Journal

1/2/21 1/2/21

2021 Major Transformative Transits and Retrogrades

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Below is an outline of the major transformative transits of 2021. This information includes the transits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto as I am most interested in their deep transforming nature. As you can see, the major transit for the year is Saturn in Aquarius squaring Uranus in Taurus. This will be in effect all year, so check where it is happening in your chart. Saturn in Aquarius is geared up to take the revolution and your individuation seriously. And Uranus is Taurus wants to activate genius energy aligned with the rebellion and evolution of consciousness. Real, solid, Taurus change is possible and we must do our work.The second chart is an outline of all of the retrogrades for the year. It is helpful that Mars in not retrograding! And Venus does not retrograde until December 19, 2021. This provides us with some ease, in that these close-in, personal planets will be moving forward all year. Mid August to Mid October are loaded with retrogrades. This is a good time to slow down and review the first half of the year with an eye toward the second half of the year. (Please note the second drawing is for 2021!)

12/10/20 12/10/20

Planetary Energies and Shifts December 2020

How to deal with the powerful shifts the next two weeks:Dec. 10 Pluto square Eris (still) Dec. 14 Solar eclipse Dec. 18 Saturn moves into Aquarius Dec. 20 Jupiter moves into Aquarius Jupiter and Saturn squaring Uranus Dec. 21 Jupiter/Saturn exact conjunct in AquariusDec. 23, Mars square PlutoDec. 21-Oct 2021 Pluto square Eris

Many people have asked me to comment on the current astrology, and these thoughts came to me during meditation.The experience of these energetic shifts will be different (and appropriate) for each of us – based on the current phase of our awakening journey and our personal life story. Many of these energetic shifts continue into 2021.

Most of dates are launch points and energize future cycles.If you are a meditator this is payday. Meditate twice a day for 30 minutes for maximum benefit. This will process the shifting energy. View every experience with equanimity, let go, and experience peace.Hydrate. Abstain from sugar and alcohol (not helpful with strong energetic shifts.) Eat healthy whole foods.Be outside. Feel sunshine. Breathe fresh air.Allow the energetic shifts to happen. This means to rest when you need to rest. Do grounding exercises (I have a free grounding exercise under Resources, https://theinsightcenter.net/resources/on my website.)

Take time outs.When you are resting, bring your awareness into your body. Be aware of the energy in your body.Bring your awareness to your aura - the energetic space out about 12-24” from your body. What is happening in your aura? Release old or toxic energies. Connect with positive energies. Check the vibration of the energy in your aura. Is it steady!? Shifting? Expanding? Increasing!? Connect with it. Stay with it as long as necessary to increase your awareness, let go, recalibrate and connect.Align your spiritual energy with your mind and your physical body. Just relax and visualize this. The more they are aligned the better.

How is your mind!? With meditation your mind will be calmer. How much news are you watching? Probably too much. The energetic shift now is more important than mundane news events that are happening. Stay more connected to spiritual shifts than mundane news.You want to connect with this spiritual shift. Staying connected to the news cycle and social media cycles is not helpful for this.Avoid toxic people. Why let them mess with your energy? You may think this is harder with “the holidays” but if not now, when!? Again, the primary thing is to align your mind, body and spirit and be open and available for the shift. Why let historically toxic people/relationships screw that up!? The time is now.

Let the new energy in. And for that to happen there needs to be space. Letting go of old clutter creates the opening and the space.Burn sage, candles, palo santo. Bless them.

Honor the traditions (to avoid cultural appropriation.)Write down what you are releasing and burn them.Write down what you are keeping and create a sacred place to manifest them (mainly in your heart.)Love your pets, plants and loves ones.Breathe in peace and harmony. Breathe out pain and discord.Smile.Trust the transitions. Trust the new energy. Allow it to happen. Allow yourself to shift. Be open and trust.Make your love pure.Stretch. Move. Dance.

Reminder: the energetic shifts will happen to each of us based on the stage of our journey and our personal story – and to be aware and participate as described above makes it better. Awareness always makes it better.From my heart and soul to yours. Be mighty with the Aquarian shift.

Margaret 12.10.20

12/10/20 12/10/20

Insights for November and December 2020

Greetings embodied ones and happy Fall 2020; the winding down of a year we will never forget. Ihave thought of all of you often and am happy to have worked with many of you this year. It hasbeen a year of challenge, tension, fear, fatigue, and hopefully some growth in different ways for all of us. We are sharing collective stress, angst, and loss, (to name a few) as well as resilience,endurance and hope (I hope.) On top of that we are all experiencing our personal challenges andevolution. It is a lot. It is too much. My hope is for some peace and ease in late December.

ASTROLOGY insights

The astrology is looking better going forward (I have waited a long time to say this!)

Nov. 10 Mercury moved forward and into Scorpio – focused and intense thinking returns!

Nov. 12 Jupiter was conjunct Pluto for the third and last time in Capricorn – yes the virus is peaking again (the peaks have coincided with these alignments.) but should back off later in November.

Nov. 13 Mars direct in Aries (15˚) – and Mars moves slowly in Aries all of November – aggressive actions

Nov. 19 Mercury leaves its shadow (still in Scorpio) and is opposing Uranus – time for brilliance.

Nov. 20 Pluto finishes retrograding and stations direct before starting to move forward again – we will all start to feel some relief and if you have been resilient and enduring it will pay off. If not, you may feel overwhelmed.

Dec. 10 Pluto square Eris – for the last time while Jupiter and Saturn are in Capricorn – supercharged hit.

Dec. 14 solar eclipse

Dec. 18 Saturn moves out of Capricorn (for good!) and into Aquarius – yes!

Dec. 20 Jupiter moves out of Capricorn (for good!) and into Aquarius – yes!

Dec. 21 Jupiter and Saturn conjunct in Aquarius (this is the day!) This is the end of the line-up of Pluto, Jupiter, and Saturn in Capricorn (which has not happened in over 400 years) – all squaring Eris.The most challenging and awakening alignments are finishing up their work. Hopefully, we stayed attuned, awakened, resilient and are ready to move ahead around year end and into 2021.

I am celebrating December 21, with this once in a lifetime Jupiter/Saturn alignment this year (along with Winter Solstice) with a feast, many lights, candles, music, and a lot of peace and quiet reflection. Think about how you might celebrate this new freedom/forward movement.

COMPREHENSIVE ASTROLOGY COURSEStarting February 2021, my Comprehensive Astrology Course for 2021 begins.

This is a course I developed with all original materials and is taught online. The class size is small, and all topics are personalized with your own charts! In this one-year, twelve class Course (1class per month), you will learn each concept in depth.Please contact me for course outline, fees, or questions at theinsighthcenter@gmail.com

ASTROLOGY FOR TEAMSI launched this new product in October with a corporate leadership team! I would love to do this transformative Workshop for your team or family. Please reach out to me for more information at theinsighthcenter@gmail.com.

ASTROLOGY 101 – is a one-hour online webinar which introduces Planets, Signs, Houses and how to understand a chart. I teach the foundational pieces of Astrology so you can better understand yourself, others, and what is going on in the world. The presentation is free and posted here: The Insight Center – Resources.

AWAKENING Insights “Enlightenment is initially subconscious awakening, which is spontaneously merged with conscious awakening at the moment of breakthrough.” Kazuaki Tanahashi, Tricycle

“When you let go you create emptiness. We aren’t used to emptiness, so we rush to fill the space. What if you let the emptiness be?” Margaret Gervais

“When you see me through your lens you don’t see me. “Margaret Gervais

TRUST YOURSELF ENOUGH TO:

Outgrow who and what is no longer aligned with your life walk and purpose.
Speak up and ask for help when you need (or want) it.
Forgive yourself when you get it wrong.
Love again – even after heartache of heartbreak.
Receive support when it is offered.
Rest emotionally. You don’t have to heal all at once.
Change and evolve even when people around you don’t “get it.:
Try something new if old patterns aren’t working or supporting your growth.
Protect your energy, time and space. Not everyone deserves access.
Start over and begin again. There is a lesson is in every failure and misstep. Alex Elle.

“We don’t need to wait until we are enlightened before we act in the world, and we don’t need to withdraw from the world to become enlightened. Conscious social action can be our own work on ourselves that becomes the vehicle for awakening.” Ram Dass

“Is it speaking to your truth?” Margaret Gervais

“The best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.” iChing, hexagram 43.

“A soft, landed approach sounds good.” Margaret Gervais

“You establish the frequency, do the work and then the Universe may join you.“I’m not a fan of ‘Turn it over to the Universe’ without being engaged in your work. If you do your work, you discover your truth, you understand your karma and work to heal - - - and then - - - the Universe may get on board. ✨ Sound reasonable? My meditation teacher ended his meditation instructions with, “Perhaps, after many years of practice, some wisdom may accrue.” Love that.

MEDITATION insights MEDITATION COURSEI am teaching my one-on-one Vipassanā Meditation and Spiritual Practices Course online. Contact me if you are interested, theinsighthcenter@gmail.com or read more at https://theinsightcenter.net/meditation/

“What happens when we sit is none of our business. The practice is to accept whatever arises instead of trying to control our experience. What we can control is our wise effort to be present with what is.” Narayan Helen Liebenson, “The Refuge of Sitting”

“It’s the ‘I expect/want things to be normal’ thing that trips people up.” Margaret Gervais

“…individual[s] can be moved to achieve a fundamental paradigm shift in their vision of their lives….to becoming a magnificent awakening being soaring out of an infinite past experience in marvelous evolutionary flight toward an unimaginably beautiful destiny of wisdom, love, and bliss – Buddha hood, or simply the supreme evolutionary glory attainable by any conscious being.” 13 Robert Thurman, Forward to The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.”, by Tsong-kha-pa, translated by The Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee

“It is in this very vision propounded by Shakyamuni Buddha…that reveals humans to themselves as participant in this magnificent and meaningful evolutionary process.” ibid

“When all is said and done, mindfulness is really about wisdom, about discerning what is really, really, really true from what is mere appearance, or what you’re attached to because you want it to be true.” Jon Kabat-Zinn in conversation with Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson. Tricycle.

“There is always a message of ‘Yes you can.’ Do you hear it? Do you believe it?” Margaret Gervais

“Meditate longer. It is those longer arduous minutes that build the meditation muscle. “ This came to me in my Nov. 4th, morning meditation, which I thought would be hard. But I have been meditating 42 years and doing vipassanā practice for 30, and the meditation muscle truly builds, and the classic routine of this meditation works. Margaret Gervais

“Meditative awareness, equanimity, and emptiness will show up with a vipassanā meditation practice.” Margaret Gervais

“It is right understanding that is really wisdom. Thinking about truth is not enough. We must realize truth ourselves; we must see things as they really are, not just as they appear to be. Apparent truth is a reality, but one that we must penetrate in order to experience the ultimate reality for ourselves and eliminate suffering.” Entering the Stream, An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings, Compiled and edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn, Shambala, Boston, 1993. Pg. 112

HEALING insights

“If you carried energy for people when you were growing up (you probably are an empath), you are probably still doing it. You can let it go now.”

How to let go: Be brave. Raise your awareness. Learn to say no. Say no. Meditate. Fill your life with what you love. You may feel uncomfortably rude for a while. Stay the course anyway. Their responses are none or your business. Have some healings to help recover from trauma and/or help move things along. Know your astrology and your purpose. Choose that. Do not be a wimp with your karma. Make space. Own the space. Be brave. One step at a time. Choose you. Only you can set yourself free. Margaret Gervais

Embodiment exercise Breathe deeply throughout. Feel earth energy enter and be in your body. Bring the energy up from the earth if you need to. Do this until you really feel it. Now feel air energy enter and be in your body. Do it until you feel it. Now feel fire energy enter and be in your body. Do it until you feel it. Now feel water energy enter and be in your body. Do it until you feel it. Earth air fire water in your body to be embodied. Margaret Gervais“Allow your vibrations to recalibrate. “

“Allow your vibrations to recalibrate. “

“If you are at a growth place, have made a progressive change, have moved on, let go, done some healing, you need to allow your vibrations to recalibrate. Lay quietly. Tune into the Universe and your body. Allow them to connect and recalibrate. Open yourself to receive the higher vibrations.” Margaret Gervais

A recorded Grounding Exercise is available at The Insight Center – Resources. Use this exercise as often as needed to help you be grounded during these challenging times.

