Welcome to the New Paradigm, Death/Rebirth, Rising From the Ashes
About 4 and a half years ago, in March 2011, the trajectory of my life changed on a dime. I was unceremoniously ejected, liberated actually, from the job I had loved more and stayed in longer, than any other before; a job that aligned with me spiritually and philosophically, socially and educationally and gave me more professional satisfaction and joy than any other job I had ever had. It also happened to be such an intense 40-60 hour a week (with semi-regular 12-14 hour days) grind that it was draining me of my passion and energy for life and my emotional body had been resisting and making scenes for over a year.
And all I could do was look at my hands, (which had been aching for 6 months, as I had been gripping so tightly, trying desperately to hold onto what was so obviously not working any more) with awe and wonder as I was forced to let go of everything that I had imagined was finally going to bring some sort of grounded stability into a life whose only consistency was transition after transition after powerful transition. The words Surrender & Just Let Go kept repeating and resounding in my mind.
Two weeks later, just as I felt I was re-covering, I totaled my adorable, tiny, 2 door, incredibly gas efficient Toyota Echo in a head on collision with a Volvo station wagon, in front of my apartment building, and walked away with a small bruise on my left shin.
Two days later I had the following dream:
The Gift of the Phoenix
I am at a party at a house on the beach in Santa Barbara. There was supposed to be a great storm coming through, but, as is mostly usual in Santa Barbara, the storm was simply passing nearby, on the other side of the mountains and we were getting a few sweet sprinkles of rain here and there.
At the party, an older woman approaches me, holding my baby; she is very attached to having the baby with her and I recognize her as the nanny, so I let her know that she can hold the baby for now, but only as long as she follows certain guidelines which I explain to her. She is very relieved and grateful and then takes the baby out to the beach.
After she leaves, I decide that, actually, I want and need to have my baby with me. I walk outside toward where she is setting out a blanket for her and the baby to sit on. As I am heading towards her my feet slip a bit on the edge of a great sand pit that two men have dug for themselves and are resting on beach towels in the curve, some sand showers down on them. “Oops, sorry guys!” I call down to them. “No Problem,” they say as they stand up, wave, shake off their towels and then lie back down.
I make it to the woman and claim my baby; she hands her to me and then I turn around and walk back up the beach toward the house. As I am walking toward the house I notice a great and powerful storm gathering behind the mountains and it is amazing. I continue to walk past the house and up a pathway to the side so I can get a better view of the amassing storm. It is spectacularly beautiful and so powerful; great dark clouds, roiling and gathering and first one, then another, powerful bolts of lightning reveal the huge storm in the sky, behind the mountains.
Then, all of a sudden, a huge column of lightning strikes down through the middle of the storm and lights up the entire sky, a ring of light starts from the center of the storm and begins to open and expand outward, one concentric circle of light, heading for my baby and I. “Here it comes! Here comes the great shift, the change; we do not have to be in the middle of the storm to experience the transformation and it is heading right towards us!” This is the thought that is going through my mind and I am so excited and amazed at my luck in being able to witness this miraculous event! Then, suddenly, also out of the center of the storm, a huge, flaming ball of fire flies out and catches up to the ring of light heading directly towards us.
This is the only moment I become frightened and I look around to see if there is anything I can use to protect my baby and I when the fireball hits. I see a low standing wall made of rocks, like something from an old ruin, or Irish countryside, and I think perhaps we could hide behind that. As I start to move toward the wall, my baby, who has since become a child about age 4 or 5, jumps down out of my arms and runs, as fast as she can, to meet the great ball of fire which lands at her feet.
The fireball then unfolds its silver ash and glowing orange coal wings revealing itself as a huge Phoenix; and it rises to its full height, expanding its chest, towering over my little girl as she looks up at it, smiling and clapping and practically jumping up and down with excitement. The Phoenix then steps back and bends low, stepping out of the crater it has created from its landing; dipping its great chest into that crater, the Phoenix drops, from its heart, a dog, a wolf puppy. My little girl then leans down into the crater and picks up the puppy, she kisses it and hugs it close and then places it into her/my heart.
And I woke up, heart pounding with excitement and astonishment at all I have just seen and been through, I reached for the pen and paper beside my bed and wrote it down, as if I could ever forget!
On September 11, 2011, I received the gift of a tarot reading with the Sun/Moon Tarot Deck, which I now use. The very first card shown to me was Death/Rebirth. I have been working exclusively with this deck, ever since; we have claimed each other and our work has become a journey of image, whimsy, storytelling, in order to bring the unconscious into consciousness and open the heart with love, into life.
From January 2012 to now, I have been on 3 trips to Zululand in South Africa (a place I never imagined I would go and where I lived for most of 2013), let go of almost everything I owned and been on a journey so filled with serendipity and healing and pain and joy and gratitude that I have come to the conclusion, or perhaps the introduction, of the realization that Love is the answer to every question I have ever had; it is the stability on which I ground and base my life.
I am here to assist the birth of the New Paradigm, it is why I was born. When we do a tarot reading, healing takes place, spiritual activation happens, and we move forward, deeper and further into love. I look forward to meeting you and sharing part of this beautiful journey with you as you look into the cards and unfold into your own heart as you step forward with courage, into the new frontier, The New Paradigm, The Age of Aquarius.
We are all rising from the ashes of the old paradigm together. Thank you for riding the Phoenix with me, and as Mary Oliver put it so succinctly, "Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". And also the wolf puppy of your heart...
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –over and over announcing your placein the family of things.~Mary Oliver
