Monday, September 25, 2017

PsychKicks©: Synchronicity Made Simple



Psych yourself up with like-minded sidekicks by exploring the symbols all around us—together.

Source of Inspiration
Life experience, astrology,
dictionary, psychic

© 2017 by Joyce Mason

In my previous post, Psychic Impressions, I covered the topic of “cosmic repetitions.” These are little scraps of experience or information that repeat themselves in your life, usually three times or more. Once you hit the magic trio number, you’ve probably got a synchronicity on your hands, a meaningful coincidence. So if you still don’t think you’ve got a psychic bone in your body, let’s move from focusing on your bones and whole body to observing and counting those syncs in hand.

You may expect this kind of tuning-in to be more complicated than it actually is. It’s no different than the game many of us played with siblings or cousins on long car rides. Count the number of red cars! In this case, you just look for repetitious occurrences. The best way I can illustrate is to share a recent sync in my own life that held a simple message.

I noticed this summer that in addition to having a therapist named Andrew (Andy), my new plumber was also named Andy. I like them both a great deal. I have been using Insight Timer for content and tracking in my meditation practice. The other day, I also noticed that the two Timer teachers whose meditations I use most are both named Andrew. Hmm. Not just three but four Andrews. All of them involved in making my life better. (Another Andy delivered food to us from Door Dash just after my first draft of this post.)

Being a symbols player, I immediately looked up the meaning of the name. Andrew means manly or masculine. At first I thought how generic. I wondered what that had to do with the price of eggs.

That’s the thing. You can’t stop when the symbolism doesn’t jump up, grab and shake you. You have to contemplate it a little. It didn’t take me long to realize I should ponder what was going on with masculine energy in my own life.

For starters, I should give you the context that I have Mars in Cancer, not the easiest Mars sign to express. (As I heard someone put it, it’s hard to be nurturing and mad at the same time.) That aside, I started thinking about how many Aries women I have for close friends and how I admire their ability to cut through any crap and just do it, whatever it is. My gearshift is often stuck in park while I wade through all the fear and other emotions that come up around what I have to do, especially if it means being very assertive and possibly testy. Talk about the sideways crab walk. My vehicle has a stick shift as in easily stuck.

My Mars has been really tested in the past couple years, and there is more Marsy behavior that I need to assert in the year to come. Thus, the message of all those “masculine” Andys. Now to come to terms with the message and how I can operate more directly. As if giving me that cosmic nod that I got the message, I had a dream about an old love recently. My first spiritual teacher/psychic told me that I dream about this man when I need to assert my masculine side.

So here’s my simple formula for finding and interpreting synchronicities in your own life.


Treat your synchronicities like a Leo Lion
who loves to be noticed.


How to Develop Your Synch Sensitivity
  1. Notice when a topic, name, place, experience—whatever—happens twice. By three times, know there’s usually a message.
  2. If there’s a name or concept involved that you can look up, do a few minutes of research for some dispassionate light on the subject. Or ask a friend or trusted advisor for input.
  3. Once you’ve got a clue from research or your own hunches, sit with it. Meditate on it a little. Write down what you find out.
  4. If there’s something you need to act on, take the final step and shift into drive. Have a good trip.


I hope this helps you hone that synch-ing feeling and to use it for all its worth—usually a lot. We all love to be noticed. Treat your synchronicities like a Leo who loves to be the center of attention, and you’ll be rewarded with loyalty and more fun than you thought this “random” universe had to offer.

~~~

Photo Credit: 
Kids side kicking - keigo1027yasuda @ fotolia.com; Lion kids hugging - ©jbrown @fotolia.com

Related Posts

The Queen of Synchronicity

A New Timepeace: Bending and Mending Time


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Sunday, September 17, 2017

Goddess Save the Queen!



An Autumn Equinox Poem

© 2017 by Joyce Mason


You come on leaves gently blowing
air crisping
grapes ripening
carousel colors streaming
rich shades cavorting
sounds whispering the gestation of snowflakes.

You are sensuous, ripe, bounty.
Your grand entrance, fashionably on time
same time each year
long awaited
a lover returning from the Other Seasons
and the Other Side
too long gone
outshining the other times of year
not meaning to.

Queen Libra, gentle figurehead
of ardor and fairness
grant me sanctuary
for the one month
I feel at home
in the Monarchy of Love, Beauty,
Sweetness and Connection
Balanced by your Golden Scales.
I lean in for the Kiss of Venus.

