Winter Solstice

Yay! December 21 is here, and the days will begin to get longer. This is a celebration that especially northern climates can truly appreciate, and for me, it is WONDERFUL! More light, new beginnings, and gratitude toward the time of surrender, which brought us clarity in what we want for the time of growth and warmth. Winter Solstice, Yule, is finally here.

While January 1 is a great time of celebration and "ringing in the new year" with those who are on consumer time, I recognize the Winter Solstice as Earth's New Year; a time when the shift to light brings longer days.

From an early-morning meditation, I found action through inspired thought for 2009...

1. Breathe Deep Every Day. Do several deep and slow breaths in a row, until you feel slightly light headed. Do this when the thought of deep breathing comes to you; even if you only have time for one or two deep breaths, breathe in deeply and consciously, exhale consciously.



2. Meditate. Heard it a thousand times, but this is key to our awakening. You will be provided with time every day to meditate 10 to 30 minutes – it is up to you to recognize that the time is there and that your intention for that time is for meditation. To deep breathe with meditation is even more beneficial.

Meditation is key because time is speeding up, and as it does, events and situations stick and pile up faster, forming a clotted mound as the day or week goes by, giving us the sensation that we are overwhelmed and confused… not to mention the fact that our big issues come slamming into that mound, sticking even bigger masses to the clot, creating more confusion, fogginess and frustration. When we meditate, the speeding up of time not only stops, but time stops period. Our mind is no longer worrying about the future or torturing ourselves about the past. We are simply in the Moment. The effects of speeded-up time are neutralized and defused, allowing chunks of the clot (issues) to release into the flow of universal energy. Being in the Now is the only way to stop time - Now is the only time that is real or matters. The confusion will be left behind, you will recognize the beauty of this moment in your journey, and recognize that “what is” is perfect in this moment.

3. Become Aware of Old Patterns. Simply becoming conscious of your patterns will begin the process of undoing and breaking the pattern. But you must make the concerted effort of identifying what patterns you have (when you have strong negative emotions about situations or people, there is a pattern present). If you become aware of a pattern, try using the Byron Katie 4-question technique. For more information, please visit her website http://www.thework.com/index.asp , and read her books "Loving What Is" and "A Thousand Names Joy". If you're not a reader or would like to watch her technique in action, check out the videos on her website

4. Focus on Your Issues, Stay Out of Other People’s Issues. This goes hand-in-hand with #3 and can be applied to personal, national, and global situations. You cannot force change on other people or situations and expect it to work out just as you wish. If you want a person to change, first question your own desire to see them change (Byron Katie questions) and discover what is true for you. Often when you think someone or something should change, you are getting into that someone else's business. Ask the 4 questions that Byron Katie poses, and see what your turnaround is.

Resisting, struggling, or fighting against another person or situation will leave you with overwhelming feelings of negativity, and any "progress" you may find through pushing your agenda is often temporary, empty, or results in worsening the situation.

Ultimately with other people, their issues and behaviors are not yours to fix. You cannot make another person behave the way you want them to. You can only point out to them how you feel when they behave that way - that is your truth. Then they can decided what that means to them - which is their truth.

"John/Jane, When you do XX, I feel XX." Let them decide what their truth is; let go of expecting them to see your point or to change. No one "should" or "shouldn’t" do anything; for there is no "proper behavior" barometer out there. There is only the barometer of truth within each person, and that truth is for that individual only. If someone else cannot accept you for you, and you are having difficulty accepting their behavior, continuing in that vein is only harmful to both parties.

This empowering action is the Universe lining you up with, and disconnecting you from, those who no longer are in alignment with you. This is the Universe working through you, and it shows you who you are, so that you know your truth.

Full Moon Morning

I look at this enormous moon and nothing can describe its vastness and the reality of it. Today's date and the moon's symbology for me is profound: the 13th, 13 representing ascended masters, particularly the feminine; the full moon representing the feminine.

It is minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, so cold that even the frigid river water warms the air, letting go of its steam.

I step out of the car expecting to be assaulted by the Arctic temperature, but the air and cloudless sky reveal a dry cold that poses a greater risk of my face becoming a poster child for Oil of Olay than my fingers freezing to my camera.

Warm in my downy jacket, I boldly move to a better position across the parking lot to take pictures of the moon.

I shoot, look at the viewer. That can't be right. Shoot again, look at the viewer. Hm...the largest the moon has appeared in years, closer to Earth than it has been in years, brighter to the human eye than it has been in years, and yet it looks so small in the viewer. I look up, it is enormous. I look down...tiny. I zoom, shoot again, zoom, shoot again. And again, observing whether the reality of the viewer has changed. It has not.

It occurs to me that a "master photographer" could possess the right lens, filters, or camera to shoot the exactness of what I see - but I know in my heart that this is not true. No matter what camera, lens or filter I have, no matter who the photographer is, only variations of this beautiful specter can be created as it moves so slowly across the morning sky that it seems to hang on the frozen atmosphere.

It also occurs to me that to believe I might replicate it in a physical medium such as photography, has a misunderstanding at its core. For every physcial thing that we see before us has an energetic element too. This is why our breath is taken away when we "see" the beauty of nature. We are not just seeing with physical eyes. What makes a site so beautiful is not about what the "naked eye" sees, but the what the soul sees, too.

I look at this enormous moon. It is larger than life. Yet it is so small I can barely conceive of its role in the cosmos. It is humorous that a little physical being such as myself is attempting to reflect in the format of photography what the universe has created in its profound power and vastness. Luckily, being a part of the universe makes me a part of that joke, and I smile at my smallness, and at my vastness.

Photography is my way of honoring and loving the very beauty of the power that created us.

Life shines through us like the light of the sun reflecting off the moon, reflecting off of the Talkeetna Mountains. We are never doing, we are never thinking, we are never breathing. We are beign breathed, being thought, being done.

So this morning I released the need to capture the essense of the moon, and just allowed the moon to shine through my photos as it would; allowed myself to be thought and breathed, allowed the doing to flow through me.

That is as close as I can come to honoring the vastness and reality of the moon and my life.

And now, here comes the sun.