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Ask Astrid Fridays ~ The Rabbit’s Corner: Nurturing Well-Rounded Experiences
The ever-wise Astrid joins us today for a share about wellness derived from a balance of varied experiences we invite into the dance of life with us. It’s also about how living from the source of love in your heart, opens doorways to accessing your multi-dimensionality. The result – greater feelings of wholeness and well-being.
It feels like we’re constantly receiving the same theme messages over and over, but the truth is there aren’t any really new messages or ideas – there’s simply different perspectives they come through or evoke and different, perhaps more aligned timing they speak to us.
Because of these, the present landscape feels seeded with greater potential for openings, as a vast majority of the collective continues to slow down and is faced with more contrasting experiences.
Briefly, I’m happy to report that Astrid continues doing extremely well, her toe injury from losing her full nail has been non-existent since we arrived to our location of the last nearly three weeks, and she increasingly exhibits a deepening of joyful exuberance and loving connection that have added both comic relief and socialization sweetness.
While being displaced from her normal routines and realm on this trip, as well as having more confined spaces at times, could very well have made Astrid retreat into herself, permanently revert to triggered patterns from her past, or even worse – weighed on her physical well-being – quite the opposite has taken place. I’ve already written about how she’s been opening up even more and working through core fears, but today we thought to share some sweet photos and fun little stories to accompany her transformation because after all, a picture speaks a thousand words.
The reason she feels it important to share this, is because rabbits can be an extreme example for the same things we go through because of their sensitivities.
Rather than pull back, feel depressed, or become ill, Astrid has welcomed more layers of living to be part of her experience no matter the circumstances. She exercises, plays, has conscious introspection time, rests, eats and hydrates regularly, communicates, and engages connection by choice. All of which help her to maintain wellness and support an increased level of personal evolution for her soul in rabbit body.
She’s especially become fond of yoga, stretching, and meditation time with dad during the wee hours of the morning or in the evenings by the fire while watching a movie.
When ever dad gets the yoga mat out, Astrid makes a beeline to him and plops herself down right next to him, runs around or lays on the mat on her own, stretches, or engages Boojum to invite him to play on the mat with her.
In the mornings she sits quietly with dad during meditation or gives and invites loving connection to show that she’s creating space for this healing practice and supporting him with something she enjoys too.
This is all especially endearing to see, as she used to only engage with me and now she’s truly opened to the whole family.
Then there’s super Astrid exercise time to express her exuberant joy of life and being in body. This consists of her leaping, twisting, and hopping in place (called binkies), or racing around like a flash of lightning until she’s fully released the wave of energy spontaneously moving through her. One morning she demonstrated her amazing strength and agility running laps in and out of tight corners, then raced from one end of the room and did a flying leap over the 1 1/2 foot high, 3 foot long ottoman, ending with zooming right under our female cat’s body between her back and front legs, as she was mid-walking. She had me in stitches!
And of course the multitude of ways she shows her desire to connect, communicate, engage, and love from a vulnerable space that include anything from jumping on the bed with a good morning nudge to laying next to us while we are working, relaxing, napping, or reading, or running over and nosing us with desire for snuggles and kisses.
She also engages the cats by sometimes touching noses with Boojum, or hopping at them and stopping a few inches in front of them, then hopping or circling away in hopes they’ll follow her lead. Sweet Pea and Astrid are often found a couple of feet away under a bed or table sharing space silently. The females seem to engage on an intellectual level and when Boojum’s introduced it, it’s usually only about fun. 😉
There’s times she chews her wood, pine cone and cardboard, times she takes down her cardboard house and moves it elsewhere, jumps into or onto things, sits on a chair demonstrating her bigness, times she lays with and licks her amethyst or stuffed friends, times she sits tall and still like a Buddha bunny, and times for the new hard flop into a tranced-out deep sleep. The hard flopping is different for her, but oh so good to see. When a bunny flops on her/his side it’s a sign of complete and utter vulnerable comfort and trusting surrender to feeling safe and loved. It took her a while to do this from when I first took her home and then she only softly would, but now there’s the full-on free-fall flop.
The more she engages on a variety of levels, the more possible avenues of joy she creates and the more she derives comfort in all the parts of herself and what being in body has gifted her opportunity to experience in this life. And the more she nurtures a more well-rounded approach, the greater her well-being.
