The Promise of a New Year

" There is no birth without breaking. No staying the same in the process of creation. The being that brings new life forth will be permanently changed and rearranged. " - Chani Nicholas

This is my year. I see it over and over. It's my year to get it together. To grow up. To stop creating havoc and to be real and authentic for myself. Here I was thinking I had overcome so many things. All the studies and meditation and fire ceremonies. All the work I have done. The analyzing the reading. The healing. These things were amazing and supported me and gave me tools to get here. But, it is apparent there is so much work to do in this lifetime. More layers of that onion to peep to get to the root.

root1 /ro͞ot/

noun

1. the part of a plant which attaches it to the ground or to a support, typically underground, conveying water and nourishment to the rest of the plant via numerous branches and fibers.

2.

the basic cause, source, or origin of something.

What is it? That root or roots? I have sat in the place of thinking I had conquered these things, or at least, telling myself I had. But, over the last two years those outer layers have come off and the light of day has inched it way through bringing me to the lunar eclipse in Cancer that occured on January 10. Oh my Goddess, those lunar eclipses kick my ass each and every time and to have it sit on Cancer, my sun sign, just cracked a shell that has long since remained.

I am sure the death of my father in 2017, the great Leo, was the beginning of that cracking. I've seen my own issues from my past that still are lingering, long since asleep, awaken during this time of great transformation. I have seen them play out in my relationships with my husband and my children and my friends. I have been given this opportunity to meet them head on and reflect that healing to my children or to continue to live in that space in a perpetual Ground Hog day that is on auto-repeat.

Today, as I examined what I can only describe as a really shitty week with me at my lowest in a long time, I read and re-read astrolgy reports from Chani Nicholas plus local astrologers that I know who are kind enough to send me either weekly or monthly updates and I keep finding the same messages as well as myself in these words. It is time to step out of the places of trauma into true healing and we cannot do that without complete honestly. I am speaking to myself, but I am speaking to each of you.

We must break those shells that have hardened around us and find that softeness and understand that we are not fragile, we will not break, but we must have resolve to look at those dark places that linger in the corners. Oh the pain of those dark places and those mistakes and those what-if's and why's. It is time to bring forgiveness to ourselves and that is really where the roots lie.

Over Christmas my son gave me a Dan Brown book for Christmas. It was the same one he gave me last year. He said he remembered right after he got home with it and let me know pretty quickly I was welcome to return it. A few days after Christmas I headed over to Target to the book section, no idea what I was looking for. As I scanned the shelves (I'm usually looking for a cookbook), the book that all but leapt into my hands over and over and over again was The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.

Oh Brene Brown. How I have avoided you. To be honest, still avoiding the book sitting on my bedside table that I know I need to read. Me, once queen of the self-help books who walked away from them thinking I knew all and was whole, has scoffed at the many times I have been asked if I have read her books or seen her Netflix show. Me? Me who was reading Hay House authors in the late 90's when folks thought it was weird? Me who managed a metaphysical bookstore and sold the goods that are now found everywhere from Barnes and Noble to TJ Maxx? Nope, you jump on that bandwagon like everyone else and I'll just sit over here smug in my past work.

Well. Here I am. The smugness and the ego gone and the readiness to continue my transformation. I am here, giving gratitude to the continued transformation, to the brokenness, to the gift of a book not needed so I could find the one that was.

Today, as we move through this waning moon, this releasing time, I will be examining and reading and journaling and praying and continuing to be inward as this time of the year beckons us to be so we can return to the sun as the year waxes again. I am choosing my seeds and they are seeds of healing and wholenes. It is not until these seeds are planted and cultivated that the seeds of prosperity and abundance can also manifest and grow.

" 'Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true. ' - Galadriel

Stray no more. Stay on the path to healing and wholeness.

Let me know if you are feeling these patterns this year. While we walk our journeys, at the end of the day, we are all in this together.

-Dana