NEWSLETTER - Volume 2 - Issue 12 - November 27, 2019
O ur Mission: To provide, with reverence, practical karmic astrological information
to help our readers with significant life issues concerning
relationships, work and personal/spiritual growth.  
Turkeys Do Fly
by Linda Brady

It occurred to me that my readers would be reading this at Thanksgiving, so I remembered my experience with turkeys. A few years ago when I lived in Jay Vermont, my inner child Lynnie and I were talking about how her old Pisces beliefs were keeping us from being as prosperous as we could be. She did not want me to charge anyone for my work. Her deep belief was that money was not important. She really did not understand when I told her that we needed money for her to have her treasured cupcakes and to buy food for her beloved dogs. Money would only come if I charged for my work. She was really struggling. As we were talking about this, I looked out of my living room window and saw five large turkeys flying over my deck. I had always heard that turkeys did not fly. But there they were, flying. Lynnie and I were very excited. She was happy because she loves all earthly creatures. I was happy because I knew that they had been sent to us by God and my Soul. I ran to Animal Speak , the wonderful book by Ted Andrews, and looked up turkeys. He wrote that turkeys are the earth eagle, symbolic of all the blessings that the earth can provide. Their cycle of power is autumn. They represent bounty. I told her that we had been given a gift by God and that He wanted us to have good things in our life. If God sent the turkeys and they were telling us it was okay to have money, she was okay with it.  I was thrilled. The turkeys had accomplished their mission. We have now incorporated them into our Thanksgiving celebration.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and may you too be blessed
by the symbol of the turkey.
The History of Thanksgiving
by Linda Brady

The first official Thanksgiving festival was held in Massachusetts for three days beginning December 13, 1621. Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official federal holiday to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November beginning on November 26, 1863. Lincoln chose a time each year when the Sun would continue to be in Sagittarius. This is a great lead in to my article below on Jupiter in Sagittarius.           
2019 - The Year of Jupiter in Sagittarius
by Linda Brady

Jupiter moved in Sagittarius on November 9 th , 2018 and will remain there until December 2 nd , 2019. Jupiter is the natural ruler of Sagittarius therefore it is exalted. Jupiter in Sagittarius has encouraged us to awaken and embrace our internal, spiritual teacher. It has inspired us to teach and inspire others by being more expansive, optimistic and faithful in our own lives. It has aided us to become more aware of the philosophy of Serendipity and seizing the unexpected opportunities that it brings.
 It has also inspired us to:
  • Discover and express your personal truth
  • Honor your intuition to encourage inner confidence and trust
  • Learn our personal symbology
  • Take an occasional leap of faith
  • Create a holistic belief system that truly works
  • Explore inner and outer travel to obtain karmic knowledge that leads to wisdom.
As a strong Sagittarian, I am going to spend the next few days reviewing my year of Jupiter in Sagittarius and be thankful this Thanksgiving for all of its gifts.
On My Mind - Homeless People, Panhandlers & Handouts
by Michael Brady

I was just with a client. During the session there was an occasion to talk about and share experiences involving homeless people, pan handlers and handouts. I ended up sharing this experience… 

Around 3 years ago I was returning from a grocery store run on a Sunday. I pulled into a turn lane, at a light, 5 cars back from the front. As I looked up, I saw a fiftyish white male dressed in clean clothes who was clean shaven and normally groomed. He was holding a cardboard sign 14” x 12” that said: “I am a military veteran with three children, a wife and a house mortgage. I have been unemployed for one year and can't find work. I need $50 to pay my mortgage by tomorrow.” For years I’ve used my heart center to feel out and decide whether to give or not to give to each person that crossed my path. Thusly, I decided to power down my window and give to this man. I pulled out my wallet as he approached the car. I saw I had $65 in cash on me. As I began to pull out a $20 bill, I found myself hesitating. I reached back in and pulled out another $20 and a $10. I handed him $50. I saw amazement and tremendous relief in his eyes. He smiled ear to ear and thanked me profusely as the light turned green and I began to drive away. I smiled back and said, “good luck buddy.” I smiled all the way home. I felt happy all day. I shared it with Linda. She smiled and said it was a neat thing to do.  