I’ve found the same true for myself and people I know through friendships or work – the more we open to the variety of ways our souls have ability to express themselves because of being human, the more we create wellness by providing open channels for energy to do what it wants most to do – flow through. And even if we have a restriction in one way, as limitlessly creative beings we can find other ways to channel energy.
For instance, Astrid can’t speak like we do, but she has found many ways to express how she feels through other kinds of sounds like grunts, thumps, teeth chattering (their way of purring), or through bodily movements like giving a quick shake to her head and ears with excitement, leaping in the air, racing around with joy, nosing you to ask for something or exchange a love message, following you and laying close to share connection, sharing a rare lick to demonstrate affection, tugging at your pant leg or sock to get your attention, or jumping on the bed to welcome the morning.
But as we know, balancing our lives remains an important aspect to wellness. If we are too out-weighed in one thing of any kind, we can create underlying blocks that express as feelings of resentment, anger, blame, sadness, frustration, boredom, etc. without realizing that we are limiting our experience of life by limiting how we choose to focus all of our energy. This can also start to create tightness in our bodies or other kinds of physical discomforts or challenges simply as a reminder to move our energy in a variety of ways. And movement doesn’t just speak to physical movement, but also creating outlets to channel the different parts of ourselves and energies so they don’t become stagnant.
Astrid could easily create literal “blocks” or blockages in her sensitive digestive system if she doesn’t keep moving energy and sampling the possibilities that opening her heart to more can provide.
Rabbits demonstrate the natural energetic flow that is so vital in the way that they must always have their systems moving in order to thrive, or how they need to move in order to help push through blocks.
If she lets fear, for instance, take over energetically….she can literally become debilitated. If she doesn’t eat or exercise properly…she can experience physical shut down.
So, she’s chosen to surrender to life no matter her circumstances, and with my loving support and encouragement, continues to experience a wider range of possibilities that more authentically reflect her multi-dimensionality.
Our hearts are incredible portals to amazing things. They are the source of more than we have yet to understand and by living from these amazing portals they provide us access to a myriad of experiences that would otherwise be limited.
Astrid’s multi-dimensional experiences used to be only limited to her inner world where she traveled both as a means of escaping the pain of her circumstances before her and the only option she had given those confined circumstances.
But once love found a way to open her heart through our connection, she realized that she no longer had to protect it nor keep her parts separate…she could channel and integrate her ethereal experiences through the enjoyment of actually being in a body now also capable of sensual enjoyments only the physical can provide. And whether that be opening to the feelings she didn’t think were possible to experience, engaging in ways she was afraid to trust before, or allowing herself to surrender into the body she always preferred hovering outside of more than being in it, she discovered that multi-dimensionality meant being able to have well-rounded experiences on every plane of existence.
I’m convinced that Astrid wouldn’t have made it much longer if we hadn’t met. As strong as she was, eventually the separate life she lived, in not being able to express her soul fully through her body, would have created a full detachment at some point. She was a butterfly living inside a glass container. Now she’s able to stretch those wings and access more layers of experience.
And this is what she wants to express to each of us.
We all have potentials of expressions beyond however we feel limited in the moment. By the nature of our being multi-dimensional, we have a multitude of ways to bring through our energy and the more we surrender to possibilities, the more possibilities we create. The more we open our hearts, the more the doorways of multi-dimensionality find an access point to weave through greater experiences of fulfillment.
Astrid, as a rabbit, may have needed someone to hold that space for her, but we as humans have greater possibilities that can come through other (any encounter, partnership, companion, friend, family member, loved one, teacher, or mentor) in the same way, or through ourselves holding that space for our inner child and essence.
But like Astrid, the more ways you move energy through you by opening to and engaging a variety of experiences, the greater balance and well being you will create because this mirrors your multi-dimensional essence, which is part of what we’re activating more of collectively. The smaller we play and the more limited place we play from, the more we separate rather than unite who we really are.
We each have layers to who we are. And these layers brought forth invite more to the table, individually and collectively.
Like Astrid is the loving, the playful, the wise, and the amazing – so too are you the loving, the playful, the wise, and the amazing you.
