Journal
Late April 2024 Insights
AWAKENING
“Some human beings find it easier to be open-minded, and some find it easier to
be open-hearted, but to really be here now is to be both.” Adyashanti
“Have the courage to overcome self -judgment because you can’t control everything.” Tom Jacobs
“That thing that really was hard is now truth for me.” Tom Jacobs
“Being
a leader
doesn’t mean
you have
followers.
It means
you go
first.” Sarah Elkhaldy
“Another aspect of openness is intimacy. The quickest access to Truth, and also to beauty, is when you are totally intimate with all of experience, the inner and the outer, even if the experience isn't ‘good.’ When you are being intimate with the whole of experience, the divided mind has to let go of whatever its project is at the moment. In this intimacy, one becomes very open and discovers a vastness. Whether the qualities of the experience are unpleasant or beautiful, as soon as you are intimate with the whole of experience, there is openness.” Adyashanti
“I think of how love may be the supreme creative act, the way it remakes the self and the world between selves.” Maria Povich - the marginalian
“The world
You see is a reflection of consciousness transforming.
You are connected to it on the individual level.
The collective is asking that you not only speak but hold your values + truth.
If aligned with your higher self it aligns with whole.“ Faram Siddiq
“To be human (especially an artist) is not a fixed experience. It is fluid and always changing. Every cell in your body exists in a constant state of death and regeneration.
The seasons change.
The moon moves in cycles.
So do we. Don't limit yourself to being the person you've always been.
Stay open. Stay curious.
Give yourself permission to become somebody new.” James McCrae
“The point is not to get rid of thoughts or feelings, but just not to feel located inside of them.
Openness has no particular location. It seems to be everywhere.
It has room for anything. There can be a thought or no thought.
There can be a feeling or no feeling. There can be sounds. There can be silence. Nothing disturbs openness. Nothing disturbs your true nature. We only get disturbed when we close ourselves by identifying with a particular point of view, a concept of who I am or who I believe or feel myself to be; we go into opposition against what's happening. But when we are being our true nature, which is openness, we find that we're actually not in opposition to anything. Whatever is happening in the openness is perfectly okay, and so we are able to respond to life in a spontaneous and wise way.” Adyashanti
“Awaken to what you know and trust and believe.” The Insight Center
“You can be aligned with the portals of your journey.” The Insight Center
“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don't even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before.
Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant.
Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening.
Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.” Alice Walker, Living by the Word
“If it’s not happening right now, it’s not happening right now.” The Insight Center
“If you don’t know right now, you don’t know right now.” The Insight Center
HEALING
“One of the best boundaries you can have it simply not letting other people’s energy bring down your emotions. Living in you peace even when you come across those who, want you to join them in their storm is a sign of deep maturity.” yung pueblo
“Someone else’s energy operating within you feels like an unnecessary exaggeration of your energy.” The Insight Center
VIPASSANA MEDITATION AND BUDDHISM
“When we meditate, equanimity is about cultivating stability while remaining curious and being open to our experience. We might use mindful breathing to do this. While breathing in and out, what do we confront on the cushion? Discomfort, perhaps, or painful memories? Maybe restlessness and boredom? All that we suppress tends to rise to the forefront when the mind is quiet. Equanimity becomes about accepting these arisings. The breath, then, becomes our anchor, our tree trunk.” Bradley Donaldson
“Off the cushion, the practice is similar in that we are cultivating stability, but now we're doing it while contending with the challenges of day-to-day life. So, how do we approach what the Buddha called the "worldly conditions" of gain, loss, status, disgrace, praise, blame, pleasure, and pain? Do we react with bewilderment and frus-tration, or with understanding? Can we hold our experience with loving-kindness, compassion, or even joy? Breathing in, we see the situation for what it is. Breathing out, we stay curious.” Bradley Donaldson
“John Crook, Master Sheng Yen's first lay dharma heir, with whom I previously studied, articulated a helpful way to work with thoughts: let through, let be, let go. When thoughts show up, let them through. They are already part of the present. Blocking them will only tense and agitate the mind, perpetuating the habit of reacting to the present with aversion. Letting be is allowing the thoughts to be fully felt, seen, and heard as they unfold, moment after moment, without labeling, commenting, or trying to change them. Letting go is allowing the thoughts to leave on their own without being in a hurry to make them go away. In this way, there may be thoughts, but habitual reactivities to the thoughts are not activated, allowing the mind to relax and be still. This nonreactivity is silence.” Rebecca Li
“The paramis or paramitas are qualities that help us develop and reach true happiness, our highest potential. They are often translated as ‘per-fections,’ as they are the perfections of character necessary for enlightenment.
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh called them practices that help us cross from the shore of confusion and suffering to the shore of liberation.
The ten paramis are:
1. Dana: generosity
2. Sila: virtue, morality
3. Nekkhamma: renunciation
4. Panna: wisdom
5. Viriya: energy, vigor, effort
6. Khanti: patience, tolerance
7. Sacca: truthfulness, honesty
8. Adhitthana: determination, resolve
9. Metta: goodwill, loving-kindness
10. Upekkha: equanimity, serenity Pali Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.[1] It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon
“For the paramita of generosity, I've found Joseph Goldstein's practice very helpful. He tries to listen to and follow the impulse to give when it first arises. He tries to not be swayed by second thoughts or doubts, which could dampen or lessen the initial thought of generosity. Try it!” Kiara Jewel Lingo
“The first training is reverence for life. Aware of the suffering caused by killing, we commit to cultivating the insight of interbeing, growing our compassion, and learning ways to protect the lives of all beings.
The second training is true happiness. With this training, we're aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, stealing, and oppression, and we practice generosity in all our thoughts, speech, and actions.
The third training is true love, which is grounded in an awareness of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct. Guided by true love, we protect the safety and integrity of individuals and couples, families, and society.
The fourth training is loving speech and deep listening. Beginning with an awareness of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and a lack of listening, we commit to engaging in compassionate speech and listening. We promote reconciliation and peace in ourselves and among other people, groups, and nations.
Finally, the fifth mindfulness training is nourishment and healing. This training brings us into awareness of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption. We practice mindful eating, drinking, and consuming in order to cultivate good health-physical and mental-for ourselves, loved ones, and society.
With these five mindfulness trainings, we practice virtue. This allows us to find fresh vision for individual and collective wellness, and to develop and sustain the embodied perfection of wisdom.
As virtue takes up residence in our hearts, it brings love, peace, and resilience to our world.” Larry Ward
GRIEF
“The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain - to just be with it all.” Ram Dass
“Grief is the last act of love we give to our loved one. Where there is deep grief, there was a great love.” Unknown
“Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets. The moon sets. But they are not gone.” Rumi
ASTROLOGY
Jupiter Uranus aligned April 21, 2024 – TODAY!
On April 21, 2024, Uranus and Jupiter will be conjunct – exactly aligned at 21˚ Taurus. You may have heard a lot about this already – or maybe you haven’t?
Wherever 21˚ Taurus is in your chart expect magnified, restlessness (anxiety?), and unexpected change – bold individuation is breaking through – and possible disruptive events that set us on a completely new trajectory. There is potential for rebellion, awakening, breakthrough, revolution, peak experiences, and quantum leaps.
This revolutionary alignment occurs in the sign of Taurus, the fixed sign of stability – and these planets of liberation and idealism will be breaking up fixed patterns – which can feel uncomfortable and extreme.
To prepare for this be aware and prepared for change. Jupiter expands – make things bigger and Uranus brings surprises. This may feel liberating to those of us who have more air and fire in our charts and more unsettling for those of us with a preponderance of water and earth. It is a time to break through blocks – and it will happen.
This energetic shift has been manifesting for months as Jupiter moved toward Uranus so think about what has shifted for you already. Events and shifts may have already happened and are now building in strength. As Jupiter moves beyond 21˚ the next few months, the changes that occurred will continue to deepen and grow. It may be internal or external – and it will definitely change our perspective.
“Anyone who has ever had a Pluto transit, can confirm Pluto is a planet. Who else but Pluto can take the highest-flying personality and knock that person to their knees for an in-depth look at the underworld, the machinations of the psyche, and the ultimate needs of the soul? “Philip Sedgwick
ANXIETY
Eight Tips for Anxiety from
1. be kind to yourself
2. reach out to someone
3. remember you are not alone
4. help someone else out
5. don't believe all your thoughts
6. make a gratitude list
7. remember everyone struggles
8. practice lovingkindness
Sharon Salzberg
Insights March 2024
It is time to examine our beliefs and ethical consciousness. I am not a fan of spiritual bypassing (“I’ll just meditate for a better world”/”metta for all”/”peace and love internally first.”) I am an engaged Buddhist (Buddhists who seek to apply Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation practice, and the teachings of the Buddhist dharma to contemporary situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering, and injustice.) *
“There is suffering. There is work to be done. May we be the ones to do it.” Buddhistdoor Global
“… engaged practice carries the medicine.” Deborah Eden Tull
“And peace without justice is no peace at all.” MIRA SUCHAROV https://thewalrus.ca/path-to-peace-israel-palestine/
"Firstly, we must begin to actively confront and then talk about the injustices created by the system that we inhabit. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt said, "We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human." To remain silent is not an option, for to do so is to lose something of our humanity by acceding to the status quo and becoming complicit in the iniquities of the system—we are all ethically responsible even by our omissions. The path of the dharma is above all about becoming human by engaging in a conversation, talking about what it might mean to “wake up,” and then enacting the fruits of that deliberation. We “wake up” not just individually but collectively by exploring an imaginative vision of the form our societies might take. But we also must see clearly how the present structures fail us both individually and collectively—we are “crying,” and “crying out for,” a new vision of what it may mean to live ethically and collectively." John Peacock @tricyclemag Read my prior IG posts. I am choosing engaged Buddhism over spiritual bypassing.
Relationships:
“I didn't fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we'd choose anyway. And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and l'd choose you.” Kiersten White
Awakening:
“One should not underestimate the power of ideas and those who put them into action! By transforming our own mind and our worldview, little by little, we can actively contribute to changing our priorities and transforming our cultures. Many major changes that have occurred in societies seemed improbable at first glance. "Satyagraha," the principle that inspired Gandhi's nonviolent resistance, means "the force of truth." It is the force that acts and moves mountains.” Matthieu Ricard
“Just because some people are not onboard doesn’t mean you stop your journey. Forge ahead with your resiliency.” The Insight Center
“all along i have searched for
knowledge when what i was
really looking for was wisdom
not the information that fills
my mind with details and facts
but the experiences that fill
my being with freedom,
healing, and the light of insight”
yung pueblo
“Do not walk across hot coals - or eggshells.” The Insight Center
“The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous.” Loren Eiseley
“I am challenged to learn I can’t control things - and I need to let that be ok.” Tom Jacobs
“Assume that what is in your highest good is what is happening.” Tom Jacobs
“Difficult painful experiences are not punishment. You are being ushered into a learning space or learning module so your soul learns another facet or layer of being human.” Tom Jacobs
“Pain and difficulty and loss and things blowing up in your face and slipping through your fingers is part of life.” Tom Jacobs
“You are not being punished because things have been hard or you have gone through losses. And you are not weak because you feel grief and sorrow.” Tom Jacobs
“We need to go through difficult things to become stronger.” Tom Jacobs
“How can we claim faith in the process of life?” Tom Jacobs
“We sometimes need to go through difficult things to become stronger.” Tom Jacobs
“How can I claim faith - figure out how to have faith in what serves my highest good - which may be painful half the time - and sometimes needs to be?” Tom Jacobs
“How can I have the courage to feel faith in life - even when life sucks - especially when life sucks?” Tom Jacobs
“We surrender to our highest good and sometimes it is painful - how can you have the courage to go with the flow and have it be ok.” Tom Jacobs
Have the courage to overcome self -judgment because you can’t control everything.” Tom Jacobs
“That thing that really was hard is now truth for me.” Tom Jacobs
“Just because some people are not onboard doesn’t mean you stop your journey. Forge ahead with your resiliency.” The Insight Center
“What if your journey feels solo? It is meant to be solo for now.” The Insight Center
The following quote by Nick Cave came from the Marginalian https://www.themarginalian.org/ - a great Newsletter.
“The world… is indeed a strange and deeply mysterious place, forever changing and remaking itself anew. But this is not a novel condition, our world hasn’t only recently become bizarre and temporary, it has been so ever since its inception, and it will continue to be such until its end — mystifying and forever in a state of flux.” Nick Cave
“…his two pillars of a fulfilling life — orientations of the soul that “have a softening effect on our sometimes inflexible and isolating value systems”:
“The first is humility. Humility amounts to an understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but rather it is made up of all manner of individuals, each broken in their own way, each caught up in the common human struggle and each having the capacity to do both terrible and beautiful things. If we truly comprehend and acknowledge that we are all imperfect creatures, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of others’ shortcomings and the world appears less dissonant, less isolating, less threatening.
The other quality is curiosity. If we look with curiosity at people who do not share our values, they become interesting rather than threatening. As I’ve grown older I’ve learnt that the world and the people in it are surprisingly interesting, and that the more you look and listen, the more interesting they become. Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world. Having a conversation with someone I may disagree with is, I have come to find, a great, life embracing pleasure.” Nick Cave
That is what Nick Cave addresses in answering a fan’s lament about the devastating feeling of existential helplessness and impotence: “The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous — [remember] that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time and space, changing everything… Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning, and of vast consequence, and… they constantly impact upon the unfolding story of the world, whether we know it or not. Nick Cave
“Rather than feel impotent and useless, you must come to terms with the fact that as a human being you are infinitely powerful, and take responsibility for this tremendous power. Even our smallest actions have potential for great change, positively or negatively, and the way in which we all conduct ourselves within the world means something. You are anything but impotent, you are, in fact, exquisitely and frighteningly dynamic, as are we all, and with all respect you have an obligation to stand up and take responsibility for that potential. It is your most ordinary and urgent duty.” Nick Cave
“Love is like the ocean,
Vast,
Untamable,
Impermanent,
Deep,
Scary,
Beautiful,
Life affirming,
Overwhelming”
“I remain cautiously optimistic. I think if we can move beyond the anxiety and dread and despair, there is a promise of something shifting not just culturally, but spiritually, too. I feel that potential in the air, or maybe a sort of subterranean undertow of concern and connectivity, a radical and collective move towards a more empathetic and enhanced existence… It does seem possible — even against the criminal incompetence of our governments, the planet’s ailing health, the divisiveness that exists everywhere, the shocking lack of mercy and forgiveness, where so many people seem to harbour such an irreparable animosity towards the world and each other — even still, I have hope. Collective grief can bring extraordinary change, a kind of conversion of the spirit, and with it a great opportunity. We can seize this opportunity, or we can squander it and let it pass us by. I hope it is the former. I feel there is a readiness for that, despite what we are led to believe.” Nick Cave
“The inward movement can be summarized as follows: we observe ourselves, we accept what we find without judgment, we let it go, and the actual release causes our transformation.
We are already always changing, but when we focus on healing, we can change in the direction of our choosing; these are moments when we intentionally reclaim our power. Every moment we take to know ourselves, we return as someone new.
Whatever calms and concentrates the mind causes the purifying release of old burdens that weigh us down. One can be successful with simple inward observation, but when we observe ourselves through proven healing techniques including different forms of meditation, therapy, among many other things, we accelerate the process of change.
Different techniques reach different levels of the mind. Ultimately, any practice that you feel is challenging, but not overwhelming, and is giving you real results is the right one for you at the moment. As we progress we may take on sharper tools for deeper healing. Anything that can heal the subconscious of our mind and create space for love is powerful enough to completely change our lives.