~~~

Photo Credit: © George Mayer - Fotolia.com


Sunday, September 10, 2017

PsychKicks© ~ Karma and Reincarnation: The Great Flow Charters in the Sky



.
Psych yourself up with like-minded sidekicks by exploring the symbols all around us—together.

Source of Inspiration
Life experience, astrology,
metaphysical teachings, past
life regressions


© 2010 - 2017 by Joyce Mason

This offering and some of the soon-to-follow PsychKicks are updated articles from The Radical Virgo and Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights. They fit our PsychKicks themes, and that I thought you’d enjoy or re-enjoy them in their newest incarnations.


I first became involved in metaphysics in 1977. Little did I know then what a red-letter year ’77 would be. On November 1, the planetary body Chiron was discovered. Chiron would ultimately become my specialty as an astrologer, but not until we “met” eleven years later. Among other things, Chiron’s discovery ushered in a focus on ecology, alternative medicine, and an interest in “New Age” spirituality.

Another iconic event that year awakened the consciousness of many people—the release of the first Star Wars movie. There’s nothing like cinema to coincide with and even help create cultural turning points. Suddenly, we were saying, “May the Force be with you,” acknowledging that there was one joining power we could tap into. We were spouting Yoda-isms, words to live by from the tiny green wizened one.

“Luminous beings are we … not this crude matter.” ~ Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

My intro to these subjects came from psychic and meditation teacher Betty Bethards and Unity Church, but my upbringing influenced the way I saw a melting pot of ideas from different religions and traditions. Take karma for example.

While karma has many dimensions, the rough parallel is the biblical, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” However, karma adds the idea of reincarnation, that you may be reaping your crop through several lifetimes. This is much more than “God’ll get you for that,” as Maude used to tell her husband Walter on her hilarious spin-off from All in the Family. Karma is about balance, learning both what nourishes us and what doesn’t work—anything that hurts ourselves or others. If we hurt others, we’ll eventually walk a mile in painful shoes. If we don’t love ourselves enough, we’ll taste the bitterness of that path and be given a chance to try the sweet nectar of self-compassion instead.


What Are the Mechanics?

I was one of those overly curious kids who asked my father why so often, he wished he had a why swatter. When I received new information, sometimes before my physical and emotional maturity to handle it, I would always get hung-up on the mechanics. For instance, when I first heard about sex and how people “do it,” I had to get out two of my dolls, imagining the male to have an anatomically correct appendage, and experiment with how the male and female parts might fit together. I didn’t get it. Grown-ups must be acrobats! At least I got points for an inquiring mind.

The same thing happened to me with karma. Once I heard that you often go through many lifetimes with the same cast of characters, repeating similar scenes until you complete your “business,” I had to figure out a way to wrap my brain around something so complicated. Here’s what I came up with as a touchstone for organizing my thoughts around karma and reincarnation.


The Great Flow Charters in the Sky and Magic Marker Music

I first got this idea before social networking and many tools we take for granted nowadays. I envisioned that each person has a team of advisers, a karma committee, to help map out his or her next incarnation for maximum learning. This is esessentially what Betty taught us.

With my Catholic background and being raised by an Italian mama, I saw my committee as handsome young Italian-American men in blue pinstripe suits, sort of a white-collar version of Tony Soprano’s mob family. Only better looking. Only angels. They didn’t make their bones; they made their wings. Bad guys gone good, now rewarded with the important job of helping others settle  their own scores in their multiple lives.

