Transformative and Inspirational Living with Lucy Harmer – February 2010

Each month author Lucy Harmer dedicates her journal entries to the theme of “transformative and inspirational living” – finding the fun, magic and laughter in everyday occurrences! She explores ideas, thoughts and quotes from her two books, Discovering Your Spirit Animal and Shamanic Astrology.

February 2010

Your Perfect Match…
Using Shamanic Astrology to find your Valentine

© Copyright 2010 Lucy Harmer

As Valentine’s Day approaches, this month the focus is on relationships. Valentine’s Day is particularly special this year, as February 14 brings with it the new moon ruled by the shamanic astrological sign of Wolf: be prepared for your emotions to be intensified! If you are in a romantic relationship, expect heightened sensuality. In a more fiery partnership, tempers could run high. If you are apart from your loved ones on this day, you may feel the separation more keenly. Whichever spirit animal sign you are, be prepared for an emotional roller coaster ride!

You can find out more about the characteristics of each spirit animal sign in my book Shamanic Astrology. The descriptions of each animal sign include a dedicated section on love – exploring how that particular sign behaves in relationships. They can be quite revealing!

To give you a taster, I have summarized some of the main traits of each spirit animal sign below. See if you can find some tips to help you win the heart of your Valentine…

(To discover your spirit animal sign, and that of your partner/admirer check the table at the end of this article).

Falcon: Falcon people are passionate, intense and spontaneous in love. They don’t like hanging around; they know what they want and need to be immediately satisfied. They like partners who are joyful, active and spirited, who are able to make sparks fly!

Beaver: Beaver people are loving, generous and have great sensuality. They are attentive lovers. To give a Beaver person the ideal Valentine’s Day, take them out for a delicious meal in a romantic setting. Beavers also need emotional security, so make sure you tell them that you love them.

Deer: Deer people need to be intellectually stimulated by their partners. They hate to be bored and become mischievous if their mind isn’t kept busy. They are masters at the art of flirting and seduction! In order to please a Deer person, make sure you give them lively conversation; the more you can intrigue them the better.

Woodpecker: Woodpecker people make loving and attentive partners; they are very emotional and have lots of love to give. Woodpecker’s ideal Valentine’s date would be in a comfortable setting where they feel safe and cocooned. A nice cozy meal in your local Italian pizzeria, or a delicious home cooked meal would be perfect.

Salmon: Salmon people are exuberant in love. They like to play games and enjoy the art of seduction. Sensual and charismatic, the ideal Valentine’s date for Salmon would be being whisked away for a surprise evening in a dramatic setting – take them to the theater, spend the weekend in a cliff-top castle, book a romantic boat trip – anything that shows off their natural flamboyance!

Brown Bear: Underneath Brown Bear’s natural reserve and elegant appearance sleeps a tender and sensual being. In order to help a Brown Bear person get in touch with their feelings, create a loving, warm and trusting environment. Create a sensual environment to dive beneath their cool exterior – you might very well be surprised!

Raven: Although they can be indecisive in other matters, in love Raven people know what they want. Their nature is romantic and idealistic and they enjoy the subtle game of seduction. Sometimes Raven people are so anxious to please they forget their own needs. For the perfect Valentine’s date do something you know will really please them, find out their innermost dreams.

Snake: Snake people are passionate and experience their intimate relationships intensely! They are also secretive and like an air of mystery. To seduce a Snake, keep them guessing. Go all out in your seduction game; give them a little bit of flamboyance and a little bit of mystery. Heighten their emotions in this way and you may experience some of Snake’s legendary libido!

Owl: Owl people love exploring the world in search of adventure and their attitude towards love is also exploratory and spontaneous! To capture an Owl’s fancy, surprise them; do something adventurous and unusual. Even better, tell them to pack their suitcase and take them on a mystery trip, without telling them where they will be going. Use your imagination!

Snow Goose: Snow Goose people love tenderness and have unfathomable reserves of love to give, but they often have difficulty expressing their deepest feelings. The full moon on Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to dive a little deeper and help them to express their sensuality. To capture a Snow Goose heart, make them laugh and give them a lot of emotional reassurance. Create a quiet setting – nothing flash. They just want to know you care.

Otter: Otter people’s intuition can make them passionate and ardent lovers. However, they often feel the need to intellectualize their love. Constantly seeking independence, Otter people hate to be bored. For Valentine’s Day, create an evening which will stimulate them; take them to see a show, go dancing – or even bowling! Otters love to play and have fun.