REIKI l WORKSHOPAll Reiki Workshops will resume when quarantine rules are eased up to allow gatherings without masks and social distancing.

RELATIONSHIP insights “Love is something else entirely; it is caring. It is arguing, but with curiosity – it is giving an inch when the other is certainly wrong – it is teasing, it is empathy, it is respect. It is admiration each morning.” Waylon Lewis.

7/27/20 7/27/20

Insights for August 2020

Insights for August 2020

“So much. Injustice. Poverty. Environmental destruction. Soul crushing. Pain. Sorrow. Fear. Change. Unknowns. Destroy and rebuild. Rethink. Redo. Radical honesty. Division. Uprising. Voices. Lives. Connection. Unity. Support. Union. Equal. Share. Evolve. Dissolve. Connect. Share. Be. Do. Reach out. Commit. Give. Open heart. Open mind. Active spirit. Demand. Commit. Engage. Act. Powerless? Powerful. Say yes.” Margaret Gervais

Awakening:

“Awareness grows wisdom. So, rely on wisdom; it will stand by you.” Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Buddhadharma, Spring 2020.

“At the heart of everything is awareness itself “ Ajahn Sujato, Tricycle, Summer 2020. Pg. 37.

"The truest solitude is not something outside you, not an absence of men or of sound around you; it is an abyss opening up in the center of your soul. And this abyss of interior solitude is created by a hunger that will never be sampled with any created things." Thomas Merton

“people are trapped in history

and history is trapped in them.

it is certain, in any case, that ignorance,

allied with power, is the most ferocious

enemy justice can have.

i imagine one of the reasons people cling

to their hates so stubbornly is because they

sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced

to deal with pain.” James Baldwin

“How to stay connected to your soul: When something happens in the world that is wrong, don’t try to move on with your life like it is right. The voice within you that says, ‘This is not ok’ is a direct call from the basic goodness of your spirit. Pick it up. Every time. Pick it up. And stay on the line until you figure out how to help.” Cleo Wade

“Remember to hold your power at the core of your being.” Margaret Gervais

“Put your roots down into the deepest grounding of your understanding.” Margaret Gervais

“People working on their healing, the ones with new love in their hearts, more self-awareness in their minds, a greater ability to manage their reactions and actively undoing their old patterns/biases are helping humanity shift into a better world. Your compassion creates real change.” Yung pueblo

“Growth for me is realizing some people actually aren’t interested in growing.” maryamhasnaa

“We didn’t understand as children that our parents still had work to do on themselves.” maryamhasnaa

“It doesn’t matter where I am, I am always here with myself.” Margaret Gervais

“Only when emotions are truly attended to can they be endured and transformed into useful energies that express our needs and help guide us through life.” Josh Korda, “A Safe Container for Fear.“

Buddhists have a role to play … in creating a different vision of America that is from the start about multiplicity and not singularity, from the start about interdependence.“ Interview with Duncan Ryuken Williams by Ashoka Mukpo, “Never Again”

“To guide our love and power [empowerment] we need wisdom.” Melvin McLeod, Lion’s Roar, September 2020.“...if we are really going to help people effectively, we need power to go with our love.” Melvin McLeod, Lion’s Roar, September 2020.

Astrology:This is a time of challenge, endurance, resilience and transformation.

Retrogrades August 1, 2020:

Ceres (fierce nurturer) all month

Jupiter (expand) all month

Saturn (restrict) all month

Neptune (dream), all month,

Uranus (REBEL) goes retrograde August 15 for the rest of the month, AND

Pluto (destroy and rebuild)

are ALL RETROGRADE 💥🎯💥(6 planets)!

Rethink, redo, revise, restructure, review, realign, revisit, realign etc.

Fierce placements in August:

Mars (warrior action) in Aries (feisty and aggressive) all month

Mars (warrior action) squares (challenges) Pluto (destroy and rebuild) all month

Mars (warrior action) squares (challenges) Saturn (restriction) all month

Jupiter (expand) and Saturn (restrict) conjunct (working to integrate) all month (who will reign?)

Mercury (mind) opposes (disagreeing and trying to find balance) Pluto (destroy and rebuild) July 31- Aug. 6.

Mercury (mind) opposes (disagreeing and trying to find balance) Saturn (restrict) August 1-8

Sun (solar power) squares (challenges) Uranus (rebel) August 5-15

Mars (warrior action) square (challenges) Jupiter (expansion) August 19-20

As you can see, there is a lot of cosmic energy storming through our collective consciousness. These placements are challenging for all of us. We can look at our chart and see where the transformative energies are activated for us.

Meditation:“A meditator’s job is to remember to be aware.” Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Buddhadharma, Spring 2020.

“If you are angry and you meditate to get rid of your anger, you will only frustrate yourself. Meditate because you are angry, not to eliminate it.” Mark Epstein

“Metta for those I do not know:

Let your body stay relaxed and easy. Smile.

Blessing is a relief to the mind.

Think about familiar strangers in your life, dentists, hairdressers, supermarket clerks whom you recognize but rarely think about out of context.

Imagine a group of familiar strangers and wish for them:

May you feel safe. May you feel content.

May you feel strong. May you live with ease.” Spirit Rock

“When new issues arise, view them with equanimity and let them go. Just like the old stuff, let the new stuff go too. No matter what arises, look at it with equanimity and let it go. #meditativeawareness” Margaret Gervais

“If you are feeling depressed, meditate using insight meditation, and the depression will show up, you will look at it and let it go, over and over (and over) until it is equalized; until you see it in meditation as another thing arising and that is all. The equanimity of this practice heals.” Margaret Gervais

Healing:“every step forward is a small rebirth.healing yourself, letting go, undoing past conditioning, reclaiming your power, this work causes big transformations in your perception and behavior. take the time to meet yourself and learn your new preferences. let the new you lead.” yung pueblo

“Even after healing significant trauma and old conditioning, you will not be happy all of the time. It is natural for your mood to go up and down. What does change is that you react less to old triggers and when the mind feels turbulent you do not fall easily into past patterns.” Yung pueblo

“Lie down. Breathe deeply filling and emptying your stomach, slowly, 3x. Bring your awareness to your spine.Visualize your spine being a row of pebbles. When you breathe out visualize this row of pebbles falling gently into a shallow stream. Keep doing this. Now visualize bringing all of your energies that support you into your body and into the pebbles. Imagine the pebbles being gentle magnets that draw all energies that support you into them. Keep doing this. Gather all of your energies into these stones. Breathe out and let the stones gently fall into a shallow stream. Repeat.” Margaret Gervais

“Sensitivity requires maintenance.” Steven Forrest. The Book of Air.

“Stop holding onto people. Just because you have history together.” femalecollective

Relationships:

“Find a partner that is equally committed to supporting you through the good times and through the tough moments of growth and healing. Coming together as imperfect people can be hard. Imperfections can sometimes cause unintentional conflict, especially when one is going through a moment of inner turbulence. It is patience, calm communications and selfless listening that gets couples through the storm. Conflict decreases when both turn inward and focus on building their self-awareness.” yung pueblo

“A healthy marriage has some grit in the system (things to learn from each other.) “Steven Forrest. The Book of Air.

“Real maturity in a relationship is letting your partner know when your mind feels heavy/turbulent before your thoughts find a way to make a story that blames your tension on them; naming it allows you to know if is there and your partner to know that is it time to support you/hold space.” Yung pueblo

Covid19:

“sleep.hydrate.meditate.move.nourish.communicate.followCDCrules.andthendocovidyourownway.” Margaret Gervais

5/7/20 5/7/20

Insights for May 2020

” I think our Saturn placement in our Astrology chart is being lit up right now. The Saturn placement in your chart shows where you have experienced loss in past lives - and in this life you are working hard to not experience the same loss. This past life loss trajectory is now lit up for you. Being aware of this helps you understand your fear and fearful reactions. You are here to learn to understand and process that fear. It will feel more intense for you based on where it was when you were born - we each have our mission. Awareness, acceptance and forgiveness work to heal.” Margaret Gervais

“The stars impel but do not compel. An understanding of planetary influences allows you to take your life into your own hands and intelligently utilize the planetary influences that will help you in your evolution if you but will.” Isabel M. Hickey

Healing:I

will be recording and sharing an exercise on how to Run Your Energy, which is a powerful and beautiful healing practice. Please check my Resources page, https://theinsightcenter.net/resources/ for this and my Grounding Exercise.

“Wellness comes from the alignment of mind, body and spirit. Every day I am making a plan to do something for my mind, something for my body and something for my spirit. Maybe many things under certain categories, but always making sure to do at least one thing in each category - not to leave one out.” Margaret Gervais

Awakening:

“Too often we mistakenly believe that doing less makes us lazy and results in a lack of productivity. Instead, doing less helps us savor what we do accomplish.” Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More.”

“To be mindful means to remember to let go of compulsive reactivity and realize a nonreactive way of life.” Stephen Batchelor, “The Art of Solitude.”

“Breathe. Relax your body. Breathe. Walk in nature. Hug a tree. Breathe. Relax. Sit calmly. Meditate. Order healthy groceries. Wash your hands again. Share loving kindness with all beings. Hydrate. Breathe. Relax.” Margaret Gervais

“You can do it like it’s a great weight on you, or you can do it like it’s part of the dance.” Ram Daas“This is a time when love needs to run the show. Times of scarcity needs to be met with generosity, times of fear with comfort, times of uncertainty with presence. When we care for those around us, we create a field of love.” Thomas Huebl

“Lemon water hydrate. Coffee. Let cat out. Meditate. Pilates. Smoothie. Shower. Clothes (not like pajama Sunday.) Music. Candles. Emails. Notify clients about schedule. PowerPoint. Hydrate. Let cat in (how do cats stay so chill?). Work. How do I stop touching my face? Eat chips, salsa and sour cream while working. Work. Talk to daughter who is in London😬. Stare at garden. Send Newsletter. Get responses. Interact with clients about Newsletter. Is the cat in or out now? More chips and salsa. Instagram surfing. Husband home. Wine/candles/fire/check in. The cat is in. Healthy veg chili dinner. Netflix.” Margaret Gervais

“We’ve done this as human beings before. We’re survivors. We have generations of ancestors behind us cheering us on, and saying, ‘Yep, we’ve lived through some tough stuff too.” Jack Kornfield.

“Hydrate. Rest. Eat healthy foods. Meditate. Breath. Walk. Look at spring flowering trees. Check in with people. Wash hands. Buy from local and smaller/medium businesses. Offer help to small businesses. Be creative. Appreciate goodness. Watch good documentaries along with bad shows. Oh yeah, work. Try new recipes-making pita bread. Write. Read. Paint. Hike. Smile. Rest. Play music and dance. Wisely choose your news source. Get support. Give support. ❤️ Margaret Gervais

“If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves.” Pablo Neruda, Brainpicker.

Get grounded (send roots from the bottom of your feet your root chakra - your bottom! - down to the core of the earth.)

Breathe in your own positive energy.

Breath out all negative energy.

Repeat.

For as long as needed.

As many times a day as needed.

©theinsightcenter

Lemon water. coffee. smoothie. Listen to astrology podcast. meditate. pilates via zoom. reading astrology. Ordering online presents for bday. lunch. reading studying astrology. chilling. Pouring rain outside. nap.” Margaret Gervais

“Your soul

remembers

the plan

you made for this

lifetime and is

always guiding and

supporting you.”

maryam hasnaa

Do you find yourself stalling out some days? Feeling flat? Cranky? down? This is the time to create and/or remember your basic practice. Deep breathing. Meditation. Grounding. Long walk. Tea. Nature. Reading. Writing. Music. Connect to authentic people. Make a list of your basics and feel good about doing those 3-5 things daily each day. It is enough. Really.✨ Margaret Gervais

“Spiritual growth is incremental.” Margaret Gervais

“The entire human collective is my community.