They’re in a “peace room” of sorts, the heavenly version of a war room where strategies are plotted before the plotted arise and are planted on earth again, body and soul together, one more time. They have to figure out how this complex of people will meet up and have all the experiences they need with all the right people from their past karmic strings of events. What a job!

I envision several flip charts. On them, the well-dressed angels are drawing intricate flow charts. Each chart stands for an individual life. Imagine the number of charts in a room in order to dovetail all of a person’s primary encounters with the people who are their sources of “unfinished business.” I can barely conceive of the complexity of this. If I had come lately to these ideas, I’d probably imagine some sort of computer program or phone app. But I’d lose something important with a more modern image. The visual of the flow charts makes obvious what a complex puzzle karma can be. It’s easier to grasp the idea in the visible foreground rather than thinking about how some magic box or program makes it happen offstage.

When my karmic connections and karmic moments happen, my mind hears the squeak of the Magic Markers the Flow Charters use, dancing furiously on those flip charts. I imagine the entangled strategy it took for all the planets to align and the people nudged to get this moment to synch up.


The Mystique of Karma

Karma has a mystique like marriage. I had a great conversation with a friend once concerning what a minefield it is to offer opinions on someone else’s marriage, no matter how close the friendship. What Anne said is both commonsense and profound:

Ultimately, what's between us and our husbands is part of that mysterious alchemy that no other person can ever fully know (including us, some of the time!) 

I dare say, the same goes for karma—or maybe it goes for karma foremost, because what marriage would not be a karmic relationship?

The resonance of karma is what pulls people together. We recognize each other energetically. Astrologer Barbara Hand Clow believes that we retain our same Ascendant in our birth chart lifetime after lifetime. One thing the Ascendant or rising sign has to do with is how we look. In other words, she believes we retain looks similar enough from one incarnation to the next to be recognized by our karmic posse. Even though it’s a radical idea, it feels plausible to me, especially after noticing how often I have been attracted to men with a certain look.

Karmic connections involve strong magnetism and a sense of rediscovery. It’s like when you haven’t seen an old friend for years, and you pick right up where you left off. Only you don’t consciously “know” this person yet in this lifetime, so you can’t understand why it feels that way using “normal” logic.


Details Please! Past Life Regression

I’ve had several past live regressions, a form of self-exploration that I would recommend that you try only with a trusted practitioner by way of a personal referral. I learned amazing things, including my role as an astrologer in Atlantis and how much trouble it got me into. It explains why I’ve had an approach-avoidance conflict with reclaiming that vocation in my current lifetime.

I know that my husband, Tim, was also my husband in Atlantis. He took care of me when I was disabled, and now I am returning the favor in helping him navigate his health issues and disability in our current life.



“Much to learn you still have…my old padawan. This is just the beginning!” – Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back


But What If You Don’t Believe in Reincarnation?

You don’t have to believe in reincarnation for this concept to work. In today’s world, life is so fast and jam-packed with experiences, we live what’s tantamount to numerous lifetimes in a single incarnation. Non-believers might even be more proficient in resolving karma, thinking this lifetime is “it” and all the time they have to work out their relationships.

Completing circles—that’s what it’s all about. Balancing the favors, grievances, love, good and bad feelings and coming to a higher understanding of the essence of each individual on your Great Flow Chart in the Sky, especially yourself.

And, of course, you can see a lot of your karmic story in the ultimate cosmic flow chart of your horoscope, especially when you start comparing yours with others' in your karmic cluster. Some types of astrology such as evolutionary astrology focus on this aspect of birth charts and the Moon's nodes role in the past-life and karmic picture.

I don’t know what is the sound of one hand clapping, but I do love the sound of one marker squeaking.

~~~

Photo Credit: Kids side kicking - keigo1027yasuda @ fotolia.com; Whiteboard – Tuulijumala @ Dreamstime.com



Related post: Astrology and Past Lives by Lana Wooster

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SUBSCRIPTION: To receive PsychKicks directly in your inbox weekly, sign up for The Radical Virgo Posts in the sidebar. If you have any problems with your subscription, contact me: joyce@joycemason.com.