On January 30th, we have another super new moon, the second this year. It just happens to be in Aquarius, the archetypal transcendental sign of new ideas and heightened consciousness.  How exciting! The energy this new moon brings is full of powerful transformation, openness and new adventures. Aquarius is an Air sign, bringing uplifting energy, visionary perspective and an increased power to our focus and intentions.

Mystic Mama always collects the most wonderful astrological  insights and I love everything about this post describing the joyous energy we’re moving into right away. Kelly Rosano’s message revved me up:

“The Aquarius New Moon represents freedom and liberation. Liberate your mind first and your freedom will follow. Aquarius reminds you to follow the beat of your own drum. Be unique. Be original. Be who you really are. Take a walk on the weird side of life. You may find a part of yourself that has been begging for expression….  

….You may break free from bad habits and relationships. You could awaken to your divine destiny. You are no longer distracted by fear and doubt. You are ready to be who you were born to be. You are prepared to stand in your divine power and shine your light. This energy promotes your creative self-expression…”

How perfectly apropos. This weekend I attended a Kryon conference (which was amazing, as always) and received an intuitive message from a group member during an exercise which seemed timely with this exciting Aquarian energy. She said “Now is the time to make the great leap forward!” My reply was a simple “Ok, will do!” I feel  completely ready to take that leap. My connection to spirit and our true divine nature is stronger than ever. I have no doubts about surrendering to whatever comes after this leap. No fear in my heart, just excitement about what’s to come. I’m so ready. Bring it!

If you’re reading this, know that it’s your time to shine brave lightworker. It’s ok to let your freak flag fly. Be yourself, be free and be gloriously happy. The more authentic you are to yourself, the more light you shine. The more you shine, the more we light up the world.

Have fun, do whatever feels right, regardless of how random, silly or completely mundane it is. Feed your soul by exploring your own truth, which will be different from my own, and from everyone else’s. It’s time to live the life of your dreams and have more fun than you could have ever imagined doing it!

December 1st today.

Here are my top 5 reasons why I’m happy it’s December, and I’m not including the fact that I have NOTHING I need to do today, although maybe that should be my number 1!

1- No Sugar November is OVER! Made it through with only a couple minor slip ups, like accidentally eating Honey Ham the whole time. Neither my husband nor I noticed until about the 20th. The take-away? Well, I realized that I feel fantastic without it.So fantastic I haven’t raced out to break the sugar fast. I’m still sugar free at 2pm today. I don’t know if I want to go back to my old ways. I’m not going to be so careful with things like sugar in a sauce, and I’m sure I’ll do the odd bit of raw honey here and there but I think I want to stay on this sugar free train for awhile longer. I did buy my husband a honeycomb to celebrate though. He loved it, and said now he knows why a bear likes honey!

2- The sun and the moon are in Sagittarius right now. I may be biased as my sun is in Sag, but I think it’s the most awesome sign, and I love the warm expansive fire energy it brings. Some info on what you can do with this Sagittarius new moon from Lisa Michaels right here.

3- My birthday is on Thursday, but my party is tomorrow. I’m going to go play at Edmonton’s new trampoline park, Launchpad! So stoked to go be silly and bounce my way into my 31st year!

4- Only a month to go in my project; the year of listening to my body. It’s been a wild and crazy ride, surpassing every expectation I had. I can’t wait to see what this last month brings.

5- Only 3 more weeks left of work (and they shall be crazy weeks, I’m sure). Then I’m on vacation from the 22nd of December till the 4th of January. We’re going to Cuba for a wedding on the 27th, and it will be the first trip away this year that’s purely recreational. I’m not sure what I’ll wind up doing with myself with no classes to attend or family to visit, but basically I get to go to a tropical island in the dead of winter with my husband and a bunch of our friends with no personal agenda (other than attending the wedding). Should be the perfect way to celebrate the end of this perfect year and to ring in the start of the new one!

Notice that Christmas is not in my top 5?  Well, it’s never been my fav, in fact, I used to hate it with a passion. I’ve healed that hurt though, and while it’s still not in my top 5, or even top 10, I’m not dreading Christmas this year, and that is a WIN for me!

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I have been challenged to a duel.