Aligning with Natural Cycles
I consistently see how the more we align with nature and the natural rhythms and cycles she reflects, the more life becomes a seamless experience without need to analyze and dissect what’s playing out. You may have noticed another shift into a more inward time period, with both challenges met – if you are trying to control things – or propulsion – if you are flowing with the nudges to redirect energies. This, of course, being a Mercury Retrograde influence, but truly it’s simply an ebb and flow of life.
Our minds enjoy wrapping their tentacles around understanding things, so to have those reiterations and details to link the “why’s” helps to appease that need.
This is shared for that part of the brain to help make sense of things I’ve been hearing people going through right now.
Mercury Retrogrades are times to really be gentle and kind to self and others, to release judgment and attachment, and to let go of trying to control things which only causes frustration, while you wind along meandering paths that have purpose even though you can’t see it quite yet.
They draw attention more inward, speak to completing things so you’re ready for the new, and help you to harness more effectiveness for that new.
It’s a time for processing and assimilating like the ever-growing, chewing and grinding teeth of a rabbit that helps digest new insights and perspectives available at this time for you to recognize.
Overall, this is the period of multiple r’s – reviewing, releasing, reclaiming, retrieving, recreating, renewing, reflection, and responsibility.
It’s natural to have these evolutionary processes as part of your life, so while Retrogrades may seem like the hidden enemy, they are actually quite supportive and productive if you choose to learn the language of this energy moving through you to support greater self-mastery.
As I reflect on my current situation, I can see how this is playing out naturally and supportively without my having planned or manipulated things and so, too, do I feel it is happening for each of us in relative ways although we may think otherwise.
I’ve currently found myself in organizing and finalizing mode, completing and preparing things, and clearing the slate, as I check off things one-by-one on my list.
Synchronously, I signed with my editor on the 13th, which catapulted me getting into the retrograde mode before its setting in on the 26th of July and I am set to receive it back by the 17th of August – the Retrograde ending the 18th.
I also have my last Reiki 3 Master Teacher workshop being taught on the 18th – it was moved by request of a student coming, which aligns with finalizing energy since it’s the last of that genre I’m teaching.
An interesting side note to that, which seems to be verifying this completion is that I discovered I lost a key chain. Not just any key chain, mind you. My Reiki key chain.
I recently just discovered that the quartz key chain with the word and symbol for Reiki engraved on it, cleanly broke off a very strong, thick chain that hung with my keys and other fun key chains. I’ve had it on there for years and to have it disappear speaks volumes to my being in alignment with this knowing that I’ve come full circle after teaching for 11 years. I love that the remaining key chains are a giant plush, pink bunny head I received as a free gift and a squeezable rainbow unicorn that poops rainbow sparkles when you squish her that my sweet Faery friend, KC – aka Bean – gave me. LOL! Speaks to my life.
Interesting for sure how the ending and new beginning of Reiki and my book, placing me on a different path and the timelines falling on the Retrograde ending, will put me in a new creation mode to work on a revision once things go direct. It’s like the passing of the baton. 🙂
People have asked what the book is about and when it is coming out, to which I’ve shared being guided to keep it a surprise (no one but myself and my editor have read the full story) and that I don’t know when it will be available, as I still have much to go before it will be out there. Perhaps next year – that seems feasible – but I won’t know for sure for some time, as I’m taking it step-by-step with full commitment to the thorough, patient process. Since it is my first book of this nature and like my baby, it needs its cultivation and nurturing process, as well as some very deep challenges to rise to with it.
So, I’ve been finishing things and preparing for when the book is returned, as I will have a lot of work ahead that will need my complete focus and will ask for a fresh new perspective and a fresh new me to dive into again.
I’ve been playing in the expansive field of potentials, dreaming and believing the impossible made possible, and taking actions, even if just energetic commitments, to solidify my partnership with the energy streams I travel.
I’m utilizing this time period to nurture myself and put things to rest, have read and am reading a bunch of books including a new one by a published author I’m reviewing, have been nurturing my plants, getting everything out of the way, preparing for an upcoming trip, and took some little side-detour creative time to help with that refresh.
