Light your altars tonight!
+ heather

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Happy Harvest Time!

What are you ready to pour yourself into?

Today, Saturday, August 13th the Full Moon will be in Aquarius as the Sun continues brightly through Leo. It is also the Lunar Lammas – First Harvest – marking the midpoint between the Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. Colored by the energy of Aquarius – the inventor, revolutionary, progressive, extroverted free thinker – the Aquarius Full Moon is an excellent time to raise your own vibration, and by doing so, raise the vibration of of everyone around you. How? Entertain possibilities, break the rules, find the third way of doing something. Put your imagination to work and stop worrying about what other people will think.

• Forget trying to “get it together” and Get Together! – invite friends over. Full Moons are celebratory.
• Brainstorm next steps in an area that feels stuck
• Thaw out a Frozen Area of your life by creating a win-win
• Change your Mind about something

TIP + PANIC BUTTON – Aquarius is symbolized by the Water Bearer (new life) and is an Air sign, so think Wave Energy. In sessions this past week, we looked at the energy of Panic and how each person has a unique wiring and relationship to their personal panic button. For most, the roots of our wiring lie within our birth families. Let yourself recall the last time you felt that wave of adrenaline surge? What was the source – fears around finances, family relations, changes in plans, time-lines or expectations? Now, notice how your reaction is mirrored in birth family’s Rules of Reaction around fear? With the energy of a full moon in Aquarius, we have the opportunity to break the rules. Governed by both Saturn (tradition) and Uranus (innovation), the energy available right now offers us security through our willingness to make progressive change. So next time the panic energy surges (because it always does), choose to ride the wave energy with your breath instead of your bite, and dare to stay in the present moment. Is there really cause for alarm? Trust that you have already survived. Make your own Prayer Candle.

Keep it loose, Mercury continues retrograding through Leo until it goes direct around August 26th. Read more

Schedule an Intuitive Consulting Session before I take Maternity Leave on Sept. 1 – Oct. 31. Only 3 weeks left! Book your session NOW.

Take a leap, time to reap!
+ heather

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The young Sun God now celebrates a sacred marriage with the young maiden Goddess, who conceives. In nine months she will again become the Great Mother. It is a time of great fertility and growth, and newborn animals.

Today, on the first of May ask yourself what do you desire? What are you ready to conceive? Make wishes & jump the fire, dance around the maypole, put flowers on your neighbors doorstep. Celebrate Spring in all her glory!

After “revamping” the Eostre altar… into a Beltane altar, we are off to dance around the May Pole for a little friends first birthday (see below). Enjoy the day!

For more ideas on celebrating and building your Beltane altar, click here.

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I am a godmother many times over, as godparents are created for every occasion for every fiesta here in Mexico. We often laugh, because there are padrinos, or godparents, for barbequed sheep and for musical group and for crystal goblets and for cake, and we joke that there must be godparents for Styrofoam plates and cups as well. Part of the purpose of so many godparents is to help cover the inevitably high costs of fiestas for baptisms, communions, 3rd birthdays, 15th birthdays, weddings, and golden anniversaries, all the major milestone fiestas that mark the cycle of life here. And the other purpose is to create connections, to invite community to bear witness to your life cycles, to support one another and share life. In any one of the major fiestas, there are principle godparents who accompany the honorees at mass, serving more in the traditional role in which we imagine them, as guidance and witness to the promises we make, the steps we take, in front of the divine presence. When you become a godparent, you are bound forever to those you’ve helped out – you become compadres to each other, co-parents so to speak. Greetings in the streets of the village are often followed by the familiar “Compadre,” or “Comadre!,” all of us linked together over the years by community parenting, witnessing, serving, and heck, just paying for the sheep since the poor folks throwing the party weren’t able to.

One of my duties as madrina that I most honor and cherish is my service to the Niño Dios, a delicate little porcelain figure of the baby Jesus that a cleaning lady once gave to my mother-in-law as a gift. The tradition is that when you receive one of these figures, you must find a godmother to take care of it for 3 years, someone who will clothe it each year for Candlemas on February 2. My three years of madrina duty to my Niño Dios godson have long since run out, but I keep wanting to serve him, so every year on Feb. 1, I wrap him in a blanket and go out to the market and choose new clothes. The first year, you’re supposed to dress him like a newborn baby, since he’s new, and lay him in a little basket-style bassinet. The second year, you can dress him as you choose, and the choices are awe-inspiring. There are whole markets dedicated to Niño Dios clothing that open up in the days before Candlemas. The second year, the figure should be seated in a little throne-like chair to indicate he’s grown up enough now to sit. The third year, he can be dressed per personal preference again, and can now stand, gently tied with a gold ribbon to a cross, because he’s now big enough to walk, but also now carries the allusion to his destiny on the cross. Every year on Christmas Eve, the Niño’s clothes are removed to receive him once again in his nascent state, and rock him, cradle him in arms once again. And every year, with his new shiny clothes carefully stitched on again, he is taken to mass on Feb. 2 for a year’s worth of blessings.

The Niño Dios market is magical. It is filled with women reliving childhood play, cradling their dolls, tugging tiny socks and shoes onto porcelain feet, sticking arms into little lacy undergarments. Traditionally the clothes should be a miniature style of some aspect of an apparition of Christ, but clothes extend to those of many other saints as well. Many choose clothing related to specific prayers they are working on. For example, illness in the family might indicate the need to dress the Niño as a doctor. Poverty might make a family choose to dress the Niño as the Christ of the Grapes, a symbol of abundance. Over the years, I have chosen el Niño de las Palomas (Doves), el Sagrado Corazon (Sacred Heart), Juan Diego, and el Divino Redentor (the Divine Redeemer), all depending on what spoke to me and my process at the time.

