Saturday, December 31, 2022

For the Love of Cusps: New Year’s Eve 2022

 

 



Post © 2022 by Joyce Mason

I love cusps. I know I have mentioned before that my parents and I were born on three cusps in a row: Leo/Virgo (Dad, August 23); Virgo/Libra (Me, September 22; and Libra/Scorpio (Mom, October 23). I joke that we are a tricuspid family. We were each born on the last degree of our Sun signs.

Perhaps this fact of life and birth makes me even more sensitive to endbeginnings, a wonderful term I learned in a Yoga Journal article many years ago. There are so many in our lives. As a celebrant of the solstices and equinoxes since 1988, I have discovered just how sacred life is on the edge of change. As winter wanes and waxes into spring, spring into summer and so on, there is a kind of comfort and amazement at these markers. Life keeps going on and we just keep learning more about love and living. Cusps help us look back and review our progress.

Burning Bowl Plus

In my Solsisters ritual group, which I co-facilitate, we do the ever popular Burning Bowl ritual at Winter Solstice where you write down what you want to get rid of on your life, whether it’s weight, a certain fear, a communication pattern that does not serve—whatever causes your life not run optimally. Our papers can be burned in a fireplace, buried, trashed or whatever form of letting go suits you.

After doing this for a number of years, I realized we were missing a complementary ritual. I call it the Ceremony of Recognition. Yes, there are things we all want to release. But what accomplishments do we want to recognizes ourselves for? We need to pat ourselves on the back but most of all, to see how far we have come since we last did this a year ago.

Those accomplishments and evidence of growth are our keepers. These are the things we want to carry forward and weave into the next phase of life. We do this ritual first, before the burning bowl.

Why not try it? As I am posting this past midday on New Year’s Eve, I should mention that it doesn’t matter if you do it today, tomorrow or next week. It’s within the zone of an endbeginning and the sacred time of reevaluations.

Twenty twenty-two was a difficult year for many of us. May you carry forward all you learned and your best keepers. May 2023 bring your more personal recognitions and fewer things to burn. Happy New Year!

~~~

 Photo Credit: © Tatiana Sviridova | Dreamstime.com


Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Night Light

 A Winter Solstice Poem

© 2022 by Joyce Mason
















We are light:
universal energy
flickering Godstuff
illuminating the Path to Love.

Ink sky reflects light:
the cusp of winter
the Darkest Night.

Against this backdrop
light pops: the irony of contrasts,
the Yin and Yang of Life.

“You are the Light,”
said Jesus and other wise men.
Once we grasp this, we are Magi.

All the winter celebrations
full of candles, strung with lights:
love spelled out in carols, votives, menorahs,
the Christmas Star and in the Light of Laughter.

When the circuit connects
at the socket of the heart
joined flames have the power to heal
even at the speed of light.



~~~

Photo Credit: ©  Dreamstime.com


Thursday, September 15, 2022

Ripe

















An Autumn Equinox Poem

© 2022 by Joyce Mason

 

I fall off the tree

full of myself

so ripe my essence overflows

oozes back to Earth.

I cannot dam my seeping vitality.

I am the chasing arrows of cosmic creation.

 

I am fullness bearing my own fruit.

I am the autumn of my life,

the autumn of every life cycle,

I am the juice of my own potential.

I will not miss this bloated moment,

fullness over-the-top.

To miss it is to rot,

to cycle without harvest

to stifle everything I can be:

a magical explosion of me-a-tivity.

 

~~~

Photo  Credit: © Raul Garcia Herrera - Dreamstime.com


Thursday, June 9, 2022

Summer Run

 A Summer Solstice Poem

Poem © Joyce Mason 2022 










Slithering like a snake after rain

Summer hisses its heat and bawdy flowers.

We romp and run in the blazing rays.

 

We are racing prisoners who got out of jail free.

The blur of beauty scarcely catches our eye.

We sprint, tails afire, through the hot freedom

seeking water.

 

Maximum light and childlike joy:

We barely hear our mothers calling us for dinner.

Summer Solstice, cusp of Cancer,

Mother knows best.

Feed yourself

fuel for more adventures.

Rest a while.

Bring back the beauty from the blur.

Have it for dessert.

 

~~~

Photo credit: © Famveldman | Dreamstime.com


Sunday, June 5, 2022

The Radical Virgo is Price-Less!