My husband stated that there was no way I could go a month without sugar.

I’m can’t quite remember what prompted the statement. I think we may have been discussing my love for chocolate.

“Ha!” I scoffed. ” Me? The one who hasn’t had a drink in over 10 months? Mrs. Willpower??? I’d be fine, YOU would be the one who couldn’t go a month without sugar!”

Suddenly, it was on like Donkey Kong.

We decided it would be too hard to enforce while I was traveling in Arizona and Jer wanted to wait till after his birthday. The logical time to start was just after Halloween, on November 1st.

That’s today.

I had my last chocolate bar (ok, two chocolate bars) at 10pm last night. I felt slightly sick afterwards, which is a great start. It’ll make it easier to keep the monkey off my back.

Our rules are simple. No processed/added sugars. Naturally occurring sugars in fruits and veggies are fine. I argued to keep raw local honey as I think there are lots of health benefits, but since he doesn’t like raw honey that didn’t really go over too well.

I’m not a sugar fiend by any stretch. I don’t like candy. Really, the only sugar I crave is in chocolate, but I can be satisfied with raw cacao. The trickier part for me will be avoiding the convenience of things like gluten free bread. We’re going to wind up eating a lot of unprocessed whole foods and I’m pretty stoked about it, but by mid-November, I’ll probably be jonesing for some Udi’s Chia Millet bread toasted with natural PB.

Should be an interesting challenge though. I think the healthy competition might be a fun way of spicing up our relationship. Maybe. I can’t say I’ll be a gracious winner. There might be an “In your face!” or “Suck it!” that slips out, much to my chagrin. Mostly because he started it. This whole thing was his idea and I don’t think he’s ever really seen my super competitive side. Hopefully he finds it cute and endearing.

Let’s DO THIS!

I’ve always loved Oct 31st.

Halloween has been my favorite holiday since, well, probably forever. The reasons why keep changing and evolving though.

I’ve always loved the idea of dressing up, having fun and getting candy from strangers. As I got older, it was still an excuse for ridiculous costumes and festival style mayhem after festival season was over.

This year though, Halloween was feeling different for me. I wasn’t quite as stoked about the drunken debauchery side of things (being sober takes some of the fun of that away, and I get to dress up in crazy costumes with my hoop troupe all the time). I was still looking forward to the day but it seemed more nostalgic than anything. That is, until I participated in a Samhain ceremony online for the Priestess Process with Lisa Michaels.  It completely re-framed my love for this time of year.

Samhain is a cross-quarter day on the wheel of the year between the Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice. It’s the third and last harvest festival day which honors the falling away of the old cycle and the beginning of the new. I’ve been consciously working with the wheel of the year since the Winter Solstice last year and this is the last major point on the wheel before coming back to that very magical starting place.

Through the ceremony, we were encouraged to honor our own harvest; to list all the blessings we’ve had this year, everything we are grateful for. My list was HUGE, and I could have gone on for many pages. I have so very much to be grateful for and so much of that was specifically because of the seeds of intention for the year that were planted on and after last winter solstice, Dec 21, 2012. Thinking about the magnificence of all that I’ve done was both awesome and humbling.

At Samhain, we’re marking the start of the darkest time of the year (in our Hemisphere at least). This is a time where the past and future meet and the veil between worlds are thinner. We have the chance to honor our ancestors, and to reflect on what has passed and what is to come.

This is a time where we step back into the womb or move into hibernation…. A perfect time to set an intention to gestate whatever you want to bring forth over the next year. I set my intention to gestate the book that I want to write about all the amazing things I’ve done this year, and to open my power to communicate my direct experience of divine love, bliss and joy effectively, so I can share it with the world.

It’s also a potent time to release whatever is no longer serving you, and as I did on the Aries full moon while I was out in Sedona, I release any old blocks, patterns of behavior and thought, any limiting beliefs that I have that no longer serve me, especially from all of my past lives.

I feel ready to retreat within to myself and really reflect deeply on the seeds I want to plant his year with the upcoming solstice. I woke up this morning (after about 9 hours of sleep) wishing I could go back to bed and stay asleep all day. In the ceremony today, Lisa gave us all permission to honor this hibernation time by sleeping more, relaxing and being gentle with ourselves. I really needed to hear that. I have trouble giving into my urges to be lazy… I feel better when I make them productive somehow, and I compromised this morning by allowing my shivasana after yoga to be a long, deep, half hour meditation under a fuzzy blanket.

