changing something ELSE

With one retrograde after another this year, we can't totally wait for the stars to line up for us to get stuff started or make things happen.

(although definitely work with the retrograde period as much as possible by doing all the "re" work - re-evaluate, renovate, re-invent, research, etc and launch new projects with an open mind to the fact that stuff will change with things we start now and have to be re-done - this is all ok - maybe the secret to this is doing things we enjoy doing - so if we have to do them all over again it will be something we want to do - actually the "doing things we want to do" is the secret to almost everything anyway)

One of the ways to create change in some area of our life (or to stop some repeating pattern) is by creating change somewhere else in our life and one way to figure out a way to do this is to listen to our own language about the situation.

Step 1. Describe the situation to someone else. Or think about how you usually verbalize the situation.

(this is one of Olive's primary jobs here at Olive Bites Studio - she is an amazing listener - if you don't have an Olive, just chat with yourself, that will work, too - don't over-think this, just talk and listen to what you have to say)

I will give a recent story about hubs as an example. George really wants a larger work space. Every other day he said to me, "I need more space".

But he doesn't usually use those words - what he actually says when he is thinking 'I need more space' is "I don't even have room to breathe here."

Step 2. We think about other areas of life where he doesn't have room to breathe. 

Since what he is saying is an actual physical thing there are many ways we had to work with this.

He now takes 10 minutes a day and does some deep belly breathing.

We use a laundry service for his shop uniforms and he really needs to go up a size on the pants waistband department (especially in the winter when he wears a lot of layers) but because they charge to set up a new size, he never does this. So, a couple weeks ago I ordered him new uniforms with the size increase - easy enough for me to tailor them later.

He started walking around the backyard every night after work (he doesn't go out back much in the winter and I notice this "need more space" feeling hits him hardest in the winter).

We moved our bed so his side isn't near any furniture or walls. I got a small fan for his desk.

Right away he started to notice he didn't feel as stressed about being cramped at work. I noticed he got rid of some scrap metal he was saving "until the price goes up" and freed up some room in the shop (he had refused to do this earlier).

Now he didn't actually get more space, but by moving the energy in other areas of his life, this energy has to shift, too. It wouldn't surprise me if some actual change to the physical space shows up soon.

Now, if he had found himself saying "I'm cramped here" or "I can't think straight here" or "I'm buried here", etc - then the way we would have changed things and the things we would have changed would be different.

Since everything is connected it makes perfect sense that this works. If we are having trouble starting something new, start something else - something easy, but maybe not too easy. If we are having trouble finishing something then finish something else. If you have trouble with procrastination at work, find something that needs to be done right now in your kitchen and do that and I mean right now, just go and do it. Little changes create big changes. Maybe there are no big changes, just little stuff done over and over again.

So, if something isn't working, maybe try changing something else. See what happens! xo all

so last month I lost half a million dollars (twice!) and found out I was related to my husband ... part 2

While I was going holiday crazy, my brother joined ancestry.com.

He was quickly obsessed and arrived to Thanksgiving dinner with pages of names and a roll of scotch tape.

(the papers print out like a chart or like branches on a tree, but it is easy to get lost reading them and easier if you tape them all together all over your floor like a real tree - or at least this is what we did)

Anyhoo, it was quickly apparent that George and I are related (yikes, poor Olive), which may be true of almost everyone if we go far enough back, but we didn't have to go very far. Also the names we are related through are last names the town we currently live in is filled with, even though neither of our families are from this town. And neither of us ever realized we were related to any of these people.

And the plot thickens ...

There has always been a family story of an ancestor named David Matthews (my grandmother's grandfather I believe, if I have enough grands in there) who fought in the Civil War, lost a leg, shook hands with Lincoln, owned half of the next county and to his detriment never learned to read and write. He was swindled of his property by an unscrupulous lawyer and shady judge when he signed his X on the wrong dotted line.

We learned from my brother's ancestry.com work that David Matthews had a daughter who married a lawyer - this daughter later died under mysterious and unknown circumstances and this lawyer, who was then a wealthy widower sold a lot of property and moved ... I don't know, somewhere warm I would imagine. David Matthews was still alive at this time.

This lawyer who we will just call THE LYING SACK OF NO GOOD FILTH

(hubs is having a stroke that I might write this name, since our town is still filled with this name, so I will just call him what my family has been calling him for generations)

was related back to my husband in exactly the same way David Matthews is related to me (grandmother's grandfather)!!

So it would appear hubs' great-great great grandfather (if I have the correct number of greats in here) swindled my great-great great grandfather, possible murdered my great-great great aunt in order to own half the next county - which his new wife and heirs must have proceeded to sell off with great expediency since none of it is left.

Now, I can't actually prove much of this. But I do know I have a family story about a swindle by a lawyer and now know the person who was swindled had a daughter who married a lawyer who came into a great deal of money at precisely the time my ancestor lost it.

(I don't need Miss Marple to puzzle through the chance of this happening)

Also, I almost forgot the most interesting part ... this all took place in the town I now live in - which is a very small town that hubs and I only stumbled into because we drove through it back and forth to work for a year to avoid the main roads.

