Get Ready!! Mercury Retrograde is Here!

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Mercury Retrograde is here again for it’s third and last visit this year. Mercury is the planet that seems to have the biggest effect on people and when it turns retrograde, even those that don’t believe in astrology find it difficult to deny it’s powerful influences. The most noticeable problems will occur in communication, technology, and travel plans.

What causes these mental-communications problems to happen when Mercury goes retrograde? The planet Mercury rules our intelligence, mind, memory and, all types of communication ranging from talking and texting to writing. It also affects our self-expression and communication style. In a more public sense, it rules commerce, computers, telephones, transportation, and air travel. It’s time to double-check everything, pay attention to details and back up your phone and computer.

During these three weeks when Mercury is retrograde, get ready for communications of all types go “bonkers!” Suddenly, normal communication becomes unreliable, filled with misinformation where important data is missing or misunderstood. The passage of information from one person to the other seems to be unintentionally cloudy or confused in some way. After all, Mercury does rule the mind, mental clarity, talking, self-expression and overall communication. Throughout the Retrograde period, a person’s intellectual, communication, and mental processes are less acute. They become mistake-prone, confused and forgetful.

What’s Unique About This Retrograde?

Each Mercury retrograde has a certain character based on the sign that Mercury is in when it goes retrograde. This retrograde is in the sign of Libra.

Normally when Mercury is in Libra, communications between people are likely to be social, charming and diplomatic, leading to win-win negotiations. But since Mercury in Libra will be retrograde, we are likely to see more than usual disagreements between lovers, bad news about the economy that shakes up the stock market, and relationships of all kinds will be strained.

Stay calm, grounded and centered through this time period and it is a great time to review, reflect and renew anything in your life!

Learn how to navigate and survive this trying period and prepare for the best outcome. Call in or listen in to our show,  as we answer all your questions about navigating this challenging time.

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Synchronicity and the Magic of Life

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One April, in lower Manhattan, I stepped out of a cab on West Broadway in front of the SoHo Grand Hotel. Missing the curb I began to fall and a man who was walking by caught me. The man turned out to be an old friend from Westlake High School who still lives in Austin and who I had not seen in twenty years. This is a coincidence: an uncanny event.

In the summer of 2007, I was attending a conference in Santa Fe, and during my lunch break, I was online searching for doctors anywhere in the world who might be able to help my son Sam, who was born blind. I was interrupted by a call from my friend Felicia who asked me to speak to a friend of hers who also has a blind son. She had found a doctor with alternative methods and she was fearful of the doctor’s unusual protocols. I immediately called this person, got the name of that doctor, and discovered that he lived in Santa Fe and his name was Sam! This is synchronicity: an unconscious awareness of life, a set of messages and these messages that are life-changing. Often times a prophecy, synchronicity is an unlikely or impossible coincidence that cannot be explained by luck or chance.

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Carl Gustave Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and he coined the term synchronicity to describe what he called the “acausal connecting principle” that links mind and matter. He said this underlying connectedness manifests itself through meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect. Such synchronicities occur, he theorized when a strong need arises in the psyche of an individual.

Coincidence and synchronicity are both defined as “striking occurrences of two or more events at one time.” The difference is that coincidence is perceived as chance or luck while synchronicity implies intuition, harmony, and resonance, the presence of a deeper intelligence at work.

A coincidence is a random external event that has nothing to do with your inner world. You live as a reactor to the external. You are not yet conscious of the fact that you have the ability to think independently of your present circumstances, thereby creating your own experience. The magic of life is overlooked.

Understanding synchronicity, you realize that there is more to everyone and everything than what they appear to be in physical form. You know that the invisible essence of everything on the planet is interconnected. You recognize the power of your thoughts and begin to consciously choose thoughts and belief patterns that will serve you and the planet. You are deeply humbled as you begin to see the connection between what you are thinking and what the Universe is delivering to you. The recognition of a deeper intelligence at work holds you in a beautiful state of awe and wonder at the mystery of life. The secret to life is not knowing how it all works: rather, in knowing your purpose, and allowing life to reveal itself with grace. You understand that to humans, time happens on a linear line; but, to the Universe, time happens all at once. Synchronicity means we are participating in the creative mind of the universe.

Some people attribute synchronicity to luck, fate, destiny, karma, angels or a miracle. My grandfather used to say that synchronicity happens when God wants to remain anonymous. Whatever your belief might be, synchronicity is the magic that gives us a sense that something bigger is happening something we can’t observe with just our five senses.

Whether you believe in synchronicity or not, I encourage you to approach the mishaps of life as favors. View accidents as not so accidental and all people we encounter serving a meaningful purposeful in our lives. There is significance in interruptions and in the unexpected. Your reality will shift and you will find yourself on the bridge between the invisible and the visible. Moments will be full of discovery and fulfillment and you will realize that you are constantly surrounded by messages, blessings, and magic. Because those who don’t believe in magic will never find it and certainly never experience it.