I pulled a card from each element in my Elemental Forces of Creation Oracle and put together this unified field message for myself today: By letting go of what no longer serves me, I am holding space for my essence expression to have complete freedom, which is my path to perfect stewartship of all that is.

I encourage you to spend a part of today, in between taking kids trick or treating (or playing tricks on kids) to think about what seeds of creation you want to plant in your life next year and take those seeds deep into yourself as we hibernate during the darkest time of the year. I also encourage you to give yourself permission to rest and to be gentle with yourself. As the days grow colder and darker, spend a little extra time cuddled up under a warm blanket and know that it’s ok to slow down right now, to relax and enjoy before the days start getting longer again.

Sacred Circularities in Sedona.

I have been waiting for this for a long, long time.

Eagerly waiting, I might add.

Ann Humphreys and Jaguar Mary were in Sedona together about 2 years ago.

They danced on the land and felt it’s power, and thought “Hey! This would be an amazing place for a hoop retreat!”

Since Jaguar Mary is the primary creatrix of the legendary Sacred Circularities hoop dance and movement meditation retreats, she conspired to make it happen.

The Sedona retreat was scheduled for December 2012.

I’m pretty sure I was the first to sign on, about a minute after tickets went on sale in January 2012.

Sedona is my favorite place on the plane and hoop dance is one of my favorite things as you know, so I was going to be there no matter what. Even though I work in the restaurant industry, with December being the busiest time of the year and my biggest cash cow, I was going to be there somehow.

I went to Sedona on a Soul Adventure in 2010. It was as epic as it sounds. Completely amazing, life affirming wonderfully awesomely amazing. Did I say amazing? Well, it was. Sedona is magical. The area has been held as sacred for many, many generations, and has a deeply uplifting spiritual power. The land is full of energetic vortexes,  which, if you are sensitive to energy, are incredibly intense to visit.

As excited as I was for the event, it turned out that December was a bad time for everyone, so the retreat was rescheduled to October 2013. I was relieved when I found out about the date change. I wasn’t disappointed as I knew this would work out better for everyone, myself included.

I have had a LOT of time to be excited for this though, and I can’t believe it’s almost here. After traveling to Bali for Sacred Circularities in April, I have a better idea of just how much awesome this will entail!

The  retreat center itself looks spectacular, the schedule looks amazing, and I keep hearing about little touches that will make it even better, like smoothies from my favorite restaurant in Sedona, The Chocola Tree available in between classes. Just as refreshing as the young coconuts (from the trees right beside our hoop space) opened for us during class in Bali.

I’ve spent the last 2 years imagining how wonderful it will be to hoop on the sacred land in Sedona. I’ve spend the months since Bali waiting to return to the same community atmosphere we had there, and I’ve spend the last couple weeks deciding which hoops to bring. Tonight, I’ll figure out the rest.

I leave tomorrow morning, and I’m spending a day in Sedona soaking up the magic, and going to a few really cool new age practitioners before heading to the retreat on Sunday.

I am beyond excited, because I know this is going to be another life changing, amazing adventure!

I had a feeling this trip would be transformational, but I had no idea how or in what direction, but I’ve been setting the intention to become more grounded in my body and delve more deeply into my movement and meditation practices. I also set the intention to be inspired by the teachers here, to bring some of their energy into my own classes and workshops. So far, so good! All the women here are so inspiring. The teachers and space holders have the most amazing open energy that I definitely aspire to hold for people as well. It really creates this wonderfully safe container for the exploration of self we’re doing here.

I wrote more about it here:

http://www.sacredcircularities.com/1/post/2013/04/transformation-sc-bali-2013-week-two-day-two-by-kacie-knight.html

I’ve already completed a few personal challenges since I started this blog:

There was No Junk Food Week (successful!), the GET OUTSIDE challenge (partial failure) and the  daily Movement Meditation Challenge (life changing-epic-awesome turned into daily practice). I’ve also committed to do a sober year. No mind altering substances, including coffee for me till 2014. So far so good!  The strongest thing I have imbibed in has been green tea,  although I will admit I took some decongestants to keep snot from dipping down my face while I was serving tables with a cold two weeks ago, but that was really a practical matter. I tried going without and the result was…. unsanitary.

