part II - no one knew of the buried treasure so it was worthless PLUS new moon affirmations and the year of the horse gallops in

Maybe clutter is a state of consciousness.

I think a lot of people have started connecting the dots between the things we hold on to and the thoughts we can't let go of; the way things and thoughts pile up in our lives and how we use this stuff to protect ourselves, control others and stay stuck.

And just because we don't look at this stuff or even remember we have it, doesn't mean it isn't contributing to the life we have now.

Last year my brother was seeing a homeopathic (kinesiologist - is this a word?) chiropractor who linked his Wednesday migraines to the grief memories he was carrying in his body from both his parents dying on a Wednesday (15+ years apart).

My brother had no conscious connection to the grieving his body was doing on Wednesdays,

(I think this is what started his ancestry.com search that led to hubs and I discovering we were related and that hub's ancestor probably robbed me of my riches, dammit)

but when he knew, the headaches he'd had for 16 years stopped.

They didn't stop when the chiropractor told him the Wednesday headaches were connected to grief or when the doctor connected the grief to our parents' deaths. They stopped when my brother saw the dates and the calendars for himself. For him, proof = no more Wednesday migraines. 

I went to see his doctor a couple weeks ago and immediately he started connecting my digestion and neck issues to "motherhood/self nurturing vs. work in the world/security stuff".

(This is the north/south node polarity in my birth chart and stuff I am very familiar with. But, I just let him do his thing to see where he was going with this)

During our sessions he does a lot of muscle testing around issues and also adjusts my hiatal hernia (yes, this is as gross as it sounds unless inhaling while someone presses your stomach into your backbone sounds like a good time to anyone) and begins to adjust my neck and jaw. He advises some homeopathic pellets to dissolve in water along with an eyedropper full of rescue remedy and for me to take a swig of the water every hour.

(this feels like some kind of mindfulness exercise to me - of course the rescue remedy is 27% alcohol which is maybe not a bad thing, I am only getting an eyedropper full a day though)

Last week he asks me what happened to me when I was 9 years old (he has never asked me about anything from the past or anything about childhood or any specific age before). I draw a blank and he tells me to think about it, but not to over-think it (what, me, overthink something?!) - that what is coming up will come up without me getting out the shovel and digging for it.

I drive home. I swig my water. I head to hubs' garage to weld lockets. I count on my fingers to figure out what grade in school I would be in at 9 years old (does everyone connect their childhood memories to school grade or is it just me?), I figure 4th-5th grade.

I'm thinking the doc has miscalculated because my entire childhood fell apart when I was in 6th grade and we lost our house and became nomads until I was 18 and moved out.

In 4th grade I was all straight A's (they were actually O's for outstanding back in the day), field day trophies, teacher's pet, obsession with Rumi that did not make me popular, star of the school play - but wait a minute now that I am thinking about it I realize that must have been the year my grandmother, whom I loved dearly, had died (who had raised us, sometimes with my mother in the house and sometimes without my mother in the house) because she wasn't around the next year.

And wasn't 5th grade the year although I was still pulling straight O's, I was not only not the star of the school play but couldn't even make chorus because suddenly I couldn't carry a tune, my mother started taking some kind of little pills to deal with her mother's death that left an already shaky family situation even shakier, some bigger stuff I can't even write about, but I don't have to. You get the idea.

Life got complicated for that 9 year old girl ... she lost her first mother and then she lost her voice.

(I will connect this better in part III and tie this into our businesses, this is a maker business blog after all - although maybe only if you squint and knit sweaters while reading)

Everyone has their own story and I am only outlining one tiny piece of mine to show one way this stuff creates the "clutter" that makes it hard for us to open ourselves up to the good stuff that is happening now and unearth and cherish the good stuff that happened then. There is a lot of light in our world right now and if you look for them you will certainly be able to see the connections in your own life.

So, while this chiropractor works on freeing up my neck and I get my nutritional self in order ... again and get my body moving.