El Camino de Santiago

While preparing for the journey, you own the journey; once you step onto the path, the journey owns you. My friend Olga Mas and her friend Humberto Rodriguez, both attorneys from Miami invited me to join them on El Camino de Santiago, and I jumped at the chance to go on this medieval hike, a spiritual quest that others have taken for over a thousand years.

The Camino de Santiago, also known as Way of St. James or the Road to Santiago is any of the pilgrimage routes ending at the shrine of St. James the Apostle in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northern Spain. Tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried there. If you are fortunate, the end also signals a new beginning in your life. At least it did for me.

As I walked the first day, I talked to others and I asked them why they were doing this ancient spiritual journey. Most said that they were at a crossroads in their lives, asking if they should get married, or divorced, or have children. Others said they came for health reasons, needing a healing miracle. Some said they walk for people in their lives who can’t; either for physical reasons or that they are no longer alive. So, I began to ask myself the same question. Why am I doing this? Why was I in northern Spain walking for over 17 miles each day? Up until that day I had felt as if I had been running away from something or maybe someone or maybe my life. My hope was that at the end of this very long expedition that I would feel like I was running towards something or someone or my life.

 Each road and path was marked with yellow arrows that supposedly mark the Camino. But they often failed at crucial points, because I didn’t always see them. I began to understand that our wanderings are metaphors for life, filled with wrong turns, dead ends, detours, being lost—and found. The poorly marked Way also provided numerous opportunities for me to rely on the generosity of strangers and the help of friends. I learned that we are all pilgrims and strangers on the Way of Life, regardless of our degree of faith or lack of it.

 One day as in a vision, I saw before me a grand panorama of people in movement, spanning the centuries, traveling across the outer landscape of Europe, traveling through the inner landscape of the soul.

Life slowed to a walking pace. Lessons and messages began appearing around every corner and reflection became an everyday activity.

I met other pilgrims and heard their stories. There was a sense of camaraderie among us. We were pilgrims sharing a journey, not excursionists or holiday-walkers. We were pilgrims participating in an ancient rite during which we were invested with sacredness. Townspeople offered us something to eat or drink or asked us to light a candle for them or to embrace the statue of the St. James when we reached the cathedral in Santiago. People thought our prayers meant more because we were pilgrims. We had embarked on a spiritual adventure, one filled with significance and gifts of grace. I was in good shape, but I pushed my body to the edge of what I thought it could do and to my surprise the edge kept moving. This was the most difficult physical thing I had ever done. If it was easy more would do it, and it would not be a sacrifice or a pilgrimage.

After almost 100 miles with bruised, blistered and bleeding feet we reached Santiago. The town was overflowing with ebullient pilgrims and as we pushed our way through the crowds to the steps of the Cathedral I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude. What had I expected? I wasn’t even Catholic—so why would I have thought that arriving in Santiago would mean anything to me? I realized that it was the Camino that mattered. The pilgrimage had transformed my life. I had a new sense of myself, of my capacity to persevere, to push my physical and emotional limits. I had done things I would never have imagined possible. I slept in adult hostels where the walls were so thin; I could hear someone sneeze a floor above me. At any other time in my life, I would have bolted. But I stayed. I walked in the footsteps of my ancestors and in the beauty of Spain like so many have done over the centuries. And in the silence of my days, I began to hear the clear voice inside of me. I would never be the same.

The Camino will continue to reveal new aspects of itself as I delve below its surface, exploring its hidden meanings, its esoteric symbols, its inner teachings. I understand that I am running full throttle towards my wacky, often messy, always magnificent life-not away from it. I offered up prayers for all my friends at the pilgrim’s mass the last night underneath the gigantic swinging incense in the stunning cathedral. And I prayed for myself. And I thanked God for miracles. Because of El Camino, I now know, life is not about the destination and it’s not about the journey as so many say. Life is about the people that walk with you-beside you, and the guidance you receive along The Way. Buen Camino!

Muy agradecida, muy agradecida.

 

 

 

Being Your Unique Self

Every Wednesday night is amateur night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. On one of these nights in 1934, a seventeen-year-old girl took the stage planning to dance, but the act before her was a dance duo that was so good that she felt she couldn’t follow it. So, while standing onstage, she decided to sing. It didn’t bother this girl that she had never sung in public, in fact, she didn’t even know if she could sing! That girl was jazz great Ella Fitzgerald. As soon as she stepped onstage, the core of her life awakened, and she sang the rest of her life. I had the good fortune to hear Ella Fitzgerald live in New York. Anyone who has ever listened to her understands that hers was a natural and unique gift coming from the depths of her soul.

To become your unique self-requires a struggle against the tide of sameness and false security of simply fitting in – that is a fight worth having.

To become oneself by finding a way to contribute one’s God-given talents and natural genius to this troubled world – that is a job worth applying for.