The entire human species in my family.

I belong here.” Tom Jacobs

“Ground yourself daily

Release fears daily

Empower yourself by knowing, learning, trusting truth

Disengage from old patterns of collective consciousness

Connect with your inner truth

Individuate Support yourself and others.”

3/16/20 3/16/20

Insights for March 2020

Insights for March 2020:

“You can do it like it’s a great burden on you, or you can do it like it’s part of the dance.” Ram Daas.

“Tools for dealing with intense times and big energetic shifts:

Meditation. Meditation. Meditation.

Exercise - aligned with your body.

Grounding. Send roots down.

Spend time in nature. Hug trees.

Deep breathing. A lot. And again.

Healthy eating/hydration.Music/sing/dance.

Sleep. Rest. Nap. Be cozy.

Journaling. Any writing and art.

Camaraderie. Good vibe people.” Margaret Gervais

These are strange times and I am always contemplating how we are all effected and how I can be helpful. For the week of March 15:

I am staying apprised of the latest information on the coronavirus and want to keep you, your families and contacts, me and mine, and our community safe.If you have appointments this week for Astrology Readings or Meditation Class, I am happy to have you come to my office if you are symptom free. We will wash our hands and keep a social distance.

I am curtailing Reiki Healing Sessions in person until further notice.I

f you want to make or switch your appointment to online, I am happy to do that. Reiki, Astrology, and Meditation Classes can all be done online. I do this all the time. For a Reiki or Intuitive Healing, you lie down in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed, and I do the healing session at a distance - as if you are there on the table. I call you and we both put our phones on speaker, and you participate and receive the healing in the same way as you would on the table. It works!My goal is to keep us all healthy!

Now for the insights – there are a lot because I have been busy with classes, workshops and clients and I have not sent a Newsletter for a few months – but you may have the time to read them as you work from home and/or are feeling lonely or anxious:

Awakening:

“You understand your own self so that you can self-generate and become your own path.” Mark Jones

"You are the wave, seemingly separate from the deep ocean, and you are the ocean - deep, sparkling, home to billions of beings, salty like tears and vast."

"...let the feeling of "don't know" open you to mystery. Relax and enjoy the mystery, rest in the vast mystery that holds and supports you and all life. You are the mystery seeing itself." Jack Kornfield

“When I am centered, I can walk into any vibrational field and take it and convert it. I am just feeling love, so whatever they are giving me – anger, paranoia, distrust – I am just taking it all in and converting it. I see that net they are stuck in, this mind net that is each person’s own model of the universe, so instead of climbing into it with them, putting both of us in it, my job is to say, “Yes, I see your net, but we are here.” Ram Daas

"Now and then it's good to pause in your pursuit of happiness, and just be happy." Guillaume Apollinaire

“Sometimes being on a different frequency from someone means no matter what you’re saying, that person just can’t hear you.”

“When you transform the energy of old relationships, those relationships can absolutely change to meet the new level, or they can vibrate out of your life. Trust both outcomes. Just keep aligning with your authentic self and everything else will arrange itself accordingly.” Maryam Hasnaa

“All people and all circumstances are my allies.” Lynn Jurich

As you continue to grow and change, remember to listen to yourself differently. Margaret Gervais

“…in order to be in touch with that core of instinctual and intuitive self-knowledge that tells you which mountain to climb, you need to cultivate inner silence. …out of inner silence, a very specific kind of wisdom can spring: a sense of where you need to go in life.” Steven Forrest

“There’s an important difference between an attachment and an aspiration. An aspiration is a goal we are putting effort into, something we can work toward without making our present happiness completely dependent on its attainment. Attachments are created by cravings; they are a refusal to accept reality as it naturally appears – only wanting particular outcomes and feeling misery and serious mental tension when things come out in unwanted ways. Attachments cloud the mind and lower the creativity and energy we need to obtain our goals. Learning to work in a detached manner not only makes us more effective but it supports our inner peace and happiness.” Yung Pueblo

“You’ll need love, joy, passion, good friends, a soft place to land, magic and the ability to recognize it. You’ll need a thick skin to weather the worst of the world and a tender heart to receive the best of it. You’ll need a sense of humor to survive your ego and your pride (and everyone else’s), curiosity to investigate your weird reactions, defenses, fears and self-sabotaging strategies. You’ll need rituals that center you, habits that hold you to your promises, dedication and determination so that challenging yourself to do what is difficult but defining day after day, week after week, month after month, year upon year becomes natural and even enjoyable.” Chani Nicholas

“Evolve so hard that they have to get to know you again.” Haus of Dimitri“It is possible to genuinely want to help all beings, to bring one’s insights and skillful means to every encounter, and to let this aspiration become a state of mind that infuses each moment, while simultaneously having limits and needed boundaries.” Pilar Jennings via Tricycle Magazine.

Meditation:

“Each meditation session is a journey of discovery to understand the basic truth of who we are." Sogyal Rinpoche

“The insights that arise in the course of meditating are often surprises. The awakening mind lets go of the old fictions we invent and opens to what is really here: simply this.” Sylvia Forges Ryan

Meditation is a method of gaining access to the inner wisdom and compassion – and resolving our inner problems in the process.” Rob Naim

[The Buddha’s] patience is not the patience of a water buffalo who simply endures the work and punishments imposed on it. Instead, it’s the patience of a warrior who, despite wounds and setbacks, never abandons the desire to come out victorious. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “The Karma of Now”

“As irrigators make water go where they want,As archers make their arrows straight,As carpenters carve wood,The wise shape their minds.” E. Easwaren, trans., Dhammapada (Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1985), v. 80.

“Meditation is our daily reminder to keep it simple.” Margaret Gervais

“Once you achieve choice-less awareness through meditation practice, you see clearly how fleeting everything is.” Joseph Goldstein

“In the practice of meditation, we use our nonjudgmental awareness to get in touch with our feelings and what’s going on in our bodies without adding our narratives or dramas to it. We just see what comes up.

” Gary Shishin Wick“It is not about having perfect and kind thoughts all of the time, it is about not feeding the heavy and mean thoughts. Literally letting them pass without allowing them to take root and control your actions.” Yung Pueblo“We can’t simply ‘let go.’ It doesn’t work like that. It’s certainly not what the Buddha teaches. Letting go, the Buddha tells us, will come when we ‘develop’ wisdom [through meditation practice.]” Peter Doobinin

Meditation Course:I am teaching one-on-one and small group meditation courses available online via Zoom Meetings. Contact me if you are interested, or read more at https://theinsightcenter.net/meditation/

Healing:“Emotional processing days are just as important as productive days.” Moon Girl Psychology."Your body incarnation is born of spirit; it is a play of consciousness.""You are bigger than your wounds." Jack Kornfield

You don’t tell the energy what to do, you let the energy do the work. Margaret Gervais

“Healing costs. Time. Energy. Ego. When you are ready for a shift, put everything you’ve got on the table. Growth is the goal. Change isn’t cheap – but holding out on yourself costs more than your soul can spare.” Chani Nichols

“It is not easy, healing yourself, transforming your mind, building new habits, observing reality without projections or delusions. This is work that takes effort, but when you continue trying it creates significant results that have an immensely positive impact on your life.” Yung Pueblo

Reiki and Intuitive Healing Sessions are available online.

Reiki l Workshop:

I will be teaching a Reiki l Workshop later this spring at The Insight Center:The Workshop is over two days: Day 1, 1:00 - 4:00 and Day 2, 9:00 - 4:00. The fee for the Workshop is $475. Please let me know if you are interested so I can send you dates.This is a certified, Usui Reiki l Workshop. You can read more about this Workshop at https://theinsightcenter.net/reiki/ or feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Also please feel free to share this with others who you feel may be interested.If you have completed a Reiki l Workshop with me, I would love to have you assist for all or part of the Workshop (you get to hang out and give and receive Reiki). Please let me know if you are interested.

Grief:

“Keep in mind that grief doesn’t just dissolve. Instead it arises in waves and gradually, with growing compassion, there comes more space around it. The heart opens and in its own time, little by little, gaps of new life – breaks in the rain clouds – appear. The body relaxes and freer breaths appear. This is a natural cycle you can trust – how the heart renews itself.” Jack Kornfield.

"In this world where everyone dies, where every song ends, where every achievement is undone, where every treasure is lost, all of us are left behind. All of us leave. But everywhere and always there is the hum of continuing. Though always incomplete, always there is the sound of love, forever and at the core unfinished. We talk, write, make gestures and marks to slow, to hold back, to share, to join, if only momentarily, the torrent of things lost."

"The solitary body is a figure in a tapestry and cannot be isolated from other figures, landscapes, colors, lines, threads, stories. And so, when a single figure is removed, is excised, dies, there is unraveling, a feeling at both edge and center that our embodiment is coming apart. The uniqueness of the vanished one is the dark horizon of our fragile and temporary lives." Douglas Penick

Relationships:

“Real maturity in a relationship is letting your partner know when your mind feels heavy/turbulent before your thoughts find a way to make a story that blames your tension on them; naming it allows you to know it is there and your partner to know that is time to support you/hold space.” Yung Pueblo

“Love meets in the middle.” Margaret Gervais

12/1/19 12/1/19

Pluto and Saturn 2019-2020

Pluto/Saturn 2019-2020 Are you feeling tense/nervous/anxious? Are you feeling big shifts, but you don’t understand the shifts? Are you feeling confused and uncertain during these tense and uncertain times? It is a tense time of change. Look at the world, Hong Kong, gun violence, Chili, Haiti, U.K., U.S.A., Syria, climate change, and #metoo are some examples of intense global upheaval and change.

Here it the story from an astrological point of view: The planets Pluto and Saturn are currently very close to each other in the sky (4˚ apart at the end of November, 2019). These two planets create very powerful and difficult changes and they are currently operating together. Read this post and let me know if I can help you understand how this is impacting you.

Pluto is the planet of power, control and transformation, and is currently in the sky in the sign of Capricorn.

Capricorn represents responsibility, ambition, structure and rigidity. While Pluto travels through Capricorn, Pluto is powerful breaking down Capricorn structures and rebuilding them – completely. Pluto power is very strong and works to dig deep, destroy and rebuild – in order for empowerment and transformation to take place.

The Pluto changes are taking place in our own astrology chart, and therefore our lives. Based on where the current Pluto/Capricorn placement is in your chart, you will be experiencing this complete upheaval and restructuring. It is important to not resist these powerful transformations – if you do not work pay attention and work with Pluto, it will find a way to wake you up.

Saturn represents discipline, seriousness, hard work and fear of loss. Saturn in also currently in Capricorn, making us take these issues seriously. Saturn brings rewards for hard work and together with Pluto we must do our inner work to get the rewards. We are being asked to be mature and endure changes that are challenging. Don’t blame others. Pay attention to your goals and do not destroy others. Nobody said it would be easy! Pluto and Saturn are taskmasters. The rewards can be great at this time - don’ t miss this opportunity to grow.

This has been building for the all of 2019, and this building phase is tough – the power of the connection of the two planets is intensifying. It will continue to intensify until January 12, 2020, when Pluto and Saturn will be exactly aligned. After January 12, 2020, Saturn will move ahead of Pluto, but the impact continues – did you do the work or not (it is not over until it is over)? The transformation continues until your work is done. We have to do our work in this area of our life to navigate the transformation well.

And just to expand this intense transformative energy, Jupiter (the planet of expansion energy) joins Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn starting January 2020. Jupiter will enhance these energies for all of 2020 – and make us do our work - are we learning and growing in order be empowered.

There are two sides of Pluto – power and transformation. In what area of your life will you gain well-earned power will powerfully transform/make and accept big changes?