When things get tough, remember that we are not building something small, we are building a palace of peace within our own hearts and it takes determination and effort to complete something of such beauty and magnitude.” Yung pueblo
“One of the most important factors in happiness is the level of control we have over the direction of our lives. Participating in activities that align with our individual desires and needs, as opposed to conforming to external expectations, instills in us a heightened sense of ownership and direction, resulting in a happier existence.” Haemin Sunim
“The best way to be different is to make a difference.” SEP @septhebrand
“Enlightenment is an inner light of understanding that arises from within.” Andrew Olendski
“Your truth will resonate deeply.” The Insight Center
“Something i have noticed with my clients the past several years. At some point in our conversation, they speak their truth. “What I really want to do is paint.” “I know this is not right for me.” “He isn’t a great person.” “I really feel compelled to leave.” And they don’t hear themselves say it! I write it down and I draw a box around it and I show it to them, and they seem surprised. It’s a pivotal moment of them seeing and acknowledging their truth. We all have different reasons why this process of clarity can be hard. It is all about awakening. It is about moment by moment seeing our truth and the. Moment by moment letting go of what is not the truth and eventually we align with the truth. So, pay attention! Pay attention to your own journey of truth and do not be afraid.” The Insight Center
Grief:
“Grief is one of the heart's natural responses to loss. It takes courage to grieve, to honor the pain we carry. We come face to face with our genuine human vulnerability, with helplessness and hopelessness. These are the storm clouds of the heart.
We need to respect our tears. Without a wise way to grieve, we can only soldier on, armored and unfeeling. Let whatever feelings are there, pain and tears, anger and love, fear, and sorrow, come as they will.
The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. Keep in mind that grief doesn't just dissolve. Instead it arises in waves and gradually, with growing compassion, there comes more space around it.” Jack Kornfield
“The truth is, you are alone in your grief.
You alone carry the knowledge of how your grief lives in you.
You alone know all the filaments of life and love that fly through you.
You alone know how deeply your life is now changed.
You alone have to face this, inside your own heart.” Megan Devine
Astrology:
March 25 - FULL MOON ECLIPSE @5˚ Libra
“Use your powerful Pluto natal and transit energy to transform your karmic journey.” The Insight Center
Pluto moves into Aquarius:
The following quotes are from Steven Forest about this dramatic change happening now (what is important for you is to know where this is happening in your chart – look for 1˚ Pluto in transit.)
“Aquarius is the sign of paradigm shifts. It's about genius breakthroughs. Aquarian times are about getting out of bed one morning and everything in your life looks different, as if you've somehow awakened or grown up.” Steven Forrest
“If 10% of humanity awakens to a new way of thinking, the rest follow along in a generation or two.” Steven Forrest
“….Paradigm-shattering realities of Pluto in Aquarius..” Steven Forrest
“It is critical to reiterate that it will mean an expansion of consciousness, not just practical rearrangements of the power structures, although there will be plenty of that too. Get it right, and the world will look fundamentally different to you.
Nobody today is ‘going to win.’ Everybody is wrong. The ones who will create the human future will be humble enough to admit that - and to be blown away by what's now forming in their minds.” Steven Forrest
“A force that lies just beyond the current state of human imagination is hard at work at saving us.” Steven Forrest
Here are my takeaways from the Aquarian era so far:
“Expect the unexpected
Knowledge is power and power will be completely redefined
Pay attention to one paradigm shift at a time (and there will be a lot.)”
The Insight Center 2.15.24
“Do you know your progressed chart? Your progressed sun, moon, and phase? This information in invaluable. I think about it every day and deeply feel it’s truth.” The Insight Center
“The astrology deck helps you learn astrology so you can read, understand, and live your chart. The astrology journal helps you live your path with deeper awareness of your astrology chart.” The Insight Center
Vipassana Meditation:
Buddha’s experience of enlightenment: “ignorance was banished, and knowledge arose; darkness was banished, and light arose.”
Healing:
“Triggers from past traumas can morph into triggers and anxieties for other things - i call this trauma drift. Know and heal your original trauma/s and you will have less trauma drift. Also know that trauma drift is trauma drift a d it will have less impact.” The Insight Center
“Dear empaths: stop over explaining to non-empaths!” The Insight Center
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON ENGAGED BUDDHISM:
* “Several months ago now, Buddhist Peace Fellowship quietly signed the Apartheid Free Communities pledge. In doing so, we joined over a hundred faith-based and solidarity organizations working together to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime and military occupation.
Which is to say – our support for a free Palestine did not come as a response to the current crisis. It came as an acknowledgement that the conditions leading up to the current crisis were already violent and unsustainable.
“There is no excuse for terrorism. We mourn horrific deaths and kidnappings of Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas. And we see that Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people did not make it safer. Oppression will never lead to justice. War will never lead to peace.”
“True peace is what we long to see – for this and future generations.
We also believe that in moments like these, where an urgent response is of the utmost importance, the most harmful thing to say is nothing at all.
So, with our imperfect analysis, with love in our hearts, and with our growing edges showing…
· We say NO to a US-funded war of annihilation on Palestinians.
· NO to governments engaging in terrorism and warfare targeting civilians.
· NO to conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism.
· And NO to using tragedy as an excuse to expand Israel’s settler-colonial hold on Gaza.
We thank you for all you are already doing to demand a ceasefire – calling congress, showing up at rallies, talking to your people.”
Yours in love and struggle,
Kate Johnson
Co-Director, Programs and Partnerships
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
https://www.bpf.org/blog/true-justice-true-peace-engaged-buddhist-response-to-gaza
https://www2.buddhistdoor.net/features/israel-and-palestine-a-buddhist-path-to-peace
How Black Lives Matter Changed the American Conversation About Israel and Palestine (Slate) Palestine (History.com) The Question of Palestine (United Nations) How can we make it right? What the world’s religions have to say about justice (Vox) A Buddhist Response to The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Thanissara Dharma)
Related features from Buddhistdoor Global
Doing Something Frightening Is This Buddhism? The Oneness of Spiritual Liberation and Social Justice Buddhistdoor View: Beyond Boundaries, Beyond Fear – Responding to a Rise in Hate Doing Conflict Better Buddhistdoor View: Palestine and Israel
Insights January 2024
New Year
I wish you peace
I wish you harmony
I wish you love
I wish you awareness
I wish you insight
I wish you forgiveness
I wish you transformation
I wish you being-ness
I wish you peace, harmony, and love in your heart now, today, and always.
“Dec. 31 is not the only day, hour, or minute to look back and reflect. You can do this every minute, hour, and day. Be present. Look with awareness. Let go and move on. Any day and every day.” The Insight Center.
Awakening
“Out of anxiety comes growth in awareness. Your consciousness is processing and letting go of some current information and making space for new information.” The Insight Center
“I feel committed to making my life from scratch, I don't want to follow known recipes for living. Through this commitment I explore, try experiences on, and let others go. I'm feeling really content with life right now.” Mackenzie Stabler, my Sagittarian niece
“Pain can be transformed to wisdom.” The Insight Center
“Metta can be like composting. It may feel like you're not doing much when you're doing the practice, but then you look around and you've created this rich soil that enriches the things we may eat and enjoy later.” Ruth King
“Answers come when you let go.” Renée Mifsud
“Speak what you seek until you see what you say.” Renée Mifsud
“Humility
Humor
Honesty
Integrity
Maturity
Mindful words for hard times.” The Insight Center
“Shifting archetypes is hard work and worth it.” The Insight Center
“Self-love is simply doing what you need to feel whole again. It's checking in with yourself and asking what you require that day to be your best self - to be connected to the wellspring of love within, without denying your humanity or others'. This doesn't always mean doing what feels good or satisfying a craving, but doing what is necessary, even when it's uncomfortable. Sometimes, the healthiest choice isn't the most enjoyable, at least initially, like sitting with difficult emotions. But in creating that space, we come closer to expressing ourselves through the wholeness of
love.
Self-love is often mistaken for selfishness. But real self-love is being kind and considerate towards yourself without being intentionally unkind or inconsiderate to others. In fact, by loving yourself, you become more thoughtful and accepting of others and better able to care for them. Think of the airplane safety video that advises putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others. Self-love is like that - filling your own cup enables you to pour into the people around you.
Loving yourself isn't something you achieve as such; it's a lifelong journey of coming home to your heart. Self-love can be a daily struggle.
Whether it's past trauma, pain, stress, or societal pressures, truly loving ourselves is tough work. We witness so many distractions and so much destruction throughout our days, making connecting to our wellspring of love difficult.” Vex King
“I am here to know truth and live truth.” The Insight Center
“If you are a person who is individuating, learn to stay in your own information – it’s important. It takes practice to do this. I find that vipassana meditation helps to keep my mind clear and tapped into my information.” The Insight Center
“You will thrive after each awakening.” The Insight Center
“Allow yourself to shift to a new paradigm.” The Insight Center.
“Keep your view on your purpose and let the other chaos go.” The Insight Center
“As you grow and evolve you will to learn, accept and adapt to your new reality at each step of the way. I know it sounds strange, but your reality will adjust each time.” The Insight Center
Grief
“I think that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.” Ursula K. Le Guin
"As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything... and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life." GSnow
"We don't know when the diagnosis will come.
We don't know when the disease will worsen.
We don't know when love will arrive. We don't know when it will fade. We can only know that the unexpected will happen, that certainty is a falsity, and that things will be impermanent regardless of how tightly we clench our fists around them. We mourn the brief lives of solitary moments, hoping that running reels through our minds might resuscitate them. And no matter how often my own life has shown me this truth, I relearn it in new ways each time loss arrives." - Sunita Puri -
Relationships
“When people fall in love with someone's flowers, but not their roots, they don't know what to do when autumn comes. Your relationships need to be built on deep alignment on values, character, and morals (the roots) not just "love" appearance, hobbies & status (the flowers.)” Jay Shetty
Healing
The tree meditation
I am a tree - a tall strong tree.
I have strong roots growing deep into the earth.
Deep and strong.
I am tall and strong and feel the stability of my trunk.
I have a beautifully blooming branches at the top of my head.
My roots, trunk, and blooms are aligned, and I stand tall and strong.
I have two arms held out to my sides that are branches reaching out and making me balanced.
I feel strength, ease, and balance. The Insight Center
Astrology
“Pluto is merciless with the truth.” Farah Saddiq
“Capricorn fear of failure. Cancer softness to be” The Insight Center
“What will I be after these progressions and transits!? More awake? Journal
about this. Journal about the possibilities. More aware? More helpful? More lit up? More clear? Less uptight? Less worried? Less attached?” The Insight Center
“Uranus is like a mardi gras marching band. Loud. Crazy. Wild. Colorful. Unique. Dynamic. Fun. Where is Uranus transiting in your chart!? It is going direct Jan. 26, and will start to get loud.” The Insight Center
“From January 27-April 1, all planets are moving forward (no retrogrades!). It’s a golden period of progress and momentum. Take advantage of moving forward with more ease!” The Insight Center
The 15 years of Pluto in Capricorn have strengthened us!
“Rest in preparation for this period, and plan a hard-earned, well-deserved vacation at the end. We are stepping into a defining era, one marked by a need for passionate leadership and wisdom that is built on experience. The investments we've been making in ourselves since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 have strengthened us. This year, whatever changes are still forming will finally solidify and lay the foundation for the next era. Remember the high bar you set, and work toward mastering peace and pleasure in addition to profitability.” Taylor Shuler
“Pluto bids a final farewell to Capricorn late this year, ushering in a monumental shift as it rumbles through Aquarius for the next 20 years. Last year gave us a taste from March 23 to June 11 of what we might expect to see intensify this year as Pluto travels through 29°21' Capricorn to 2°06' Aquarius. This time, the stakes are higher, and the fever pitch is increasing as we are likely to continue to see outdated traditions, practices, institutions, and their leaders desperately clawing not just for supremacy, but for mere existence. Get ready to continue challenging traditions, amid the clashing of old and new worlds. Brace yourself for January 20, 2024; it promises to be a turning point that catapults us across the temporal divide of Pluto's jolting second ingress into Aquarius.” Taylor Shuler
“During Pluto's stay in Capricorn from January 1-20 and September I - November 19, rise to the challenges. What we've been asked to endure and sacrifice, and what may be asked of us again during Pluto's last days in Saturn's yin sign, is in service of strengthening our resolve so that we are in a powerful position to make strategic, if perhaps eccentric, investments that contribute to leaving the world better than we found it. These opportunities may very be risky, or they may arise out of unplanned but deeply necessary healing measures.” Taylor Shuler
“The evolution is not being televised. Revolution can manifest through powerful mediums like the internet. Heed the call to action - embrace the present and shape the future. In fixed air sign Aquarius, Pluto will redefine our understanding of collective resources and individual worth, driven by Uranus and Saturn (Aquarius's rulers).
These changes will be influenced by the activity of Aquarius's modern ruler, Uranus, and its traditional ruler, Saturn. To use the creative breakthroughs Uranus surprises us with, we must lean on the maturity, discipline, and refinement that Saturn's internal dialogue provides, and remember the importance of how we share vital information with others.” Taylor Shuler
“12th house question: “What are you allowing and what are your bringing in?” The Insight Center
“We plan and take action when Mercury is direct, and then we reflect when Mercury turns retrograde.” Lynn Hayes
“When Mercury is direct. You get your brain back!”
In the wee hours of 21 January (GMT) Pluto drops his Capricorn cloak and goes for something more of Aquarian airy style. There’s a big shift encroaching upon the collective consciousness as he pushes in the clutch for a better gear ratio. Slowly, over the next months, those things seemingly doused in impossibility begin to make more sense and options for resolution appear. Philip Sedgwick
Insights for December 2023
Awaken
“The ultimate challenge in life is ‘amor fati’ to love your fate.” Nietzsche
“Sharpening our attention to become aware of negative emotions as they arise. It is easier to extinguish a spark than a forest fire.” Matthieu Ricard
“The motivation that makes us progress on the spiritual path is the idea of transforming ourselves to be able to help others be free of suffering.” Matthieu Ricard
“To get it, you first let it go.” The Insight Center
“All revolutions are walked by kind people who are tired of seeing others hurt and are determined to make the world a better place. All resistance is made from love and kindness. I hope you do not let that kind voice in your heart go. I hope you remain soft to the pain of others, so you can aid them. I hope the world does not stop you from feeling deeply when immense injustices are done to those who are more vulnerable than you. I hope the world does not harden the very thing that makes you alive and human.” Nikita Gill
“Nietzsche frequently wrote that one measure of spiritual strength is how much truth you can bear. Being able to maintain a courageous inner dialogue between successes and failures, joys and suffering, strengths and weaknesses requires the capacity to face the truth and to gather all aspects of your life into an intelligible whole. “Love the truth”, Maezumi and Nietzsche seem to be saying, whatever that is, because the truth will set you free.” Dale S. Wright
“The truth is a journey of incremental knowing.” The Insight Center
“sometimes we go back to our old life for a little while to remember that it no longer fits” yung pueblo
“Know what you are not. And then know what you are. It’s much stronger and more embedded this way.” The Insight Center
“Breathe into your reality.” The Insight Center
“When you decide to embrace your evolution, you will undoubtedly start making different life decisions. Your actions will start becoming more aligned with how you aspire to show up in the world, your preferences will slowly shift, and what you want from your interactions with other people will resemble the authenticity that you are developing within yourself. Since you are working on creating connection within yourself, you will seek deeper connection with those around you.” yung peublo
“Interconnectedness is real, and to deny it is to not be in impermanent truth and reality.” The Insight Center
Meditation
“Secular mindfulness in a way is really helping many people. Three things may be missing, though. The first is intention. When you meditate, the meditation helps you. That's self-compassion, which is very important. At the same time, though, you could have the intention of meditating to help your friends, family, society, and all beings. The second aspect that may be missing is view. Normally, in secular mindfulness you're just taught how to relax, how to be with your breath, how to be present now. But in Buddhist practice, we always start with view, right from the beginning, including the understanding of buddhanature, how your self is made of so many interdependent and ever-changing pieces, and how you can go beyond subject and object. The third thing that may be missing in secular mindfulness is at the level of application. In the buddhadharma, there's an ongoing path. And that path of spiritual devel-opment-bringing dharma to life - is not like a spa, where you go to feel better. It's about a deeper level of ongoing transformation. Jack Kornfield
Astrology
2024 adds revolution to evolution.
