As summer turns to autumn, the excitement of the new season is palpable! So make the most of this electrifying time to do some soul-searching set your intentions for the new season and why not, the year ahead with the help of wellbeing expert Jane Kersel. So book off some quiet alone time, relax and let your inner voice guide you through our #ContentRitual below…
I know January is usually the time of new beginnings with the start of a new calendar year, but why be in a conventional state of mind? My August ritual had us connecting to our wilder, more intuitive selves and enjoying the freedom of bare skin in the summer sun and holidays so let’s build on that. There’s a huge planetary pull too so read on…
September is a ritual in itself, for many of us it’s the start of a new scholastic year: buying stationery, getting organised, coming back to work and offices and factories across Europe opening up again. Farmers celebrate the fruits and crops of summer, ripened under the warm summer sun. There are harvest festivals coming that ritualise the flow of the seasons and the team work between mother nature and her fellow men, to give thanks for the food that sits on our table and the communion of souls and energies that brought that together.
This September has even more reason for us to harvest our own gold and to look inwards and back over the last few months. From July 26th, the beautiful planet Venus (associated with the sensuous Goddess Aphrodite) disappeared from our night skies in the western hemisphere and went retrograde until September 6th. She makes this movement approximately every 584 day intervals. Over a period of 8 years she traces the pattern of a rose in her dance around the sun: the loops are formed when she goes retrograde and the tips represent her fullness in our night skies. The image below shows this dance – a beautiful flower shaped mandala.
The invitation she asks us to explore during this time is for us to reassess what we truly love, truly care about and what old shadows of thought patterns and limited thinking can we let fall away. Are we showing up to ourselves and the world as how we truly want to be? Are we still dragging our old stories around with us that define us, nail us to a fixed concept, defined and boxed into a shape that no longer fits us? If so, now is the time to write ourselves a new story in keeping with all we are becoming.
Venus in retrograde and her subsequent dazzling light back into our night skies in September, invites us to go into our own shadow and darkness and get real over where we still drop our self worth and self love. Where do we still settle? Where do we compromise at our own costs? Make do? Enable another’s dreams before our own? Do we have beautiful plans and dreams but then take no tangible pragmatic steps to make them a reality? Can you create heaven on earth? It’s a time to get your hands dirty in rich fertile soil of our base chakras and our energetic bodies, which is all about material stability, our relationship to money, abundance, lack and our overall health especially in the heart.
Whilst Venus is in shadow until September 6th, it’s a time to turn the light on to the subconscious patterns and look at where we delude ourselves. A time to notice if we’re waiting for the knight in
shining armour to come forth and save us from ourselves and our own lives. Are we truly still waiting for someone to tell us how loveable we are? Could we instead be so intoxicated with ourselves that we are swallowed up by our own self love? Instead of an energetic of pushing our way through life could we dig so far down into ourselves and make our roots so strong that we instead draw up from our own inner well and share the gold?
Can we look at where we devaluate our own lives? Can we instead formulate some character? Build a backbone? Walk our own path? Can we live differently? Love differently? Break out of the conventional and consensus and revitalise our own magnetic field? Can we actively cultivate the skill of deep listening and know the difference between discernment and judgement. Reflect on our thoughts, on our words and deeds and pull out the errant ones like old weeds. Can we truly embody love as a state of being and not objectify it on another? Can we embody beauty? Be the light and be dazzled by our own reflection by no longer blaming out to the world and universe for not giving us what we want.
What is my life costing me to live like this? Is it worth it? Now is a time to get papers and pens and be creative, mind map, carve out some original thinking, refuse to read books, magazines and search outwards.
The RITUAL
Having soul-searched and reflected on the questions above give yourself a month to hold a sacred space around these key issues – the main ones that pressed your buttons. Get a group of friends together and commit to be each other’s mentor and facilitator. Decide what your intentions will be for September and meet each week to see if you are on track. Venus is a planet of connection, she likes to be in communion with others, in partnership, attached, in a group, drawing together as a team not isolated and self-defended.
Now is the time to extend your hand to another and realise that we are all on the same path. Where the constructs of self-doubt, self-esteem and the patriarchal models we live in are all being gently rocked and questioned, just like the Tower in the Tarot deck , things must fall to be rebuilt better, stronger, sweeter and with more beauty and grace than ever before.
With all my love,
Jane
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READ MORE: Rest, Rejuvenate, Love, Be Free by Jane Kersel
