It’s that time again—Mercury Retrograde. Fortunately, it’s the last one of the year. Mercury is the planet of communication, plans and systems of order. When Mercury moves backwards (or appears to), communications, plans and systems of order are likely to operate in the most disruptive as well as, creative ways.

This time Mercury will be going inward (backward) in the introspective, secretive sign of Scorpio. It’s a time for you to intimately examine those inner corners and crevices so that you can discover what (and who) is truly of value to you. Your intuition will be heightened and your investigative powers will be functioning at an all-time high.

You may feel impelled to reveal your deepest secrets to others, but please withstand the temptation to make yourself vulnerable—do keep your mouth closed! Putting your dearly held secrets out into the world will most likely backfire and create opportunities for major regret.

It is a good time, though, for you to plot your next campaign or plan that surprise party you’ve been thinking about. With Mercury in retrograde motion, others will most likely not be paying attention to your every move, so go quietly and you’ll be able to bring your plans to successful fruition.

As with all Mercury Retrogrades, please remember to remain centered and grounded, no matter what. Since Mercury rules communication, transportation and contracts, when it’s retrograde, all manner of mistakes and misunderstandings can occur. If you can, hold off on buying (or leasing) any big ticket items. It’s also a good idea to triple check any and all plans you make. This is an excellent time for research, as those things that are usually hidden from view, show themselves more easily during a Mercury Retrograde period.  Wait until Mercury goes direct before making any big decisions or purchases.

 

 

The Tarot is an ancient Intuitive Art and some of its terminology reflects the attitudes and beliefs of its antiquity.  Some of the terms and phrases used in describing energy seem to specifically refer to gender in such a way that, today, they’d be considered demeaning, inappropriate and/or incorrect.  Phrases like:

Positive-negative

Masculine-feminine

Light-dark

Strong-weak  

Active-passive

Final outcome

In olden times, words like positive, masculine, light, strong and active were used to describe a conscious, activating, obvious, outgoing or intellectual energy.  These words were used to describe what was considered a superior use of energy in a male-dominated society with a narrow world view.

Words like negative, feminine, dark, weak or passive were used to describe a subconscious, generating, subtle, introspective or intuitive energy.  These words were used to describe what was considered an inferior use of energy in a male-dominated society with a narrow world view.

Today, we have a more expansive view of the world and have an opportunity to see things from a more balanced, neutral perspective.  The Eastern symbol for balance, Yin-Yang, is a perfect visual explanation of the strength of darkness within light and lightness within the dark.  Neither is stronger than the other, they work together to produce harmony.

Many Tarot spreads have a card that represents the ‘final’ outcome.  Final means the absolute, concluding end.  I feel it’s misleading in a spread because life and we are organic, everything morphs into something else—there really is no ‘final’ end.  The word, final, lulls you into thinking that nothing more will happen.  I prefer to just use the word, ‘outcome’ or the phrase, ‘probable outcome’ because they imply that there is room for the ‘outcome’ to do what all outcomes do in life, transform into its next stage of development.     

If, in studying the Tarot, you find that certain words or phrases bother you, please feel free to take out your thesaurus and find words or phrases with the same meaning that don’t offend you.

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This excerpt is from my book, The Infinite Tarot, the Essential Guide for Connecting to the All-Knowing Source. I invite you to discover your own liberating Tarot terminology and learn more about developing and using your intuition with the Tarot by purchasing my book.  Just click on the Store tab on the navigation bar at the top of this page and you’ll be directed to the Store page.     

 

 

A dear friend is preparing for a pilgrimage to the spiritual sites of South America. Knowing that I’d visited Machu Picchu in Peru, she contacted me, asking for tips that would enhance her soul journey to the powerful site.

I was happy to share my experiences with her, but as I told her, it wasn’t Machu Picchu itself that moved my soul; it was what happened after I left the majestic enclave that powerfully enriched my life.

I gratefully relived my glorious experience as I responded to her e-mail request with this retelling of one of my favorite life adventures:  

One of the magical places on my “must experience” list was Peru’s wonderfully preserved Incan Empire city, Machu Picchu.  Built around 1450, it was both a royal enclave and a spiritual center whose activities revolved around the cycles of the Sun.  On my visit to this fascinating site, I could feel the powerful energy of the sacred city and the ancient mountain peaks that surround it.  My gifts on that journey were many, including a life-path confirming message from the mountain and a vision of the infinite in which I was escorted by God, Bade Baba and Padre Pio.  My most prized gift, though– the joy and memory of which will remain in my heart forever– was “the runner.”

