INTRO NOTES TO THE DECK & READING
Because I know most of my subscribers here personally in some way, let me start by thanking you for the wonderful birthday messages and well wishes. They were so very appreciated and valued. While I've wanted to do more writing this month, it seems the universe doesn't want to cooperate with me fully - i lost my glasses on the same day that Mercury went retrograde and it seems my eye doctor stopped responding to me. So... backup glasses meant headaches and dizziness, costing the kind of time and energy we expect out of Mercury retrograde.
This week I chose an oracle deck for a change of pace - especially as we inch toward the winter solstice, the longest night of the year for us in the northern hemisphere. This deck evokes the dark energy of this time, the mystical beauty that comes from the depths of winter, the transformation that emerges from the cold hibernation.
This is a time of deep magic and reverence no matter what your faith. Many of us will be celebrating traditions that involve light, fire, warmth, gifting, and remembrance. As we infuse our outer worlds with light, don't neglect the light that needs to come to the dark corners of our inner world too. For it is only when we can stride hand in hand with our shadow, not fearful but welcoming of its wisdom, do we know where we stand and how our influence can spread light to others far beyond our immediate circle?
These Messages of Divine Love are weekly intuitive card readings offered to share strength & hope for those building a heart-centered world. Sharing messages from our collective guides, Mother Earth, the ancients watching over us with a quick peek into what our future selves want us to know and how my protectress, Mother Mary, can add love to get us through the week. Each message includes chakra themes that help center our energy. Subscription is FREE.
Where We Are This Week
Naz
Heart Chakra
The hardships have not ceased, the hits just seem to keep coming and the world falls further into disappointment. But in it all there is a voice, however so soft and tender, a whisper of an idea that is a steady glimmer in the chaos around us. The twinkle of hope that we catch out of the corner of our eye or a half-forgotten dream, is a signal to us that we are not alone. We are loved, cherished, and nurtured by the divine. We survived for a reason - to be that glimmer of hope for others. For this glimmer, this steady spark of humanity tells us that we are adored and known by those meant to find us. Even if we don't feel the tangible expressions of love, the universe holds them for us locked in time, always present to help us stand tall with pride in who we are.
Messages from our Guides
Tangibility
Sacral Chakra
The lessons of this card a as layered as the visual depicted. While the guidebook focuses primarily on animal communication, what the card evoked for me was a willingness to be swept up in nature. How do we know what it is to soar in our career without also connecting to the sensation of flying through the air with ease? How do we know what the "swamp" of human nature feels like without first feeling the sticky hot sensation of a hazy summer day? Imagine how much more potent our magic for say creating abundance through diversity would be if we used the example of a meadow peppered with brilliant little flowers all of a different color, all living in interdependent harmony. The advice this week is to connect with the way nature shows us exactly what we want to feel. Channel the animals, the sun, the moon, and the very earth we stand on to evoke the tangible sensations of success and harmony.
Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth
Eunoia
Solar Plexus Chakra
This is a multi-layered deck of meaning. Here we see a woman surrounded by thorns piercing her body...but also emerging from it. Her pain has become a part of her, just as sacred as the beauty shining through her. It is only through integrating the whole of ourselves - shadow, light, and all, that we will reach the space of balance and deliberate manifestation we all need. Many are resisting this message, trying to tear the thorns out of their stories to make their past pristine and pretty. But that isn't how truth works. The truth will mark us, scar us, change us. But if we don’t own those changes, we’ll always be tethered to a model of perfection that defies reality. The most powerful people on earth will be those who embrace the whole of their authenticity and show up with pride in themselves. It takes courage, but this is the lesson for this week's winter solstice. Moon.
Messages from the Ancients
Epoch
Root Chakra
The ancients are saying, "Calm down, kiddo. Stop trying to rush past this moment in your life." Yes, the towers have been falling, faster and harder than maybe we expected. That suddenness of loss is still sacred, even if we don't want to look at the details. Here, this care shows us that we have to stop to mourn, to share, to understand, but most especially to feel. We need to spend some time sifting through the dust to process our pain, to truly let the transformative power take hold throughout our blood lineage. While this era has been painful, to speed through without pausing to take it all in, to honor where we came from, we'll lack the energy and direction to build the new structures that are calling to us.
