Tales from Oz: Courage, Heart and Wisdom as
we walk together on the Yellow Brick Road
Hello dear friends,
Firstly, thank you to all of you who have taken the time to get in touch to tell me that you are enjoying this blog and the other features of the Happy Ever After Club. This comment from Jim Gleeson of Sydney is typical of the messages I’ve been receiving:
“I clicked through and read your blog ‘More Adventures in New Zealand: The Personal is Political’. It was very beautiful and moving. I really felt that you were talking to me (although obviously you weren’t). I felt the same sensation when reading your book So Where’s My Happy Ever After, I felt privileged for you to confide in me, even though in reality you were telling the WORLD! It is a great gift that you have perfected, Joy”.
Thanks Jim, and thank you to everyone else who has contacted me. I apologise if time doesn’t allow me to respond to everyone personally. Right now one of my priorities is writing a series of easily accessible and downloadable e-books on topics that we are all grappling with right now. The first of these e-books is being launched soon. Titled ’10 Ways to Make Love to Your Soul’ it is crammed with practical things you can do every day to get in touch with your soul and its wisdom for your life.
For just $9.95, every one who purchases before 30 December 2008 receives a free, personalised sun sign affirmation. Watch this space!
And now for:
Tales from Oz: Courage, Heart and Wisdom as we walk together on the Yellow Brick Road
So, I’m back home, back in the Land of Oz, and no sooner had I unpacked my suitcase and put away all my winter woollies – the very clothes I hadn’t needed in NZ because it was warm and sunny while I was there - I had to get them out again! A sudden cold, rainy snap chased summer away for several days, making coats, scarf and umbrella mandatory again. The old snap’s passed again, thank Goddess, and now we’ve got high temperatures and that clammy humidity that saps the energy and makes sleeping difficult at night. The only weather forecast worth making is: be prepared for everything and anything, right now the weather is changeable!
Changeable. It’s the word of the moment really, isn’t it? The weather, the share market, governments, relationships; just about everything is in a state of flux.
Well, get used to it folks because it’s going to keep on being the case for some time yet. (More information about the astrological energies we are experiencing right now will be discussed later in this blog). That’s not a threat by the way, just an observation and, actually, a cause for optimism – more about that later. And even though change may seem challenging on a personal level, the Universe is really giving us - all of us - an opportunity to connect more deeply with that which never changes and can always be trusted.
What am I talking about? Many people might be feeling right now that there is very little in this world that is trustworthy. Politicians promising much and delivering little, businessmen paying themselves outlandish salaries and bonuses even while their companies go broke (curiously I haven’t read about any women executives doing this!), and institutions that were once household names now ruined and their once proud reputations tarnished forever. It’s enough to make the most optimistic amongst us cynical but that’s the very reaction we must guard against.
So, if we can’t put our trust here, where can we put it?
When my daughter was little she loved to watch ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The tale of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion setting off down the Yellow Brick Road to find the Wizard was Lauren’s favourite video and she watched it over and over until she knew all the dialogue by heart.
For many years now I have silently noted yet another of life’s little ironies that has seen us settle as a family in Australia, the Land of Oz, and in Sydney as well, which is sometimes called The Emerald City because of its sparkling harbour. Regardless of where in world you live right now though, I think the timeless story of Dorothy and her friends has much to tell us about how to see through the illusion and find that which can truly be trusted.
Dorothy, as most of you will know, is a teenager living in Kansas – a place she considers to be very boring - who dreams of going ‘over the rainbow’ to a thrilling, magical place where life will be so much more exciting.
When a tornado sweeps away Dorothy and her dog Toto to The Land of Oz, she seems to have been granted her wish.
However, it is not long before Dorothy is overcome by fear and longs to return home to Kansas where everything was safe and secure. When the Good Witch of the North meets Dorothy, she gives her a pair of ruby slippers for protection and tells her that if she wants to get back home she must find the Wizard of Oz.
Along the way Dorothy and Toto meet new friends, including the Scarecrow who wishes he could have a brain, the Tinman who longs for a heart and the Cowardly Lion who wishes he could be brave.
Currently the world is seeing many Tinmen, Scarecrows and Cowardly Lions amongst our so-called ‘Captains of Industry’ and politicians, but it is important to always remember that we get the leaders we deserve. Right now the world is enthralled by a movie that has all the hallmarks of a classic horror story and many souls are agreeing to play the roles of Dorothy’s three friends. If we as individuals refuse to get sucked into the maelstrom of fear then we help to usher in a new scenario – hopefully one where nations and businesses are run with vision and integrity and there is abundance to be shared with all. I’ve always felt very uncomfortable with the idea that a few people could get very rich just by moving lots of money around, don’t you? After all, they didn’t create anything to benefit the planet. On the contrary, greed has created this situation we now have where taxpayers are paying to bale out the institutions that are supposed to serve them.
But this is not just about the rich versus the poor or corporate greed or even our reliance upon money that we haven’t yet earned (those convenient and seductive little things called credit cards!) to take us ‘over the rainbow’.
This recent experience offers human beings yet another opportunity to see that we are all connected, that we all walk together down the Yellow Brick Road. Some world leaders have already recognised this and the level of global co-operation of governments we are seeing right now is really unprecedented in peacetime. We’ve seen mass movements before – often lead by entertainers or celebrities – to help the poor and starving but now, finally, it has taken a crisis in the hip pockets of Mr and Mrs Joe Average, who are also voters by the way, to get Presidents and Prime Ministers to set aside national interests to create global solutions. The fact that we live in a global society where, for example, local councils in the UK invest in banks in Iceland, makes this cooperation essential. Americans are soon to have an opportunity to choose a new leader. Let’s pray that they choose one with vision, empathy and integrity over one who is more of the same (more about the astrology of Barak Obama’s chart in the Star Struck summary below).