Candelaria, or Candlemas, is globally celebrated in the church as a time when the year’s supply of candles are blessed (hence the name, Candle Mass – a mass held in honor of the candles, the Light), but the tradition of the Niño Dios seems to be an adaptation of the holiday’s symbolism that it unique to Mexico. Because Candlemas is a holiday much older than the Catholic church, as most holidays are, it’s symbolism is ancient and deep. It was celebrated as Imbolc (In the Belly) or Oimelc (Ewe’s Milk) in Celtic times. It is the holy day that falls exactly at the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, when the sheep’s milk would come in, when the fetuses were growing in the wombs of the animals who would give birth come Spring. It was a day that marked the promise of the return of light in the dark of mid-Winter. It was a time of incubation, of the silent waiting of gestation, of knowing that beneath the frozen snow-covered land lay tiny seeds patiently waiting for the ground to soften and thaw for their growth to begin. It was a time of having faith that light would persevere through the long darkness.

The holy day in the Celtic tradition honors the goddess Brigid, or Bride, the Mother. The Catholic Church morphed all the “Mother” associations of Candlemas into the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, when Mary would have finished her 40 days of post-partum “quarantine” and, now purified, could bring her newborn baby out into the world. It might be interesting to you that the “quarantena” 40 day period is still observed here in Mexico after a woman gives birth. Newborns are rarely taken outside the house, new mothers rarely leave the house and follow strict diets in their purification process, and many mothers take a postpartum herbal sweat to release whatever needs shedding from pregnancy and labor. So the Niño Dios tradition follows suit – naked newborn baby received at Christmas, newly dressed baby presented to the world for blessings 40 days later after Mama is purified and ready to roll.

And of course, the Niño Dios, the baby, is no different than the seed, the promise of light, the milk of the sheep, the gestation, the corn dollies made for Brigid. They all ask us the same question – in this quiet cold dark place, what are you dreaming? What are you incubating? What are you growing? What promise have you made? What godchild will you bear witness to, will you support and raise up right? What seeds have you planted and how will you care for them, making sure they keep on reaching for the light?

Emily K. Grieves is an artist and healer dedicated to helping people find connections to the sacred in their lives. She explores symbolism, mythology, and ritual in her artwork, drawing inspiration from the celebrations and mysteries of Life. She has also dedicated herself to the healing arts as a practitioner of shamanism and hands-on healing energy work for over 10 years. She lives with her family in Teotihuacan, Mexico, where she has painted murals in the Dreaming House, and where she helps lead groups into the transformative energies of the pyramids. To learn more, www.livingwithpyramids.blogspot.com and www.thedreaminghousemx.com.

WORKSHOP
Join Emily Grieves and Annie Fuller for The Healers Journey to Teotihuacan and the Basilica of Guadalupe Feb. 16-23, 2011. This will be unforgettable experience of shamanic journeying and healing in one of the world’s greatest power places. See www.fullcirclespiritualhealing.com for more information.

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It occured to me today that if I wanted to have a good photo to share with you This Week, I have to add a little more adventure to my life. The little one and I have been “land-locked” for the last week with colds, so the prospect of spending another day inside or doing the same-old sounded like hell; and yet, we are still sick and need to lay low. Solution: The family went on  a little spontaneous roadtrip to Point Reyes Station (near the coast). Some of the most beautiful terrain lies between Petaluma and the coast – rolling green hills with gorgeous outcropping of moss covered rock, massive oaks, beautiful old barns & fences, and wandering bands of farm animals – and, with the rains last night, every thing was sparkling & fresh. Point Reyes Station is pretty cute and we had fun wandering through the little shops. I particulary enjoyed the knitted cozies on the handrails (below) and the modified NO PARKING sign (above). I love crafty guerilla art. I honestly believe that it makes a difference in people’s lives and opens us up to more possibility. Be messy, be creative, be out in the open! In fact, this week I am starting an online painting class taught by two SF artists/illustrators that I admire. It’s called Get Your Paint On and it’s a 5 week course, done at your own pace from home. If you are interested, I think the last day to sign up is Feb. 2. Come join me!

This week is a biggy. I’m particularly excited about this New Moon in Aquarius Wednesday, Feb. 2 because it is also the celebration of Brigid/Imbolc/Candlemass, Lunar Imbolc and the Chinese New Year of the Hare. Celebrating Brigid is one of my favorite rituals. I highly encourage you to set up an altar and have your own little ritual at home this wednesday night. I will be saying more about that in my Moon Tip this week. As for now… the Sun is in Aquarius, so keep being a rebel and BREAK YOUR OWN RULES!

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May Pole

Celebrate Beltane this weekend! Time for FROLICKING!

Full Moon in Scorpio, Wednesday, April 28th

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The history of Valentine’s Day and its patron saint is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.

Today’s celebration of Valentine’s Day grew out of a tradition that began many years ago in ancient Rome. A Roman feast of Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15. This ancient festival involved the celebration of fertility and honored two Roman gods, Juno and Pan. One of the conventions of this occasion called for young maidens to write love messages. The messages were placed in a large urn and then drawn out by unmarried men who courted the fair maidens whose messages they had chosen.

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From my Brigid Ritual 2009 - Gratitude is the remedy for tightness. When we give thanks, scarcity fades away.

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