Look at your chart (natal chart plus transits – on www.astro.com*) to see where these planets in Capricorn land in your own chart. A transit chart shows current planetary placements in green on the outer wheel of the chart. This will show you where this intense transformative change is occurring for you. You want to look at which house (1-12) Pluto and Saturn are in your chart (see below for the definition of the houses.)
If these two planets are on top of any planets in your birth chart, the deep transformative changes will also involve these planets.
If you are age 28-30, or 58-60, you are also experiencing your Saturn return – where Saturn has returned in your chart to where it was when you were born – intensifying all of the deep changes.

Here is the definition of the houses:

HOUSES: Where does the energy manifest?

Myself.
My values, resources, and money.
My mind, thinking and communicating. My siblings. My interaction with everyday people.
My home, mother, family roots. My personal identity and security.
My creativity, love, children, and joy. Also my need to shine.
My work, health, and being of service.
My primary relationship.
Other peoples’ values, their resources and their money. Transformation.
Ideals, higher education, global, communities, and travel.
Career, public persona and being an authority.
Long-term goals and who are my long-term friends.
Spirit. Evolution of consciousness. Mysteries. What is hidden. Letting go.

For example, if Pluto moves through your 4th house you are likely to move, and feel disrupted by moving. I moved from Seattle to Hong Kong to Portland to Singapore to San Francisco and to Portland, with my husband and two children, selling and buying houses, when Pluto went through my 4th house. These were all good moves for us but also involved dramatic changes for my family and me – and it was really challenging at times. But we all learned a lot and grew a lot with these changes.

Tools to help navigate the current changes:

Take care of yourself. Good food, enough exercise and rest. Be careful with alcohol or other less healthy substances for coping.
If you are a meditator, meditate.
Do grounding exercises. Look up Tom Jacobs’s grounding meditation via my website https://theinsightcenter.net/resources/ - or contact me for healing sessions.
Choose a healthy path for your energy, such as running, riding horses, welding, cooking, painting, baths, massage, breathe, reading, writing, lifting weights, working, walking, hiking, singing, dancing, time with friends and family (if that is a positive experience for you).
Pay attention.
Read my prior blog posts for insights https://theinsightcenter.net/blog/
Read other inspiring books: poetry, history, philosophy, science fiction – whatever interests you
I am lighting a lot of candles.
Accept change. Accept that areas of your life will be changing. Let it go.
Be brave.
Be optimistic, encouraged and grateful – for the things that are about to come.

* If you want me to look this up for you, contact me at: theinsightcenter@gmail.com. I can do a short recorded reading of the Saturn/Pluto in Capricorn placement in your chart for a fee of $50.©Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center 2019. All rights reserved.

10/2/19 10/2/19

Insights for October 2019

Awakening:"It is a most beautiful and difficult thing to be human.""Spiritual practice helps us settle into the utter simplicity of being ourselves." Frank Ostaseski, The Five Initiations, pg. 149.

"You are consciousness incarnated in a human body, but not limited by it. Consciousness is the clear space of knowing, as vast as the open sky. Rest in consciousness, in loving awareness. Let vastness be your home."

"Over a lifetime, you are called upon to play many parts, but you don't have to identify with them."

"Your life is not separate from the earth, the sun, and the stars, but held by and part of all."

"Here is the paradox. You are one with the mystery of life, and you have your unique incarnation. You have one foot in the timeless realm and one in individual identify. Each of these realms offers the possibility of freedom."

"You are not the body that changes form so many times in your lifetime. Nor are you your thoughts or personality. You are the vast ocean, the awareness, the One Who Knows." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present.

“It helps to know, to let go.” Margaret Gervais

"Experiences have to be repeated many times before they are emotionally integrated."

"Speaking and living the Truth allows one to see and experience the Truth with more clarity." Maurice Fernandez, Astrology and the Evolution of Consciousness, 2009. Page 397.

"The momentum of the event and the resilient strength or power of adaptation of the individual are dynamically equal." Rudhyar, Dane 1976: An Astrological Study of Psychological Complexes. Berkeley: Shambhala, p.3.

"Fear is produced by the memory of defeat - whether this memory is strictly personal in nature, or is based on subconscious memory of previous collective defeats." Rudhyar, Dane 1976: An Astrological Study of Psychological Complexes. Berkeley: Shambhala, p.5.

"Are you seeing, sensing, feeling, being, less separate and more oneness?” Margaret Gervais

“When you come to your edge, surrender your angst into a larger reality and trust the unknown...” David Pond, Astrologer

"Being conscious means you really have to feel what you feel, which is frequently very vulnerable and raw." Chodrön, Pema, On Not Loving Heart, Tricycle, Fall 2019, page 28.

“One of the most important things about following the path of intuition and free thinking is it forces you to focus on being true to yourself over being liked by others. Once others can no longer control and manipulate you through fear of loss and abandonment you’re liberated.”

“Sometimes the boundary is simply not giving someone any of your energy.” Maryam Hasnaa

“Notice the evolution of consciousness in yourself. What books are you reading, how do you spend your time, who do you hang out with, how do you treat and respond to others, and are toxic relationships and situations drifting out of your life, versus a few years ago? Notice your willingness to be quiet. You are evolving.” Margaret Gervais

“The inner critic is always loudest right before the breakthrough.” Chani Nicholas

“Understanding reality is a characteristic of wisdom. The latter does not entail mastering masses of information but an understanding of the true nature of things. Out of habit, we perceive the outer world as a collection of distinct, autonomous entities to which we attribute characteristics that we believe belong inherently to them. Our day-to-day experience tells us that things are good or bad, desirable or undesirable. The ‘self’ that perceives them seems to be equally concrete and real. This error, which Buddhism calls ignorance, gives rise to powerful impulses of attraction and aversion that eventually lead to suffering. Fabricated concepts open up a gap between our perception and reality, and create a never-ending conflict with the world. ‟We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us,” wrote Rabindranath Tagore. We take for permanent that which is ephemeral and for happiness that which is but a source of suffering: the desire for wealth, for power, for fame, and for deceptive pleasures.” Matthieu Ricard

COMPREHENSIVE ASTROLOGY COURSE:

I will be teaching the one year Comprehensive Astrology Course in 2020, starting in February. This is a one-year, twelve class Course (I class per month). Please contact me with questions or to request registration materials.

Meditation:

“One of the finest results of meditation is the increased gap between stimulus and response. That gap before I react gives me time to notice my habitual patterns and sometimes even decide whether to stay a slave to them or break loose.” Brent Oliver, I take Refuge in the Humor.

MEDITATION COURSE:

I am teaching one-on-one and small group meditation courses. Contact me if you are interested, or read more at https://theinsightcenter.net/meditation/

Healing:

“Here's what I think: The soul is a perspective that pushes us to go deeper and see further and live wilder. It's what drives our imagination to flesh out our raw experience, transforming that chaotic stuff into rich storylines that animate our love of life.With the gently propulsive force of the soul, we probe beyond the surface level of things, working to find the hidden meaning and truer feeling.” Rob Brezsny Astrology Newsletter, July 17, 2019.

“Let the trauma and mistakes of our ancestors move through us.” Julianna McCarthy

“May I feel all I need to feel in order to heal; may I heal all I need to heal in order to feel.” Margurite Rigoglioso.

REIKI l WORKSHOP:

I want to share that I am teaching a Reiki l Workshop this fall at The Insight Center:

The Workshop is over two days: October 24, 1:00 - 4:00 and October 25, 10:00 - 5:00. The fee for the Workshop is $475.

This is a certified, Usui Reiki l Workshop. You can read more about this Workshop at https://theinsightcenter.net/reiki/ or feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Also please feel free to share this with others who you feel may be interested.

If you have completed a Reiki l Workshop with me, I would love to have you assist for all or part of the Workshop (you get to hang out and give and receive Reiki). Please let me know if you are interested.

Grief:

“Grief needs a channel.” Pico Iyer, “Autumn Light” via Tricycle podcast.

Please contact me for Reiki Healing, Intuitive Healing, Meditation Classes and/or Astrology Readings in Portland or via Skype, at theinsightcenter@gmail.com.Please see my website at www.theinsightcenter.net

7/9/19 7/9/19

Insights for July 2019

Awakening:“Every next level of your life will demand a different version of you.” @spiritualmovement, Instagram.

“Who we are is greatly impacted by the subconscious patterns that control our perception of reality.

How we feel is deeply affected by our past emotional history – heavy emotions that do their best to recreate themselves in the present.

What we see can only become objective and clear when we observe, accept and let go of what was silently waiting deep within us.

When we rise above the past and use our effort to respond to life instead of reacting to it. By having the perseverance to build wiser habits, we open the door to wiser living in a new way.” yung pueblo

“Peace of mind comes piece by piece.” Yogi Tea tag.“Life is so much shorter than we think. Make your art. Make a fool of yourself. Make healing your priority. Risk everything for joy.” Chani Nicholas.

These quotes are from Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present:

"Inner stillness helps you know how to respond."

"...the wisdom of uncertainty. To become wise, you must become comfortable with not knowing."

"Your presence is an expression of the wisdom you carry."

"You are never alone in your care. Generations of ancestors stand at your back."

“We give too many people the power to lower our vibration. Stand true to your own frequency.” @hausofdimitri, Instagram.

“When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds – you know that the seeds will grow in time. Similarly, just do your daily practice and cultivate a kind heart. Abandon impatience and instead be content creating the causes for goodness; the results will come when they are ready.” This was posted on Instagram, without a reference!

“My skin glows because I drink water and stay in my own lane.”

“Do you solemnly swear to stay in your lane, your whole lane, and nothing but your lane?” @hausofdimitri, Instagram.

“People who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who are benefiting from you having none.” @femalecollective, Instagram.

“Transparency is the best filter; it lets in the most light.” Margaret Gervais

“A thousand years from today, everyone you know will be long dead and forgotten. There’ll be nothing left of the life you love, no evidence that you ever walked this planet. That, at least, is what the fundamentalist materialists would have you believe.But suppose the truth is very different? What if in fact every little thing you do subtly alters the course of history? What if your day-to-day decisions can actually help determine how the human species navigates its way through the epic turning point we’re living through?And finally, what if you will be alive in a thousand years, reincarnated into a fresh body and in possession of at least some of the memories of the person you were back in this era? Reincarnation is a taboo theory among fundamentalist materialists, but it won't always be so.These are my hypotheses. These are my prophecies. That’s why I say: Live as if your soul is eternal.Everyone influences the world in some way. No matter how powerless we may feel, each of us is a creator who continually churns out energy that bends and shapes our world and the people in it.What is the signature of your effect? How do you change the environments you pass through? What magic, for good or ill, do you perform in the daily rhythm of your life?I invite you to take inventory—and to fix any discrepancies between the mark you ideally want to make and your actual impact.” Bob Brezsny Astrology Newsletter May 29, 2019

"It is never too late to set off on a quest." Elizabeth Spring, Astrology for the Third Act of Life.

Fear:

“Fear is produced by the memory of defeat – whether this memory is strictly personal in nature, or is based on a subconscious memory of previous collective defeats.” Dane Rudhyar, “An Astrological Study of Psychological Complexes.

Relationships:

“4 things make your relationship easier:

space to be your own person

less control, more trust

calm communication

selfless listening.” yung pueblo

Meditation:“We do not have to be afraid of entering unfamiliar territory once we have learned how to hold experience within the gentleness of our own minds. Learning to transform obstacles into objects of meditation provides a much needed bridge between the stillness of the concentrated mind and the movement of real life.” Mark Epstein, Stopping the Mind.

Healing:

"Self-acceptance is key to unblocking energy to move through the body." Elizabeth Spring, Astrology for the Third Act of Life.

“4 things to remember during moments of inner turbulence and tough emotion:

do not hide from what you are feeling

this current discomfort is not permanent

rest is an important way to calm the mind

struggle can be a space of deep growth.” yung pueblo

“Time does not heal all wounds, it just gives them space to sink into the subconscious, where they will still impact your emotions and behavior. What heals is going inward, loving yourself, accepting yourself, listening to your needs, addressing your attachments and emotional history, learning how to let go and following your intuition.” yung pueblo.