Messages from Our Future Selves
Buho
Third Eye Chakra
Listen to what your heart & body say when you see this phrase: "If all goes according to plan, you won't even recognize the person you are today when this is over." Are you feeling hopeful? Or intimidated? Deep transformation is coming for all of us...our willingness to see ourselves differently than we are today will determine whether it will be a hard or easy transition. For someone like me who has had severe depression and self-esteem issues my whole life, this might be a welcome reprieve. But it means letting go of those identities that keep me tethered to who I was in my 20s, during the biggest traumas of my life. To grow means I can no longer wrap myself in the cloak of my all-too-legitimate victimhood to protect myself from the world. To grow means to no longer hide in my cage of survival - useful at the start, but now so confining albeit familiar. The longer I stay, the more I risk missing out on the exhilarations and disappointments of truly living again. That mask, fortress, and excuse no longer protects my heart but now enables my terminal reticence. For transformation to take hold, we have to be willing to give up the masks, labels, and definitions that we used to stay safe - because safety for all will only come when we risk letting go of our old selves to integrate the wisdom of our true selves.
Messages from Mother Mary
Maximus
Root Chakra
Imagine this dream situation from when we were kids - a snow day right before winter break at school - the city shut down and you have an extra day to play now that the snow has stopped. You and your friends spent the morning building a snow fort for a snowball fight. Working so hard without a break. Your mom is concerned and calls you in for lunch. Reluctant to put down your plans, you march in annoyed and upset. You slump down into a seat at the kitchen table while she puts a warm bowl of soup in front of you. As you eat, you begin to realize how cold your hands were in those soaked gloves. She coaxes your boots off your feet, holding them in her hands to warm them back up. As you eat, you realize how hungry you are. Unwilling to give up your perfect snowball defense strategy, you neglected your own needs to the point of crankiness and even frostbite. Mother Mary is calling you back to the table, reminding you that if you neglect your needs, then you'll never defeat the foes that stand in your way later. Take this time to maximize and recharge - this too is sacred work.
Undercurrent
Translucence
Crown Chakra
Take this time to observe and embrace the role of darkness in your life. Over and over, we are being shown how critical it is to integrate our wholeness, to dance with our shadow self in the pale moonlight. No matter what holiday or tradition you do or don't follow, humanity intuitively has played with these dualities - often setting them up as foes, an either/or of an eternal struggle. But this card, the undercurrent says...."what if it isn't a struggle, but a dance of creative embodiment instead?" How might that change your approach to your own humanity? If we weren't struggling against the Devil, powerless to defeat him...then how do we better harness the inevitability of him to be in command of our own fate instead? The only way to defeat the dark is to admit its existence, to meet it on its home turf with the confidence of knowing it can never take more power than we choose to give. What if this is the "better half" we always longed for - the missing parts of ourselves hidden from our acceptance?
Final Advice
Orenda
Sacral Chakra
In whatever way suits you, do something to honor the winter solstice. The themes of light and dark bounce are woven into the primal fabric of who we are. The time is right to reach deep within to uncover the hidden magics that are woven into your DNA. It could be the magic of listening with hope. The magic of healing with herbs. The magic of storytelling in the firelight. Let your ancestors and ancients speak through the primal experience of the longest night that connects humanity through time. Connect with that deep, interconnected fabric of life to unlock your true potential for the journey ahead.
PARTING WORDS FROM A GEEK EMPRESS
This shadowtime has always been a sacred time of year for me. Not only is my birthday five days before the winter solstice, but as someone with seasonal affect depression, this is the time of year that I am at my most sensitive and aware. I have been prickly about my birthday long enough for it to become its own personality trait. I choose this time to delve into my badness - reviewing and atoning for the times I was selfish, demeaning, dehumanizing, sanctimonious and cringey. It isn't pretty seeing so much awfulness come from me, even with the best of intentions. But at the end, after the truthtelling has been done, I feel like i have gained the wisdom from reviewing that pain and I can then integrate it into my year to be just a little bit better.
My shadow and I have been friends off and on for 30 years now. I say off and on because sometimes they are infuriating - taking control in the moments my overwhelm is boiling over, seducing unworthy admirers just to get attention feels a little like being my version of the mirror universe from Star Trek. Our mirror selves show up through our jealousy, fear, domination, and defiance. It is only when we start working with these versions of us that we might otherwise keep hidden, that we truly take control over our full selves.
Last week I talked about taking our divine medicine. A portal of transformation calls to us in the dark of the solstice night, sunlight beckoning on the horizon to announce the return of light. A sacred dance where each has their time and space to shine, our human condition following the most primal of dualities, finding balance and value in both the undefined darkness and the predictable light. We have to let go of those parts of us tethered to old labels and instead defy them all together by taking up space as our fully integrated selves.
No matter what happens this week, remember I am with you always in love 💖
You’re invited!
💓 Messages of Divine Love Year End Review.
Thursday 12/28, 5:30 pm Mtn
For the first hour, I’ll delve into the data from this year’s worth of readings including patterns and trends. In the second hour, I’ll be giving short audience readings and pulling cards for the final reading of the year/beginning of 2024.
($25)