Pluto is moving into Aquarius.
Here are the dates:
January 23, Pluto moves in Aquarius
May 2, Pluto goes retrograde in Aquarius
September 3, Pluto retrogrades back into Capricorn for the LAST TIME
October 12, Pluto goes direct (still in Capricorn)
November 20, Pluto goes into Aquarius FOR 20 YEARS
Eris placement in your chart:
“An important component of deep soul intention. … look inside for your own deep meaning, this inner value, it is exciting to find it, although it might take you half a lifetime to attain it. It’s position and aspects are an indicator for finding this sense of purpose, that which, once discovered, you simply cannot not do.” Astrograph
“There is a militancy expressed with Eris, but it is a feminine one. Eris action comes from deep need, as a mother might resort to violence or determined action to defend her child, or as a mother tiger might kill in order to feed her young. This is different from the warrior energy of the Mars planetary archetype. Mars fights because he wants to, Eris because she has to.” Astrograph
“Our Eris natal placement helps us understand our sense of purpose, one that once we discover, we cannot not pursue it. There is a yin warrior discordance to the energy. It comes from a deep internal need to protect what is precious to us.” Astrograph
Healing
“The people you lose during your healing process are only meant to be with the unhealed version of you.” Jay Shetty
“Do not operate in past lives
Bring your self into current time
Bring your body into current time
Bring your mind into current time
bring your spirit into current time
bring your soul into current time”
The Insight Center
Grief
“Because we are finite beings, pain, failure, and depression are inevitably woven into the very fabric of our lives. To accept that basic fact is to finally come to terms with what it means to be human. This fundamental self-acceptance is the basis of self-respect, and self-respect is the seed and substance of an awakened life.” Dale S. Wright
“HEARTBREAK is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control… Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot, in other words, it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day; heartbreak is not a visitation, but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity: in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is [an] essence and emblem of care… Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.” David Whythe
Relationships/Parenting
“An important part of growing is realizing that nothing is ever going to be perfect, even in our closest relationships. Relationships are bound to have manageable degrees of conflict that if held properly can become points of understanding that bring you closer together. Conflict resolution is an essential part of being in any relationship or community. Having an argument does not necessarily mean the situation is toxic. Over time, running from conflict will decrease your chances of developing healthy and nourishing connections. Granted, this does not excuse abusive behavior that is truly harmful, in these cases it is certainly needed to create space between you and that person.” yung pueblo
“The "I love you" we say at the beginning of a relationship is not the same “I love you" we say to each other after we've built a strong foundation of trust. This doesn't diminish our love in the beginning. It simply means that love and the meaning it carries, changes as we grow, and as we grow closer to each other.” Jillian Turecki
Insights for November 2023
Awakening
“A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to keep going. Grounds for despair, anger, and sadness are, of course, all around. But the healthy mind knows how to bracket negativity in the name of endurance. It clings to evidence of what is still good and kind.
It remembers to appreciate.” Alain de Botton
“The Path is your truth.” The Insight Center
“Feel your power. All of it, without limitation. Let it flow, work to become comfortable with it, regardless of how intense and overwhelming it may seem.” Philip Sedgwick
“Tell the truth about yourself to yourself.” Philip Sedgwick
“Inquire: is it sparking to your truth?” The Insight Center
“Intuition is neutral, it has no agenda. Anxiety is destabilizing and makes you feel out of control.” Jessica Lanyadoo
“There is an important difference between an attachment and an aspiration. An aspiration is a goal we are putting effort into, something we can work toward without making our present happiness completely dependent on its attainment. Attachments are created by cravings; they are a refusal to accept reality as it naturally appears – only wanting particular outcomes and feeling misery and serious mental tension when things come out in unwanted ways. Attachments cloud the mind and lower the creativity and energy we need to obtain our goals. Learning to work in a detached manner not only makes us more effective but it supports our inner peace and happiness.” Yung Pueblo
“It is not about having perfect and kind thoughts all of the time. It is about not feeding the heavy and mean thoughts. Literally letting them pass without allowing them to take root and control your actions.” Yung Pueblo
“If you don't like something, just take away its only power. Your attention.
The next step is calling your energy back. You reclaim your own magic when you stop tending to someone else's garden and start watering your own.” witches.of.insta
Vipassana Meditation
”Meditation is a lot like cultivating a new land. To make a field out of a forest, first you have to clear the trees and pull out the stumps. Then you till the soil and fertilize it, sow your seed, and harvest your crops. To cultivate your mind, first you have to clear out the various irritants that are in the way – pull them right out by the root so that they won’t grow back. Then you fertilize: you pump energy and discipline into the mental soil. Then you sow the seed and harvest your crops of faith (confidence from what you observe within yourself), morality, mindfulness and wisdom.” Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
“Wisdom is really the goal of practice. Mindfulness is the tool to arrive at wisdom. It's the clarity of mind that allows for wisdom to arise. The Buddha taught that there are three essential insights that constitute the whole of wisdom: the insight of impermanence; the insight of contingency or interconnection; and the insight of suffering and how it arises or disappears depending upon the ability of the mind to accommodate change.” Sylvia Boorstein
“The transformative power of Buddhist meditation occurs when the stability and vividness of Samatha is unified with the penetrating insight of Vipasanna.” B. Alan Wallace
“No matter how intense the storm is, it doesn’t change the nature of the sky.” Mingyur Rinpoche
“You really see your true nature, the fundamental quality of the mind, that is the union of emptiness and luminosity.” Mingyur Rinpoche
“Now you are unceasing like the sky, totally beyond storms and pollution, beyond any kind of cloud, because you know clouds do not, cannot, change the nature of the sky.” Mingyur Rinpoche
“As we see more with awareness, automatically we go beyond that sense of me, into shunyata, emptiness. When the sunlight of awareness appears, the darkness is automatically eliminated.” Mingyur Rinpoche
“Consider the term 'bardo.' It signifies an intermediary state, a pause that resides between moments. In this sphere of existence, one uncovers an abundant opportunity to truly comprehend oneself, to delve into the depths of reality, and to explore the intriguing crevices of these transient moments.
This moment, while daunting, holds an invaluable purity and significance.
The impending void can indeed induce fear, yet it's this very gap that transforms the perceived problem into a solution, cultivating joy in the process. The key lies in acceptance and the courage to navigate through this bardo, embracing it as a pivotal moment in one's journey. Armed with the right guidance, one can metamorphose these moments into adventures, opportunities for self-growth and transformation. Thus, the bardo, in its essence, becomes not a void to fear, but a threshold to cross with awakened consciousness.” Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
“Meditation allows me to connect to somethings bigger, repeatedly, so that I have the energy to keep acting.” Sharon Salzberg
Astrology
Uranus/Jupiter conjunction 2024
Uranus is about awakening, and Jupiter is about expansion. How will you awaken and expand? A LOT. Where will this conjunction be in your chart?
Here are the dates – mark your calendar:
Starts February 10, 2024
Exact April 20, 2024
Powerful until May 24, 2024
“North node/nodal work is really challenging and triggering. When you know the story of your nodes and keep it in your awakened consciousness - it will manifest into healing and transformation. As your life transforms you will see it happening and know it is true. Each step in this process is challenging and each incremental step moves you toward karmic resolution.” The Insight Center
I took a great webinar by Mark Jones about the transiting nodes.
A transiting nodal square is a time for action and may be initiated by problems. We are to discover a new way to arrive at developmental growth.
A transiting nodal return is about reexamining our original purpose - what is still of use and what must be discarded. It is a sorting.
A transiting nodal opposition exposes old issues that haven’t been adequately addressed. We stop, contemplate, and try to accept what has been done and how to move forward in a more integrated way.
“True fundamental evolutionary change typically happens at the pace of a glacier.” Steven Forrest
“The (progressed) Sun relentlessly and everlastingly chips away at our ignorance, our rationalizations, and our attachments.” Steven Forrest
“But in order to maintain vitality and engagement, we must be true to the ever-changing values indicated by the position of the progressed Sun. They don’t erase your natal Sun; nothing but death can do that.” Steven Forrest
“We can make course corrections if we sleep through an activation. The soul is resilient – but it is much easier to get it right the first time.” Steven Forrest
See the planetary retrogrades for 2023
Relationships and Parenting
Relationship and Parenting Insights
“Do you know, admire and honor your partner's truth?” The Insight Center
“Reminder for co-dependents:
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal
Healthy relationships are reciprocal” ~ The Insight Center
"You have to realize that your children are not containers you put things into. They are flowers that are emerging, and if you till the soil and keep it soft and fertilized, it’s amazing what comes up; because inherent in all of us is deep wisdom, which gets lost in the shuffle of socialization.So the question is, are you just an instrument of socialization as a parent, or are you somebody that respects the inner beauty of that person, that lets the child’s intuitive understanding of things lead, rather than leading out of ought or should or must or so on. A person learns a skill much faster when they want to learn a skill than when somebody else wants them to learn a skill. It’s pretty clear. So to that extent, you and your child are collaborative beings..." Ram Dass
Healing and Anxiety Insights
Margaret offers a free 11 minute Grounding exercise here. You can do this exercise daily or more often to help you be grounded. "Pain helps us inhabit our divine nature. Ask yourself, how does my pain serve my soul's journey to move from fear to love? Acknowledge pain and look at the higher perspective of how can this possibly serve my journey? And bring love to those painful experiences. You are learning that you are stronger than pain and pain empowers you." Tom Jacobs
"To be free of your past, you must recognize what happened and feel its hold on you.It is here, consciously or unconsciously, held in your body, feelings and mind. It is critical to honor the loss before you can take the next step of letting go. Then you can practice forgiveness and with it use meditation, therapy, trauma work, art and intimate support to help touch and heal the betrayal and trauma." Jack Kornfield, “No Time Like the Present.
“Breathe in and bring earth energy up through your root chakra and the bottom of your feet and into your whole body.
Breathe out and bring cosmic energy down through your crown chakra and into your whole body.
Keep repeating.” The Insight Center
"Learn to trust your body. Begin by mindfully and lovingly feeling what is going on in your body. Sense the state of your body today, its signals and needs. Listen carefully to what your body has to say to you. What healing does it want? What care? What wisdom does it have to offer you? Your body has been waiting for your attention. Trust it. Even if you have been out of touch for a long time, you can regain confidence step-by-step by trusting your bodily experience." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present
“No matter how hard you try, you can’t please your inner critic. There is an alternative to the critic. It’s found in the movement from judgment to discernment. Discernment makes space, helps is to have perspective, and allows more of our humanity to show up.” Frank Ostaseski, The Five Initiations, pgs. 135,143.
Grief Insights
“We know that everything changes, that everything passes, transitions from one state to another, from one stage to another — and yet, in our irrational longing for permanence, we try and try to hedge against change, denounce it as deterioration, dread it as a prelude to death.” Maria Popova
“Life includes a lot of little deaths - each one is a letting go. Life includes a lot of letting go - each one is a little death.” The Insight Center
“Sometimes letting go involves a lot of crying.” The Insight Center
“It is incredible how deep weeping releases pain.” The Insight Center
Insights for September 2023
Awaken:
"Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not." Deepak Chopra
“By relaxing, our habits soften, we become more available to our deeper knowing.” Anne C Klein
“I have a far better sense of direction when I am driving.” The Insight Center
“Powerful souls choose challenging lives so that they can level up faster.” Joe Moody
“I am happiest when my conscious awareness is operating outside of normal time and space.” The Insight Center
“The journey is a journey of love and wisdom.” The Insight Center
“Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.” The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“As with all things, do not grasp at the sublime nor run away from the mundane, and all shall be well-more well than any mind can know.” Adyashanti
“To let go of attachments, go through them.” The Insight Center
“There comes a moment in your life when you just know it's time to upgrade. It's time to change your beliefs, let go of relationships and situations, create new habits, and live your truth. And once you act with courage following that moment, your transformation begins.” Vexking
“How do you take the charge out of it when you are lit up?” The Insight Center
“You yourself are pure mystery. Have you noticed? When you imagine that the mystery is something out there that you are trying to relate to, it seems alien and frightening, but that's just an image. You are life itself becoming ever more aware of itself in all of its mysteriousness. Mystery is not just something that you experience; it is the very fabric of what you are. Of course, it has always been this way, but you are now becoming more and more aware of it.” Adyashanti
“Garden metaphor: pruning: sometimes it will look worse before it looks better.” The Insight Center
“I am not alone, I am one with everything.” The Insight Center
“if imposter syndrome crashes the party, remember that you can do it scared.” Michell C Clark
The stronger your “yes”, the easier your “no.” The Insight Center
It’s not about “wish” or “want.” It’s about authentic release and alignment.” The Insight Center
“Each time we give ourselves over to our contemplative practices, whatever they might be, we find ourselves, once again, one with the communal mystery in which there is no separate self.” James Finley
The path chooses you and you get to choose to be brave. The Insight Center
“Peace is everything,
Find peace.
Be peace.” The Insight Center
“…ego rushes and reacts, but peace moves intentionally and gently.” yung pueblo
Heal:
“goal: be so grounded in your own vibe that you stop adopting other peoples energy” yung pueblo
"after you start healing past traumas & come out of fight or flight mode, your body will need a lot of rest. you aren't lazy. your body is just trying to catch up on the calm it hasn't received in years." Journeystartshere
“Peace will sometimes look like being more mindful about who's in your space and investing your energy wisely, even if that means being alone for a while.” ALEX elle
How do you move on?
You let go a little
and return to you a little
and remember who you are
and what your journey is
To become more aware,
and then you let go a little
again,
and again …. The Insight Center
Astrology:
Lilith: reclaiming of our own inner potency and power.
“Evolutionary Astrology is a specific paradigm that reveals the evolutionary developments and evolutionary progression of any Soul. It asks the question: ‘Why am I here, and what are my lessons?’” Jeffrey Wolf Greene
“The very idea of a planet developing over time is the essence of evolutionary astrology. Going from a weak response to a planet to a higher response is the purpose of life.” Steven Forrest
“Pluto represents the fundamental issues and motivations of the deeper self.” The Insight Center
“Pluto has the capacity to take us to deep places, unveil our shadows and fears, and release us from these issues. We can face our fears, survive, and grow.” The Insight Center
“Uranus retrograde - be brave during your awakening/s.” The Insight Center
“The 12th house is your consciousness asking, ‘What is the meaning of life?’” The Insight Center
Dominant water seeks harmony,
flow and emotional connections.
Water is motivated to perceive
(and respond to) what has not
been verbalized. Frank Clifford
Look at the signs of your Venus and Mars placements:
Venus: “What do you want?”
Mars: “How are you going to get it?
Me: Venus: truth and freedom. Mars: being free and seeking. Both are in Aquarius. The Insight Center
From Steven Forrest’s Newsletter: “Your chart is karmic. Every symbol in your chart has two meanings. One of them is - what hung you up in the past and the other is - how to get free of it. How to get beyond it. Every planet that you have is problem - every planet you have is a solution for that problem.” Steven Forrest
To accomplish this transformation, we shift from the assumption that clients are their personalities to the notion that they are souls who are using their personalities as evolutionary vehicles.
instead of our astrological holy grail being a list of “personality traits,” we see those personality traits as tools that a soul is using in order to fulfill an evolutionary purpose.