(personally I have found moving and sweating very helpful - it is challenging when you have health stuff, but we have to figure out how to do it, even if it means walking and saunas)

I will be working hard when I am working, but not working all the time.

And I will be taking voice lessons at my brother's music store with their voice teacher. I start next week. I'm not sure I will be singing karaoke anytime soon, but I will be able to sing Happy Birthday out loud to people instead of just mouthing the words and huddling near an on-keyer ... or at least that's my plan plus it will strengthen my diaphragm (I just hope the practice room is sound proof, this could get ugly). And keep blogging I think this helps, too.

That 9 year old girl is getting her voice back.

REMINDER - tonight January 30th is the new moon in Aquarius - 4:30-midnight EST time is the best time to set those intentions for Aquarius stuff like -

Big picture planning, technology skills, the stuff you really want to do that society (or some power and most especially that negative voice in your head) is telling you can't be done - now is the time to take some steps to get that moving. Aquarius rules your circulation, breathing (!), ankles, calves, shins, cutting edge science, the idea of time. Uranus is encouraging everyone to make a bold, fresh, new start, be unique, be experimental, stay open 

(there are a gazillion new and amazing ideas out there floating around in the ethers - I believe I lined up with the idea for my lockets because 1. I had been obsessed with the word Polarity for years from north node study and 2. I was doing unique work from my heart and the universe /God / Goddesses/ higher self (pick you comfort zone here) said to herself "let's see what this one can do with this idea" and 3. I had just run a charity event for someone and never did things like this. Yes, I think there was some good karma from that involved, but that's just me, I never did stuff like charity events, maybe you do good stuff all the time, so it doesn't shock the Goddesses silly - you might need to do something else; like value yourself maybe)

This energy is always here, anyone can line up with a new idea and truly a New Moon in Aquarius is the perfect time to set your intention for just that. Ask that something new that will benefit you and others come through you - this is truly divine timing!

maybe our emotions can never be too close to the surface - part I

I was talking to my sister about how good it feels to hold Sully (who is now 4 months old) and she was saying she thinks it's because when we are holding a baby we can't be doing anything else - it totally centers us in the moment and it gives us permission to not do or think about anything else.

(it's also because he makes my heart grow 6 times in 6 minutes)

Maybe since his emotions are so close to the surface, he pulls mine up and out. His energy can't meet mine (thank goodness) so my energy rushes up to match his.

These days my emotions are so close to the surface it makes it challenging to navigate a difficult day.  Hubs thinks I take things too close to heart and wear my heart on my sleeve, yada yada

(yes, I am going to speak in heart idioms today, Valentine's day is fast approaching folks - does anyone need a locket?)

My thinking with this is that :

1. Our physical bodies can become so full with emotions that at some point our emotions have to be close to the surface (there is no where else for them to go) and 2. The older we get, the more things have happened to us that get reactivated when things happen now and trigger similar emotions

Maybe having my emotions in a place I can easily access them; close to the surface, is a good thing.

(this doesn't mean I am acting on them every second the way baby Sully is, of course. I was able to keep myself from pitching a fit at Staples yesterday - why can't they stock the gray ink for the printer they sold me that needs gray ink. Why are there 10 boxes of every other color and never any gray ink? Who is buying all the damn gray ink??)

My thinking with this is that :

1. It draws my attention to the fact I am full up with emotional sludge and have some stuff I need to release and 2. It prevents the new stuff from creating more sludge (if only because I am releasing it immediately)

Pushing down my emotions worked for me for years. And this was a subtle thing. I did this stuff without even realizing it. I was a very calm, cool and collected bank manager. I was a very calm, cool and collected mother (most of the time). I was a very calm, cool and collected wife and daughter.

Of course, this is only because no one, including myself, because I was so busy and often out of touch with myself, could see what was happening underneath. And this stuff has not only been jamming up my emotional energy (which makes it more challenging to attract and line up with the experiences I want) but I am certain the reason for the autoimmune issues I am dealing with now.