Fear has always been a motivator of human behaviour. It shakes us from our complacency and forces us to make big changes. Pluto is the planet that brings us the gift of huge shake-ups and an inability to continue hiding that which we do not want to look at. This movie could very well have a happy ending if all of us are prepared to play our part for positive change.
In the short term, the Scorpio New Moon is bringing us the energy of passion to a cause and a refusal to allow anything that is less than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Get ready for more shock revelations and the demolition of structures not built on integrity and absolute truth; on the world stage but also in your own life.
But back to Dorothy. It is only through her journey that she discovers her truth; everything she sought had been there all the time, she just lacked the eyes to see it. By the end of the story Dorothy realises there is ‘no place like home’. And where is ‘home’ for each and every one of us? Not the Emerald City, not Sydney, not Paris or Amsterdam or any other place on this amazing planet. Our real home is what we carry around inside and if we don’t feel comfortable there then we will always seek excitement, distraction or addiction outside of ourselves in order to fill the void.
The metaphor can be taken even further. The Scarecrow seeks a brain – a Higher Mind. The Tinman seeks a heart, symbol of love and compassion. The Cowardly Lion seeks courage. Only when we can individually find our own courage to live with integrity, not needing affirmation from anyone else as to our own worth, do we truly live a Soul-infused life. What’s more, I believe that our Soul, heart and mind are imbued in every cell of our being. The heart does not exist in the organ we call the heart, the mind is not isolated in the organ we know as the brain. Our life force or essence, along with a cellular memory, exists in every microscopic part. All is One and One is All. So, next time you meditate or pray, consciously open all your chakras and allow the sensation of energy to flow freely to and from every cell. You will literally vibrate with delight! More in the e-book for those who are interested.
This New Moon in Scorpio (see below) offers a unique opportunity to all of us to stop making fear based decisions and instead, use the alignment of the heart and Higher Mind, mixed with a strong dose of courage, to do what is honest and authentic for you.
Scorpio expresses itself through passion and sex. Are you playing a role or pretending to be something you’re not when it comes to your sexual connections? Are you in denial about a relationship?
This New Moon brings energy that may support you – willingly or not! - to end the dishonesty now. In my network of friends and colleagues I’ve already heard of two recent relationship break-ups that were sudden and shocking. I expect more and so should you. In the long run we are being pushed into being true to ourselves and to make physical love a truly loving, playful cause for celebration – and that includes self-pleasuring, a very legitimate way of honouring yourself and opening the sacral chakra.
We live in a world where sex has been corrupted and used as a tool for selling products. It’s time to claim it back, to slough off any residual shame carried over from religious programming and to put it in its rightful place as Sacred Play. En-Joy!
For now, I’m signing off. Details of current and coming astrological movements are summarised below. See you soon at the Happy Ever After Club!
Be Love, be Joy, be Change.
Star Struck
A summary of astrological forces coming our way:
Please note – this is not a comprehensive astrological chart, it is merely a summary of some of the important energies we will experience soon.
Mercury Retrograde – this ended on October 14th although I experienced its effects for almost ten days afterwards. Like me, you should now find that communication channels have unblocked.
Scorpio New Moon – this happens on October 28th -29th and offers an opportunity to release any dysfunctional relationships you are holding on to. Scorpio is the passionate reformer that seeks deep truth in all things. It dares you to be honest with yourself and then honest in all your relationships in the world. This New Moon heralds and pre-empts the powerful change to business and governments that will take place over the next fifteen years while Pluto is in Capricorn. This bodes well for the planet – that deceit and lies will no longer be acceptable and only structures built on honesty and transparency will survive.
This New Moon in Scorpio is sometimes referred to as ‘Lunar Samhain’ and it is the night when the veil between the spirit world and ‘reality’ is thin. This melds seamlessly into Halloween on October 31st.
November 4th is the Presidential election in the US. Pray that the right leader, one with integrity and vision, will be elected and that nothing will interfere with this.
Barak Obama’s astrological chart shows a sun sign of Leo, with Aquarius rising and his moon in Gemini. All of this bodes well for a strong leader with vision and excellent communication skills, who also empathises with the plight of others. Aquarius rising indicates a strong focus on service to groups and is appropriate for a leader who will have huge impact as the planet moves into the Age of Aquarius. I just hope and pray that he will be given the time he needs to implement the changes that need to happen – but whatever happens, it is important to know that in terms of planetary evolution, EVERYTHING, including what we consider “negative” events like recession, assassination, terrorism and so on, is part of Divine Plan.
By the way, don’t discount Hillary Clinton. Despite appearances, I don’t think her time on the political stage is over.
Pluto in Capricorn – by the end of November Pluto will have finally moved out of Sagittarius, where it has been for 12 years, causing no end of upheaval, and into Capricorn. (This will happen around November 24th, the day before my birthday – Yay! I’ll be celebrating this year!). The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was in the year 1752! No wonder it has some work to do to clean up business and government this time round.
Just a note about the global impact of Pluto in Sagittarius – the Centaur is the visionary and philosopher, who also has his hooves firmly planted on planet earth. Sagg loves having a human form and enjoys all the sensual delights as well as the discussion of ideas.
The impact of Pluto in its sign has been all about shaking up international politics, foreign affairs, law and philosophy. During the last twelve years we have seen the emergence of extremism in religion – Christianity just as much as Islam. We have also seen the spread of ideas through new forms of technology such as the internet, and, as already discussed, the emergence of global politics and global business. The global village is a reality, and Sagg helped to birth it. Capricorn will now help to make that village a place where truth is respected.
Joy
Hybrid Mode