Looking at the Natural Calendar, November has us traveling inward. We are continuing the six-month process of sinking deep into our roots. The first 90 days (stretching from fall equinox to winter solstice) can be used for mind-training. In as little as15 quiet minutes a day, it becomes possible to connect with intuitive guidance. This type of mind-training is bringing about an expansion of loving-kindness and compassion. But first things must come first …
Static on the Line
The importance that we place upon 15 minutes of quiet listening impacts all parts of the art/life. This quiet connection to your depth of well-being both enhances and requires stamina. True well-being is natural. In Buddhist teachings, we’re reminded that all living beings simply want to be happy. To begin to recognize this we’re encouraged to take note of all the ways that we humans attempt to move toward pleasure and away from pain. This is way easier said than done and so another tactic is to develop the muscle to continuously align with your Center … good medicine for November’s Introspective energy.
November provides a potent and powerful time to assess what needs to die in your art/life. Death to limiting beliefs, victimization, and undervaluing your contributions. When we deconstruct the old and outworn we are making room for what is ready to be born.
Natural Year by Natural Year we grow and evolve our capacity to make a contribution to what is good and true and beautiful. We are investing six moon/months (between the fall and spring equinox points) to access limitless resources and the brilliance of Life.
During October’s Experience Moon we were inspired by Jasper Lotus Hawkins to ‘Be Horse’.
You may have engaged in the exercise and as a result, you may be re-imagining your full and true horsepower. With this awareness treat yourself with tremendous respect and dignity. Take note of the inherent nobility and the brief tenure of your art/life’s passage.
Here is a tribute to Grandfather written by Jasper Lotus Hawkins:
Oscar Garland Mackey
November 7, 1907-1999
Grandpa Oscar trained horses until he was 91, lived until almost 93, then exhaled his final breath on my cheek. Warm. I was his personal assistant at the end of his chapters, his Secretariat. His best friends were horses and he’d transform into a much younger version of himself while telling stories of time spent with them. He recalled being five, seeing purple flowers outside his childhood home on the morning his mother died. On the day of his funeral, a farm-full of horses stood lined along the gate at attention, saluting as we drove past. They knew a great heart had graced their earth. Every time a horse exhales near me, I know he’s near. Still here. Still hear.
Treasure Underfoot
Consider that your treasure is underfoot. Begin to chip away at the hard-crusted surface of habits, behaviors, and patterns that keep you from aligning with your highest vision for your art/life. Journal your discoveries and then ask: ‘What makes me feel most alive?’
Use your delicate pick and soft brush so that you can gently unearth the treasure that is your true heritage.
Take on the role of Alchemist. Be willing to turn the lead of what no longer works in your Life into the gold of expressing your true nature. It’s time to let this happen now. In your unique-never-to-be-repeated way, you can take on the adventure and uplevel your commitment to creating a Life with, of, and about joy.
Consider a Life of Deep Joy. What an amazing concept! Can you imagine what it means to make joy your vocation? I first heard of this outlandish concept in the early ’80s. I thought YES! This is for me. Having experienced violence and tremendous loss I knew it was my responsibility to choose to think the best thoughts regarding the possibility and potential for my Life. I instinctively recognized that no one was coming to save me.
Recently I listened as Barbara Marx Hubbard referred to ‘vocational arousal’. As she explained the concept I again said YES!!
Scope Out a Worthy Endeavor
All this moon/month line up with the navigational tools and a theme that touches your heart. This is your personal treasure … your gold. BE the Alchemist. Enlist your noble horsepower.
Joy as the goal for our thoughts and feelings isn’t the easiest path to blaze because it requires effort. It also requires endurance. It becomes necessary to consciously breakup and deconstructs what has been holding you back from being your creative best. This is one of the reasons that the Natural Calendar can be a boon as it offers the rhythm and the resources to forge forward one moon/month at a time … think 12 slices of energy focus pie.
The Highest of Arts
I’ve long subscribed to these wise words:
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
I learned the philosophies of the Transcendental Thinkers in 10th-grade literature class. I felt awake as I learned of their tenets:
A foundation of transcendentalism is the inherent goodness of people and nature. Adherents believe that society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, and they have faith that people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent.
Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective intuition over objective empiricism. Adherents believe that individuals are capable of generating completely original insights with as little attention and deference to past masters as possible.
It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. . . . We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
In my art/life, the trail shows me the abundance of opportunities to make waking up my priority. I was asleep for a time. I fell asleep and I fell off the edge of the earth. I went into a free fall and as I grasped a root and held fast I knew I had to rethink every aspect of who I was being and what I was doing.
Somewhere in the recesses of my cranium, I set an intention to live through conscious endeavor … it was a monumental turning of the wheel, and as we know what we focus on expands.
Let’s do a bit of a review so that we are each sensing into a similar orientation.
The Pause That Refreshes
Six moons ago the Natural Calendar opened. It was April/Aries and the opportunity was to Gain Clarity on your vision. Who were you being? What were you doing? Where did you want to be going during this year?
The First quarter: April, May, and June offered us time to focus upon Clarity, Wisdom, and Illumination each in turn. This time allowed us to be healthy placing ‘first attention on Self’. Called the ME/Spring quadrant, each year provides an alchemical turn toward greater Self-Awareness.
In Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Self Actualization is the mountain top…peak experience.
The second quarter spans the summer moons and the focus for these ninety days is expansive as it places attention onto Others. We don’t abandon ourselves rather we consider relationships and how we connect to ‘all our relations’. To make this quarter one of wellness we attend to our relationship skills as the ninety days places emphasis on Growth, Trust, and Love.
The third quarter of the Natural Year brings us to the present point on our trail…the fall quarter opens with the time to reflect on the six moons now experienced. It’s time to be turning our attention to Life and all the opportunities that we now have, based upon the unfolding since spring. In October we have the Experience that leads us to Introspect (reflecting upon death & rebirth) throughout the moon of November as we gather Strength for the moon of December. This quadrant puts attention on the ways that Life itself supports our journey. We learn to Introspect, deepening our meditation practice, and our inward turn toward the deep gold mine/mind within. With a sober acknowledgment that all and everyone must die. We embrace those that depart recognizing the opening being made for new life to emerge. Year upon year we pause and come to see our Strength as these ninety days unfolds.
We enter the last quarter/winter from December 21 until March 20…and during this ninety-day quadrant, we lean into the Mystery. Now we Cleanse (January) then Renew (February) and eventually Purify (March) At spring equinox on March 20 we enter the new Natural Year building upon the Vision that grows stronger year after year upon the trail.
Much swirling about in the atmosphere with our election and worldwide reaction to the current drama unfolding that it can truly be a sign of sanity to know that there is nothing to fix. In the long view, the actions that we take individually will have the greatest bearing on the way that our experience presents results.
Let’s keep a focus.
When we allow our boundaries to stretch we make room to admit greater levels of power. We can consider this ancient power. We can visualize the Ancestors and the elemental forces of earth, air, fire, and water as if seeing through the healing eyes of the Feminine.
. . . more limitless power for good, more lightness of heart, more breathing space, more awareness of the mystery, more passion for sharing, more creative flow, more being connected to the earth even in wild fury.
Perhaps we can allow more freedom for potent intensity to become more conscious thereby becoming creative in ways that we hadn’t yet imagined. In all these examples the idea of more is beneficial and creates uplift.
And as I close today in this monumental week for our nation I leave you … once again with inspiration from Jasper’s FaceBook post of November 6:
