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I sit here listening as the rains of March come pouring down, replenishing our water sources, cleansing the air and nourishing all our beautiful flowering trees and plants at this beginning of Spring, with the Equinox just a few days behind us. We have entered a new Portal.

The animals and Earth are taking back their territories, enjoying their freedom, as we humans STOP, rest in place, and conserve energy. While the numbers are increasing, people are following the protocol for the most part for COVID-19 here in our neck of the woods. It is so calm in my neighbourhood, that I can actually hear the distinct sweet songs of many different birds that often got lost in the hum or our everyday living.

During the Coronavirus we are each partaking in forced individual retreats, yet we are becoming even more resourceful, using our technology that just a few weeks ago had us still walking around like zombies. We are now using our devices to Livestream events such as yoga, Qi Gong, gym workouts, Pilates and more. Thus seeing our fellow class buddies, giving virtual hugs and kisses, connecting the best way we can. We are sensual beings, us humans, and we still need touch and closeness but we are finding new creative temporary ways to connect. There are even concerts being live-streamed such as the wonderful Mindtravel event coming up soon.

One of the most powerful ways we can utilize technology, which seems to speak directly from the reading below, is to use these new platforms to come together online to explore, meditate, contemplate and attend spiritual services. I have been invited to so many wonderful free offerings from the beloved Eckhart Tolle to Sounds True bringing us so many different teachers and teachings. I am sure there are many more invites from your local, national or international groups. This is such a wonderful way to calm the anxiety, stop the chattering mind, and sit and just be together. As Hexagram 26 instructs, disentangle from the everyday, find the right time to be peaceful and eliminate the outside chaotic energy to truly find the Great Being within

Just this weekend, I attended a number of virtual online gatherings while one teacher was on the East Coast, his Sangha was in Colorado, and we all were online, yet separate, as a group in Santa Barbara. Another dear Buddhist teacher was teaching from retreat in New Mexico with another Buddhist and Christian scholar while the host, a Benedictine monk, hosted from Bonnevaux, France. Then later today I was online with Astrology University listening to three wonderful teachers and fellow astrologers, Lynn Bell from Paris, Laurence Hillman from Missouri and Tony Howard who runs the webinars from Oregon. So much wonderful support, a wealth of different wisdom traditions!

It is a whole new world out there and once we calm the mind, focus, and disentangle from the drama, we can tap into the sage-mind spoken of below and view life and how we move forward with a whole new fresh perspective. We are not going back to the old ways and many new innovative ideas and creations will come out of this time. Proactive instead of reactive, and with that we change our world and align with Heaven. Enjoy the reading as the clarity of the Sage and the Divine Feminine is always spot on.

HEXAGRAM 26: TA CH’U (DA CHU)/GREAT ACCUMULATES/GATHERING THE SPIRIT

HEX 25 & 26 – The Paradigm: Disentangling from past afflictions and       Accumulating the Spirit

The pair involves disentangling from negative emotions and past traumas and nurturing the great within yourself. It suggests the birth of the Great Being and the sage-mind through ‘eating ancient virtue’. Carefully consider your place in relation to this model.

DISENTANGLING MEANS DISASTER HAS COME FROM OUTSIDE. GREAT ACCUMULATES MEANS YOU FIND THE RIGHT TIME,

DA CHU: concentrate, focus on one idea; accumulate energy, support, nourish; bring everything together; great effort and great achievement Charge to the Oracle: when you are disentangled from affliction, you can ‘Accumulate the Spirit’ of the new…

Entanglement means letting yourself go, succumbing to perverse influence or disease, being without order or rule, crazy, vain, compulsive and cruel. Being released from entanglement, results in a state of balance and purity, the image of an original and originating connection with Heaven.

Disentangling suggests the ways to maintain that purity and freedom from affliction. It enables you to act spontaneously, to deal successfully with what comes on the stream of time, to attract and welcome the unexpected. It suggests the Wang demon who carries contagious disease, plague, miasma, etc. and the purification, exorcism and rituals used by the ‘wu-Intermediaries’ to drive out these diseases and demons. It is particularly concerned with the nei ye or inner way and the sage-person or sage-mind. The meditative practices of the inner way centre on ‘correcting’, which calm, tranquillise, rectify and free the body in order to restore a state of neutrality and align with Heaven…

SIX AT THE FIFTH LINE: there will be rewards. You have managed to confront and disable what could have been a powerful obstacle, accumulating and focusing a significant force. The Way is open. This will bring rewards in the end. Direction: Collect the Small to achieve the Great. Turn conflict into creative tension.. The situation is already changing.

Hexagram changes to:

HEXAGRAM 9: XIAO CHU/SMALL ACCUMULATES/GATHERING THE GHOSTS XIA CHU: accumulate small to do the great; nurture, raise, support…

…This time is like a shell or womb, a protective covering that will be broken through in Spring. Philosophically, this is the ‘nurturing of the smallest possible thing’ (ji), the emergent point that heralds change. It is the quality of the Way that, though now barely visible, will lead on to illumination.

For you poetry and literary lovers out there, I leave you with this link from Maria Popova’s amazingly inspiring literary site Brainpickings which has an excerpt from the new poetry collection ‘Ledger’ of the poetess and Buddhist Jane Hirshfield. Have a contemplative week.

Today our reading comes from ‘TOTAL I CHING.’ The wise Stephen Karcher is a prolific writer and researcher and has fused the divinatory oracle of the I CHING with the earlier Taoist version, the ‘ZHOUYI’, based on a thousand years of Eastern thought. I CHING images are from Carla Filizzola.

The Galaxy – Best Xmas Lights Ever!

As 2019 draws to a close, I wanted to give you an update on life here on my end of the pond.  While 2019 had its challenges all over the world, it has continued to be a trying year here in many respects somewhat due to the after effects of our biblical events – fires, floods, mudslides & illnesses – which had put the city of Santa Barbara & town of Montecito in PTSD mode. We had a quick scare recently, which triggered that mode again & had many nerves on edge, but the firefighters & rains thoroughly eliminated all danger for the Thanksgiving holidays. There was much gratitude in everyone’s prayers during those holiday meals.

As we come close to the end of this year and epoch, the sense is now, that there’s light beginning to shine in after digging out of the challenges of the past time period, a promise of beginning again & a sense of getting back to basics under all these Capricorn stellium aspects – structure, the skin & bones of the body & things, stability, the state, the empire, the collective – just look at the news and you can see it right before you. With the holiday season, people are now smiling, bustling about shopping, holiday parties have begun, the Post Office has queues out the door, Christmas & Hanukkah lights and decorations seem at an all time high with some over-the-top competition going on.

It has been a year of going within, retreats, a deeply meditative time, which has been incredibly healing for many, and for me personally it has strengthened my resolve to continue my Feng Shui & Re-Design practice, creating beauty & sacred space, my writing & blogs will recommence & I’ll be adding more of a focus on divination and the use of astrology as counseling & mentoring tools, as a means to be of further service to others. 

With the year ending, we passed the Solstice point yesterday, it is still in effect with the Sun (Sol) stationary, standing still (sistere) for 3 days, the darkest night, which is a time of honouring our lessons & accomplishments, thus begins the return to luminosity. Ceremonies are being held across continents in different cultures for this portal. It is an excellent time to reflect on where we have been & where we are going, moving towards a time of opening to new ideas, goals & interesting possibilities. Don’t forget to join by lighting a candle, meditate or say a prayer!

Then for Xmas Day (here in California), we have a New Moon Eclipse in Earth with the Sun & Moon adding to that stellium in Capricorn – it is one packed house! All these points & planets run the gamut from the personal & emotional to the collective, focusing intently on the rules, restrictions, the structures – governmental, societal & familial – construction or deconstruction. Earth eclipses can bring an abrupt turning point, a new start. Yet this eclipse is also a lovely one, bringing sentiments of generosity, abundance, bestowing gifts – how appropriate for Christmas Day. There is so much happening that each one of us will experience this event differently in relation to our natal chart. Awareness is key.

Thus during this holiday season hold those near & dear close to your hearts & in your arms. As 2020 starts the beginning of a new epoch, we have transformative & tumultuous times & changes ahead. Life will not be the same by its end. Hold onto your hats as it is going to be one interesting ride!

Sending you lots of love & light,

Bernadette