And the farm my great great great grandfather lived in was on the road we currently live on (long gone now) and possibly the very property we live on was part of that property.

Yes, I know this sounds like a Lifetime movie.

I can't decide if this is a million to one happening or if this kind of stuff is bound to happen when people's families have lived in the same general area for generations. I can't help thinking there is some kind of ancestral karma here that I should look at. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it is something hubs and I have ironed out just by being together, I don't know.

I do know that I have been making it clear to hubs that he owes me at least half a million dollars because of the actions of his direct ancestor THE LYING SACK OF NO GOOD FILTH.

I should be a rich woman now.

(rich in ways larger than cork and magnets, people)

Also the house we looked at that we didn't buy is next door to the oldest house in town which was moved to that location from the location right next door to our current house and also may play a part in the story ....

I have probably given you a headache and you are thinking, what the hell is she talking about ... it is rather hard to follow. I need to make myself a little chart and post the picture for the screenplay I am writing for Lifetime.

First I need some kind of ending for this story - like maybe I win the lottery, hubs murders me for my winnings and the ancestral drama plays out all over again ...

this would all wrap my story up rather nicely. Well, not so nicely for me, but nicely for Lifetime maybe.

Full Moon in Cancer - the emotional stuff that comes up as we push forward with real world goals

We have the first full moon of 2014 tonight!

This is the culmination of the Cancer Moon from six months ago - it is also the peak energy period for the Capricorn New Moon from two weeks ago and a great time to release stuff that has shown up since the New Year -

self-sabotaging tendencies that surface now around the real world goals we set in Capricorn a couple weeks ago can be released easier as the moon wanes over the next two weeks.

We have the moon (where we've been, what we know, feminine energy, being) and the sun (where we are trying to go/be, masculine energy, doing) as far apart in the sky as they can be from our earthly perspective during a full moon - now we have the sun in Capricorn and the moon in Cancer.

This is the polarity of male/female roles, work and the world vs home and family, how we push ourselves toward meeting new goals vs how we care for ourselves and meet our needs for safety and security, also money vs love stuff - lots of family patterns and soul group stuff coming to the surface now to be released if we are paying attention. This release is our gift to the world.

The moon is at home in Cancer and represents 2nd chakra stuff - our emotional center.

Second chakra health issues (bladder, reproductive organs, lower back, hips) are about imbalances with the Cancer/Capricorn polarity so this is about those who would rather focus on love than money, those who would rather focus on money than love, people who have an unbridled (think of that wild horse, there may be a bit of recklessness in this) drive to move forward in either love or money or people who cannot responsibly handle either love or money.

The negative thought patterns that surface for this polarity create emotions of anxiety, anger or sadness around gender and sexuality and relationships (love and family) and finances.

So if we have physical problems around this what is standing in the way of us making the changes in our finances and relationships to improve our health? Ask. See what comes up for you over the next two weeks.

Cancer energy does not want to be vulnerable, it wants to play it safe - there are mother connections to this stuff and how we were mothered and how we mother and nurture ourselves and others. There are some big energies to work/play with here. This is the time of the rebalancing of masculine/feminine energies on the planet. The spaces in our life where we lead (Capricorn) are asking us to be more open-hearted (Cancer) now.

This polarity is a universal theme every January and July - and right now with the full moon in Cancer is a powerful time for many people to change 2nd chakra thought patterns that aren't working.

(and you will know they aren't working by what is happening in your life and how your body is feeling - our bodies are not the first markers for this stuff, so by the time this stuff hits our physical self it has been active awhile in us - although it could look like something hits us out of the blue)

This is my north/south node polarity (I feel it as work vs family and as work vs self care) and my moon is in Cancer.  Every time it comes up I get the choice of acting, reacting and releasing in a higher way.

Since attachments are ruled by Cancer this is an excellent time to be releasing our negative hooks.

Attachment is conditional love. 

I will love you, if ... I will be happy, if ....

If we need someone to behave in a certain way in order to love them, it's not love. It's attachment. When we put our hopes and expectations on other people or people do this to us it triggers patterns in us and those patterns trigger responses that we need to release.

This isn't happening to us, it is happening for us - if anyone or anything is triggering us now - understand that they are a soul supporting our growth to greater truth and power. They (or the situation) is showing us that we are ready to be stronger in our energy. Whatever is showing up is a gift.

If we accept people (and especially ourselves) as they are - they can reveal themselves in ways we can recognize as true (this allows us to live from a place of truth, too) - that is love.

If we need something to happen in a certain way for us to be happy, this is the kind of attachment to a goal that gives our power away. Life is not supporting us giving our power away anymore.

This change is cyclical - we are on our own hero's quest and we are all on this journey together, too. It is also something we are creating across the planet by asking for freedom from power structures - part of the deal of those power structures crumbling is the safety nets that go along with them crumble, too - we can't take daddy's money and not play by his rules.

If we are awake now, the bad news (which isn't totally bad news) is that we are in an AP class, the good news (which isn't totally good news) is we are grading ourselves now ....