At the end of my visit to this sacred city, I boarded one of the site’s buses for the thirty-minute ride down the mountain on the muddy, narrow switchback road that would take me back to the town of Aquas Caliente at the base of the mountain.  I sat in the front row because I wanted to continue to take in as much of this land’s majestic beauty as I could.

We had barely started down the mountain when the driver stopped to pick up a nine or ten year old boy dressed in a green tunic with multicolor trim.  He wore a headband and a red pouch hung diagonally from his left shoulder.  His feet were shod in simple black sandals.

The boy stood in the stairwell and it was obvious the driver and the boy knew and liked each other as they conversed on the downhill drive.  I noticed two or three other young boys in similar garb waiting across the road. 

About five minutes after the boy boarded the bus, the driver stopped and the boy stepped up to the center of the aisle at the front of the bus, turned to us and wailed an ancient chant as he waved his right arm above his head.

The sound of his voice was as old as time and sent a shiver through my soul.  The boy got off the bus and ran across the road and disappeared into the wild mountain foliage.

We continued on the narrow, muddy, switchback road, sometimes pulling over to let the busses coming up the mountain go past.

We heard the ancient chant again and there was the boy on the side of the road ahead of us, waving us on as we passed the spot where he stood.

A few minutes and a few more dangerous twists and turns later, we were farther down the mountain and who do we see standing there, waiting for us, waving and chanting– the boy!

A simultaneous gasp escaped from all of us passengers.

A few more twists and turns farther down the mountain and there he was again– hailing us and waving us on!

Time and time again, he’d be there on the road, waiting for us with his ancient chant and his bright, beautiful spirit.

We began to applaud when he appeared– some even laughed nervously, “How did he beat us here?” they whispered.   

Once we saw him sprint out of the foliage to our right, dart diagonally across the road in front of the bus, reach his spot on the other side and wave us on as we approached him. 

The ride down the mountain became about the boy.  “Where will he appear next?” “How is he doing it?”  “When, how will we be able to tell him what he means to us?”

I had to hold back tears and remember to breathe as I waited for his next appearance.

He was the infinite symbol of life and spirit and we were the blessed recipients of his limitless, magical energy.

As we neared the town at the foot of the mountain, we saw him running ahead of us, waving us on.  He led us across the bridge into town and he stood on a rise as he waited for us to reach him.

The driver stopped the bus and the boy got on again– this time to cheers and applause.  He had won our hearts and we were grateful.

Continuing his chant, and with a grin as big as life, he opened the red pouch he wore and we gratefully stuffed money into it.  As he went up and down the aisle, we hugged him and took his picture and thanked him.  The old woman sitting next to me grabbed his little face in both her hands and kissed him hard on the cheek.

We loved that little boy.  He was the affirmation of life itself.  The joy he exuded as he ran and as he interacted with us re-kindled something vital in all of us.  He gave us hope.

And he proved to all of us that Pizarro and the other Conquistadors had not won in their attempts to annihilate the Incan people and the Incan spirit.  As long as that little boy and the other little boys run– the Incan spirit will always live. 

That little boy loved running and he loved winning.  He loved his life and he powerfully radiated that joy with heart and spirit.

When the bus reached the end of the line, the boy got off first and bade each of us farewell as we left the bus.  We couldn’t leave him, though.  Some of us went back two and three times to thank him, to bask in his infinite and innocent radiance.

In a very big way, Machu Picchu and the mountain were the set-up, the backdrop for the real eighth wonder of the world– that little boy leading us down the mountain, leading us back to ourselves.

Almost every aspect of this Peru trip had been trying, always testing and at times, almost besting me in some very intense manner.  That little boy and the gift he gave me made everything I’d gone through worth it.  I’m so grateful to him and I’m so grateful to God for the experience.

 

A few years ago, a friend showed me photos taken of of her skydiving.  While looking at the photos, I was surprised, pleased and excited when this thought came to me, “If I ever go skydiving and the parachute doesn’t open, I hope I remain fully conscious and present.  This is something that’s probably only going to happen once and I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Three years later, I received a call from a friend who told me that my guides had given her a message for me.  I was told through her that it was time for me to leave Malibu.  I’d received similar messages before about traveling to or relocating to various parts of the world.  The messages, or ‘orders’ as I like to call them, came in a variety of ways—through meditation, a guidance session,  visiting a sacred site, a certain ‘knowing’ and as was this one—through a friend’s spiritual ‘meeting’ with my guides.   

I loved Malibu and I loved my life there—I didn’t want to leave.  As my friend and I talked about it, I was seized with lump in my stomach, breath stopping, heart-palpitating terror.  I didn’t know where I was to go or what would happen to me.  I only knew that my friend, the messenger, had delivered a truthful message and I would have to follow orders. 