Wolf: This is a very special Valentine’s Day for Wolf as it falls on the Wolf new moon. Wolf people will be especially romantic, sentimental and highly sensitive at this time. Shower them with love, kindness and affection and show them lots of tenderness. Create a romantic setting and give them lots of small gifts – you may find a whole new side to them, and a much deeper level to your relationship.

I wish you a fantastic Valentine’s night! By the way, if you are not in a relationship at the present moment, the Wolf new moon on Valentine’s Day is the ideal time to attract new relationships – so do go out and have fun!

Love and blessings,

Lucy

Table of Spirit Animal Signs:

To find your spirit animal sign, just locate your birthday from the dates below, according to your place of birth. If you were born north of the equator (e.g., USA, Canada, Europe), then look for your date of birth in the column headed “Northern Hemisphere.” If you were born south of the equator (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), then look for your date of birth in the column headed “Southern Hemisphere.”

Shamanic Astrology is available for purchase directly through NorthAtlanticBooks.com, as well as major book stores and online retailers.

CLICK HERE to learn more about courses, seminars and workshops offered by Lucy Harmer.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Shamanic Astrology.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Discovering Your Spirit Animal.

Decadent Raw Food Dessert Recipe: Dream Bars

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we are pleased to offer our readers this special raw food recipe for a dessert that everyone’s sure to love! It’s from one of our favorite recipe books, The Raw Transformation: Energizing Your Life with Living Foods by Wendy Rudell (with a foreword by–who else?!–David Wolfe). So if you’re feeling like munching on a decadent dessert that’s virtually guilt-free, give Dream Bars a whirl. And let us know how it goes!

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DREAM BARS

4 cups ground walnuts
6 cups raw rolled oat groats
1 ½ cups grated coconut
1/3 cup olive oil
¼ cup agave syrup or honey
2 tsp vanilla
1 recipe Fudge Sauce (see below)
½ cup grated coconut
1 cup pecan halves

In a food processor grind walnuts and raw oats until mealy. Add in coconut, oil, vanilla, and agave syrup. On a teflex sheet pat batter into a large square about ½ inch thick. Dehydrate until chewy. Flip over and dehydrate the bottom side.

Spread chocolate Fudge Sauce on top about ¼ inch thick. Sprinkle with shredded coconut and decorate with pecan halves. Make sure that each square you cut has a pecan half on it. Keep in the freezer.

Fudge Sauce
½ cup raw almond butter
¼ cup cacao powder or carob powder
¼ cup agave syrup or honey
1 tsp Nama Shoyu
Water

Blend all together, adding water to achieve desired consistency.

CLICK HERE to learn more about The Raw Transformation.

New Article by Bob Frissell – The Shift of the Ages: Countdown to 2012 and Beyond

THE SHIFT OF THE AGES: COUNTDOWN TO 2012 AND BEYOND
By Bob Frissell, author of Nothing In This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are, 15th Anniversary Edition

For thirteen thousand years we have been in separation. We see everything as polarized—as good or bad, up or down, hot or cold. We judge everything that happens. The very act of judgment keeps us in this mode of perceiving.

As an example of this separate way of looking at life, if your body gets cold you think of a fire or a heater; you think of something outside yourself. This has led to our increasing dependence on technology.

We become weaker when we keep giving away our power to technology—that is, to external objects. We then become dependent upon these objects and soon get to the point where we can’t do anything for ourselves.

Oneness does not understand this. It doesn’t know what “needing anything” means. Aboriginals, who remain in unity-consciousness and other indigenous people do not know what “need” means; whatever they need just appears because they are in harmony with Nature.

If we really knew, we could just think the thought “warm” and it would be so. We have the capability of changing anything in the reality from within. Many of us feel that we are just people with no power and no say regarding how things are in creation. The larger truth is that we can change anything in our environment under certain circumstances—when we are in Unity and not in separation. The Spirit of God can move right through you.

Sixteen thousand years ago, while on Atlantis, we violated galactic law. After a disagreement about how to handle an approaching comet—the remnants of which are scattered throughout four states—the descendants of Martians decided to separate from the Atlanteans. They created a powerful energy field that went totally out of control, and nearly destroyed the earth. We were on a very high level of awareness at the time, far beyond where we are now, but by committing this illegal act we fell many dimensional levels until we landed in this dense aspect of the reality.

There are no accidents, however. In the cosmic scheme of things, this “fall” was necessary in order to allow for a greater possibility. We are now about to leave this place of separation and return to unity-consciousness. The whole world is. We have only a short time left before we will no longer be in separation. This is not going to be happening someday, it is happening now.

DIMENSIONS
All dimensional levels of this world are here and present right now and interlinked. The only difference between dimensional worlds is their wavelengths. Wavelength is the key to the entire universe.