“Sweetheart, you are in pain. Relax, take a breath. Let’s pay attention to what is happening then we’ll figure out what to do.” Sylvia Boorstein.

“Essentials for tough days:

do not punish yourself

give yourself ample kindness

remember that all things change

make sure that you get good rest

do things that will calm your mind

accomplish smaller goals that day

real acceptance can remove blocks

this is the time to practice patience

growth can come with tough moments

a bad moment does not equal a bad life.” yung pueblo

Astrology:

Aries, Leo and Sagittarius:“Fire is that factor in life which brings, whenever possible, change, self-renewal, birth and re-birth; thus transformations of all kinds and the release of new life-energies which in due time will bring new forms.” Dane Rudhyar, The Zodiac as The Universal Matrix.

“Astrology is a language. If you understand this language, the sky speaks to you.” Dane Rudhyar

Grief:

“Bit by bit… it comes over us that we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend, that this one garden is forever locked against us. And at that moment begins our true mourning, which, though it may not be rending, is yet a little bitter. For nothing, in truth, can replace that companion. Old friends cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.So life goes on. For years we plant the seed, we feel ourselves rich; and then come other years when time does its work and our plantation is made sparse and thin. One by one, our comrades slip away, deprive us of their shade.” Saint-Exupéry.

“I cannot say that I am not afraid. A friend of mine had cancer, and though he was not scared, he was sad because there were so many things he wanted to do. But I try not to look away. I am consciously aware that death is certain, the moment unforeseeable and every moment infinitely precious. At the beginning of our life, death frightens us like a trapped animal; in the middle of it, we try to do everything right to not miss anything, and in the end, we are calm and clear. So, death is like a friend.” Matthieu Ricard

"Here is a powerful yet simple way to understand. Look in the mirror. You will see that your body has aged. But oddly, you will also experience that you don't necessarily feel older. This is because your body exists in time. It starts small, grows up, ages and dies. But the consciousness that is looking at your body is outside of time. It is spirit that takes birth, experiences your life, and will witness your death. Maybe even say at the end, "Wow! That was an amazing ride!" Who you are is loving awareness witnessing the dance of birth and death." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present.

4/9/19 4/9/19

Insights for April 2019

Awakening:“Power is self-knowledge followed by full acceptance.” Ascended Master Djehuty, via Tom Jacobs.

“Getting started on a spiritual path takes guts. We usually don’t know it in the beginning, but if we keep going on it—if we really want to know the truth of what it means to be human or if we are deeply finished with our suffering—we will learn that walking the path of freedom takes a humble courage.” Teah Strozer, Rain, Tricycle.

“The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality. We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. When we rediscover our childlike nature, we enter into a world of gentle possibility. Consequently, we will find ourselves more frequently at that place, that place of ease, delight, and celebration. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves. Our clay shape gradually learns to walk beautifully on this magnificent earth.” John O'Donohue

“KnowFeelHealOwnBe” Margaret Gervais

“When you are a person who touches fire most people won’t understand you.” Margaret Gervais

These six quotes are from Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present :

'With the freedom of imperfection comes forgiveness and compassion for yourself and others."

"In the midst of your own life, your spirit is free."

"You are just here to toil. Dream big and dance."We're here to deliver our gifts."

"'Don’t be afraid to fail' Krishnamurti said to his reluctant disciple, Vimala Thakar. Mistakes are necessary. They are the natural scientific method ... every time you make an experiment you learn more: quite literally you cannot learn less."

"Acting freely springs from stillness; it is strengthened by inner listening. Even so, your course of action might not be clear." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present.

Astrology:

These four quotes are from Steven Forrest, The Book of Fire:

"The astrological symbols are quantum fields of possibility and probability. With consciousness, you can influence how these energies manifest - but there is one choice that is forbidden to you: you cannot choose to have the energy disappear and become irrelevant."

"There is an ancient technical term for how human consciousness might be potentially trained to influence the actual positions of the atoms and molecules in the world. The term is magic."

“Astrology always works, which means these symbols correlate reliably with the manifestation of archetypical fields of possibility.”

"Your Sun sign placement is your own antidepressant." Steven Forrest, The Book of Fire.

Meditation:

“When you meditate you elevate a problem from despair to a place of equanimity.” Margaret Gervais

“Seeing for yourself, from your own experience, what works and what doesn’t is what meditation is all about.” Jason Siff, “The Problem with Meditation Instructions” from Tricycle.“

Stories, of course, are made up of thoughts—those mental sound bites that intrude upon direct experience, and that we let go of in meditation. The more we learn to let go of thoughts, the more we gain the ability to drop our negative stories.” Sean Murphy, “Get Out Of Your Head” via Tricycle Community, Daily Dharma.

Healing:

“Trauma can be healed. The soul is resilient and wants healing.” Margaret Gervais

“Eventually your trauma information becomes old information, and you are more free.” Margaret Gervais

1/1/19 1/1/19

Insights for January 2019

Awakening:“Every time a habitual pattern gets strong, every time we feel caught up or on automatic pilot, we could see it as an opportunity to burn up negative karma. Rather than a problem, we could see it as karma ripening. That gives us an opportunity to burn up karma, or at least weaken our propensities. But it’s hard to do so. Pg. 10

Not only do we have a precious human life, but that precious human life is made up of precious human days, and those precious human days are made up of precious human moments. How we spend them is really important.” Pg. 12

In any moment, you can put your full attention on the immediacy of your experience. You can look at your hand resting on your leg or feel your bottom sitting on the chair. You can just be here. Instead of not being here. Pg. 13

When you are completely wound up about something and you pause, your natural intelligence clicks in and you have a sense of the right thing to do. This is part of the magic: our natural intelligence is always there to inform us, as long as we allow a gap. Pg. 14. “The Most Important Thing in Life,” Pema Chödrön, Awaken Your Heart and Mind, page 10, Lion’s Roar Special Edition.

“The way you’re wired is not an accident.” Tom Jacobs, tdjacobs.com

“Intuition:If you’re not getting a strong ‘yes’, you’re really getting a ‘no.’If you’re getting a vague “no”, it’s really a ‘no.’” Margaret Gervais, December 2018

“Living life is a messy endeavor. A human one. An imperfect one. One that reveals our gifts through our struggles, our truth through our misunderstandings, and our purpose through our pain; one that is made so much more painful when we are in a constant state of self-critique.Mistakes are one of life’s great teaching tools. Through them we get to see where we have work to do, room to grow, and lessons to learn. Misjudgments humble us. Knock us off our high-horses. Grounded, we get in touch with something deeper. The feelings that our personalities want to reject. Disassociate from. Deny.

What lies below the surface of our personalities might be daunting to deal with. Unbearable sometimes to unpack, seemingly impossible to make peace with. But doing so is the only way to develop a sustainable kind of growth throughout our lives. Being aware of our inner lives is what connects us to others. It’s what makes deep and satisfying connections with others possible. It’s what taps us into the transformational power of compassion, for ourselves and everyone else.When we understand the inner workings of our more problematic personality traits, we can not only develop the strength to be accountable for them, but we are also better able to recognize the same struggle in others. When we work on being conscious of our own arrogance, impatience, and self-importance, we are more able to hold that part of ourselves, reducing the harm we might otherwise inflict upon the world.

The personality can only get us so far when disconnected from the depth that our soul craves.

Developing our consciousness requires a constant commitment, a deep and abiding sense of humor about our process, and acceptance of our flaws as well as an understanding of how imperative they are for our growth and development.” Chani Nicholas, www.chaninicholas.com, “Sunday’s New Moon in Virgo.” Newsletter, September, 2018.

“The truth has a higher vibration.” Margaret Gervais, December, 2018

“You wanting a sign is a sign.” Spiritualmovement instagram

"We have so many ideas about how we should be and how the world should be, yet none of these is the way things are. Human life is tainted glory - messy, paradoxical, filled with contradictions. The cloak of the world is woven with magnificence and limitation, triumph and disappointment, loss and eternal re-creation. To seek some ideal of perfection puts us in conflict with the world.

"There is a difference between an archetype or ideal and our humanity.To have compassion for your human vulnerability is a blessed, tender practice.

"Feel the joy and sorrow that make up your incarnation.'You know, sometimes it is your task in life to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.'” Itzhak Perlman, Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present.

Grief:

HOW IT SEEMS TO MEUrsula K. Le GuinIn the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingles with mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be.Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul, till soul can loose its hold of self and both are free and can return to vastness and dissolve in light, the long light after time.“Our Universe is one of motion, everything is always changing even when we cannot perceive the subtlety of it – movement is always happening at the atomic level.

Change is one of the best things about our reality, it means tough times can’t last, better things are possible and new scenarios are always on the horizon.Change is also one of the most difficult things about our reality, because our minds are inclined toward attaching themselves to the things we enjoy, meaning we try to keep things the same even if it mean refusing the inherent flow of nature.Attachment, the carving for things to exist in a particular way, hurt because sooner or later the flow of change will reveal that what we want can only exist for a temporary amount of time. The craving that creates attachment opens the door to misery.To live in a way that change is no longer our enemy is the essence of inner peace. When we accept the fact that things are bound to change we can live with the clarity needed to enjoy the present moment. When we know that change is essential to life we can embrace the beauty of how things come together to create the moments we cherish.” yung pueblo

“To the moon,Who loves so selflessly,

That it wakes up to the darkness every night.

For the waves that rely on its pull

And the mad Dreamers who rely on its light.” Author unknown to me

Relationships:

“No one can fill the emptiness within – that is our job alone – but a healthy relationship can be incredibly good company along our healing journey. If and when it is built for such growth.” Chani Nicholas

“A strong self love helps you find a balance between giving selflessly and protecting yourself from harm.” Yung pueblo

“Stop letting people who are unaware of their toxicity play with your emotions. The right energies will make you feel loved in the purest way; you’ll never have to question their intentions. Nothing and no one is worth sabotaging your mental stability, especially those people who aren’t genuine. Make a clean break from people who leave lingering stains on your heart. You deserve much better than that.” Ester T., spiritualmovemement Instagram.

Healing:

“Sometimes the biggest storms happen after the healing has started. yung pueblo“

In order to emerge from our pain, we have to enter it . . . when we thus relate to our pain, cultivating intimacy with it, we start liberating ourselves from our pain and fro the painful consequences of avoiding our pain.” Robert Augustus Master, “A Painless Present”, Tricycle Magazine.

“The most reckless thing we can do is refuse the healing we are ready for. Our wounds left untreated threaten the existence of every good thing in our lives.” Chani Nicholas, Instagram

“Much healing work is the back and forth movement between moments of discomfort and moments of new happiness, going inward to release the dense patterns of hurt and old programming that do not serve your freedom and then feeling the joyful clarity that comes with letting go.” yung pueblo

“reveal to release.” sensate_me instagram

10/5/16 10/5/16

Insights for August/September 2016

Awakening:"...the human adventure is a wandering through the vale of the world for the sake of making soul. Our life is psychological, and the purpose of life is to make psyche of it, to find connections between life and soul." James Hillman "Re-Visioning Psychology, pg. xv

"But what if life is the perfect expression of our own soul nature meeting the field of everything, meeting the free space in which divinity has allowed us to express ourselves? Essentially, we meet our own karma out there in the world. We meet the products of our own life and energy." Mark Jones, The Mountain Astrologer, Aug./Sept. 2016, page 45

"... human beings do not earn free will except through self-discovery, and they do not attempt self-discovery until things become so painful that they have no other choice." Liz Greene, "Saturn, A New Look at and Old Devil" pg. 11

Grief:"Within the silence that follows the final breath of a dying person is the certainty that something is occurring. In the no moving movement of air in the room one senses a deep, deep loneliness and at the same time the connectedness of everything." Robert Chodo Campbell, "Death is not an Emergency," Tricycle, fall 2016

Astrology:

Where is Saturn in your chart and what sign is it? Email me and I will tell you!