What are we learning about? Why do we have this chart?
Our chart shows personality traits as tools a soul is using to fulfill an evolutionary purpose.
If we are attached to anything – it’s as aspect of our ego that is holding our soul back. And as we resolve it we free out souls (to warp drive.) The chart tells you how to do it and that’s why you have a chart.
Our bodies and personalities and egos can be tuned in a way that opens the right doors to the higher ground of run. … accurately diagnose the true nature of our blockages and attachments and apply well-suite remedies to them.
Spiritual questions astrologers can answer:
· What should I personally do in order to maximize my own evolutionary momentum?
· Where do I personally put my foot next?
· Is, for example, my speediest path forward to pursue intimacy – or to pursue independence and tolerance for solitude?
· What about devoting myself to inner work versus devoting myself to the service of other beings?
· Should I go to the party? Should I be generous with myself and eat, drink, and be merry – or do I benefit from not giving so much power to my physical appetites? Which path works best for me, given my particular karmic predicament?
There is not one right answer for everybody, we are all in a specific situation - a specific karmic predicament. What is skillful means for me might not work for you.
You are an ancient, luminous soul on a mysterious journey through a universe that is an incubator of higher consciousness.
Would a map be helpful?
Have a look at the Map of the sky the instant you took your first breath in this body.
That’s your ticket home.” Steven Forrest
Vipassanā Meditation:
When an open and curious mind is brought into the inner silence of being, an alchemy takes place which has the potential to transform consciousness in ways hardly imaginable. Adyashanti
“In sacred inquiry, we are not looking for more information to clutter our mind with; we are looking for experiential insight and wisdom. In short, we are looking for a transformation of consciousness that awakens us from the imagined confines of separation to the numinous ground and origin of our being.” Adyashanti
“Although we may get hints from teachers and from the Buddha, each one of us has to find out what path is best for us by following the guidelines of: What is grounding? What is unifying? What is harmonizing? We don’t want to try to imitate or copy others.” Narayan Helen Liebenson, “The Principles and Practices of Samatha Vipassana”
Relationships
“Are you lovable?” The Insight Center
“Mutual respect is required in the foundation for a healthy relationship.” The Insight Center
Parenting
“The good soother subtly indicates that a search for soothing is 'normal', respectable and dignified.”
“Some people might worry that offering too much soothing to a child risks turning them into malingering attention-seekers. We might reply that attention-seekers are never people who have had too much attention; they are people the world tragically forgot existed. No one who has been properly and consistently soothed will spend their adult life in desperate bids to be noticed; the most logical outcome for a child who has been well soothed will be to devote energy to soothing other people.” The School of life, The Good Enough Parent
Insights for August 2023
Awaken:
"As we walk the path, let us not look up so much at the destination, high above in the mist, but carefully place one foot in front of the other." Andrew Olendzki
“Sometimes you are just being asked to be little bit brave.” The Insight Center
"Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not." Deepak Chopra ™
Seven Lessons for a Lifetime of Well-Being:
· The belief that things can get better (We all have our own learning curve.)
· How acceptance supports agency (Be with what is.)
· Being thoughtful about what we consume, and where we place our attention (Look at all types of consumption.)
· Bodily awareness and taking care of the body (1.eat real food, 2. Sleep quality, 3. Move throughout the day, 4. Do something physical each day.)
· Developing and appreciating strong social connections (We are all in this together.)
· Identifying our wants and needs (What you need and what you nerf rom others and manage this well.)
· Identifying key values, setting goals, and letting those goals shape our lives (to live a life of purpose.”
From Forrest Hanson and Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Being Well Podcast
“The journey is a journey of love and wisdom.” The Insight Center
“The water becomes stagnant when it stops flowing and loses all its freshness.
The caterpillar will never be able to become a butterfly if it lives its entire life inside the cocoon.
Life is a process of constant change, let evolution unfold through your being by keep moving forward in alignment.
It’s not about the speed, it’s about the direction.
Just hold a vision of your highest self and keep up with that frequency every single day and trust the Universe. Embrace change, you are not supposed to stay at the same place forever.
Change is life, life is change.” Pawan Nair, the_higher_self
“You get to choose.” The Insight Center
“Don't be afraid to distance yourself from everyone & everything & recoup. Sort out your thoughts. Listen to your heart. Breathe. Read a book. Write about how much your life has sucked - then write about how much you can't wait to see the positive changes. Relearn yourself. Accept all the hurt you've been through. Forgive anyone & everyone who's hurt you. Even if that means doing it within, & never physically or verbally reaching out.
Let go & rejuvenate. Take a step away from the chaos, & find peace within.” Reyna Biddy, the.sattva.life
“When you start outgrowing your past it's really rare that people from your past understand you. As you start evolving your highest self requires you to move into the unknown but the old relationships or friendships would want you to stay the same. If someone really loves you they will embrace your growth and support you in your journey, they won't ask you to stay in your past because of their attachment. You can't live life for the role you play in other people's life, you have to be the centre of your Universe. Never feel guilty for making your growth and highest self a priority.” Pawan Nair, the_higher_self
“But to attend to the inner silence of your being is what being itself calls you to do. In many ways, silence is the greatest teacher and most wise teaching.” Adyashanti
“TRUTH: TRUST
TRUST: TRUTH” The Insight Center
“Whatever is showing up for you with some movement, move with it.” The Insight Center
“Leave the mind to do what it is best at, namely calculating and describing things, and look to the wisdom born of silence for inner guidance relating to things of the spirit.” Adyashanti
“Spiritual work takes time: nonlinear time.” The Insight Center
Astrology:
“The retrograde periods remind us to reflect, recede, renew, revisit, and renew. Be aware. Be attuned. See what is rising and allow your awareness and consciousness to shift.” The Insight Center
“Be a believer not a doubter. And - it’s harder to be a believer during a Pluto retrograde in Capricorn!” The Insight Center
“A core practical principle of astrology is that slower-moving planets tell a deeper story than the fast ones. Pluto, for example, has a lot more time to develop depth and complexity of meaning in your life than does a firefly transit of Mercury.” Steven Forrest
“The Black Moon Lilith archetype is often seen in terms of a cast-out feminine sexuality and power, but we can also frame this archetype more as a general principle of shadow-work and reclaiming of our own inner potency and power. In other words, Lilith is symbolic of the parts of self that we shut away because of early conditioning in our family and/or culture, and the process of reclaiming those aspects of Self as we come into greater acceptance and love of all aspects of our own true nature.” timepassagesapp
Vipassanā Meditation:
“The Buddha takes dukkha as the starting place for the spiral to freedom. This is the condition that we find ourselves in. We take that existential condition-the way that we find ourselves ordinarily in the world-and ask: what do we have to do to create freedom in our lives?" John Peacock
Grief:
“Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love,” Rainier maria Rilke
Rilke writes:
The great secret of death, and perhaps its deepest connection with us, is this: that, in taking from us a being we have loved and venerated, death does not wound us without, at the same time, lifting us toward a more perfect understanding of this being and of ourselves.
“Sometimes the face of love is sweet and sometimes it is fierce, but the full capacity to love without measure is contained within each of us. Love is the blood, bones, and marrow of our humanity-it is always found in the still, quiet places within us where the silent intuition of our connectedness breaks through into the living present, reminding us once again that each moment of life contains all living and all dying, and everything that ever has been or will come to be.” Adyashanti
“Allowing your grief and sadness to be felt can be very heal-ing. Simply allowing these emotions to flow through the body-mind without attaching to painful thinking is the way your body purifies itself of sorrow. You are an expanse of conscious compassion and love that liberates any and all suffering.” Adyashanti
“When you look at the surface of the ocean, you can see waves coming up and going down.
You can describe these waves in terms of high or low, big or small, more vigorous or less vigorous, more beautiful or less beautiful.
You can describe a wave in terms of beginning and end, birth and death.
That can be compared to the historical dimension. In the historical dimension, we are concerned with birth and death, more powerful, less powerful, more beautiful, less beautiful, beginning and end and so on.
Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water.
A wave may like to seek its own true nature.
The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes.
A wave may say, 'I am not as big as the other waves, ‘I am oppressed’ ‘I am not as beautiful as the other waves,' 'I have been born and I have to die.'
The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas.
But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water.
Then her fear and complexes will disappear.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, in "No Death, No Fear".
“Sooner or later we will all experience the tragic quality of life. Perhaps this quality of life is brought to us through illness, or the death of a loved one, or losing a job, or an unexpected accident, or having your heart broken. We will all experience this tragic quality of life in both small and overwhelmingly large ways over the span of our lives. Whether we want to face it or not, life, with all of its beauty, joy, and majesty, also has a tragic element to it. This is exactly what the Buddha saw, and it inspired his entire spiritual search.
It seems that most people look for various ways to escape from this tragic quality of life, ultimately to no avail- there is no escaping it. It must be faced sooner or later. The question is, when we are faced with this aspect of life, how do we respond? Surely, to avoid it only leads to denial, fantasy, life-numbing withdrawal, cynicism, and fear. It takes great courage to face the totality of life without withdrawing from it or trying to protect ourselves from it. Paradoxically, to face the totality of life we must face the realities of death, sorrow, and loss as well. We must face them as unavoidable aspects of life. The question is, Can we face them directly without getting lost in the stories that our mind weaves about them? That is, Can we directly encounter this tragic quality of life on its own terms? Because if we can, we will find a tremendous affirmation of life, an affirmation that is forged in the fierce embrace of tragedy.
At the very heart and core of our being, there exists an over-/ whelming yes to existence. This yes is discovered by those who have the courage to open their hearts to the totality of life. This yes is not a return to the innocence of youth, for there is no going back, only forward. This yes is found only by embracing the reality of sorrow and going beyond it. It is the courage to love in spite of all the reasons not to love. By embracing the tragic quality of life, we come upon a depth of love that can love "in spite of" this tragic quality, Even though your heart may be broken a thousand times, this unlimited love reaches across the multitude of sorrows of life and always triumphs- it triumphs by directly facing tragedy, by relenting to its fierce grace, and embracing it in spite of the reflex to protect ourselves.
In the end, we will either retreat into self-protection or acknowledge the reality of sorrow and we love anyway. Such love not only transcends life and death, it also is made manifest in life and death.
You give yourself to life out of love, and it is to love more fiercely that you walk through the fires of sorrow that forge the heart into boundless affection.” Adyashanti
Healing:
“Don't just move on from the people that hurt you, move on from the version of you that gave people power over you.” Pierre Jeanty
“You will act with wisdom after healing your wounds.” The Insight Center
“I am healing who I am so I can be who I am.” The Insight Center
Anxiety:
Anxiety says:
It feels like everything is falling apart
Trust says:
Maybe a
Better plan
Is falling
Into place
Anxiety says:
I'm afraid of the unknown
Trust says:
Facing
Uncertainty
Expands my
Comfort zone
Anxiety says:
I feel like a failure
Trust says:
I'm still
Growing and learning
Anxiety says:
I need to
Micromanage
The process
Trust says:
The universe
Is my
Collaborator
Anxiety says:
It feels like everything is falling apart
Trust says:
Maybe a
Better plan
Is falling
Into place
James McCrae, wordsarevibrations
Relationships:
“The type of love that has gentle honesty at its center.” yung pueblo
“How willing are you to receive love?” The Insight Center
“Selfless love is unconditional. It does not turn away from im-perfections, whether they are our own or someone else's. And in this not turning away, we and the world become healed, undivided.
This is the power and potential of love. If we only loved perfection, we would never love at all.” Adyashanti
“Forgiveness is not amnesia. “Sylvia Boorstein
“Find a partner who is emotionally aware enough to have a calm and honest conversation when you two are experiencing conflict. Seeking to understand each other instead of winning the argument makes it easier to find a common ground that you both feel good about. The two of you accept the truth that love is not easy and that being imperfect is natural. Even during storms, you don't forget your love for each other and how much you value your connection. yung pueblo
“Saying less is incredibly helpful.
every thought is not valuable.
every feeling does not need to be voiced.
what is often best is slowing down to spend time developing a clearer and more informed perspective.
ego rushes and reacts, but peace moves intentionally and gently.” yung pueblo
Parenting
“A loving parent gets down to the child's level - at times literally, dropping to their height when addressing them - in order to see the world through their eyes.” The School of Life
Insights for May, 2023
Awakening
“Only when we are done running from the way life is, can we meet that which transcends it.” ~ Vish Sharma
“Don’t get stuck in the planning stage. If your intuition knows it is time to do something new, to start unleashing the creative force that dwells within you, then you need to focus on beginning instead of just thinking about how you will begin.
It is always easier to say “soon” than “now is the time.” The fear of failure and the unknown can play clever tricks on your mind that keep you within the small space of your comfort zone. Waiting for a fully concrete plan is often counterproductive, because too many things are always changing, a good plan is one that is adaptable and flexible. A plan that has some grey areas is more realistic because you won’t understand the conditions of the moment until you get there.
The way to get to your goal is by taking steps forward and embracing trial and error. Going on an adventure that takes you to a more fulfilling life is not about perfection, it is about having the humility to learn and using your new understandings to make proper course corrections.
The thing we find most fulfilling often coincides with the best way we can serve the world. We all have something that can help others – our task is to find our talent, imbue it with creativity and generate a way to deliver it to people.
One of the most uncomfortable things you can do is ignore your intuition. Your intuition will say you are ready far earlier than your mind will. The mind will focus on the risk of doing something different while your intuition will calmly tell you that it is absolutely worth a shot.
Remember, waiting will not get you to where you want to go, action will. Waiting for the right pieces to come together or waiting for an ideal external situation is an excuse that gives away your power. Doing what you can with what you have is an attractive energy that will bring more resources and opportunities to you as you begin your journey.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“Become nothing to welcome everything.” ~ Farah Siddiq
“To know if your dream is possible, you have to try living it.” ~ Yung pueblo
“When we translate prajna as wisdom, it can lead us down a fairly faulty path, because it’s not your ordinary smarts. Prajna is composed of two elements: pra meaning ‘before’ and jna meaning ‘knowing.’ So prajna can be understood as before - knowing. So, there’s this time element of not jumping to a conclusion but rather allowing ourselves the space of before knowing, waiting and listening to our whole body as we take in information. This is call prajnaparamita – directly experiencing reality through the lens of wisdom teachings.” ~ Roshi Enkyo
“Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts — be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being. Fully understand your enormous value in the scheme of things because the planet needs people like you, smart young creatives full of awe, who can minister to the world with positive, mischievous energy, young people who seek spiritual enrichment and who see hatred and disconnection as the corrosive forces they are. These are manifest indicators of a human being with immense potential.” ~ Nick Cave
“Today I made a very brave decision and said, “No.” to something a big part of me really wanted - - but I didn’t have a strong “YES” and my philosophy is that that’s a “no….” ~ The Insight Center
“I operate on intuition.” ~ The Insight Center
“The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare. When this barrier is dropped, or at least you start to tell yourself, ‘I really don’t know if my belief that awakening is difficult is true or not,’ then everything becomes instantly available to you. Since this is all that exists, it can’t be rare and difficult unless we insist it is. The basis of all of this is not theoretical, it is experimental. No one taught it to me, and no one can teach it to you.” ~ Adyashanti
“The truth is – genuine connection is ease. It is peace. When you find it, you will know. You will feel seen, you will feel like you are being mirrored back to yourself, like you are discovering the shadow of your own heart in another human being.
Slowly, through loving the right people, you will come to realize that the human beings who are meant for you in this world will not exhaust you, or hollow you out, or leave you feeling like you are hard to love. Slowly, you will come to realize that you do not have to romanticize the things in this life that hurt. You do not have to run towards the fire. Love does not have to feel like a fight, does not have to feel like battle, does not have to wound.