Dimensions are separated from one another by wavelength in exactly the same way as the notes are on a musical scale. Any octave on the piano has eight white keys and five black keys, which together give its player the chromatic scale. The thirteenth note is actually the first note of the next octave, and these octaves keep repeating themselves in either direction. In between each note and the next are twelve harmonic, holographic points; in dimensional terms these are the overtones. That makes 144 dimensions in the octave.

There is a void between dimensions. Each dimension is also separated from the others by a 90-degree rotation. If you could change wavelengths and rotate 90 degrees, you would disappear from this world and reappear in whatever dimension you were tuned to. This planet has many different worlds; they are all right here, but our consciousness is tuned to one particular wavelength.

For example, if we were to go up one level, which we are in the process of doing, we would find that whatever we think, as soon as we think it, instantly manifests. We would also be in light bodies.

THE PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES
The Earth’s spin axis, in addition to being tilted 23.5 degrees, wobbles. This change in position causes the equinoctial points to regress one degree every seventy-two years; it changes the viewpoint of one zodiacal constellation every 2160 years, making one complete revolution every 25,920 years.

Seen from the North Pole, the axis traces an ellipse. At “perigee” on this ellipse we are closest to the center of the galaxy; at “apogee,” we are farthest away and moving in a counter-clockwise direction. Our consciousness is directly related to this aeonic movement. As we move toward the center of the galaxy we wake up; as we move away from the center we fall asleep. From a tiny wobble we literally shift dimensional levels, stepping not only into brand new worlds but also into a completely different way of interpreting the one reality. Simultaneously, great physical changes occur, no less than the poles shifting, i.e., the planet turns over in space.

It is not at the two points closest and farthest from the center of the galaxy where this shift happens, but rather at two points nine hundred years removed from each of them.

We sit now right at the turning point of beginning to move back toward the center of the galaxy and start waking up. At 180 degrees opposite the last shift, the next one is imminent.

Though there has been great fear over the coming changes—certain groups of people building shelters and storing food, fearful that land masses are going to be sinking—that may not happen this time; it may be a more gentle ride. The speed at which we are evolving is changing everything. We are moving so quickly that a whole new possibility never before dreamed of is emerging. For a complete understanding, please see Nothing in This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are.

HOPI PROPHECY FULFILLED
Comet 17P/Holmes shocked astronomers on October 24, 2007, with a spectacular eruption. By mid-November the expanding comet was the largest object in the solar system—bigger even than the Sun. Since then, the comet has faded back to invisibility.

This exploding “Blue Star” was the fulfillment of a two hundred- year-old Hopi prophecy, opening a seven-year window, putting us in the “end times.” The Mayans are in complete agreement with the Hopi, as both are conscious survivors of Atlantis. They both hold the memory of the Earth for the past twenty-six thousand years.

This means that sometime between now and 2015 or so, we are very likely to experience changes almost greater than our ability to imagine: a physical pole shift, along with a consciousness shift into the fourth dimension. The exact date, according to the Mayans, will almost certainly not be December 21, 2012; rather, it will happen sometime in this seven year window.

The Mayans remember the last shift, along with the one twenty-six thousand years ago. They say there are certain internal changes we must make in order not only to survive, but also to rise to the next level. The keys, they say, are to stay out of fear, to be calm and balanced, and to be in the heart. They say Mother Earth knows the vibration of the heart and that she will protect you through these times.

KUNDALINI AND THE BIRTH OF THE UNITY GRID
Since the dawning of the new millennium, two events have occurred that are changing everything. The first is the movement of the Earth’s Kundalini, which happens every thirteen thousand years and is tied to the precession of the equinoxes.

The Kundalini, is related to the Earth’s spiritual growth process. Every time it moves it has a new vibration, which in turn takes us to a new level of consciousness.

The second major event was the birthing of the new grid in January 2008. A grid is a geometrical electromagnetically shaped “fishnet” about sixty miles above the globe, encircling the entire planet. Each of the earth’s approximately fourteen million species has its own grid; humankind has three, one for each level of consciousness. The conception of the new grid began 13,200 years ago. The recent birth of the completed grid lasted about one month, with the assistance of Polynesian elders.

The Unity-consciousness grid has been fully formed and birthed. It is now alive and conscious; it is a living energy field around the Earth, and this changes everything. Mother Earth has made a conscious decision to move into the higher overtones of the fourth dimension.

These two events have put us into a different potential world. We are now in a heart-based energy field; when you connect to it, a new possibility opens up. This means that our spiritual acceleration will quicken dramatically—there is nothing left to stop it.