"Saturn symbolizes a psychic process as well as a quality or kind of experience. He is not merely a representative of pain, restrictions and discipline; he is also a symbol of the psychic process, natural to all human beings, by which an individual may utilize the experiences of pain, restriction, and discipline as a means for greater consciousness and fulfillment. Psychology has demonstrated that there is within the individual psyche a motive or impulsion toward wholeness and completeness." Liz Greene, "Saturn: A New Look at and Old Devil"

1/6/16 1/6/16

Insights for December 2015

Awakening:

“If you push away anything, anything at all, you are not free.” Ram Dass

“The point is to relax and rest in the reality of the present.” Jack Kornfield.

"Finding a teacher is like falling in love: you can't make it happen but you'll know when it does. Whether you call it serendipity, auspiciousness or karma, trust it will happen when the moment is right." Shambhala Sun, January 2016, page 35.

"It is only through thousands upon thousands of births, awakening a little each time, that you become what you are." Ram Dass

Healing:

"If we're aware of the habit energies in us, we can transform not only ourselves but also our ancestors who planted the seeds.""Whatever kind of action we take, if we look deeply into it, we'll be able to recognize the seed of that action. That seed may come from our ancestors. Whatever action we take, our ancestors are taking it at the same time with us. So father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are doing it with you; mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are doing it with you. Our ancestors are there in every cell of our body. There are seeds that are planted during your lifetime, but there are also seeds that were planted before you manifested as this body."

"Sometimes we act without intention, but that is also action. "Habit energy" is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we are doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it. Sometimes we say, 'I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me.' So that is a seed, a habit energy, that may have come from many generations in the past."We have inherited a lot. With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in ways similar to us. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from those ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now." Thich Nhat Hanh, "Reconciliation", Parallax PressTop of Form

Meditation:"There are endless reasons not to meditate, most of them legit. But if you do it anyway, says Karen Maesen Miller, something changes." Shambhala Sun, January 2016, page 27.[As attained and accrued during meditation] "The energy of mindfulness will heal the wounded child in us." Thich Nhat Hanh, "Reconciliation", Parallax Press

Relationships:"Try it in small ways. Don’t pick the most challenging relationship you have. Take responsibility for yourself, listen from a loving clarity, choose to value being loving and understanding rather than being loved and understood. Say what is true for you and allow others to say what is true for them. This is what it means to remain loving but also remain true, honest, and real." Adyashanti, The Way of Liberating Insight

Strong Emotions: "During a storm of emotion, leave the head and heart, which are like the top of the tree, and come back to the trunk."“A strong emotion is like a storm. If you look at a tree in a storm, the top of the tree seems fragile, like it might break at any moment. You are afraid the storm might uproot the tree. But if you turn your attention to the trunk of the tree, you realize that its roots are deeply anchored in the ground, and you see that the tree will be able to hold.You too are a tree. During a storm of emotion, you should not stay at the level of the head or the heart, which are like the top of the tree. You have to leave the heart, the eye of the storm, and come back to the trunk of the tree. Your trunk is one centimeter below your navel. Focus there, paying attention only to the movement of your abdomen, and continue to breathe. Then you will survive the storm of strong emotion.You should not wait for emotion to appear before you begin practicing. Otherwise you will be carried away by the storm. You should train now, while the emotion is not here. So sit or lie down and practice mindfulness of the breath, using the movement of your abdomen as the object of your attention. I am positive that if you do this exercise for twenty days, ten minutes per day, then you will know how to practice whenever a strong emotion comes up. After ten or twenty minutes, the emotion will go away, and you will be saved from the storm.” Thich Nhat Hanh, “You are Here,” Shambhala.

12/8/15 12/8/15

Insights for November 2015

Awakening:

“Don’t listen to those who stir you up. Don’t listen to others who put you to sleep. Respect them all. Thank them all. Then remember, there is a bird singing only you can hear.” Jack Kornfield“This one moment — Now — is the only thing you can never escape from, the one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens, no matter how much your life changes, one thing is certain: it’s always Now.” Eckhart Tolle

“Nobody is making you feel what you’re feeling. Nobody has the power to make you feel something negative emotionally. Your reactions are caused by how you interpret any situation. This is so important because it means that you ultimately become your own resource of emotional freedom and truth.” Adyashanti, The Way of Liberating Insight

“Inside you are a thousand generations of your ancestors, who learned how to survive difficulties. Do not be afraid, you too will find your way: Jack Kornfield“Actions conditioned by greed, hatred, and delusion bring a heavy burden of suffering. On the other hand, actions conditioned by generosity, lovingkindness, and wisdom lead to a light and happy sense of well-being. Simple as that. Vaddhaka Linn, “Does Self-Help Help?”

“The ‘positive’ already contains within itself the yet manifested ‘negative.” Eckhart Tolle

"Feeling good is not the point - it's being connected so that the highs and lows don't matter. You spend less time at the mercy of all those heavy negative thoughts." - Krishna Das

"What is common to all forms is not another form. What is common to all forms, is choiceless awareness, it is pure love, it is flow and harmony with the universe. It is the absence of clinging. How does it all come together? If you follow all of the forms to the appex, you are pushed beyond form and into the moment. The passing show of forms, being created and existing then disappearing into formlessness." Ram Dass

“Our mind is a treasure. But it ‘s very absorbent, so we must also be very discriminating in what we hear, read, and see. And in the spiritual like, our fence is our ethics. If we know we are living ethically to the best of our ability, the mind will become peaceful. We will attract the same kinds of people we really are. If we have a mind full of defilements, we will attract that to us. Therefore we have to purify our mental state, because whatever is within we will project out. You bring people toward you by your work and by karma. You have to be ready, when someone of a higher level is in front of you, to meet them. You do this by connecting to your source. Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Tricycle, Winter 2009“Purity of view is a gateway to greater insight and even deeper levels of happiness. The momentum of mindfulness becomes so strong that the perception of phenomenon arising and passing away becomes crystal clear. Concentration and awareness are effortless. The mind becomes luminous. We experience precise, clear insight into the nature of things. It is our first taste of coming home. We have rapture and gratitude.” Joseph Goldstein, Tricycle F’05 posted 11.15

“Sometimes bearing witness is one of the hardest things we do.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Part of being alive is sharing the humanity of pain.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Sometime bravery needs to show up for you to take your next steps.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“If you’re really mad at someone, are they pushing your button? If not, would you mind? So what is the button, and how can you let it go?” Margaret Gervais The Insight Center

“We all have drama, the point is to do your drama well.” Alan Watts.

“How can you be your narrative, when your narrative is constantly changing?” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

Meditation:

I'm not a fan of meditation apps. I'm a fan of turning your phone off, leaving it in another room, and meditating. ‪#‎phonefreemeditation Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Life a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it, tend it, enjoy it. And when the time comes let it go.” Jack Kornfield

“If I can’t stop thinking, maybe I can just let my thoughts go by without getting all caught up in them. Feel the breeze on your face or your neck? See how it’s going by? You’re not all hung up with it. You don’t have to see where each breeze goes. You don’t have to look quickly to see if it hit those trees over there. It’s breezes, and they’re just going by. Make your thoughts like those breezes, those little breezes…just going by." Ram Dass

"It is an unfolding process; thoughts with thinker, sensory without body, experience without self." Noah Levine

"Liberated mind is the mind that does not cling to anything." Joseph Goldstein

“The middle path is living a life at a ‘5’ and not a ‘1’ or a ‘10’.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“It is important to remember, on the path to awakening, that there is gravity. You will progress along the path, and then you will fall and or crash and burn. At these points, maintain your practice, let the fall cycle out and you will rise again onto the path.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

Grief:

An animated short film by Alan Watts, on death: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/31/alan-watts-on-death/

11/4/15 11/4/15

Insights for October 2015

Awakening:

"Be at peace with imperfection." Margaret Gervais

"Never doubt that the universe has a wicked sense of humor. It is to keep you on your toes and make sure you have the ability to laugh at yourself, the self you often take so bloody seriously." Bobby Klein, l Ching Weekly for October, www.theichingweekly.com

"Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: "Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you."Every young soul hears this call by day and by night and shudders with excitement at the premonition of that degree of happiness which eternities have prepared for those who will give thought to their true liberation. There is no way to help any soul attain this happiness, however, so long as it remains shackled with the chains of opinion and fear. And how hopeless and meaningless life can become without such a liberation! There is no drearier, sorrier creature in nature than the man who has evaded his own genius and who squints now towards the right, now towards the left, now backwards, now in any direction whatever." Schopenhauer as Educator: Nietzsche's Third Untimely Meditation Paperback – November 25, 2014, by Friedrich Nietzsche."What if you took the drama out of your story?"

#‎middlepath Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"Remove the drama from your story. Drama fuels anxiety and is not helpful. Every time drama arises, notice it, and let it go. Do this over and over and over to retrain your mind. Choose a calm rational response instead. Remind yourself to choose a calm rational response and your mind will be retrained toward calm rational responses. If you need help knowing what a calm rational response is, recruit a calm rational friend/person into your life to mirror this response for you. This will not make you a person without passion. Passion will still arise, it can and will arise without drama and you will response in a rational manner in order to take action and calmly manage your life." Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"Ask yourself why you are participating in their drama." Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"That peace is not something we get by becoming anything. Instead it happens by letting go, by allowing things to cease. That's why we talk so much about cessation when I'm feeling grumpy, I remember the teaching: "That’s going to change. Don't make it a problem." So I allow myself to be grumpy, which isn't an indulgence in being grumpy or about laying the mood onto the other monks, but nor is it a denial of that grumpiness. It's just recognizing that that which has a nature to arise has a nature to cease; I can awaken to that, and then it does cease. As I realize that more and more, it becomes a path of courage and confidence. There is the confidence to allow these things to be there, to make them fully conscious - to allow fear, anger or whatever else to be fully present." Ajahn VIradhammo, "Don’t Turn Away", page 82.

"Clouds are just temporary; eventually the wind will come along and blow them away." 'On What is Most Important', Khenchen Thrangu on the liberatory verses of the Tibetan Yogi Padampg Sangye, Tricycle, Fall 2015, pg 41.

"Great aims are those aims that all beings share in. So what are they? There are three: 1. To learn about oneself. 2. To resolve the matter of life and death. 3. To save others." Koitsu Yokoyama, 'An Intelligent Life: Buddhist Psychology of Self-Transformation'. Tricycle Fall 2015.

Meditation:

"When the mind gets small, problems get big. When the mind gets big, problems get small." Andrew Holecek, via Spirit Rock Meditation Center."

“Meditation helps us relinquish old painful habits, it challenges our assumptions about whether or not we deserve happiness. It also ignites a very potent energy in us. With a strong foundation in how we practice meditation, we can begin to live in a way that enables us to respect ourselves, to be calm rather than anxious, and to offer caring attention to others instead of being held back by notions of separation." Sharon Salzberg.

“It is important to emphasize, in discussing the art of meditation (and the practice as you continue it becomes an art, with many subtle nuances), that you shouldn’t start out with some idea of gaining. This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t—but the way to get there is just to be fully here. The way to get from point A to point B is really to be at A. When we follow the breathing in the hope of becoming something better, we are compromising our connection to the present, which is all we ever have. If your breathing is shallow, your mind and body restless, let them be that way, for as long as they need to. Just watch them.The first law of Buddhism is that everything is constantly changing. No one is saying that the breathing should be some particular way all the time. If you find yourself disappointed with your meditation, there’s a good chance that some idea of gaining is present. See that, and let it go. However your practice seems to you, cherish it just the way it is. You may think that you want it to change, but that act of acceptance is in itself a major change.One place where ideas of gaining typically come in, where people get obsessive about the practice, is in the task of staying with the breathing. We take a simple instruction and create a drama of success and failure around it: we’re succeeding when we’re with the breath, failing when we’re not. Actually, the whole process is meditation: being with the breathing, drifting away, seeing that we’ve drifted away, gently coming back. It is extremely important to come back without blame, without judgment, without a feeling of failure. If you have to come back a thousand times in a five-minute period of sitting, just do it. It’s not a problem unless you make it into one.”LARRY ROSENBERG, TRICYCLE BUDDHIST REVIEW

"We practice meditation to stay with this state of mental calm, for a while. And with practice, it is possible to experience inner peace and contentment just by calming the mind. Strong concentration is absolutely necessary for liberating insight. ‘Without a firm basis in concentration,’ Ajaan Fuang often said, ‘insight is just concepts.’ To see clearly the connections between stress [dukkha] and its causes, the mind has to be very steady and still. And to stay still, it requires the strong sense of well-being that only strong concentration can provide." Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "Seeing for Yourself”.

