opposes my natal Uranus and squares my Venus and South Node.

My massage therapist is Roberta Felici.

Let the Hero’s Journey begin….on the flight to Milan tomorrow morning.

Anyone knows which deck is this please?

Olea Europea, Ancestral Healing & the Sun crossing over my Asc

There comes a time “when the knots come to the comb”. It is an Italian saying that can depict what I am going through.

My body, my wise body, two weeks ago blocked me and sent me on sick leave. My last sick leave goes back to exactly 10 years ago.

My homeopath gave me Olea Europea (the European Olive tree) at 30CH potency. I could feel things moving but I could not focalise exactly what was happening. It was there but it was in that liminal space where you can’t actually see it. Perhaps aided by the fact that the Sun was transiting my 12th house.

Just as the Sun crossed my Asc, the Olea Europea 200CH is delivered. I took one dose yesterday evening and one dose this morning.

And my mind keeps going back to my ancestors, to the blood and DNA I carry in me. To the conscious and unconscious believes I carry imprinted in my body and soul.  A bit of a Samhain feeling but on a very very personal level.

They say, that once Malta was covered with Olive trees and that Malta, Melita, at the time of the Roman Empire was known for its Olive oil and Honey.

I know there is an Olive tree that was planted in Malta at the time of the Roman Empire and it still produces olive oil.

I keep on imagining all my ancestors that come from the whole wide-spread Mediterranean sea basin. All the languages they spoke, all the faiths they held, all the wars they fought, perhaps even fighting each other on opposite ends. I keep on imaging the foods they ate, the cultures they lived, the knowledge they held.

I try to imagine their jobs and professions. Merchants, farmers, goat keepers, teachers, priests, slaves…Perhaps amongst them there were alchemists and seekers and perhaps keepers of ancient traditions.

I keep on imaging them all, sitting at one point in their lives, under the shades of an Olive tree and perhaps thinking about who would in the future carrying their lineage.

And perhaps in that illusion called Time we meet somewhere outside space, matter and time.

I can see us sitting with our backs on the trunk of the Olive Tree Spirit.

Olive Tree Spirit feels sturdy and wise. That kind of wisdom that comes from knowing that all passes but your essence remains true to itself. That generations come and go but a common denominator remains.

Olive Tree Spirit feels nurturing…that nurturing that comes from elements of the Earth weathering through every pore of one’s essence so to finally distill that quintessential energy in green alchemical gold.

I can see us all looking at each other, through eyes that have known many worlds, words and thoughts.

I can see us looking in each others’ eyes and see that common denominator, that golden thread that holds us all together in that matrix of family ties, lies, traditions and believes.

We have a lot of talking to do, perhaps even without words.

I know that my sickness and tiredness is here for a reason.

I know that Olive Tree Spirit will guide the ancestral healing that the time was ripe to do.

All I have to do is listen to the wind blowing through Its branches, the Sun glimmering through Its leaves and the warmth of Its trunk sustaining my tired back.

Blessed Be!

Where are you?

I am sorry,

I drove you away,

for cowardice,

for ignorance, 

for despair.

I am sorry, 

I was the one to betray you,

to slay you,

in the very essence of your being.

I am sorry, 

I did not see your mission,

violated your holy body,

spat on your Divine Feminine.

I am sorry, 

I drove you away,

forcing you in the lands of Hades,

leaving you there,

to aguish in horror

in disgrace,

in dispair.

I am sorry, 

I still have not,

the fearlessness you ask of me.

I am sorry,

I still stumble with doubt,

and hide myself,

behind my fears.

I am sorry I lost the thread of my life,

renounced upon my calling.

I am sorry that my terror is still greater than my courage.

I am sorry, where ever you are my Soul.

(gestated and written as Saturn conjunct my natal Neptune-Moon opposition, recalling when Pluto opposed my natal Moon in 1992)

This following is the video that inspired all of the above:

Where are you? 

Little girl with broken wings but full of hope.... 

Where are you? 

Wise women covered in wounds...... 

Where are you? 

Today is the day

I will not sit still and give in anymore 

Today I rise

I am bruised but I will get up and walk again

Today I rise 

I don’t care if you ignore my beauty

Today I rise

Through the alchemy of my darkest nights I heal and thrive

Today I rise 

I move through the world with confidence and grace

I open my eyes and I am ready to face

My wholeness as a woman and my limitless capacities 

I will walk my path with audacity

Today I rise

I reconnect with the many aspects of myself

I am in awe of the reality I can create

I am a healer 

I am a queen

A wise women - A wild woman

I will rise and beam 

I am a rebel 

I will wake up and fight

I am a mother and I am a child

I will no longer disguise my sadness and pain

I will no longer suffer and complain 

I am black and I am white 

There is no reason to hide

Where are you....

I call upon Kali 

To kiss me alive

I transform my anger into power

No more heartache or strive 

The world is missing what I am ready to give

My wisdom, My sweetness, My love 

And my hunger for peace

I weep with the trees and the rivers and the earth in distress 

I rise and shine and I am ready to go on my quest 

Today I rise 

Without doubt or hesitation 

Today I rise 

Without excuses –Without procrastination

Today I call upon my sisters to join

A movement of resoluteness and ....concern

Today is the day I rise and scream

Today I foresee the future of my dreams!

Today is my call to action............ I will fulfill my mission

Without further distraction. 

Today is the day! 

Today I will start 

To offer the world

The 

Wisdom of my heart. 

"The Wise at Heart Community"

Book Review: In the Oneness of Time

In the Oneness of Time, The Education of a Diviner, starts with a series of mostly short episodes from the author’s life. The recounting takes place in no specific order in time but with a fine thread that waves in and out the picture of the grand theme. 

To each and every one of these episodes there is a corresponding explanation in the second half of the book. 

I wonder if it would have been more helpful having the commentary immediately after each episode. But I do understand that doing so would be like coming in and out of dream time, drying away that inherently magical and oneiric quality in the narration. 

I read with avidity yet pausing to let the words sink in to the new meaning that was forming.

I was saying to myself…so this is what happens… this is what it means moving between the worlds…when without warning, consciousness shifts from Tonal to Nagual.

I could at last give a word and explanation to something which I think we inherently posses but slowly by time we suppress. 

There are books that touch your heart in a profound and intimate way and this was such a book.

I won’t say I understood everything that Horden wrote but what I can say for sure he brought peace to a part of me.

Thank you.

To be published in November 2015 by Larson Publications