All Kindle and PDF Ebooks Now US $2.99 - $4.99



Dear Radical Readers,

The world has rarely needed healing as much as it does now. Since my Astro-specialty has long been the healer-centaur planet Chiron, I'd like to do my part to make my books more accessible by offering them at a lower cost. This price reduction also commemorates my semi-retirement from astrology--at least for now because I never say never. My astrology books will hopefully help people heal with insights. My fiction book, The Crystal Ball, has astrological overtones and info, too. It may help heal with laughter as well as giving you some tips about longevity, healing and helping others. It is also seasoned with some more information about Chiron. My favorite among my Astro books is Keywords to Unlock Chiron, which delves deeply into Chiron's various symbolism in a way that will help you find your custom resonance to his teachings. (See sidebar for purchase information.)

Chiron: The Myth About Duality

As a dual being, Chiron is about self-integration. There were two types of centaurs, the wild ones who had no control over their beastly ways, and the wise teacher-mentor Chiron. Chiron's dual body represents heaven in his upper body closer to the stars, 

The Education of Achilles by Chiron

and earth in his lower, animal/horse nature. We incarnate in the image of All That Is. We bring the spark of heaven to earth. Chiron became more spark than horsing around in a no-kidding kind of way. (The wild centaurs raped, pillaged and destroyed everything in sight, presumably just for the fun of it.)

The difference between Chiron and his wild look-alikes was the way he grew from traumatic issues, such as dual parental abandonment and looking like a freak. Chiron developed his upper half (thinking, spiritual side) and used the best of his animal nature to work with what earth has to offer: herbs, medicine and "taming the wild beast" by teaching adolescents on Mt. Pelion to channel their masculine energy into life-affirming activities and to honor the environment. He balanced his light/dark, heaven/earth nature and evolved into the best composite of both.

Chiron: Sign of the Times

Today we see an awful lot of wild centaurs in the news creating mayhem from plain meanness to gun violence and senseless wars.  People spew us/them hatred like it might solve anything or make them happy. I can barely read the news as a sensitive empath. What we are witnessing today is the intensification of darkness before the light. It's like a boil. The healing can't happen until it pops and the infection oozes out. (Sorry for the eww metaphor for the weak of stomach. It just fits so well.) 

Unfortunately, we see the world through a limited window. Think of life as a parade passing by your home that you see through the glass in your living room. We only see the part of the parade that's passing by now, not all that came by before now or how it will march on and conclude after we are gone. 

We need integration on all levels to turn humanity into wise beings who thrive on the best of their dual nature. As with many things psychological, the light/dark or heaven/earth duality often gets played out by projection. The people, governments or things we hate are often a projection of our own darkness that we don't own.

The Prescription

In Chiron's story, he did the hard work of self-integration. When we are balanced within ourselves and love ourselves no matter what the world thinks of us, we become heroes. We give birth to one more lover and one less hater in the world. Chiron's school on Mt. Pelion was for the development of heroes as he mentored Jason, Hercules and many other mythological notables. Ask yourself often, "Why does this thing about ___ bother me so much?" Discover what inside of you that you may not be owning, may need to integrate, and do it with compassion for yourselves and others.

One of the most potent ways we we can heal our world is to start with what we actually have the power to change--ourselves. I hope my work in some small way helps feed the divine domino effect of a world with more Chirons and fewer half-horses gone mad. In no way am I downplaying the importance of getting involved in various practical and direct ways of making the world a better place. Everything you do adds to the momentum. Some people have a gift for making a difference in the community and world and the passion and energy to do it. Their love and enthusiasm is contagious.

How we evoke change most is by example. Chiron was above all a teacher. May you never stop knowing the hundreds of ways you help others just by being yourself.

Be at one--with yourself--to be at One with all.


Every blessing,
Joyce



Monday, March 14, 2022

Cusp

A Spring Equinox Poem


Poem ©2022 by Joyce Mason





I am a bud lingering

in my grave of soil,

past and future lives merged,

barely moving at a snail’s pace,

becoming.


Winter, a weighted blanket

of frozen motion clings

and ducks the sun

that melts into tomorrow.

 

The season of suspended animation was so long;

past memories have been wiped

and renewal is a broken hope …

 

… and yet

like clockwork

the wheel turns,

sprouts push out of their earthen crypt

and another spring reaches its tipping point,

bursting into being

bringing us with it.

Reincarnation.


~~~

Photo Credit: ©  Dreamstime.com