Slowly, you will learn how to lay down your arms. How to walk away from those who will only ever love you in halves. Slowly, you will learn that you cannot love someone into loving you, or being ready, if they are not. You cannot love someone into their potential. You cannot close their hands around your heart if they are not willing to hold it themselves. You have to let them go. You have to focus on the people in your life who bring you back home to yourself. You have to focus on standing up for that kind of connection, on honoring that calm, because it exists. It exists.”
And I hope you learn to trust that, because when you come across it, when you ultimately experience it, it feels as if you are standing at a door, you finally have the keys for. You enter it with ease. There is no fumbling through your jacket pocket trying to find the right way in. There is no desperately reaching into your bag trying to uncover the point of access. You are no longer banging your fists against the door, asking to be invited in. You walk through. Soundlessly. Softly. Relief washes over you. You take off your shoes. You hang your coat in the closet. You put on a pot of coffee. You’re home. You’re home.” ~ Bianca Sparacino-Author, @rainbowsalt (From @wildwomenofficial)
“Slowing down is how you ground yourself. It is how you reconnect with your peace and intuition. Slowing down helps you understand yourself and other people. Slowing down opens the door to deeper learning. Slowing down is how you reaffirm the way you want to show up in the world. Slowing down is necessary if you want to live intentionally. Slowing down is the only way you can make sure that you are moving in the right direction.
Of course, taking the time to understand every little thing is not possible and we can’t always grind to a halt, but bringing awareness to the fact that everything is moving quickly can help us intentionally slow down when we feel overdone or during important moments. The key skill to develop is being intentional about our attention and giving ourselves time to develop a more well-rounded perspective. Being able to slow down when we want to or need to, is a reflection of our maturity.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“What makes inquiry sacred is that it is primarily a way of plunging consciousness into itself, into the hidden dimensions of the psyche which remain in darkness until we make an intentional effort to follow our questions beyond the periphery between the known and the infinite unknown. In sacred inquiry we are looking to evoke experiential insight and wisdom, not merely to collect more information or form yet more beliefs with which to delude ourselves.” ~ Adyashanti
“The state of our consciousness determines our entire experience of being, as well as what we are capable of knowing and perceiving. Sacred inquiry aims at the transformation of consciousness, for consciousness is perhaps the biggest mystery of all.” ~ Adyashanti
“Contrary to our most basic human assumption, we are not human beings who possess consciousness--we are consciousness having a very human experience, with all the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies that this entails.” ~ Adyashanti
“We are each an aperture through which the world knows and experiences itself. Each person embodies the infinite nature of life and consciousness within the finite form of their particular human life.” ~ Adyashanti
Venus entered the sign of Cancer on May 8. How does Venus in Cancer feel for you?
Look at your chart and see where the sign of Cancer is. See my Intro to Astrology at link in bio for help. What planets are in Cancer and which house is holding the cancer energy!? This is where Venus is now, and it is in this house in you chart. And it is joining the other planets that are in cancer. What are they? How will they mingle!? What do you feel!? Venus is desire and Cancer is nurture. Desiring nurturing? Feeling nurtured!? ~ The Insight Center
Meditation
“Sometimes it’s great to sit on a meditation cushion in a special place to meditate. And sometimes you sit in the middle of your chaos and meditate.” ~ The Insight Center
“The goal of practice is not to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, but rather to experience both with full awareness, neither favoring one nor opposing the other.” ~ Andrew Olendzki
“Is it real or is it Mara (temptation?)” ~ The Insight Center
Relationships
“The foundations of a healthy relationship:
Be your own best self
Do you
Support and respect the other person.” ~ The Insight Center
Healing
“Healing doesn’t mean you’ll never be triggered again, or that you’ll eventually arrive somewhere free of all (past) pain or suffering.
Healing is a peaceful homecoming. It’s about returning to yourself and gently getting used to the unpolished truth of life and who you are. It is the complete acceptance of all that is and the surrender to what broke you.
From there you redefine yourself and you’ll reach a new state of wholeness.” ~ @wildwomansisterhood
Astrology
Planetary transits are always an opportunity for growth.” ~ The Insight Center
Transits for May 2023
May 1st- Pluto went Retrograde in Aquarius
May 5th- Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio
May 7th- Venus enters Cancer
May 14th- Mercury retrograde goes direct in Taurus
May 16th- Jupiter enters Taurus
May 19th- New Moon in Taurus
May 20th- Mars enters Leo
May 21st- Sun enters Gemini
PLUTO RETROGRADE.
“Pluto turned retrograde May 1st, an annual occurrence which tends to bring us back into contact with episodes of transformation which may not be quite complete. As Pluto turned retrograde it is stationary for weeks and will continue to be stationary at zero Aquarius as it slowly retrogrades until June 11 when it retrogrades back into Capricorn. This "station" of Pluto means that its influence is stronger and more focused, especially if one of our sensitive planets is affected by Pluto's influence right now.
Here is the all-inclusive list of Pluto’s movement from Aquarius to Capricorn, and back into Aquarius until November 20, 2024:
May 2, 2023, Pluto 0˚ Aquarius - goes retrograde
June 12, 2023, Pluto 29˚ Capricorn - back into Capricorn
October 11, 2023, Pluto 27˚ Capricorn - goes DIRECT
January 22, 2024, Pluto 0˚ Aquarius - back into Aquarius
February 23, 2024, Pluto 1˚ Aquarius
April 12, 2024, Pluto 2˚ Aquarius
May 2, 2024, Pluto 2˚ Aquarius - goes retrograde
September 3, 2024, Pluto 29˚ Capricorn - back into Capricorn for the last time
October 12, 2024, Pluto 29˚ goes DIRECT
November 20, 2024, Pluto 0˚ Aquarius - Pluto into Aquarius for 20 years
Grief
“Let your heart be broken. Allow, expect, look forward to. The life that you have so carefully protected and cared for. Broken, cracked, rent in two. Heartbreakingly, your heart breaks, and in the two halves, rocking on the table, is revealed rich earth. Moist, dark soil, ready for new life to begin.” ~ Tina Davidson
“The miracle is light. The miracle is that we rise again out of suffering. The miracle is the persistence of the soul to find itself, to look hard into the darkness, reach back, and grasp remnants of ourselves. The miracle is that we create ourselves anew.” ~ Tina Davidson
“When grief opens in you - it can also open old unrealized grief from the past. The flooding of emotions can be intense, so remember to look deeper and see if you are releasing old pain along with new pain.” ~ The Insight Center
Insights for April 2023
Awakening Insights
Enlightenment is seeing the light. Enlightenment is simple. It is seeing the light of truth. Trust truth to see the light.
Remember: you want to be a little overwhelmed … you’re learning. You want to be learning. Growing. Stretching. Waylon S. Lewis
"Your body ages, your awareness/your soul, does not.
We are part of an enormous life force; and its ageless and timeless.
Our capacity to awaken is endless."
Who you are was born into your body; it is not your body." Jack Kornfield
"The stories we tell of our past are written on water." Jack Kornfield, "No Time Like the Present", pg. 102
More awareness
More acceptance
More forgiveness
How do you feel? Do you feel things intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, or somatically (in your body?)
How much alone time do you need?
Know truth. Believe truth. Trust truth.
What if you release to existence?
Do you have a mentor? If you don’t you can use bits and pieces of mentors. You can look at one person for passion. One for creative vision. One for grit. One for compassion, One for determination, One for wisdom. Piece it together and pull from what you need when you need it - it is called modeling - and modeling teaches you he pathway to being.
Are you listening to your inner voice?
You haven’t found it until you find it.
You can stay true to your values, and you can’t control others’ values.
It's ok to put yourself first, 1. take care of yourself and 2. be thoughtful to others (not the other way around.)
We continue to breathe ourselves into existence.
"Your imagination is a doorway to your soul." Mark Jones
Tired of Being Courageous, a poem:
Perhaps, it's okay to be tired
of being courageous at times.
For sometimes,
you don't want to think about
doing something afraid
because you're tired of being afraid,
and you just want to know
what it feels like
to be okay.
Yes, there will be days
where courage finds you
in the deep waters of life
and propels you forward
with mighty waves.
And then, there will be other days
where all you want to
do is find a quiet place
along the shore
and let the waves of courage
remain at a distance,
allowing yourself to just be…
and longing for this
does not make you weak.
Yes, there will be times
where courage will be exactly
what you need…
and then, there will also be times
where you just need room
to be still
and breathe.
Morgan Harper Nichols
Meditation Insights
"It is because we're afflicted by the thorn of craving and attachment that we act unskillfully." Andrew Olendzki
The things that comes with Vipassanā meditation are more awareness, more seeing, deeper knowing, more letting go through seeing things with equanimity, peace, truth, transparency, release of resistance, and freedom.
Freedom is existence without attachment.
"Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging onto that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go." Thich Nhat Hanh
"…true nature of awareness is a source of lasting strength and resilience. Awareness is beyond conditions like pain and pleasure, suffering and ease. It is that which allows any and all experiences to arise, and yet is unchanged by them." Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
"Whatever arises concepts, feelings, your body, subject and object, everything-is like clouds in the sky," he said. "They come and they go. Your true nature, awareness imbued with love, compassion, and wisdom, is like the sky itself.? Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
"The basic teachings of the Buddha awaken us to who we are. They begin with learning to recognize the Truth of our experience by opening to life, just as it is. Then we discover how to awaken our inherent capacity to meet this ever changing life with Love. This unfolding of presence and love reveals the Freedom of our true nature." Tara Brach
"Since that long-ago evening when I faced the never-ending narrative of falling short, I have discovered that enoughness has absolutely zero to do with accom-plishing, nothing to do with achieving, and is not at all about trying to be good enough. Rather, the realization of enough is right here in the fullness of presence, in the tenderness of an open heart, in the silence that is listening to this life. These are the moments when the glow of gold shines through." Tara Brach
"The boundless mind is free of ideas, opinions, conceptions. It is fresh, open, and unmediated." Roshi Joan Halifax
"Every time a habitual pattern gets strong, every time we feel caught up or on automatic pilot, we could see it as an opportunity to burn up negative karma. Rather than a problem, we could see it as our karma ripening." Pema Chödrön
"Not only do we have a precious human life, but that precious human life is made up of precious human days, and those precious human days are made up of precious human moments." Pema Chödrön
"In any moment, you can put your full attention on the immediacy of your experience. You can look at your hand resting on your leg or feel your bottom sitting on the chair. You can just be here. Instead of not being here." Pema Chödrön.
"When you are completely wound up about something and you pause, your natural intelligence clicks in and you have a sense of the right thing to do. This is part of the magic: our natural intelligence is always there to inform us, as long as we allow a gap. Just do it over and over. Allow a gap, gap, gap. Allow yourself the space to realize where you are." Pema Chödrön
"Awakening is not a destination, and meditation is not a bus ride. Awakening is the unfolding of an ability to see what has always been there. To see, more and more reliably, what is actually in front of you." Joan Sutherland, Roshi.
"Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness.
As we let go, our innate freedom and wisdom manifest. Nothing to have, nothing to be.
Every for. Of genuine awareness is liberating. Each moment we release entanglement and identification is selfless and free." Jack Kornfield
"Aversion is just the other side of the coin. We have an aversion to what we don't want because we're trying to hold on to the way we want things to be. And ignorance, in order to sustain itself, requires a kind of contraction around our current view of what reality is, or what it should be, or maybe what it can't be. It's a closing of the fist around a particular story.
So the question at the start of the Buddhist path, and at every step after, is simply this: of the things you are grasping, which are you afraid to put down?
Whatever you say, your answer reveals who you think you are.
What you're holding on to is not a problem in itself. This is about what you think you need, what you're afraid to let go of. Nothing you are holding on to right now is something you can't put down. Nothing. Your hopes, fears, beliefs-you think they make you you, but until you liberate them, you'll never be liberated from them." Koun Franz
Grief Insights
"All meeting ends in parting, said the Buddha. This is an inescapable-and heartbreaking-fact of life. Whether it is someone we love, a good situation, how we define ourselves, or life itself, there is nothing we can hold onto forever. Everything eventually changes, ends, falls apart, breaks, dies. How we react when things fall apart is the single greatest challenge in life-and its greatest opportunity. In it is the choice between suffering and awakening. So when things are falling apart, when we feel groundless and uncertain, we only create more suffering when we try to put them back together - to make them solid again." Melvin McLeod
Relationship Insights
Mutual respect is one of the foundations of a healthy relationship.
Pure love is truth. Pure love has truth. Pure love knows truth.
What does each of us want as we age? Where are the intersections and where at the canyons? Where do we merge and where do we separate? How do we see our future, envision our lives, and plan to do what we want and need to do and also be partnered?
Astrology Insights
You get to know yourself better and better and better through astrology. And when you know yourself better, it is easier to be you.
REMINDER:
Pluto is currently in CAPRICORN and is moving into ➡️AQUARIUS. It retrogrades ⬅️and ➡️until 11.20.24:
Mar. 24, 2023, Pluto ➡️AQUARIUS
June 12. 2023, Pluto ⬅️CAPRICORN
Jan. 22, 2024, Pluto ➡️AQUARIUS
Sept. 3, 2024, Pluto ⬅️CAPRICORN
Nov. 20, 2024, Pluto ➡️AQUARIUS - Pluto in Aquarius for 24 years.
As I said above, Pluto has left Capricorn and moved into Aquarius. It will not leave Capricorn without every effort to demand your attention to letting go of Capricornian ways.
Nothing will ever be the same. There is no going back. #plutointoaquarius
The future is now.
The Saturn return (at age 28 - 30) is not over until it is over. This is the same with all transits - when a planet transits around your chart to align with one of your birth planes and brings upheaval, new awareness, and transitional changes, the energy of the transit is not over until it is over - until you can have merged with the energy and manifested the changes.
It won’t reign down on us but arise in us [Pluto in Aquarius.] Steven Forrest
I am not enslaved. Saturn has gone through my 6th house and eliminated all of that.
Aries mantra: I greet the sun, me - shining, and my destiny.
Healing Insights:
Healing: find someone who is similar to you in many ways who is going through the same challenges - and process it all out together. Bare your souls to each other. Listen. Take notes. Reply. Share insights. And you’ll move through it. Make new plans. Support each other. It works wonders.
"GATHERING AND GROUNDING BREATH: This is way to get out of your head and into your body. Sitting or standing, find an upright pos-ture. Close your eyes and tune into the feeling of your natural breath coming in and out. Slowly begin to lengthen your inhalation and extend your exhalation, just a little bit at a time. When you breathe in, imagine all the scattered parts of your mind collecting together in one spot at the edge of your nostrils. As you exhale, let that soft ball of energy drop down into your body, giving you a feeling of earthiness and stability. You can also do this during a challenging conversation or meeting or even while you are walking down the street." Cyndi Lee
Insights for March 2023
Awakening Insights
"Rather than making a few heroic or virtuous gestures or taking on some righteous cause, the idea is to have a quality of awareness, gentleness, and benefit to others color everything you do." Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: All activities should be done with one intention”
Sometimes patience shows up. The middle path is a huge fan of patience. The Insight Center
Do the outer work first. The daily work. Then do the inner work. The inner work is a reflection of the outer work. The Insight Center
When you evolve and your vibrations are at a higher level, you will be in a space where you need more rest. The Insight Center
Be open to what’s next. The Insight Center
Awaken. Know. Choose. Let go. Heal . Awaken. Know. Let go. Heal. The Insight Center
When anxiety arises use inquiry. What am I feeling? Name it. Allow it. See it. Know it. Over and over. This way you deeply connect with your truth and see yourself deeply and clearly so you can let it go. See it. Release it. The Insight Center
One advantage of a solo retreat is being alone. One challenge of a solo retreat is being alone. The Insight Center
Make no excuses. Make peace. The Insight Center
I am choosing fate. I know that sounds strange. How can we “choose “ fate!?! Look at it through the back door - which to is release clinging and attachment. The Insight Center
Ego loves tension and wisdom loves peace. The Insight Center
Do what you love. And keep doing what you love. The Insight Center
Denial of aging alienates you from reality. The Insight Center
Meditation Insights
When you get bored or it feels arduous to meditate the last 10 or 14 minutes, remember that you are building your meditation muscle. The Insight Center
Having a good day? Meditate.
