Heavenly influences during August initiate the next part of the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn speaking to each other. Do you recall the solstice event on December 21, 2020; these 2 planets were conjunct (on top of each other )? This was the first time these planets appeared this close together, and visible from Earth, since 1226 C.E. Now, early August, 2024, brings them into a square, a story that will continue through June of 2025. The square creates tension between expansion/beliefs (Jupiter) and boundaries/conventions (Saturn). How this shows up in your life depends upon your birth chart, but know you are being asked to find the discipline and focus to refine what you’ve been building in the last 4 years, since that initial conjunction during which you likely made some significant changes. It is a time of testing your resolve, your beliefs and get real about the practical aspects of what you initiated. For me, that was another relocation, this time from Kelowna, BC, Canada, back to the USA. It was a reckoning of where I belonged – more to the USA now, than Canada, a surprising outcome. It hasn’t been a picnic starting a whole new life: new home, city, communities etc. It is time to reflect on what is working and that which isn’t even close to what I’d wanted. Helping this reflection is Mercury retrograde, which although can bring delays and complications with travel and tech issues (I dropped my phone, cracking the screen protector, my laptop monitor was flickering for 2 weeks…), it still allows for deeper reflection, revision and release. It’s always fun and wise to take the heavenly guidance.
How is it showing up in your life? What did you change starting 2022, and what aspects do you now need to look at again?
As in the last few months, I’m offering 3 short categorical updates: 1 = Blast from the Past; 2 = Influences; 3 = Currently
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Part 1 – Blast from the Past (an art work I created some time in the last 45+ years).
Inspired Heart Offering
©Debbie Mathew Title: Inspired Heart Offering
Media: Slip-cast plaster hands, Encaustic & Mixed Media, Wood Substrate & Frame.
19″ h x 19.3″ w x 9″ d 2015
By 2015, I’d divorced, was still living in Laramie, WY, where I continued focusing on healing practices for my own heart, as well as offerings to my yoga community. Mudras are hand gestures, bearing significant meaning and power in numerous cultures throughout human history, especially within spiritual and healing traditions. Within a heart shaped of tiny pink roses is a framed leaf skeleton, revealing the network of veins ~ arteries that flow & pulse life force energy, similar to the human heart; a small upside-down tree emphasizes the connection to the outer natural environment. The pink hands are in Kapota mudra, a gesture/offering of peace, non-violence; Kapota translates to ‘dove’, symbol of ‘peace offering’ energies. These prayerful hands reach towards the viewer from the base of the Heart of Roses, offering a flower-full spray of heartfelt Forgiveness, Blessings & Compassion to Self & Others. Such a gesture enables the dissolution & resolution of life woundings. Engaging subtle practices as mudras, invokes healing at a profound level. The Mudra series this piece is part of, (I label under ‘Wall Shrines’), is meant to tap into the viewer’s inner knowing, that our own personal healing is an essential part of our soul’s evolution; we must consciously reject the mainstream trend to anchor in our trauma, using blame/judgment to hold us there.
Hands are powerful conductors of our heart’s expression, and when engaged with conscious choice towards love and compassion, are conduits of deep healing.
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Part 2 – Influences = Contributing to my evolution as an artist; could be a person, place, process… etc.
Book: Mudras: for Healing and Transformation
In 2012, shortly after my husband and I separated, no longer sharing space, I embarked on my Yoga Therapy Advanced Teacher Training with Joseph and Lilian LePage. It was an extraordinary month of full-time learning and integration. It was then that my love for ‘hand gestures’ gained a firm foundation for my own healing, as well as within my future yoga teachings, and artwork creations. Profound in the masterful ways they connect with chakras, elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether), subtle prana energies and physical systems, for me, mudras opened a huge door to the power of energy healing. I continue to be grateful for the profound timing of these therapeutic practices showing up in my life. They became the tool for every yoga class I taught, revolving the class theme around the energies of a particular hand gesture. It also became a common form/image in much of my art. This book continues to be a well-loved reference text for my personal evolution, and mudras continue to show up in my art.
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Part 3 – Currently (what am I exploring NOW)
Juggling the Moon
©Debbie Mathew Title: Juggling the Moon
Size: 21.75” x 15.5”. Date: August, 2024 Media: print & mixed media on paper.
A tightrope walker balances gingerly, supported by the petals of a giant lotus flower, symbolic of faith in spiritual protection. Giving/receiving Mudra hands, on either side of the lotus, also uphold the human within the glowing yellow light of the door/portal. Focused on staying in alignment, the person’s arms appear to juggle the moons above. The lunar phases hold power over water, and our emotional body. The power and potential of expansion and contraction that it reflects on a monthly basis, is available to assist in our psychological evolution. When we tune into this cycle, we can know our inner landscape very deeply, and can utilize the moon’s influence to initiate, evolve and end various emotional patterns. The celestial sphere above, inhabited by the moons, represents one aspect of the heavenly influences accessible when we notice and calibrate our inner experience with our personal choices. The movement through any portal of significance takes time; it requires self-refection, taking responsibility, choosing wisely, practice and perseverance. The boons of Inner Peace on the other side are so worth the efforts.
Do you work with lunar energies? What have you discovered? How do you engage these forces to improve yourself, thus the world you/we inhabit?