Anyway, these have all been my own personal challenges, but the one I’m starting today was thrown my way  via facebook by several friends who are also participating.

Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey have put together a 21 way meditation challenge called Perfect Health.

http://www.chopracentermeditation.com/bestsellers/ProgramPage.aspx?bookid=178&id=7733

These Guru’s of self help and wellness state: We will be your guides each day as together we discover how to recognize our body’s natural perfection and leverage its inherent wisdom. In our interactive online program, we invite you to meditate and journal with us to embrace the vision of your best self, expand your understanding of your miraculous body, and achieve greater balance and wellbeing.

It’s a free program and requires a 15-20 minute commitment every day.

It also happens to be perfectly in line with my own goals and belief system. I have nothing but respect for these two people, especially Dr. Chopra, who have been responsible for bringing the idea of wholistic wellness with a balance between mind, body and spirit into the mainstream.

I did my best Barney Stinson impression and accepted the 21 day challenge!

As an offside, the character of Barney on How I Met Your Mother has actually shared some profound spiritual wisdom which I write about on my old blog here: http://wp.me/p12dXx-J

Anyway, we started today with an intro by Oprah and Deepak, explaining that Perfect Health is our natural state.

I’ve been a little uninspired and tired the last couple days, as well as frustrated from being in pain.

For the last few months, the talus bone (which anchors to pretty much every other bone, ligament and tendon) in my right foot has been slipping out of alignment. As you can imagine, this makes doing anything on my feet uncomfortable. My chiropractor can pop it back in, and it’ll be great for awhile, but it keeps coming out, and while it’s out, I still have to walk (or dance) on it… It’s not incredibly painful at first, but the more I do, the worse it gets, and sometimes it takes a few days to get in to see my fabulous and heroic chiro.

I don’t have a lot of patience for nagging injuries, and I really dislike resting them. I have things I want to do that involve using my feet! I want to dance, to hoop, to go to yoga, go for walks and go to work (I work as a server, so walking is an essential part of my job).

So, my usual plan is to work though it, and then complain about how much it hurts at the end of the day. I also beg my body to just heal, dammit!

I realize this is a stupid way to approach, especially with the past injuries I’ve had to the same foot (all of which happen around this time of year oddly). There is always a message in the pain. The last real issue I had was about 2 years ago, and I wrote about the lessons I learned last time here: http://wp.me/p12dXx-4v .The biggest lesson was that I need to incorporate the sacred into my life, which I’ve been getting better at doing, but obviously have quite a ways to go.

When I woke up this morning with the start of a head cold I realized that I had been resisting slowing down and resting my foot which it definitely requires. I know for a fact I only get sick when I am tired, out of balance and need to slow down. This is my body’s way of making me chill without me feeling guilty.

I don’t really want to deal with a full blow cold, so I’m chilling as hard as I can, and consuming as many immune boosting things as I have in my arsenal; Oregano oil, sage tea, Emergen-C, Cold FX, lots of liquids, rest and reading.

The dialogue I had with my body might have been me bargaining:

Ok, Ok, I get the picture. My foot requires rest, so how bout I rest it without having to deal with a stupid cold at the same time? I get the message, I promise. Believe you me, I get it. No need to punish us both my making me sicker than I already am. Do we have a deal?

The deal is, I need to keep it elevated for the next few days, and when I walk, I have to walk slowly. With intention and with proper form. Heel to toe! None of this flopping around, turning this way and that at work like I’m playing basket ball. I think I can do that. I guess it’s a great awareness meditation. The trick is going to be keeping it up when we get busy. No choice but to accept the challenge though. I picked up a few books from the library this morning, so when I’m not working, I’ll just bury my nose in a book, which should make the chillaxing much more pleasurable. Sometimes I feel guilty when I spend  days on end reading rather than getting stuff done, but I guess this is my free pass, and I intend to enjoy it!