Having a bad day? Meditate.
Feeling anxious? Meditate.
Feeling happy? Meditate.
See? It’s the equalizer. The awareness equalizer. The Insight Center
It is a bonus when grounding naturally shows up during meditation. Ground, and return to your breath. The Insight Center
If sending love and / or healing can show up during meditation. Send it if it’s aligned with you, and return to your breath. The Insight Center
With Vipassanā Meditation you receive wisdom without attachment and you can trust what arises as wisdom. The Insight Center
You are in France doing a solo retreat. You are in an apt. in a small village. They are jack hammering up the small street next to you. What do you do? Meditate. Meditate as usual. Meditate during the jack hammering. Do you know why!? Sometimes there are obstacles to our meditation and in our lives. One option is avoidance (I could go for a walk or a drive,) but my mind, body, and spirit will still be waiting for the meditation. So sit as usual and meditate through the obstacle. It builds meditation muscle. The Insight Center
“Sitting quietly (often called meditation) can be the most sublimely peaceful experience. It offers the most refined way to really rest into non-doing - an opportunity to truly relax not only your muscles, but also your nervous system, your breathing, your thought world. Meditation can be a moment of bathing deeply in true silence, stillness, and peace.” Martin Aylward
Meditation reminds me of the ordinary. An everyday practice of meditation is ordinary. It is not special. It is not about achieving. It is about being. Being ordinary. The Insight Center
Vipassanā Meditation practice includes choice-less awareness. Whatever shows up, shows up. And we don’t attach or judge. Choice-less awareness then starts to show up in your life - showing you how to not attach and not label. The Insight Center
"… the whole Buddhist path is nothing but a way to get from who and where we think we are to who and where we really are." Melvin McLeod
A deep breath during meditation is a release. The Insight Center
Grief Insights
The purpose of death is the release of love. The Insight Center
Relationship Insights
Don’t get overly invested in what you think is in the mind and thoughts of another. Rick Hansen. This is his new book on relationships, "Making Great Relationships: Simple Practices for Solving Conflicts, Building Connection, and Fostering Love"
Don’t worry about how to say it right. Say it straight with kindness. The Insight Center
Astrology Insights
Astrology for March 2023 is BIG
I primarily watch the big outer planets for their shifts because they are the planets of transformation. These movements create shifts for everyone and profound changes for us. In March 2023 these changes are are profound and create openings for alignment with our truth and break down prior structures to create space for revolutionary awakening and transformation.
SATURN - MARCH 7 - SATURN ENTERS PISCES. What is your dream and how will you make it your reality? Where is Saturn bringing this energy into your chart? Contact me for a reading.
PLUTO- MARCH 24 PLUTO ENTERS AQUARIUS for 3 months. This is big news.
Pluto is currently in CAPRICORN and is moving into ➡️AQUARIUS Mar. 24 and it retrogrades ⬅️and ➡️until 11.20.24:
Mar. 24, 2023 Pluto ➡️ AQUARIUS
June 12. 2023 Pluto ⬅️ CAPRICORN
Jan. 22, 2024 Pluto ➡️ AQUARIUS
Sept. 3, 2024 Pluto ⬅️ CAPRICORN
Nov. 20, 2024 Pluto ➡️ AQUARIUS
Pluto in AQUARIUS FOR 20 YEARS
The Pluto in Aquarius time will be about dynamic progressive changes. Aquarius is about awakening. It will be a time of acceleration. Discovery. Invention. Futuristic. Technology. Connectivity. AI. Unexpected forward trajectories. Freedom. Brotherhood/sisterhood. Revolution for the people. Hang on and be on board or get left behind. To understand more about how this impacts you, it is important to know where the Pluto transit is happening in your chart. Contact me for a reading.
Astrology shows you the patterns. Then you learn the patterns. Then you recognize the patterns. Then you break the patterns. Then you create new patterns. This is the alchemy of the cosmic game. Farah Siddiq
Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces: The sensitive, intuitive water element, often mistaken for weakness, is actually a powerful agent for change in surprising and paradoxical ways.
“Water us yielding, but all-conquering. Water extinguishes Fire, or finding itself likely to be defeated, escapes as steam and reforms. Water washes away soft Earth, or when confronted by rocks, seeks a way around. It saturates the atmosphere so that Wind dies. Water gives way to obstacles with deceptive humility, for no power can prevent it following its destined course to the sea. Water conquers by yielding; it never attacks but always wins the last battle.” Lao Tau
Full moon quandary: How much am I living my life is response to others?
"Saturn - decide what you are going to take seriously". Mark Jones
What are your most important dreams and what is the strategy you can take? [This is] Saturn in pisces. Mark Jones
During a difficult planetary transit, follow the lead of the transiting planet. The Insight Center
Insights for February 2023
AWAKENING Insights
“Illumination
Freedom
Soaring heart
Transform
Where do you start?
You start where you are. “~ The Insight Center
“Since your mind is with you wherever you go, you need to sit down and start unwinding your ball of yarn.” ~ Jakusho Kwong-roshi, @tricyclemag
“You are built to handle the pressure that comes with your calling.” ~ The Insight Center
“Whatever you dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” These lines are often attributed to the great German playwright and thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. ~ Mark Jones Astrologer.
“Every time I set myself free, I am freer. This is obvious, and we forget. Freedom grows incrementally.” ~ The Insight Center
“Self-love helps us build internal cohesion so that we are no longer far away from ourselves. The more we come in contact with our truth and learn to embrace it with full acceptance, the more we are able to find greater personal harmony Building this self-awareness opens up a gateway where we not only learn to love ourselves better, but we start to have a deeper sense of love for the people in our lives. At its highest levels, self-love continues expanding, ultimately becomes an opening to loving all beings unconditionally.” ~ Yung Pueblo. “Lighter” page 26
“Letting go can literally be an unwinding process. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is HARD. You can unwind attachments and release them from your body and energy system. I can help you do this!” ~ The Insight Center
“You won’t see it for what it is until you stop looking through the lens of what you want it to be.” ~ @tinybuddhaofficial
“Letting go is not a dramatic moment we build up to some time in the future. It is happening now, in the present moment—it is not singular but ongoing. Letting go is based on our present realization of the reality of impermanence.” ~ Judy Lief, “Letting Go”
“If it is done, it is destiny that it be done.” The Insight Center
“You are not in a body,
On the planet,
To live someone else’s life.” ~ The Insight Center
“Don’t wait is a pathway to fulfillment and an antidote to regret.” ~ Frank Ostaseski
“Your new level will require a new version of you. Don’t fold.” ~ @farahmsiddiq
“Before you do something think about how much attachment is involved. If you are doing something that has a lot of attachment you are potentially setting yourself up for suffering. Live freely without attachment and you will be free.” The Insight Center
“Reminder: “Everything that exists is subject to change.”
“If everything is always changing, that me as we are experiencing change all the time.”
“Change is everywhere, so we are never choosing between change or no change. We are just choosing between different sorts of change.” Dan Zigmond
“Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“There is within you that which is beyond birth and death, beyond success and failure. It just knows that you are, and it is.” ~ Yoshin David Radin
Be intuitive meaningful wisdom.” The Insight Center
MEDITATION insights
“With each session of silence, the fog lifts a bit more, until one day the egos “I” with it is insistent look-at-me voice, drops away, revealing the true self afloat in a vast blue sky.” ~ Joan Duncan Oliver, “The Sound of Silence”
“You can experience multidimensionality in meditation and everything becames one.” ~ The Insight Center
“Part of it is observing oneself more impersonally… When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, “You’re too this, or I’m too this.” That judging mind comes in. And so, I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.” ~ Ram Dass
“If you have mindfulness enabling you to read yourself and understand yourself, craving will have a hard time forming. In whatever guises it arises, you can read it, know it, extinguish it, let it go.” ~ Upasika Kee Nanayon, “A Glob of Tar”
GRIEF insights
“These books on grief were recently recommended and look great:
“How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed: A Journal for Grief “, Author Devine Megan
“It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand”
Author Devine Megan and Mark Nepo
RELATIONSHIP insights
This is a new book by Rick Hansen about relationships. Check it out along with his other books. He is a great practitioner and writer. Simple chapters to read and work on with your partner!
ASTROLOGY insights
“Astrology is a symbolic language of truth; that’s why I want to share it.”
“The story of Uranus is, “Where do you feel no barriers?” ~ The Insight Center
”Inside you, there is an eternal flame or diamond of truth that becomes more condensed or brighter, lifetime after lifetime.” ~ @markjonesastrology
“Jupiter doesn’t lock things down. It opens things up.” ~ The Insight Center
“Aquarian energy does not resist change while at the same time leads the resistance.” ~ The Insight Center
“When you are looking at the nodes think of the word “ease.” Where do you feel ease (S. Node) and where do you feel less ease (N. Node.)” ~ The Insight Center
“I am a collector of key words for all parts of astrology. Today I gathered these new words from a conversation about Aquarian energy between Dr. Safron Rossi and Alejo Lopez, in The Astrology University podcast:
Pluto was in Aquarius during the French Revolution
Eye on potential
Radical
Break out of known to unknown
Chaos and potential
Non hierarchy
Break free
Higher vision
Inventor
Ruthlessly original soul” ~ The Astrology University Podcast
“When you are a strongly cardinal (initiating) person you can be afraid you might forget your latest greatest idea(s!). Cardinal signs are Aries Libra Capricorn Cancer” Write them down!” ~The Insight Center
HEALING Insights
“What do you feel in your heart?
What do you need in your heart?
How can you give it to yourself?” ~ The Insight Center
“Rest is more than napping on the sofa.
Rest is anything that makes your nervous system feel safe enough for your stress response to switch off so your mind, and body can recover and restore.” ~ Nicola Jane Hobbs, @realizeemepath
Insights for November 2022
The Insight Center Newsletter for November 2022
The insights/quotes offered here are collected as I read materials that are interesting or moving to me, along with my own insights, and are also shared online at Insight Center Journal, and on Insight Center Instagram. Please feel free to share this with others.
COMPREHENSIVE ASTROLOGY COURSE
Comprehensive Astrology Course for 2023 will begin in January 2023! This is a course I developed with original materials and is taught in person in Portland and online. Course is limited to six persons.
The class size is small, and all topics are personalized with your own charts! In this one-year, twelve class Course (1 class per month), you will learn each concept in depth. All recordings of classes, written materials, and homework are included.
Please contact me for course outline, fees, or questions at theinsighthcenter@gmail.com
AWAKENING Insights
“Inner peace comes not from turning off the mind, but from deliberately confronting one’s innermost prejudices, expectations, habits, and inclinations.” ~ Mark Epstein
“What is taking a toll on your soul?” ~ The Insight Center
“True fundamental evolutionary change typically happens at the pace of a glacier.” ~
Forrest, Steven 2019: Fire. Borrego Springs: Seven Paws Press, Inc., pg. 218.
“Pick the path that lights you up
The one you know deep down is the right choice
Stop listening to doubt
Start connecting with courage
Do not let the idea of normal get in the way
It may not be the easy path
But you know great things take effort
Lean into your determination
Lean into your mission
Lean into the real you.” ~ @yung_pueblo
“Sometimes you don’t realize it because you have gradually become it.” ~ The Insight Center
“I don’t understand setting boundaries, from a Buddhist standpoint - everything is impermanent so what is the point of working to hold up boundaries!? Learning to say “yes” and “no” and “maybe” with ease and awareness seems like a better plan.” ~ The Insight Center
“There is no way out of this mess except to become enlightened and enjoy it.” ~ Robert Thurman
“Sometimes I feel no where in no time.” ~ The Insight Center
“The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it.” ~ Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Breathing”
“What does it mean to check in with your energy?” “I don’t feel comfortable in this situation.” “I would love to do that.” “I am going to stay home.” “She is having a bad day and her energy feels toxic.” “If I ground myself, I will feel more stable.” ~ The Insight Center
“If you are having a hard time letting go you are overly attached to something/some aspect of the situation. Know what that is and shine the light of awareness on it and lessen its grip on you.” ~ The Insight Center
“The more attached we are the harder it is to let go.” ~ The Insight Center
“Imperfect, limited, and vulnerable as I am, the sun still shines upon me, things do work out, food appears, rain falls, wonderful conversations take place, and the grass grows without any help from me.” ~ Dharmavidya David Brazier @tricyclemag
“This is your moment.
Your moment to find your voice,
to breathe through fear,
to become your best self –
which is just, simply, yourself.” ~ @walkthetalkshow
“You need to do your spiritual work.” What does this mean!? It means you will be seeking your truth through increasing your awareness. Get your astrology charts read by an evolutionary astrologer. Continue to be aware of what you learn. Start to read spiritual materials that you are drawn to. Meditate well (Vipassanā increases wisdom.) Wisdom is understanding your truth and attachments and seeing how to let go of attachments. Continue with inquiry and make the choices incrementally along the way that are in the direction of truth.” ~ The Insight Center
“What’s meant for you will sometimes feel scary, risky, and new. Easy and calm doesn’t always mean you’re going the right way. The biggest rewards usually come from having the guts and perseverance to create your own path.” ~ Yung Pueblo
MEDITATION insights
5 Meditation Tips for Beginners:
“Allow Your Meditation Goals to Drop Away
Stay Flexible Within your Structure
Find a Comfortable Posture
Allow Thoughts to Come and Go
Sit with All Experiences” ~ Tricycle Magazine – Fall 2022
“Stillness allows realignment + focus.
The quiet is your sanctuary of recalibration.
It is Productive.
It is where you return to yourself over and over.” ~ @farahmsiddiq
“The clear light mind does not come from an original primordial god or Buddha; it comes from ordinary beings diligently working with their own minds.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Meditation is a tool that helps us explore hidden aspects of our individual experience.” ~ Mark Epstein
“Sitting with modest discomfort teaches the mind to be less frightened. Experiencing the disappearance of discomfort soothes the mind, makes it confident, and allows for the insight of impermanence: Everything passes.” ~ Sylvia Boorstein, “The Wisdom of Discomfort”
“Meditation becomes both a refuge and a training: a refuge into being, and a training into doing.” ~ Martine Batchelor @tricyclemag
MEDITATION COURSE
I am teaching Vipassanā Meditation and Spiritual Practice Courses in Portland and on Zoom. Please contact me if you are interested, theinsightcenter@gmail.com or read more at Insight Center Meditation Course.
ASTROLOGY insights
“We can make course corrections if we sleep through an activation. The soul is resilient – but it is much easier to get it right the first time.” ~ Steven Forrest
“The progressed Sun/Moon phase symbolizes the unfolding of our birth potential over time.” ~ The Insight Center
“But in order to maintain vitality and engagement, we must be true to the ever-changing values indicated by the position of the progressed Sun. They don’t erase your natal Sun; nothing but death can do that.” ~ Forrest, Steven 2019: Fire. Borrego Springs: Seven Paws Press, Inc., pg. 221.