Releasing something in our mind is one thing; releasing our emotional attachment to it is something else. I am trying to be careful with the stories I tell myself now, because I can totally see how I am keeping certain experiences attached to me that are not high energy and do not serve me.

So, while I am working on releasing the sludge (more on this in another post) I will be keeping my emotions pretty close to the surface. I am not going to go all Uma Thurman in Kill Bill on anyone, I hope, and I will be working on my boundaries so I don't drive myself crazy with this stuff, but I am definitely feeling what I am feeling now ... the good and the not so good - we'll see where this leads ...

part II -  excavating the sludge
part III - boundaries for the thin-skinned 
part IV - using our emotions to line up with the stuff we want to experience

New Moon in Aquarius January 30th - another super new moon

my aquarius locket 20% off thru 2/18 with coupon code LINCOLN

We have a New Moon on Thursday (plus the Chinese Year of the Horse begins which creates even more universal energy for a new beginning now and it's a new super moon and a black moon - the 2nd dark moon in the same calendar month) - lots of new in this one folks.

We have Venus about to move forward (YAY) so projects that have been in the planning stages or that have been stagnant over the last few weeks (especially related to creative projects, relationships and money since Venus rules both Libra and Taurus) can get some legs under them now and will start to move forward. More money comes in. See my retrograde post.

Also the last few days of this lunar cycle coupled with these last few days of the Year of the Snake (snakes die when they don't shed their skin) make it a powerful time for release.

I'm going to use this energy for something larger than that pile of newspapers in my bedroom, although the pile is outta here, you should, too. 

Maybe some belief we are holding onto about what we need to happen so we can feel secure, what we need to have in place before we can do something else, where we need to get before we can stop or who we need to be before we can relax. Let's let go of that.

Write it in script, burn it, release it - we have to mean what we say with this stuff, because it works.

We won't be able to fit back into that shedded skin even if we tried, the Year of the Snake is over - release always equals expansion - we will have expanded ....

(not in a "need a new dress size" kind of way, of course, but that old skin is all wrinkly and crinkly and well .. dead, it's gotta go)

If we have fallen off the wagon with any intentions set on January 1st, everyone gets a do-over. But the skies have changed so the way we work with those intentions changes, too. 

The difference between the New Moon on January 1st and this moon on January 30th is the sun has moved into Aquarius now so we take the energy of Capricorn - the builder, worker, organizer energy and evolve it with the big picture thinking of Aquarius. 

We take that thing we have built out of its box now. We look at it in a new way. We might even get a little Aquarian wild-child with it.

Maybe our clean studio gets a bit messy.

(if it ever actually got cleaned up - with the Venus retrograde we might have been in a standstill and standing still is a perfectly good place to be ... until it isn't anymore and you will know when that time comes because you will begin to get uncomfortable with that place of stillness then you just have to do something to move out of it, what you do doesn't matter, you only have to move the energy)

It's an opportunity to take a long look at how the life we are building fits in with the other lives we share the planet with and move in a more powerful direction of building a space that supports all of us.

It’s a great time to set intentions that involve increasing our confidence, being true to ourselves and taking on new challenges.

Since we moved into an air sign over a week ago ideas have started to move, our thoughts may be a bit more scattered, colds are easier to catch now since we are more easily ungrounded.

If you are an Aquarius sun sign (like me) this is your most powerful new moon of the year.

This New Moon is an excellent time to set intentions for Aquarius stuff. I haven't decided on my intentions yet, but will post some mid-week to give you an idea of the kind of work that is supported during an Aquarius sun period. You can set any intentions at all at a new moon but if you work with the energy at play in the universe right now, you will have a strong wind at your back.

make something NEW ... or maybe not

This is my monthly post on the EcoEtsy blog:

3 Things to Think About Before Making Something Else

See the post HERE 

including my hot Etsy seller tip of the month - remake what you already sell with some clever packaging and widen your exposure by tagging into specific niches - and sell your thingamajig to the people who want to buy it.