And as I told my client this story, I got really sad. My voice broke. I started crying as I spoke. I started releasing a well of sadness when my client left the room. I sat there pondering the emotional moment. This was a positive story, a positive experience that left me feeling lighthearted and happy on a visceral level when it went down. I wondered…why was I feeling sad now when I spoke about it? And as I wondered, this came to me… 

First, I felt sad that good people can be driven by life circumstances to go to that kind of extreme to get something they need. [Age of Pisces belief: it's not fair that s--- happens to good people.] [Age of Aquarius belief: s--- happens for good reasons = whether we know it or not!] Next, I realized that back then, the experience was faith affirming for me. And it was probably the same for him. He probably really needed some faith and optimism that day, that week, that year of his life. I felt “honored” to have played that kind of role in a stranger's life (but not a karmic stranger, for sure!). 

And that led me to the following thoughts: I've just gotten over a cold I had for 3 weeks. At the same time, Linda and I were doing four back-to-back 3-day retreats. And this was on top of our normal schedule of work. In other words, we were doing 12-hour workdays and we both felt like ----. And we weren't sleeping well either. Linda got sick behind me by 3 days, so we were both in it. Through it all I kept tuning into my pain (the cold, tiredness) and noticing I was not suffering along with my discomfort. In fact, I kept thinking about how happy I am with my life. And how I wouldn't change a thing. (Sniffle, sniffle, sneeze, sneeze, cough!) LOL! 

My emotions are less extreme these days, or extreme less often. And even with them, underneath I feel this more diffusional happiness or satisfaction (Glad), that is bigger than the discomfort on top. And this is fairly new within the last year or so. And I've been personally working on being aware of my emotions since I was 20 years old! As I look back, I realize I have renewed my practice of meditation in the last year or so. And all of a sudden, I recognized that meditation was crucial for this very positive transformation in my own emotional process. I'm not walking around all day feeling bubbly and ecstatic. I feel this contentment, peacefulness is underneath. And I can still spike some intense emotions in response to my experiences, on top, and at the same time I am also currently focused on the importance of the heart, the heart center. The knowledge that the physical heart has brain cells in it. Knowing the heart actually processes, stores and remembers just like the brain in our heads. I've been focusing on heart centered meditations. I thought that's why this new emotional awareness has happened to me!

If you turn on the news. If you look at what's happening in the world, it looks bad. The end is near. And the Holidays are about to descend upon us at this time. It’s the best of times, the worst of times (from A Tale of Two Cities). Nevertheless, it has been timelier to claim or comment to our heart centers. And therefore, connect to our emotions, old and toxic as well as current and intense. Meditation and trance are both defined as “turning inward.” What better way to access our emotions? Changing the world is a personal process.  Change yourself. Take “care” of yourself and the people around you will imitate and learn from you. Tuning in, turning on and transforming yourself is the way this new millennium, this new Age will happen. Take the time from now until the New Year to spend time in “your own” practice of meditation. YouTube has many flavors of guided meditation available to follow. Give yourself a lousy half hour a day. See for yourself if come January 1, you can’t have your own transformations.   
WELCOME NEW CONTRIBUTOR
D. Matthew Barto

Usually this space will be a reaction to Michael Brady’s monthly columns dealing with issues arising for men as we enter the Age of Aquarius. In our culture, men seem to be basically unprepared for engaging with the concepts of Astrology in general, and Karmic Astrology in particular. (I say this as someone whose own mother has been a student of Linda’s for more than a decade.) I began to work with Linda myself just this past summer, and while I’m generally open minded, (and assured Linda I would be in our first session,) I must admit even I came in with a measure of suspicion if not skepticism. But it hasn’t taken me all that long to realize that my conception of Karmic Astrology was woefully incomplete. So while I anticipate questioning and challenging Michael in future issues, I wanted to start things off with a brief story of a specific situation where the concepts of Karmic Astrology helped me through a difficult emotional experience.