"When we question ego-mind directly, it is exposed for what it is: the absence of everything we believe it to be. We can actually see through this seemingly solid ego-mind, or self. But what are we left with then? We are left with an open, intelligent awareness, unfettered by a self to cherish or protect. This is the primordial wisdom mind of all beings. Relaxing into this discovery is true meditation—and true meditation brings ultimate realization and freedom from suffering." Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, "Searching for Self" (Tricycle, Summer 2007).

"You don’t need to be an “excellent meditator” to start with. All you need to do is have your heart and mind make the following agreement: “Let’s rest. There’s no reason right now to wander around following thoughts or worrying. Let’s be relaxed and open.” There’s not even any need to shut down your thoughts. Just be there with them, but not overly concerned or engaged.Let there be total openness, and just relax within that." The Relaxed Mind by Dza Kilung Rinpoche http://www.shambhala.com/the-relaxed-mind.html.

10/7/15 10/7/15

Insights for September 2015

Awakening:

“If you want to be controlled by your mind, try to control your mind.”

“...we are taught to follow this other authority in us – don’t do this and the expense of trusting yourself.”

"When are you in harmony with your reality?”

“If you want to transcend body and mind, do it in mediation.”

“When you get really worked up its your body telling you its not working. Illusion doesn’t feel good.”

“The more conscious you get the more you can’t get away with illusion.”

“The grace periods are shorter and shorter for the illusions.”

“The more conscious you get the more sensitive you become.”

“It’s a non-conceptual way to align yourself.”

"Very few things survive the 5 second rule. Does it exist if for 5 seconds you don’t think about it?”

“95% of stuff in our mind does not exist if we do not think about it. It's all an abstraction in your mind and it just disappears.”

“This is why some people have a hard time being quiet – they are afraid to not be in their thoughts.” Adyashanti, Portland Intensive, 3.21.15

"[T]he ego has to be first accepted as though it is a reality in order to be dealt with before it can be transcended. At the higher levels, the ego is seen to be an illusion, without any innate reality."Dr. David Hawkins, I: Reality and Subjectivity“Receiving is a powerful – and intimate – practice, for we are actually inviting another person into ourselves. Rather than focusing on our own practice, or on our own virtue, we can focus on providing an opportunity for someone else to develop generosity…That moment itself is unsullied. For that reason it is said that generosity is the discipline that produces peace.” Judith Lied, The Power of Receiving.

“Each thing is actually the fundamental reality, and each thing has infinite worth. Each particular being has unimaginable worth and beauty, because that’s how the totality is showing up.” Adyashanti

Astrology:"

..all of us have access to far memory, that we can remember everything and anything, and that Uranus points to that process..." Mark Jones, "The Soul Speaks", page 174.

Meditation:

“Remember to follow the basics for each meditation. Each step matters to bring you inward, start relaxing and to awaken consciousness:

1. sit straight, eyes and mouth closed,

2. take one deep breath and let it out,

3. take three deep breaths and let it out,

4. scan your body to bring your awareness internally, and release any tension,

5. separate 10% of your consciousness as the watcher,

6. bring your attention to your breath, the inhale and exhale,

7. when thoughts arise, let them drift away like clouds, no judgment,

8. no mantra, no counting,

9. return repeatedly to the breath. These steps create a ritual/habit and are reminders to you each meditation to slow down and be mindful.” Margaret Gervais

I love what Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember write about the witness, or the watcher, in meditation. Beautiful. "The witness is your leverage in the game. The witness me isn’t trying to change any of the other me’s. It’s not an evaluator or a judge; it’s not the superego. It doesn’t care about anything. It just observes. “Hmmm, there she or he is doing that again.” That witness place inside you is your centering device, your rudder.The witness is part of your soul. It’s witnessing your incarnation, this lifetime, from the heart-mind. It’s the beginning of discrimination between your soul and your ego, your real Self and your self in the incarnation. Once you begin to live in this witness place, you begin to shift your identification from the roles and thought forms. As you witness yourself, the process becomes more like watching a movie than being the central character in one." Ram DassHow meditation can help with anxiety: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/How-meditation-can-help-anxiety-6499435.php

Grief:

Death Is a Part of Living Until you realize the fundamental fact that reality is really in the moment, you’re thinking about long-term goals—'when I do this' and 'when I become that'—so you think, I don’t want to die, because then I won’t be able to do all these things. But if you’re living in the present, death becomes a part of living.—Jason Lewis, "An Interview with Jason Lewis"

9/4/15 9/4/15

Insights for August 2015

Awakening:"...the painful aspects of life, the really hard times, have been my main teachers." Pema Chödrön, "What is the Most Important Thing?" Shambhala Sun, September 2015.

"Carefree is being simple from the inside out."

"There is no need to create something by meditating, no need to achieve something - simply to be very clear, relaxed and bright."

"If you are carefree and open from within, you can fit in anywhere." Tsoknyi RInpoche "Happy and Carefree", Shambhala Sun, July 2015.

"We are all incredibly imperfect." Margaret Gervais, Elk Lake, August 2015

"Although the suffering of loss is triggered by a specific event, the painful emotions of attachment have actually arisen from multiple sources over time, and there may be more of it below the surface than was first expected.Thus, each loss actually represents all loss, for the experience is of loss itself and not just the specific event that brought it to the surface."

"A helpful source of strength during the process out of painful emotions is to identify with all of humanity and realize that suffering is universal to the phenomenon of being human and the evolution of the ego." Dr. David Hawkins, "Transcending the Levels of Consciousness

“When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what’s left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are.”

“The truest and most mature response would be simply to stop, be still, rest, and be taken. It is only the seeker that has absolutely no interest in stopping, but you are not the seeker.”

“To be lost in not knowing is a wonderful place to be. When you’re lost in not knowing, you come to know, but not in the way that you knew before. You come to know as a moment-to-moment experience of being. That’s your knowing. And you know that that is who you really are. You are that ever-unfolding mystery beyond the mind.” Adyashanti

Astrology:

"...the great majority of humanity is carrying at least some form of post-traumatic stress disorder originating solely from their participation in our collective history."

"A stressful aspect in the natal chart [astrology] involving the planet Uranus, and planet in the 11th house or Aquarius reveals a potential trauma signature. This can point to an unhealed event from a prior life held as a wound in the higher mind, expressing as a form of PTSD in the current life."

"...[Mars] symbolizes our individual need for the freedom to perpetually self-discover through the instinctual immediacy of our own experience. Mars symbolizes aggression in service of self: the right to defend our freedom to express our will."

"To be born is to die to our previous state."

"...a commitment to revealing and acknowledging our deepest truth in ongoing soul work, regardless of it's impact on the personal life, is what enable increasing harmony to emerge between our personal desires (Mars) and the intentions of the soul (Pluto)."

"Significant aspects between Mars and Pluto [in one's astrological birth chart] can indicate that current life is one in which soul work will be emphasized. Pluto (will of the soul) is impacting (aspecting) the personal will (Mars) in order to bring about transformation." Mark Jones, "The Soul Speaks".

Relationships:

“After awhile, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another human being is to work on yourself to be a statement of what it is you have found in the way you live your life, and one of the things you have found or will find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity and compassion and love that isn’t conditional; that is, you don’t love a person more because they are happier the way you think they should be. What you cultivate in yourself is the garden in which they can grow, and you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it.” Ram Dass

8/4/15 8/4/15

Insights for July 2015

Awakening:“The impulse to create begins – often terribly and fearfully – in a tunnel of silence," Adrienne Rich asserted in her spectacular 1997 lecture Arts of the Possible. Brain Pickings

"The future has an ancient heart." Carlo Levi.

"What do you do when you don't know what to do about something?"

"I talk to Mr. Sugar and my friends. I make lists. I attempt to analyze the situation from the perspective of my "best self" - the one that is generous, reasonable, forgiving, loving, big hearted, and grateful. I think really hard about what I'll wish I did a year from now. I map out the consequences of the various actions I could take, I ask myself what my motivations are, what my desires are, what my fears are, what I have to lose, and what I have to gain. I move toward the light even if it a hard direction in which to move. I trust myself. I keep the faith. I mess up sometimes." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 215-16, Cheryl Strayed.

"You cannot push the river instead you will swimYou cannot move the mountain it is there for you to climb." theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

"Make time to rest and to play so that you arrive at your destined point refreshed and rested." theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

“After a while, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another human being is to work on yourself to be a statement of what it is you have found in the way you live your life, and one of the things you have found or will find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity and compassion and love that isn’t conditional; that is, you don’t love a person more because they are happier the way you think they should be.

What you cultivate in yourself is the garden in which they can grow, and you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it.” Ram Dass

Astrology:Where is the planet Saturn transiting in your chart?

"Saturn transits [in astrology charts] help us to confront our fears and reality, review our attitudes, and then find solutions for the sake of our ongoing stability and survival. The transiting house position shows where most of the work needs to be done.If we don't listen to Saturn, we lose out on this most important lesson: getting to grips with life on a pragmatic level. Over time, Saturn can help us forge ahead with greater strength and more realistic ambitions.""Working with Transits, an In-depth Psychological Approach," Richard Swatton, pg. 39-40, The Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015.

Where has the Sun progressed in your astrology chart?"The progressed Sun represents strengthening the ego, developing tolerance, and illuminating the self in all its ambiguity.""The Soul's Diary; The Artistry of Secondary Progressions," Brian Clark, Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015, pg. 49.

Where is the Moon progressed in your astrology chart?"The house that the Moon is progressing through is a personal indicator of the emotional terrain for the next few years. The Moon's progression through the houses suggests what areas in our life need emotional focus and concern.""The Soul's Diary; The Artistry of Secondary Progressions," Brian Clark, Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015, pg. 50.

Meditation:

"Mindfulness creates some space in your head so you can respond, rather than react."

"Once you've achieved choiceless awareness [through meditation practice], you see clearly how fleeting everything is."

"Ask: “Is this useful?’" Joseph Goldstein

"In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the experts', there are few." ‪#‎meditation theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

“Wisdom grows out of our clear seeing in each moment. Seeing the arising and passing of our experience and how we relate to it. It arises through our gentle and careful inquiry into the workings of the body and mind and through an open inquiry into how this body and mind relate to the whole world around us. For insight to develop, this spirit of observation and deep questioning must be kept in the forefront. We can collect and quiet the mind, but then we must observe, examine, see its way and its laws.”