“Karma operates as a universal law from a nonlinear dimension of ultimate truth.” Mark Jones
“Astrology shows what is going on around us in the field. How that influences each individual depends on the level of consciousness of that individual. The same Mars transit will impact a person who tends to run negative energy (anger, frustration, worry, etc.) in a very different way than to a person who tends towards higher vibration energy (acceptance, willingness, love, etc.) Mars transits irritate the lower vibration type of person yet are experienced as motivational for those of a higher vibration. The message being…to get the best of these transits, work on raising your own vibration.” ~ David Pond
“Archetypally we see the moment the Sun rises on your birth (the Ascendant) as the dawn of self-consciousness, of you self-awareness. And the moment that it sets on your birthday (the Descendant) is a point of ultimate relatedness, or openness as the self-light reaches the horizon, to the light of others.” ~ Mark Jones
“Uranus is “the big theme,” and Mars is the “quick trigger.” That’s how it works.” ~ The Insight Center
HEALING Insights
“If time actually healed people, no one in the world would be hurting. Time is simply space, what matters is how you use it. If you fill your time intentionally with self-love, letting go and building the new habits your being needed, that would make a real difference.” ~ Yung Pueblo
Eight Tips for Anxiety from Sharon Salzberg
1. “Be kind to yourself
2. Reach out to someone
3. Remember you are not alone
4. Help someone else out
5. Don’t believe all your thoughts
6. Make a gratitude list
7. Remember that everyone struggles
8. Practice lovingkindness meditation”
“Since so much of healing is dependent on the sharpness of our self-awareness, we do not always realize how we are training our mind to become like a microscope that magnifies the roots of all our mental patterns and movements. This focus on expanding what we are conscious of by turning our attention inward results in an influx of new information that helps us understand ourselves at a much deeper level. “ ~ Yung Pueblo
“I will never have this version of me again. Let me slow down and be with her.” ~@soulhealingwithamila
©The Insight Center. All rights reserved. 2022.
Insights for July, 2022
AWAKENING Insights
“You have a responsibility to keep your vision sacred. “~ Daniel Giamario
“Authenticity is a product of slowing down and allowing yourself to align with the way that you intentionally want to show up in this moment.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“When you don’t follow your nature there is a hole in the universe where you were supposed to be.”
~ Dane Rudhyar
“trust yourself in the moment. again, and again and again. “~ The Insight Center
“At some point awakening begins.
The awakening happens with trauma, or it happens when somebody you love dies. In sexuality you transcend separateness. It can be drugs. It can be meditation. It can be a hymn. It can be a leaf falling. It can be lying under the stars. It can be trying to solve a problem where you mind gets so one-pointed it goes through the veil. Whatever it is, you open up into other planes of consciousness that have been there in all of the splendor all the time.” ~ Ram Dass ~ @babaramdall
“Wisdom is owning your truth - your real moment-to-moment transcendent truth.” ~ The Insight Center
“When you release false narratives, the truth flows in.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Acceptance creates stability, and it offers the spaciousness that you need to see more options of behavior than simply going along with old ways of being. Acceptance is needed before transformative action can occur.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“I don’t need to feel special on the normal field of existence.” ~ The Insight Center
“Nothing in life is perfectly pleasant all of the time.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“I am not interested in lowering myself to the lowest common denominator.” ~ The Insight Center
“Uproot to reroute.” ~ The Insight Center
“At each new level of awareness, enlightenment, recalibration you will be lighter and clearer. Old information and stories will fade away. You will receive new information about yourself. Each step of the way is a renewal.” ~ The Insight Center
HEALING Insights
“Before active healing and growth, it is common to move through life in a disconnected and dissociated manner without even being aware that this is happening.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“When you give up control, you allow space for freedom and truth.” ~ The Insight Center
“Sometimes I don’t want to talk about it if the energy around it doesn’t feel soft.” ~ The Insight Center
“Acceptance will calm your soul.” ~@poetstic
“…be mindful to not accidentally grow in unwanted directions. You have to ask yourself, “what am I feeding my senses? This is especially important to remember when you are in the midst of transformation, you are not helping yourself by being in environments that feed old patterns you are working on breaking.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“I release myself from versions of me that I created to survive.” ~ @tinybuddhaofficial
“The deep soul threatens the ego.” ~ Mark Jones
GRIEF Insights
I am reading a really good book on grief, "Grieving Mindfully" by Sameet M. Kumar, Ph.D. I highly recommend it.
“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted… Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, grief has a lot in common with love.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
“The paradoxical effect of losing a loved one is that their sudden absence can become a feverish comment on that which remains. That which remains rises in time from the dark with a burning physicality — a luminous super-presence — as we acquaint ourselves with this new and different world. In loss things — both animate and inanimate — take on an added intensity and meaning.” ~ Nick Cave
“This feeling…of alertness to the inner-spirit of things — this humming — comes from a hard-earned understanding of the impermanence of things and, indeed, our own impermanence. This lesson ultimately animates and illuminates our lives. We become witnesses to the thrilling emergency of the present — a series of exquisite and burning moments, each extinguished as the next arises. These magical moments are the bright jewels of loss to which we cling.” ~ Nick Cave
“I am a really sensitive soul, and I am feeling pain.” ~ The Insight Center
ASTROLOGY Insights
“The goal of astrology is the alchemy of personality. It is to transform chaos into cosmos, collective human nature into individual and creative personality.” ~ Dane Rudhyar
“Saturn loves it when any individual becomes the best they/she/he can be.” ~ Philip Sedgwick
“Here’s the deal with Saturn in transit. Saturn in transit wants you to do your work. As a reminder, it will not return to this part of your chart for 30 years. “~ The Insight Center
“Pluto work will take you deep - to the depth of soul for release and rebirth.” ~ The Insight Center
“Air signs need to talk it out to process.
Earth signs need to DO, to process.
Water signs need to FEEL, to process.
Fire signs need to ACT, to process. “~ The Insight Center
“Chiron brings us deep weeping, and release.” ~ Barbara Hand Clow
“The freer I am, the happier I am. Aries/Aquarius” ~ The Insight Center
RELATIONSHIP Insights
“Within the brain, every person we love leaves a tangible, structural imprint, encoded in synapses that can never be vanquished or replaced by new and different love.” ~ Mary-Frances O’Connor
“When you allow love into your being it will turn your attention to letting go, because the hurt that you feel is the pain that you keep dragging from the past into your present.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“Love is water and hurt is stone. If you let water flow powerfully, it will remove all residue and blockages.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“In a good relationship we are like two fingers of the same hand. The little finger doesn’t suffer from an inferiority complex and say,” I’m so small. I wish I were as big as the thumb.” The thumb doesn’t have a superiority complex, saying, “I’m more important. I’m the big brother of all the fingers; you have to obey me.” Instead, there’s a perfect collaboration between them.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Harmony arises when you strike a balance between giving, receiving, and letting go. Finding a middle path where both of you feel empowered, listened to, and nourished requires a high degree of honest and calm communication.” ~ Yung Pueblo
Insights for April 2022
AWAKENING Insights
“Our breath is a reminder that we are connected no matter how lonely we feel.” Dr. Kamilah Majied
“When facing big life decisions, don’t try to figure out the answer by thinking about it. In thinking over a question again and again, we do not generally arrive at real wisdom, but we easily tire ourselves out and get even more confused or anxious. Thich Nhat Hahn
“These deeper life questions can’t be resolved at the level of the mind but must be entrusted to a different, deeper part of our consciousness. Thay [Thich Nhat Hahn] suggests we consider this big question as a seed, plant it in the soil of our mind and let it rest there. Our mindfulness practice in our daily lives is the sunshine and water that the seed needs to sprout so that one day it will rise up on its own, in its own time. And then we’ll know the answer to our question without a doubt.
But we must leave the seed down in the soil of our mind and not keep digging it up to see if it’s growing roots. I won’t grow that way! It is the same with a deep and troubling question. We ask our deepest consciousness to take to take care of it and then let go of our thinking and worrying about it. Then in our daily lives we practice calming, resting, and coming home to ourselves in the present moment, and that will help the seed of our question to ripen naturally and authentically. This process cannot be rushed or forced. It may take weeks, months, or years. But we can trust that the seed is “down there,” being tended by our deeper consciousness, and one day it will pour into a clear answer.” ~ Kaira Jewel Lingo.
“A big part of the journey is being aware of the journey.” ~ The Insight Center
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." ~ Viktor Frankl
“You will experience freedom when you yourself are free.” ~ The Insight Cente
“Reality’s ability to continually baffle us with what we don’t yet know, and our willingness to continually plumb the unknown for new truth and beauty, even as it baffles and terrifies us, is the loveliest thing about being alive. Being alive together, as members of this boundlessly inquisitive and imaginative species, is the loveliest thing about being human.” ~ Maria Popova, The Marginalian.
“Flowing will get you places forcing never could.” ~ spirit daughter @spiritdaughter
“Let go to let in.” ~ The Insight Center
“There is an attractive vibe that people who are willing to grow emit. Even if you are just starting on your journey, being comfortable with the fact that you are imperfect and are ready to move beyond old limits gives off a special energy that calls in emotionally mature people.” ~ Yung Pueblo
‘To study the way is the study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all living beings. To be enlightened by all living beings is to drop the barrier between oneself and other.” ~ Eihei Dogen
“Being willing to grow makes a difference…” ~ Yung Pueblo
“If you don’t get along with someone, is it ego or vibration?” ~ The Insight Center
MEDITATION insights
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering.” ~ Ajahn Chan
“Each moment can be a meditation. Whatever comes up, look at it with mindful equilibrium, and let it pass.” ~ The Insight Center
“Be in harmony with each breath, each moment, and know that in giving yourself this time to develop awareness and a steadiness of attention you are nourishing spirit, head, and heart. Let it be an adventure, and in the silence and the stillness that comes with practice you’ll discover wonders here for you, now.” ~ Elana Rosenbaum @tricyclemag
“The technique of the witness is to merely sit with the fear and be aware of it before it becomes so consuming that there’s no space left. The image I usually use is that of a picture frame and a painting of a gray cloud against a blue sky. But the picture frame is a little too small. So, you bend the canvas around to frame it. But in doing so you lost all the blue sky. So, you end up with just a framed gray cloud. It fills the entire frame.
So, when you say, “I’m afraid” or ‘I’m depressed; if you enlarged the frame so that just a little blue space shows, you would say ‘ah, a cloud.’ That is what the witness is. The witness is that tiny little blue over in the corner that leads you to say, ‘ah, fear.’” ~ Ram Dass
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami @elephantjournal
“Please don’t forget to do the practices that stabilize your mind, heart, and nervous system. It might be a privilege, but it’s not selfish to do so. You’ll be much more help to the world if you feel settled in your own being.” ~ @ethannichtern
“By opening the hand, we let go of whatever was in its grip, and refrain from grasping something new. With time, meditation practice makes it easier to choose what to focus on, let go of, linger with, indulge in, turn away from, enhance, or reiterate.” ~ Jill Satterfield @tricyclemag
GRIEF insights
“Most people, I think, are at least a little afraid of ceasing to grieve. I know that I was. However terrible our sorrow may be, we understand that it is made in the image of love, that it shares the characteristics of the person we mourn. Maybe there was a day in your life when you were brought to your knees by a faded blue ball cap or a tote bag full of knitting supplies or the sound of a Brahms piano concerto… Part of what makes grief so seductive, then, is that it seems to offer us what life no longer can: an ongoing, emotionally potent connection to the dead. And so, it is easy to feel that once that bleak gift is gone, the person we love will somehow be more gone, too.
Thus, our strange relationship with the pain of grief. In the early days, we wish only for it to end; later on, we fear that it will. And when it finally does begin to ease, it also does not, because, at first, feeling better can feel like loss, too. Contemplating how our deepest losses might be so painful “not because they defy reality but because they reveal it,” she adds:
“One of the many ways that loss instructs us is by correcting our sense of scale, showing us the world as it really is: so enormous, complex, and mysterious that there is nothing too large to be lost — and, conversely, no place too small for something to get lost there… Like awe and grief, to which it is closely related, loss has the power to instantly resize us against our surroundings; we are never smaller and the world never larger than when something important goes missing.
It is this harsh corrective to our sense of being central, competent, and powerful that makes even trivial losses so difficult to accept. To lose something is a profoundly humbling act. It forces us to confront the limits of our mind… It forces us to confront the limits of our will: the fact that we are powerless to protect the things we love from time and change and chance. Above all, it forces us to confront the limits of existence: the fact that, sooner or later, it is in the nature of almost everything to vanish or perish.” ~ Kathryn Schulz
“Everything that has passed between this moment and the last moment you were present is as insubstantial as a mirage. Everything between now and now slips away like last night’s dream, leaving you nothing but a mind full of fading fragments and maybe the solace of forgetting.
I am already with you. I am here, and I see you. Everything is fine.” ~ Lama Karma, “A Letter from My Future Self, Encouraging Me to Practice”
HEALING insights
“How I Stopped My Panic Attacks” Mingyur Rinpoche
https://www.lionsroar.com/how-i-stopped-my-panic-attacks/amp/ “~ The Insight Center
“I believe in the power of awareness to heal.” ~ Mark Epstein
“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.” ~ James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
“Dear co-dependents. You can’t hold everything together. Nobody can. “~ The Insight Center
“Be a diligent soldier for the benefit of your soul. Nobody else will do this for you.” ~ The Insight Center
“May your struggles and sorrows be eased.
May you Hold yourself in Great Compassion.
May you be Safe and Protected.
May your Heart be at Peace.
May your Life be at Peace.” ~ Spirit Rock
“Forgive yourself. Healing and growing require self-forgiveness. You are human. You will make mistakes, you will backtrack, and, at times, you will fail. Refusing to give yourself grace when you drop the ball or get it wrong is not helpful. Holding yourself hostage to your past can keep you stuck there. Give yourself permission to love yourself through the hard stuff.” ~ Alex Elle
“Once you have genuinely, fully, and tenderly touched your own brokenness, place a seed in the crack. Make a wish in that fissure and share with yourself the aimless kindness of your own presence.” ~Lama Karma, “A Letter from My Future Self, Encouraging Me to Practice”
BULLETS by Brayden
“Sit down, world and relax so you don’t have tornadoes.
Trees, color your leaves.
Relax, people. Go to sleep.
Relax, wolves. Lay down by the trees.
Relax, bullets from guns. Stop shooting people.
Fire, eat wood.”
ASTROLOGY insights
“It is the skill and extent of the consciousness of the astrologer which determines the
limits of its use.” ~ Alan Oken. Rest in peace Alan Oken and thank you for your incredible contributions to astrology.
"The astrological symbols are quantum fields of possibility and probability. With consciousness, you can influence how these energies manifest - but there is one choice that is forbidden to you: you cannot choose to have the energy disappear and become irrelevant." ~ Stephen Forrest
“My assumption is that life is inherently meaningful. That we have been born for a purpose. That there is nothing random about anything.” ~ Stephen Forrest
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
Aries: "I am"
Taurus: "I have"
Gemini: "I think"
Cancer: "To nourish"
Leo: "I will"
Virgo: "I analyze"
Libra: "I balance"
Scorpio: "I create"
Sagittarius: "I perceive"
Capricorn: "I use"
Aquarius: “I know"
Pisces: “I believe” ~ The Insight Center
“Why did we choose to incarnate at this time? For a crash course in authentic operational mysticism.” ~ Hunter Reynolds Astrological Counseling http://astrodharma.org/2022/02/the-dharma-of-failed-regimes/
RELATIONSHIP Insights
“Love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.” ~ Lama Karma, “A Letter from My Future Self, Encouraging Me to Practice”
Insights for May 2022
AWAKENING Insights
“Peace is
to arrive
at the place of
it is what it is.” ~ The Insight Center
“Real is rare.” ~ @poetstic
“Every storm runs out of rain.” ~ Maya Angelou
“Your intuition will ask you to be brave even if you don’t feel ready.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“The aim is to know and align with the seeds of your truth.” ~ The Insight Center
“Are you discerning with your magic? Or do you share it openly and freely even with toxic people and toxic situations?” ~ The Insight Center
“Whatever is happening to us now mirrors our past karma.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“Solitude can be an incubator of higher consciousness.” ~ Steven Forest
“Stress and anxiety are the children of attachment.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“If you don’t get along with someone, is it ego or vibration?” ~ The Insight Center
“Your immediate reaction does not tell you who you are, it is how you decide to respond after the reaction that gives you real insight into how much you have grown. Your first reaction is your past, your intentional response is your present.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“Change does not cause stress, failing to embrace it does.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with you-
Maybe it’s just really difficult to exist within a system that was not designed to support a spirit like yours.” ~ @selfcarewithwall
MEDITATION insights
“Meditation gives us the courage to change, to transform. It helps open us to our creative potential and we can be liberated from our fixed habits.” ~ Martine Batchelor
“Each person has his own natural pace. Let things take their course. Then your mind will become still, like a clear forest pond. “ ~ Ajahn Chah
“A really bad day is a great day to strengthen your meditation practice .” ~ The Insight Center
“The Buddha advised us not to run away from suffering. Instead, we have to confront suffering and look into the heart of suffering. Understanding the nature is the second Noble Truth.