After the phone call, I made my way, doubled over in terror, to my dressing area, which was across from the bathroom.  Earlier that evening, I’d turned off the bathroom light and closed the door, but now the bathroom door was open and the light was on and I found myself looking into the eyes of the woman who was staring at me from the bathroom mirror.  She was clear, direct and fearless as she returned my gaze and said, “Well, the chute’s not opening.  What are you going to do?” 

Right then and there, I knew—I was going for it—fully conscious, present, eyes wide open.  And just like that—the terror was gone.  Over the next few weeks, as I dismantled my life, I experienced many feelings, among them—doubt, sadness, elation, excitement, wonder.  I felt fear, too—not the paralyzing terror I‘d experienced at the beginning—but the fear that comes with not knowing what’s next. 

I also felt the exhilarating “wildness” of it.  I had embraced and embarked upon an adventure that only promised me this—that as long as I listened to and followed God’s instructions, I would walk through whatever fires presented themselves to me, defeat whatever monsters that tried to devour me and remove whatever obstacles that blocked my path.

And of course, befitting any epic adventure, there were fires, monsters and obstacles that had to be contended with.  There were also signs, miracles and sightings that I’d never have seen and been a part of if I’d panicked because the chute wasn’t opening.    

That’s the abridged version of how I got to the place I now call home.  God was right, too.  Sending me here was one of the best things that ever happened to me.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I was here to reconnect with kindred spirits.  (If God had left it up to me—there’s no way I‘d have left the idyllic paradise of Malibu AND there was definitely no way I’d have left Malibu to move to a place where there was snow!)

Living and operating by faith and trust is hard at times and requires a lot of courage, but it’s oh so exhilarating, magical and rewarding!  I live a life that’s propelled by the energies of The Fool, The Tower and The Star—three of the most dynamic Tarot cards in the deck.  And living that way does, indeed, require the above mentioned faith, trust and courage.

When did you last heed the call of your inner compass?  When did you last grab onto The Fool as he stepped off into the great unknown, taking you to a new world of discovery and wonder?  When did you last meet yourself in the midst of truly living your life as you were meant to?

We live in interesting times.  We always have and we always will.  This is the moment you’ve been waiting for; now is the time—how will you respond to the invitation, “The chute’s not opening.  What are you going to do?”

Yesterday, Mercury retrograde released us from its commanding backwards grip and lurched forward, dragging us with it.  

Most Mercury retrograde periods operate like a somewhat recalcitrant mule, stubbornly pulling and pushing us in directions we don’t want to go. Slow and very annoying at times, but manageable with a little effort. This one felt more like a high strung, intelligent, vindictive stallion, plotting ways to distract us so that it could forcefully brush us up against trees, scrape our skin and dislodge us. It was an intense, emotional ride and there were countless number of times it felt like I had to hang on for dear life.

Mercury was in the sign Cancer during the entire 24 day Mercury retrograde period. Cancer’s domain rules foundations and what’s under the surface of all things emotional, familial and nurturing. When Mercury goes retrograde, it gives us, as one client put it—AFOG—Another F*****g Opportunity for Growth. When Mercury goes retrograde in Cancer, it gives us AFOG squared.

People and situations from the past, memories (some good, some bad), unfinished emotional business, past life flashbacks, gnarly epic dreams and more all showed up, demanding conscious attention. People and circumstances that I’d forgotten ever existed came up for review and what I hope is finally resolution. I did a lot of internal, emotional house cleaning (Cancer rules homes and the care of them).

Suppressed emotions that needed to be brought to the surface and consciously felt, dealt with and properly disposed of were key for me. I forgave and released a lot—other people, life, myself. This Mercury retrograde scraped the ‘skin’ off so much that was unconsciously and subconsciously buried. It was one of the most uncomfortable Mercury retrograde periods I’ve experienced in years. It was also one of the most rewarding, liberating Mercury retrogrades I’ve experienced.

And that’s just on the emotional level! Machinery and technology acted up, too. In the middle of an important writing task, with the deadline looming large, my keyboard decided to take a vacation! No matter what I did, it refused to function. I knew I had to do something and I knew that whatever I did would end in probable frustration of some kind. I quickly researched, tracked down, bought and drove miles to pick up a new (very expensive!) keyboard and mouse. Once home with my new purchase, before I could install it—yes, you guessed it—my keyboard decided it liked me after all and is now functioning!

You think I’d have learned by now, but, knowing better, last week I cleverly decided to purchase and download a book. A simple operation that should have taken a few minutes stretched into a seemingly endless number of phone calls over a span of days to the help center before the download was accomplished. I’m now way more familiar with the call center’s techs then I ever thought I’d be.

In the understatement of the year, I’m glad it’s over.