"Insight meditation is a path of discovery. It is straightforward and direct, with no frills or gimmicks. It is simple, though not easy. Although the forms vary, the genuine practice of insight meditation is this single quest: to establish a foundation of harmonious action, to collect and concentrate the mind and body, and to see the laws of life by our own true, careful, and direct observation. After understanding the way of practice and realizing that meditative life involves this whole process of awakening, there is only one thing left to do. We have to undertake it ourselves." Jack Kornfield http://www.jackkornfield.com/inquiry-observation/

Jack Kornfield on dealing with the difficult emotions that arise in meditation practice:

Choose one of the most frequent and difficult mind states that arise in your practice, such as irritation, fear, boredom, lust, doubt, or restlessness. For one week in your daily sitting be particularly aware each time this state arises. Watch carefully for it. Notice how it begins and what precedes it. Notice if there is a particular thought or image that triggers this state. Notice how long it lasts and when it ends. Notice what state usually follows it. Observe whether it ever arises very slightly or softly. Can you see it as just a whisper in the mind?Continue Reading: http://goo.gl/wcTiox"In stillness find your balance in your days and ride the wave to shore.” theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

Grief:

Jack Kornfield on grief:"When after heavy rain the storm clouds disperse, is it not that they’ve wept themselves clear to the end?” Ghalib

Grief is one of the heart’s natural responses to loss. When we grieve we allow ourselves to feel the truth of our pain, the measure of betrayal or tragedy in our life. By our willingness to mourn, we slowly acknowledge, integrate, and accept the truth of our losses. Sometimes the best way to let go is to grieve.It takes courage to grieve, to honor the pain we carry. We can grieve in tears or in meditative silence, in prayer or in song. In touching the pain of recent and long-held griefs, we come face to face with our genuine human vulnerability, with helplessness and hopelessness. These are the storm clouds of the heart.A Meditation on Grief: http://goo.gl/dVlfP7

Relationships:

"’No.’ is golden. No is the kind of power the good witch wields. It's the way whole, healthy, emotionally evolved people manage to have relationships with jackasses while limiting the amount of jackass in their lives." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 190, Cheryl Strayed.

Marriage:

"Sometimes those we forgive continue being the jackasses that they always were and we accept them while keeping them approximately three thousand miles away from our wedding reception." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 190, Cheryl Strayed.

7/3/15 7/3/15

Insights for June 2015

Awakening:

“Don’t wait for a guru, your life is your guru.” Krishna Das

“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.” Via Elephant Meditation.

“You first need to have an ego in order to be aware that it doesn’t exist.” Matthieu Richard, The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life.

“A soul takes a human birth in order to have a series of experiences through which it will awaken out of its illusion of separateness.” Ram Dass

Take everything that comes your way as a divine teaching and work with it. That way, when someone criticizes you, thank them for allowing you to examine it all over again. That doesn’t mean you have to accept the criticism, just open to it. Let it pour through you and whatever is useful will be there and whatever isn’t will flow down the river. Trust the intuitive process of dealing with the universe rather than applying the intellectual overlay process.” Ram Dass

“The secret is to act well without attachment to the fruits of your action.” Jack Kornfield, Buddhist Psychology Workshop, Seattle, April 2014.

“In fact, it is very difficult to be truly honest with ourselves, especially since we can simultaneously have both positive and negative self images on board and may not recognize the inconsistencies. This is due to the fact that we all wear blinders—a psychological defense that doesn’t allow one part of ourselves to see another part. For example, if we need to see ourselves as nice, we may ignore all of our harmful or self-centered qualities. Or, if we need to see ourselves as unworthy, we’ll ignore all positive data. This is actually quite common.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the Prison of Your Own Self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36

"Actually it doesn’t really matter whether our identities make sense; what matters is how attached to them we are in are in our need to defend ourselves.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the prison of your own self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36.

“The point is, most of our stories are self deceptions and that they are partially manufactured sessions of the truth -- truth we adapt in order to feel a particular way. But living out of stories prevents us from living more genuinely.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the prison of your own self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36.

"Can you be like the wise old karate master and remember that the best karate move is often simply to walk away?" Steven Forrest

Astrology:

“Venus (planet of desire) is in Leo (bold, loving bravado!) and will align with Jupiter (expansion) - fully aligning July 1, 2015 during the Full Moon in Capricorn! Venus can light up, be bold and brave and expand like a huge heart beating. What is your passion that you want to pursue? Passion and confidence will align.” Margaret Gervais

What is the placement of your Sun Sign? “In many astrology books, we’re reminded that the Sun can describe the type of male partner a woman has.” Making the Most of Awkward Planetary Combinations, Part 5: Out of the Darkness – The Sun in Aspect to Pluto, by Frank C. Clifford, The Mountain Astrologer, Dec. 2014/Jan. 2015, page 18.

Meditation:

“The practice of meditation involves listening close to them music of your mind. We are not concerned in the moment about how things get to be the way they are, only that they are so very much exactly what they are.” Andrew Olendzki, The Music of the Mind.

Relationships:

“In any relationship, especially marriage, be as free of compulsive thinking as possible. In other words, the more space there is in the relationship – inner space – the more love there is because love arises out of the inner spaciousness.” Eckhart Tolle.

Healing:

“You are healing in the emerging now.” Mark Jones, “Finding the True Self, Counseling and Astrology,” available at www.theplutoschool.com

6/2/15 6/2/15

insights for May 2015

Awakening:

People wonder "What to do?" "What are my best next steps?" "Where is my passion." And today I read this - great insight - you "do your dharma" - you "do" your life - live your life in meditative, loving presence.

"In your daily life, how do you become an instrument of social change? You become in yourself the statement of love, the statement of choiceless awareness, you become the moment so that everyone that comes near you is liberated by your presence if they are ready. You do nothing to anybody. You live your life. Which life do you live? Whatever your dharma demands. If your work is to protest the injustice of races, you protest. If your work is to raise a family, you raise a family. If your work is to be a good lawyer, you're a good lawyer. If your work is to be a shoemaker, you're a shoemaker. If your work is to meditate in a cave, you meditate in a cave. No blame, no reward. You do your dharma. Each act you do you do as a vehicle for becoming this meditative, loving, present moment. This statement of love, the statement of choiceless awareness. You become the moment." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

"There are no 'them' in the universe, there is only 'us'. And we as a collective must purify ourselves. Each individual must hear her or his dharma, that is the way in which their manifestation must come forth in order to relieve suffering in whatever form it takes. Until you are enlightened it must be an exercise in working on your own consciousness." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

“When we are willing to step into the unknown and its inherent insecurity, and not run back to anything for cover or for comfort – when we are willing to stand as if facing an oncoming wind and not wince – we can finally face our actual self.” Adyashanti

“So let us understand that reality transcends all of our notions about reality. Reality is neither Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Advaita Vedanta, nor Buddhist. It is neither dualistic not non-dualistic, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual. We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.” Adyashanti

A great article on letting go - the basis of awakening - at each stage of awakening. Let go. Here is how to understand it. http://www.lionsroar.com/four-points-for-letting-go-bardo/?utm_source=Shambhala+Sun+Community&utm_campaign=ce42fb0661-SF_Weekly_May_12_20155_12_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-ce42fb0661-21586533

“Wisdom is not merely something to be gained with old age. One can be wise in every stage of ones life. To manifest wisdom means simply to step back and see, to reflect, inquire, be aware, be disciplined, and be focused not once in a while, but all of the time, moment to moment. This life is precious and fleeting. Pay attention.” Seido Ray Ronci, The Examined Life.

Something to remember when you say "No no no.” "Question: I’d like to know about forgiveness as a bridge between the separate self and the awakened soul.

Ram Dass: That’s a nice way of phrasing the question. It’s a step on a ladder that goes from dualism into non-dualism. Because as you forgive or allow or acknowledge or say “Of course you’re human” or “We all do that” or something, you open your heart again which embraces the person or the situation back into you, which allows the play. See, every time you close off something with judgment, it’s as if you take a bit of energy and you lock it away and make it unavailable to you. Until pretty soon you are exhausted. You don’t have any energy, because you are so busy.

I often visualize it as having little doors inside your head. You’re holding a grudge — and so every time you think of that person your heart closes down. It’s as if you’ve got a little room with a guard at it that doesn’t allow you to flow freely. And they’re all the no’s of life — the no, no, no, no, no. It’s an emotional “no” against the world — against the Universe — against the way the Universe is. As opposed to “yes”. We’ve been telling you how to say no without closing your heart, but the no I’m talking about is the heart-closing no. It’s the judging, grudge, non-forgiving no. And it costs more than it’s worth. Even though you are right, righteousness ultimately starves you to death." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

“Dismiss all the thoughts which bother your mind. Train yourself during many days, many months, many years, to retain this pure mind. One day, when your empty mind has become crystallized, suddenly it will be illumined by its own intrinsic wisdom. At that instant you will realize the state of pure awakening.” Sokei-an, Returning to Your Original State"

One idea that really hampers us is to believe that people get 'enlightened,' and then they’re that way forever and ever. We may have our moments, and if we get sick and have lots of things happening, we may fall back. But a person who practices consistently over years and years is more that way, more of the time, all the time. And that’s enough. There is no such thing as getting it." Charlotte Joko Beck, "Life's Not A Problem" Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

“You can always count on reality to be there.

Everything is just perspective and there are endless perspectives.

We run from parts of ourselves until it doesn’t work anymore and you can stop your running when you realize you are living in vast immenseness.

Life has a desire to become more self aware, and self-awareness is infinite.” Adyashanti Portland Satsang, March 20, 2015

“One idea that really hampers us is to believe that people get ‘enlightened,’ and then they’re that way forever and ever. WE may have our moments, and if we get sick and have lots of things happening, we may fall back. But a person who practices consistently over years and years is more that way, more of the time, all the time. And that’s enough. There is not such thing as getting it.” Charlotte Joko Beck, "Life's Not A Problem" via Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

"Your spirit is not afraid.

His life never quite matched his spirit, and so his purpose got diluted (in reference to his alcoholic grandfather.)

Your spirit is waiting for you to take advantage of the possibilities.

Embrace your spirit.” Speech, TEDxPortland 2015

“Live in the gap between the mind’s stories, and the mind will come to see that being in harmony with life is far easier and more benevolent than living in opposition to it.” ~ Adyashanti

Meditation:

"The fact that breath has no form is one of the reasons why breath awareness is an extremely effective way of bringing space into your life, of generating consciousness. It is an excellent meditation object precisely because it is not an object, has no shape or form." Eckhart Tolle

"There are many ways to create a gap in the incessant stream of thought. This is what meditation is all about." Eckhart Tolle

Grief:

"In bereavement, we come to appreciate at the deepest, most felt level exactly what it means to die while we are still alive. The Tibetan term bardo, or “intermediate state,” is not just a reference to the afterlife. It also refers more generally to these moments when gaps appear, interrupting the continuity that we otherwise project onto our lives. In American culture, we sometimes refer to this as having the rug pulled out from under us, or feeling ungrounded. These interruptions in our normal sense of certainty are what is being referred to by the term bardo. But to be precise, bardo refers to that state in which we have lost our old reality and it is no longer available to us.

Anyone who has experienced this kind of loss knows what it means to be disrupted, to be entombed between death and rebirth. We often label that a state of shock. In those moments, we lose our grip on the old reality and yet have no sense what a new one might be like. There is no ground, no certainty, and no reference point—there is, in a sense, no rest. This has always been the entry point in our lives for religion, because in that radical state of unreality we need profound reasoning—not just logic, but something beyond logic, something that speaks to us in a timeless, nonconceptual way. Milarepa referred to this disruption as a great marvel, singing from his cave, “The precious pot containing my riches becomes my teacher in the very moment it breaks.”

This is the Vajrayana idea behind successive deaths and rebirths, and it is the first essential point to understand: rupture. The more we learn to recognize this sense of disruption, the more willing and able we will be to let go of this notion of an inherent reality and allow that precious pot to slip out of our hands. Rupture is taking place all the time, day to day and moment to moment; in fact, as soon as we see our life in terms of these successive deaths and rebirths, we dissolve the very idea of a solid self grasping onto an inherently real life. We start to see how conditional who-I-am-ness really is, how even that does not provide reliable ground upon which to stand.

At times like this, if we can gain freedom from the eternal grasping onto who I am and how things are—our default mode—then we can get to the business of being. Until now, we have been holding on to the idea of an inherent continuity in our lives, creating a false sense of comfort for ourselves on artificial ground. By doing so, we have been missing the very flavor of what we are." http://www.lionsroar.com/four-points-for-letting-go-bardo/?utm_source=Shambhala+Sun+Community&utm_campaign=ce42fb0661-SF_Weekly_May_12_20155_12_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-ce42fb0661-21586533

About trauma: “Trauma – take baby steps to step out of it.” Adyashanti Portland Satsang March 20, 2015