It also means that within the next seven years or so (from October 24, 2007), the entire cycle that we are now will disappear in a single day. In its place a whole new world will be birthed, one based not on the mind, but rather on the heart. We are right on the edge of the emergence of this world. Everything is in place; the Kundalini has moved, the grid is alive. Yet most of the world continues in its old pattern, thinking this is the way it will be forever, hardly imagining that something incredible is about to occur.

This is a time of great celebration as we move out of the darkness and into the light. It means that the veils will be lifted, we will remember and live our intimate connection to all life, we will be allowed to reunite with our cosmic brothers, and to move about the Universe. We will completely redefine what it means to be human!

BOB FRISSELL is a master rebirther and teacher of thirty years, whose books are regarded as underground spiritual classics. In addition to Nothing in This Book Is True But It’s Exactly How Things Are, he is the author of Something in This Book Is True and You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience. His books are published in seventeen languages and are available in more than thirty countries.

Bob has been a featured speaker at The Global Congress of Spiritual Scientists in Bengalore India, the 4th Annual Symbiosis Gathering at Yosemite, The Prophets Conference in Tulum, and many New Living Expos. He has also appeared on numerous talk shows, including The Jeff Rense Program and has been a three time guest on Coast to Coast AM. He has presented his workshops throughout North America and Europe.

He was trained by Leonard Orr, the rebirthing pioneer, and by Drunvalo Melchizedek, the originator of the Mer-Ka-Ba and Unity Breath meditations. He gives private rebirthing sessions along with his two workshops: “The Breath of Life (Rebirthing and Emotional Healing)” and “The Flower of Life (Sacred Geometry and the Mer-Ka-Ba).” He lives in Sonoma, California, and can be contacted via his website, www.BobFrissell.com.

Poet Charles Stein in the Bay Area

Charles Stein—poet, independent scholar, performance artist, and musician—is coming to the Bay Area! He will be reading and presenting from his works in a variety of venues.

Stein is the author of eleven books of poetry. He studied ancient Greek at Columbia University and received a doctorate in literature from The University of Connecticut. His new verse translation of Homer’s The Odyssey came out in 2008. His recent exploration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone Unveiled (North Atlantic Books, 2006) includes his translations of The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the extant writings of Parmenides. He lives in Barrytown, New York, with classical guitarist, choral director, and research historian Megan Hastie.

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Schedule:

Saturday, February 13
Pantheacon
DoubleTree Hotel
2050 Gateway Place
San Jose

1:30pm

A combined reading, talk, seminar, discussion group, tarot card magic event, based on presenter’s Persephone Unveiled, Seeing the Goddess and Freeing the Soul, as well as his own deck of tarot poems based on Rachel Pollack’s “Shining Woman Tarot,” plus his own fifty years study of Parmenides, Magick, Buddhism, Modern Poetry, Philosophy, and Universal Anarchic Wisdoms.

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Monday, February 15
Bird and Beckett Books
653 Chenery Street
San Francisco

7:00pm

Poetry reading with Timotha Doane.

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Tuesday, February 16
Moe’s Books
2476 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley

7:30pm

Poetry reading.

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Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology for February 2010

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
February
© Copyright 2010 Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Shakespeare got modest respect while he was alive, but his reputation as a brilliant bard didn’t gel right away. It wasn’t until almost 50 years after he died that anyone thought his life and work were notable enough to write about. By then, all his colleagues and compatriots were gone, unable to testify. He himself left little information to build a biography around. That’s why next to nothing is known about the person who made such a dramatic impact on the English language and literature. I suggest you take this as a metaphorical prod that will inspire you not to be blasé about the greatness that is in your vicinity. Don’t take superlative intelligence, talent, or love for granted. Recognize it, bless it, be influenced by it.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You are the lord of all you survey! I swear to God! I’m almost tempted to say that you now have the power to command whirlwinds and alter the course of mighty rivers! At the very least you will be able to mobilize the ambition of everyone you encounter and brighten the future of every group you’re part of! Act with confident precision, Taurus! Speak with crisp authority! Your realm waits expectantly for the transformative decisions that will issue from the fresh depths of your emotional intelligence!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): It’s time for you to fly away — to flee the safe pleasures that comfort you as well as the outmoded fixations that haunt you; to escape at least one of the galling compromises that twists your spirit as well as a familiar groove that numbs your intelligence. In my astrological opinion, Gemini, you need to get excited by stimuli that come from outside your known universe. You need fertile surprises that motivate you to resort to unpredictable solutions.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “I never meet anyone who admits to having had a happy childhood,” said writer Jessamyn West. “Everyone appears to think happiness betokens a lack of sensitivity.” I agree, and go further. Many creative people I know actually brag about how messed up their early life was, as if that was a crucial ingredient in turning them into the geniuses they are today. Well, excuse me for breaking the taboo, but I, Rob Brezsny, had a happy childhood, and it did not prevent me from becoming a sensitive artist. In fact, it helped. Now I ask you, my fellow Cancerian, whether you’re brave enough to go against the grain and confess that your early years had some wonderful moments? You’re in a phase of your cycle when recalling the beauty and joy of the past could be profoundly invigorating.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Usually I overflow with advice about how to access your soul’s code. I love to help you express the unique blueprint that sets you apart from everyone else. Every now and then, though, it’s a healing balm to take a sabbatical from exploring the intricacies of your core truths. This is one of those times. For the next 15 days, I invite you to enjoy the privilege of being absolutely nobody. Revel in the pure emptiness of having no clue about your deep identity. If anyone asks you, “Who are you?”, relish the bubbly freedom that comes from cheerfully saying, “I have no freaking idea!”