I took a new job over the summer that seemed like it would be at least a temporary answer to my family’s financial needs, while at the same time giving me the free time needed to pursue a more fulfilling career. But a few months in, I’m not so certain it will work out even in the medium term, and the progress towards my ultimate career goals has been slower than I’d hoped.

One day, a few weeks ago, I was feeling anxious. Not just a little nervous about the upcoming day’s challenges, but overcome by a wave of crippling tension, anxiety and dread. I was pacing around the room, wringing my hands, muttering to myself. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a panic attack, but that’s what this feels like.

I’m in the process, working with Linda, of aligning my work life with my soul mission, which for the most part feels pretty good, as it has been helping me look at past career events through a fresh perspective and provided an interpretational framework for some of the seemingly random events of day to day. At least in this case it tossed me a line to pull myself out of my emotional whirlpool.

In what can only be described as serendipity, I sat down in a chair in our living room, and on the table next to it was Linda and Michael’s book. I picked it up and flipped to the end, because I knew that Neptune and Chiron were related to ‘big story’ stuff, and I hoped to maybe latch on to something that would help me through this spell of anxiety. This was exactly what I needed to read. In particular this sentence: “Neptune also supplies us with information about how we can redeem ourselves for past life mistakes.” (274) So maybe whatever I’m feeling has nothing to do with something I’ve done recently, this could be the karmic consequence of past-life decisions. Then I read about the Trickster, our “cautionary tale of how excellence has destroyed us in the past,” (282) and I immediately realized the nature of the anxiety I was feeling.

My own response to negative emotions, especially fear, has typically been to deny it, to fight against it. ‘You can’t indulge in this kind of emotion; you’re 40 years old, your family is depending on you, there’s nothing to be afraid of, etc.’ In this case I hadn’t been able to talk myself out of it, and the shame of not being able to deal with it was compounding that negative feeling, but reading that passage in Discovering Your Soul Mission helped a lot.  
Finally I remembered the newsletter; I pulled up the most recent issue, and of course the title of Michael’s October Column was “The Importance of Emotion and the Resolution of Guilt.”

I’m actually laughing at myself writing this because I went quickly from being an emotional wreck, unable to even sit still, to feeling completely at ease and understanding what had been going on. The fear and shame I felt were meant to be a message from my soul, ‘feedback,’ as Michael puts it ‘for the basis of…regulation.’

Later in speaking with Linda, I came up with my own metaphor. I felt like I had been standing on the tracks, staring down an oncoming train, and trying to get it to stop by reasoning with it. (The irony of course is that this would be a supremely irrational action, but in the closed system of my thought process, it made perfect sense.)

It was finally reading Michael’s column about shame being an emotional comment on our lives, and how to prevent its transfiguration into guilt, that led me to be able to step off the tracks and see that the train that was coming has a message written on it, and the best thing to do is to sit by and try to understand what it says. 

With a good grip on how to deal with fear and shame, I’m looking forward to confronting wisdom and truth as we move into Sagittarius.

INSPIRATION POINT
by Karen Krull
Change Your Career, Start Your Business
 
Are you tired of working in a job you hate? Do you have a career you dream of, but fear has stopped you from pursuing it? Have you always wanted to start your own business, but you don’t know where to start?
 
Whether you are ready to make a big change, or you want to start with baby steps, now is a great time to take action. Your magnificence is too brilliant to waste. I can help you go from dreaming to doing with either the Launch-You or the Change-Your-Life coaching packages. Visit me at www.achieveyourmission.com. Individual sessions also available.
 
Contact me at suzanne@achieveyourmission.com or (917) 842-3415 for more information.
 
~ Suzanne Bellavista Murray, MS, Life Coach & Karmic Astrologer