Without understanding of suffering, the fourth Noble Truth, the path leading to the cessation of suffering, would not be possible. “~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Anxiety is teaching you/reminding you to operate at a higher vibration. Bring in your awareness, let go of old information, and activate/reactivate your higher energy.” ~ The Insight Center
GRIEF insights
“Keep in mind that grief doesn’t just dissolve. Instead, it arises in waves and gradually, with growing compassion, there comes more space around it. The heart opens and in its own time, little by little, gaps of new life—breaks in the rain clouds—appear. This is a natural cycle you can trust—how the heart renews itself.” ~ Jack Kornfield
“If time actually healed people, no one in the world would be hurting. Time is simply space, what matters is how you use it. If you fill you time intentionally with self-love, letting go and building the new habits your being needed, that would make a real difference.” ~ Yung Pueblo
“Heaviness comes from hanging on tightly to emotions that were always meant to be ephemeral. We want things to last forever or we turn difficult moments into long lasting pain simple because we have not learned to let go. We have to learn that the beauty of living comes from the movement of change. Letting go does not mean that we forget, and it does not mean that we give up, it just means that we are not letting our present happiness be determined by things that happened in the past or by things we wish happen in the future.
Letting go takes training and dedication. Find a practice that brings you noticeable results and use it consistently. When things get tough remember that we are not building something small, we are building a palace of peace within our own hearts, and it takes determination to complete something of such beauty and magnitude.” ~ Yung Pueblo
ASTROLOGY insights
Astrology Highlights for May and into early June 2022:
May 10 - Mercury goes Rx and Jupiter moves into Aries
May 16 - Scorpio Full Moon Total Lunar Eclipse
May 20 - Sun moves into Gemini
May 22 - Mercury goes Rx into Taurus
May 24 - Mars moves into Aries
May 28 - Venus moves into Taurus
May 30 - Gemini New Moon
June 3 - Mercury goes direct
June 4 - Saturn goes Rx
“Remember: Whatever happens on one side of the chart also activates the opposite side of the chart.” ~ The Insight Center
“Uranus is all truth. Uranus wants you to know your truth and live by your truth. (That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.)” ~ The Insight Center
“The Planet ERIS is fascinating, I recently did a deep dive into understanding it better and am adding Eris to all chart readings. Here are some highlights:
· Feminine warrior for soul’s purpose.
· Goddess of war.
· Nonconformist.
· Unapologetic.
· Discordant.
Where is Eris in your chart?” ~ The Insight Center
RELATIONSHIP Insights
“Sometimes the people you want as part of your story are only meant to be a chapter.” ~ @buddhistbootcamp
Insights for March, 2022
AWAKENING Insights
“Flowing will get you places forcing never could.” ~ spirit daughter
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.” ~ Pema Chodron, @wisidomventures
“See transform be
at every step of the way
see transform be” ~ The Insight Center
“You have to do your own work; those who have reached the goal will only show you the way.”
~ Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn
“When you set yourself free
You literally make space
For magic” ~ The Insight Center
“In the end, the measure of our strength is in how we face the fact that we are simply human — mortal, vulnerable creatures of uncommon creativity and courage, body-minds born to die and to make meaning of our fragile existence not by clinging to the self but by practicing our various parts of unselfing: love, creative work, transcendent communion with the rest of nature.” ~ Maria Popova
https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/jane-goodall-alison-bechdel-water?e=82cf85030d
“I don’t know, and I’m good.” ~ The Insight Center
“Seek insight only from higher sources. Forget about peer reviews. According to the black holes, at best, peer persuasion is lateral insight. Learn from masters, the experts, the best of the best (regardless of material or not material costs). Realize what you know and act like you know it. Speak with authority without diminishing tones toward those who do not yet possess similar realizations.
Put everything you know into action.” ~ Philip Sedgwick
“Remember where your seat is. Front row? Second row? Third row? Not anywhere in this room?” ~ The Insight Center
“Slowly you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sort of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement. What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“I am not going to spend the rest of my life asking for permission.” ~ The Insight Center
“We must hope that the love of destruction, the desire for power is not stronger than our love for each other, and our respect for the freedom of humanity.” ~ Lynn Bell, Astrologer, Paris
“We actually have incredible power over our thoughts—more power than any one thought has over us. To tap into this power, we need to find the creative potential for wisdom and of compassion within ourselves.” ~ Martine Batchelor
“There are other methods you can use to avoid falling into loops of thoughts. Notice when you use the words “always,” “nothing,” “never,” “nobody”—these are all words that amplify and hyperbolize disturbing thoughts. When you think, “Nobody loves me” or “Nothing works in my life,” actively question these thoughts. Is this true? Is it always true? What is this thought? Could I think something totally different?” ~ Martine Batchelor
“How much of who I was yesterday is defining who I am today? How much can I allow who I am today to be totally open and turning and responding to the situation, which includes everything I was yesterday, but also all that I will be tomorrow.” ~ Ram Dass
“The greatest difficulty is the mental resistance to things that arise, and the underlying assumption that they should not.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
MEDITATION insights
“…vipassanā meditation involves pointing a concentrated mind at a flowing stream of experience, with each moment presenting a different object. By watching the rise and fall of phenomena at the point of contact with the senses, rather than through the filters of narrative and conceptual thought, the meditator is able to see beyond appearances.” ~ Andrew Olendzki
“The Tibetans sometimes describe thoughts as writing on water, in essence empty, insubstantial, and transient.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
“It’s not that there’s no self, because that’s ridiculous. You’re you, and I’m me. But the self doesn’t exist in the way we imagined it does… Try to find it as it really exists, not as you think it should.”
~ Mark Epstein
“Meditate to integrate” ~ The Insight Center
“At each level of spiritual evolution, there are effective practices that can help us advance. As we move to a new level, the old practices cease to be effective.” ~ Steven Forrest
MEDITATION COURSE
I am teaching Vipassanā Meditation and Spiritual Practice Courses in Portland and on Zoom. Please contact me if you are interested, theinsightcenter@gmail.com or read more at Insight Center Meditation Course.
“Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you’re truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Heart of the Matter”
HEALING Insights
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. ~ Haruki Murakami, @elephanthjournal
“Once you have genuinely, fully, and tenderly touched your own brokenness, place a seed in the crack. Make a wish in that fissure and share with yourself the aimless kindness of your own presence.” ~ Lama Karma, @tricycle
“If we’re going to change our culture, we have to change our narrative. That’s what is comes down to. We have to change the mental model that our brains are using to make sense of the world.” ~ Trabian Shorters, @onbeing
“Compassion and dread for all humanity today. Not easy to hold. May we build a world without war.” ~ Ethan Nichtern
NEW!! REIKI l WORKSHOP April 21 and 22, 2022
I am happy to offer a Reiki l Workshop in person in Portland, April 21, 1:00 – 4:00, and 22, 9:00 – 4:00, 2022. For more information about Reiki l Workshops, see https://www.theinsightcenter.net/offerings/#reiki. There is a limit of five participants per Workshop.
Reiki Workshop Assistants are welcome at these workshops.
Please contact me if you are interested in attending the Workshop or in assisting, theinsightcenter@gmail.com.
“In turning toward our pain there’s great freedom—a freedom that grounds us in our core of being. As we slowly but steadily undo our various ways of fleeing our pain, the energy we’ve invested in getting away from our pain—as opposed to simply being with our pain—is freed up, becoming available for us to use for truly life-giving purposes.” ~ Robert Augustus Masters, “A Painless Present”
“We all need a fresh dose of faith and hope. And rather than looking to angels in heaven to provide it, let’s look for the angels inside ourselves. Many of us are more advanced than we think we are – and the sooner we realize that the sooner we’ll have the confidence to be able to help heal this battered world.” ~ Steven Forrest
ASTROLOGY insights
“Uranus will not settle for anything but the truth.” ~ The Insight Center
“The underlying fear is that we won’t do our power well a/k/a Pluto.” ~ The Insight Center
©The Insight Center. All rights reserved. 2022.
Insights for February 2022
AWAKENING Insights
“Remember waaaaayyyy back when we used to get depressed just because it was winter?
Hang in there everyone.
None of this is easy. “ ~ Ethan Nichtern
“To embody the transcendent is why we are here.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“If you want to wake up
Do your work.
If you do your work,
You will wake up.” ~ theinsightcenter.net
“Dear past self,
Thanks for everything, but I’m moving on.
It’s not you. It’s me.” ~ spirit daughter
Maybe it’s not about
doing some thing
Maybe it’s about
being some way” ~ theinsightcenter.net
“IT’S HARD BECAUSE YOU’R DOING IT RIGHT “~ Jessica Schultz @jessicaschultzpilates
Normalize sayings like:
· “I’ll get back to you”
· “I need to reschedule”
· “_____doesn’t work for me”
· “I can’t help this time”
· “I’ve changed my mind”
· “I’m not able to do ______”
· I don’t like ___________” @the_peoplepleasing_therapist
“Did you change, or did you just release the energy that doesn’t belong to you?” ~ Maryam Hasnaa
“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. “ ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“If you want to make your own internal experience more hospitable, only you can do that work. Others can always support and guide you and spark insights, but ultimately you are your own boss and the agent of understanding your mind and opening your heart.” ~ Ethan Nichtern, “Awake with Others”
“You do not need
A partner to feel whole
You do not need
To have everything figured out to feel successful
You do not need
To be fully healed to feel peace
You do not need
To be fully wise to feel happy
Embracing yourself as you are
Reinforces your worth and
Decreases the friction in your mind” ~ yung pueblo
GRIEF insights
I am a continuation, like the rain is a continuation of the cloud. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
RIP Thich Nhat Hanh. You have been a beautiful, inspiring, wise soul and teacher. I highly recommend all his books and teachings.
MEDITATION insights
“Meditation is a method of recognizing and being aware of the inherent completeness of each moment” ~. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
“When you breathe in, your mind comes back to your body, and then you become fully aware that you’re alive, that you are a miracle and everything you touch could be a miracle – the orange in your hand, the blue sky, the face of a child.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“When we practice, we develop a basic vision, which gets stronger over time, as to who we really are and what we’re really doing in our life. When I say, “a vision,” I don’t mean something mystical. I mean acknowledging who you are and what you want to do next.“
“I believe this “vision” is to know your way. Knowing where your ultimate arrows are pointed.
Your endgame. And maintaining focus on that while navigating life. Because this is what matters to the core of your soul. Your version. Your vision. Meditation helps clarify this and serves as a daily reminder.” ~ Charlotte Joko Beck
HEALING Insights
“Whatever is happening to us now mirrors our past karma.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“In this and every timeless now the unknown is emerging as the known, the invisible is manifesting as the visible and existence is evolving spontaneously. The only sane response to live is gratitude and unprovoked joy.” ~ Deepak Chopra
“Energetically
recalibrate
out toxic
in clarity
and elevation of
awareness “~ theinsightcenter.net
“The body cannot be healed while there remains an unquiet mind, the mind cannot be well if there’s emotional turmoil, and nothing can be whole unless the spirit is also considered.” Dr. Branda Davies
“Feeling unsettled (awakening)
Meditated (clarifying)
Experienced energetic recalibration.” ~ theinsightcenter.net
“When you stop
carrying their energy, you will
have more energy” ~ theinsightcenter.net
RELATIONSHIP Insights
Signs of a deep friend connection:
“Laughter is abundant
Honesty is encouraged
Vulnerability is welcomed
Support is real and active
You can put your guard down
You inspire each other to grow
You give each other good advice
They help during times of struggle
Both of you feel stronger together” ~ yung pueblo
“When two people have nothing to hide, no one to impress, nothing to lose, no games left to play, no attachment to specific outcomes…real connection and intimacy happens.” ~ Maryam Hasnaa
ASTROLOGY insights
Pluto Return for the United States
Did you know that countries and cities have astrology charts? They do! The USA has a birth chart based on the signing of the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776, @ 5:10 PM in Philadelphia.
The USA chart has Pluto at 27.33˚ in Capricorn (building structure and success) in the second house of values, resources ($), and material security. These matters are being activated.
Pluto is a very slow-moving planet. It takes 224 years to travel around the Sun and return to its starting point. Humans, living an average of 90 years, never have a Pluto return. But countries can and do.
Pluto is about power, control, and transformation. The transformation comes from destruction/annihilation* and rebuilding/regeneration. Pluto will deeply transcend what we know, have us release and grow in the process, and we will be stronger as a result.
On Feb. 20, 2022, Pluto will return to 27.33˚ in Capricorn, exactly aligning with the placement in the USA chart; in the second house. See chart below. The USA will experience a plutonian transformation, destruction/annihilation* and rebuilding/regeneration of USA values and resources. This is not a huge surprise, is it?
It is important to know that the impact of a Pluto return begins about 10 or so years as it moves in to exact alignment (and 10 years after) and it is easy to see the impact of Pluto on USA values, economy, and material security.
Feb. 20, 2022 is the day of perfect alignment. (Pluto will also have a retrograde motion several times over the next few years and move back and forth over 27.33˚.) It may be significant - but the exact calendar days are not always the strongest impact. The impact has been underway for at least 10 to 12 years – and will continue for 10 to 12 years.
Capricorn likes structure and winning, and the USA has been focused on these values and material success. Pluto has been passing through Capricorn since 2008, breaking down structures Americans count on, bringing unsolved matters to light, and looking for transformation.
There has been a tremendous strain on the country and Americans during this time (recession, unemployment, many industries are obsolete, gun violence, racial violence, domestic terrorism, sexual abuse, COVID - 19, work from home, nationalism/Jan. 6 insurrection) - destruction of the old - to rebuild/regenerate. The USA will continue to experience deep and intense undoing/dismantling as steps toward powerful change.
For the next few weeks stay aware, be cautious and observant, and pay attention to your values and resources, release what is old and outdated, and be open to new regenerative energy if you are American or affiliated with the USA.
*If these words are trigger words for you, please use, “breaking down to make space for something new.”
ASTROLOGY FOR TEAMS OR FAMILIES
I would love to do this transformative Workshop for your professional team or family. Please reach out to me for Workshop information at theinsighthcenter@gmail.com.
GIFT CERTIFICATES are always available. I have a digital Gift Certificate that I will personalize and email to you. Available for 1 hour or 1.5-hour Astrology Reading ($125 or $190), and Reiki Intuitive Healing Sessions for $190. Contact me at theinsighthcenter@gmail.com to purchase!
©The Insight Center. All rights reserved. 2022.