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): French novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) is generally regarded as one of the greats. His book Madame Bovary appears on many lists of the greatest novels of all time. And yet writing didn’t come especially easy for him. He worked as hard as a ditch-digger. It wasn’t uncommon for him to spend several agonizing days in squeezing out a single page. On some occasions he literally beat his head against a wall, as if trying to dislodge the right words from their hiding place in his brain. He’s your role model in the coming weeks, Virgo. You can create something of value, although it may require hard labor.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My theory is that right now the whole world is in love with you. In some places, this simmering adoration is bordering on infatuation. Creatures great and small are more apt than usual to recognize what’s beautiful and original about you. As a result, wonders and marvels are likely to coalesce in your vicinity. Is there anything you can do to ensure that events unfold in ways that will yield maximum benefits for everyone concerned? Yes: Be yourself with as much tender intensity as you can muster.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I hope that you have been refraining from all sweating and striving and struggling. These past two weeks or so were designed by the universe to be a time for you to recharge your psychic battery. Assuming that you took advantage of the opportunity, you should now be ready to shift gears. In this new phase, your assignment is to work extra hard and extra sweet on yourself. By that I mean you should make your way down into your depths and change around everything that isn’t functioning with grace and power. Tweak your attitudes. Rearrange your emotional flow. Be an introspective master of self-refinement.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): This horoscope borrows from one of my favorite Sagittarian visionaries, Jonathan Zap. The advice he gives below, which is in accordance with your astrological omens, is designed to help you avoid the fate he warns against. Here it is: “Many of the significant problems in our lives are more about recognizing the obvious rather than discovering the mysterious or hidden. One of the classic ways we deceive and hide from ourselves is by refusing to recognize the obvious, and shrouding what is right before us in rationalization and false complexity. We often delay and deny necessary transformation by claiming that there is a mysterious answer hidden from us, when actually we know the answers but pretend that we don’t.” (More at bit.ly/ZapOracle and Zaporacle.com.)

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): It’s a good time to take inventory of all the stories you allow to pour into your beautiful head. Do you absorb a relentless stream of fear-inducing news reports and violent movies and gossipy tales of decline and degeneration? Well, then, guess what: It’s the equivalent, for your psyche, of eating rotting bear intestines and crud scraped off a dumpster wall and pitchers full of trans fats from partially hydrogenated oil. But maybe, on the other hand, you tend to expose yourself to comedies that loosen your fixations and poems that stretch your understanding of the human condition and conversations about all the things that are working pretty well. If so, you’re taking good care of your precious insides; you’re fostering your mental health. Now please drink in this fresh truth from Nigerian writer Ben Okri: “Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the coming weeks, I predict that you will NOT experience disgusting fascinations, smiling-faced failures, sensationalized accounts of useless developments, or bizarre fantasies in the middle of the night. You may, on the other hand, have encounters with uplifting disappointments, incendiary offers of assistance, mysterious declarations of interdependence, and uproars that provoke your awe and humility in healing ways. In other words, Aquarius, it’ll be an uncanny, perhaps controversial time for you — but always leading in the direction of greater freedom.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Congrats on your growing ability to do more floating and less thrashing as you cascade down the stream of consciousness. I think you’re finally understanding that a little bit of chaos isn’t a sign that everything’s falling apart forever omigod the entire planet’s crashing and evil is in ascension . . . but rather that a healthy amount of bewildering unpredictability keeps things fresh and clean. My advice is to learn to relax even more as you glide with serene amusement through the bubbling and churning waters of life.

Homework: Read all your long-term horoscopes HERE. Then write your own long-term horoscope. Share it at Truthrooster@gmail.com.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe to Rob Brezsny’s newsletter.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s book, Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia, Revised and Expanded.