The goal in this life is not simply to succeed and “become somebody”; the real goal is to become one’s intended self.

The most revered figures throughout history became memorable because they were uniquely themselves. Nelson Mandela. Mother Teresa. Albert Einstein. Each had to first awaken to a vision seeded within them. People remember them because they managed to manifest a unique inner vision that had meaning in the world around them.

Each soul is rare. And uniqueness has boldness in it and a core of imagination intended to transcend the common attitudes and collective patterns. That is self-evident in great literature and wherever unique imagination has had a chance to flourish. It is also a key to understanding how mass culture has gotten things mass backward. When someone’s inner uniqueness is recognized and encouraged they will demonstrate something exceptional and unusual. They will bring a unique vision to contemporary issues and bring innovation where others would simply rather be complacent. Being unique is the spirit that is already there in each person, the inner intention, primary style and way of being that makes a true individual regardless of the pressure to conform to temporary social patterns and contemporary cultural fashions. At the individual level, each person is here to give something that is not just unusual, not only exceptional, but that is distinctive and valuable by its very nature.

The inner uniqueness for life aspires to meaningful work and genuine purpose. It would have us undertake the seemingly impossible tasks of transforming culture and helping to heal the world. Not because the world can be saved or redeemed in a hurry, but because it is the impossibility of the great problems and projects of life that awakens the sleeping uniqueness within and changes work from a simple job to a life-long, life-enhancing project. And that serves the dignity and nobility of one’s soul as well as the well being of one’s community.

At the end of life, the question isn’t whether people obeyed certain rules or avoided certain vices. In the end, the question is whether or not they found the thread of their inner life often enough to learn the destiny that brought them to this life, to begin with. To understand and embrace the qualities and talents that makes them exceptional and distinctive.

An old Chinese proverb says, “A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a unique song.” Exactly what Ella Fitzgerald taught us on that fateful Wednesday night 70 years ago.

Hope Makes all the Difference

“Never lose hope, my dear heart, miracles dwell in the invisible.” ~ Rumi

Hope is a universal concept, a renewable energy source and it never runs out. We can tap into it whenever it is needed. From poets to presidents to box office hits, hope has captured thousands of generations and helped each of us endure the heartache and suffering that is life.

Scott Russell Sanders, an American novelist, and essayist explains that the Latin word for hope, sperare, comes from the Indo-European root spei, which means to expand. “To be hopeful is not only to feel expansive but to count on an ever-flowing bounty while to feel despair is to feel constrained, to fear that the springs are drying up.”

From the view of the soul, facing an overwhelming array of troubles is an old story. Throughout history in times of great uncertainty, we have told stories and myths which seem to provide us a meaningful path through life and give us what we all need the most–the touch of the eternal. These myths continue to remain relevant because we continue to endure the same challenges of our ancestors. And myths continue to captivate and help by reinforcing the concept of connecting to the old soul within each of us.

The story of Pandora’s Box is an origin myth made up to explain how all the evils came about in the world. It was written by Hesiod in an epic poem called “Theogeny” about 800 BC.

Zeus gives a wedding present, a box, to Pandora, the first mortal woman on earth. Zeus does not tell Pandora what is in the box but gives her strict instructions not to open it. Pandora waits a year, at which point her curiosity gets the best of her and she opens the box. The lid flies open and all the evils and miseries of the world bolt out: Hate, Violence, Sorrow, Ignorance, Jealousy, and Sadness. Pandora manages to shut the box, leaving only Hope, who is hiding under the lid. This old myth teaches us that all the ills and ailments, all the scandals and betrayals and the rampant dishonesty must be faced before the hidden hope of life can be found again. It’s as if things must become hopeless before a deeper sense of hope can return from the depths of the human heart. This level of hope includes a darker knowledge of the world and a sharper insight into one’s own soul.

Hope is found, not by clinging to old dreams or by denying despair, but by surviving it. When life becomes darkest, the eye of the soul begins to see. “Hope springs eternal” is when people begin to see beyond the parade of facts and the litanies of ideologies and learn to trust the deeper values of individual life, as well as, the underlying truths of human culture. Great crises are not solved by simply conserving assets but by finding inner resources that were hidden from sight.

The sense of connecting to the underlying spirit of life and the hidden resiliency of the individual human soul is the source of genuine hope. This level of hope is based on creative imagination that appears when people honestly stay in the tension of opposing ideas long enough to lean into their despair. This intensity and deeper meaning of hope depends upon the profound power of the human soul to imagine and therefore to create, renew and innovate. When all hope is lost and all seems headed for disaster, it is genuine meaning that is missing and needs to be found again.

In the end, Pandora hears a faint voice in the box. When she lifts the lid, she finds hope, releasing it into the world. Everywhere evil goes hope goes too. And all that is touched by evil – so to is touched by hope. So hope continues to make all the difference in the world.

Michelle Cromer