It was funny because I got off the phone the other day with a friend and said to him, “I should go tend to my garden now,” referring to my plants and flowers I was working on before we got on the phone. He emphasized, “yes, you should go tend to your garden” and we both giggled at the metaphor of life we both recognized and he added he couldn’t let that one go without pointing it out – especially after the very complex journey we’d explored in conversation.
I’m also writing this as my last blog for a while, unless I have time for some short inspiration, as we are heading off this Friday morning for a small vacation for 10 days. This also seems perfect, as we will be attending two weddings at both ends of the trip, seeing friends and family that we haven’t seen for a long time, touching in for a few days in our old home base of Orange County and likely get to explore our favorite Crystal Cove again, and getting some relaxing, integration, and inspiration with time at the ocean in between at Pismo Beach.
We had planned to go to Yosemite, but changed plans due to Dave still healing and unable to hike extensively since his labrum repair surgery and due to fires near that area that didn’t make it optimal. We later learned they had closed Yosemite for the first time (not sure if it’s open again), but it all seemed aligned with our feeling the ocean was a better nurturer right now to take us somewhere different than our usual mountain and forest surroundings, and to the Pacific coast that we both love.
We return the 12th, still within the retrograde, in time to prep for the Reiki workshop and receiving my book back.
And speaking of last workshops (since I’ll be away while one of the registration deadlines roll around), if you want to join the last Reiki 3 Master Teacher workshop on Saturday, August 18th, as a new or review student, you can still register or let me know by August 11th.
And if you’re still interested in the Saturday, September 22nd Fall Equinox “Living a More Magickal Life” workshop event with Laura Bruno and myself, we have 2 of the 12 spots remaining. The last day to register for that is September 15th.
You can find links to both here: Workshop Updates
Retrogrades are a good time to complete and release things that no longer support your highest good, put to rest old “stuff”, have more patience and light-heartedness about things, take time for yourself away from it all, slow down and be still to receive, cleanse your life on all levels, focus on intentions you want to put out to the Universe, be more present in your life and with others especially in terms of more heart-based communication, listen and go within, and realize it’s not all that serious.
Things are always unfolding for the highest good even though you don’t feel like that’s the truth because it’s hard to embrace when you’re attached to outcomes and definitions of things.
You can utilize determination during this time to help carry out visions and goals, but remain flexible. You will also need to stay on top of your willpower, as illusions and immediate pleasures may easily sway you. Yes, that means more shadow work to help you to integrate and balance and be able to see things clearly. People and things that trigger us need to be looked at, not pushed away, in order to understand the trigger and what it is telling you about yourself and hidden feelings you may be afraid to see or acknowledge within.
Do you secretly envy someone or wish to be more like that which annoys you? Is the thing that is bothering you about them, a quality you, yourself possess, and therefore if you integrate it yourself with love, can transform your experience of self and others? Is the quality that you fear or cast out in another, a part of you that if nurtured, could really catapult your passionate life?
What are you willing to do and give up short-term for the things you desire? Your strength, will, determination and focus are key now, along with the flexibility to know when to flow so you maintain balance of mind, body, and spirit.
This isn’t so much the time for doing, as it is for being, so all of this is done on the inner planes and if done with commitment to the process of you, you will reap the benefits of the Retrograde, rather than feel controlled and beat down by it.
Keep the faith and lovingly nurture yourself and others during this time. The more you practice these things, the more you can discover how Retrogrades can be powerful, catapulting times.
I’ll see you again soon!
Frequency, DNA and The Human Body
Frequency and sound resonance…some of my favorite things. This article and the video in it by Nigel Stanford – which is very cool! – connect with my post today on Lisa Parks and her exploration with water and thought/feeling frequencies as art: Artist Manipulates 48 Pools of Water with Her Mind
The creative center of the world
Another insightful post by Jon Rappoport on the power of creative energy, artistic vision in motion, and the imagination – demonstrating the connection between spirit and creative action.
Some notable quotes:
“When people strip away all the hogwash that has been passed off as spiritual enlightenment for centuries, what they are left with—if they can feel it—is creative fire. That fire IS the spiritual force. IS the real thing. Finally.”
“Art is about what the individual invents when he is on fire and doesn’t care about concealing it. It’s about what the individual does when he has thrown off the false front that is slowly strangling him.
Art is about the end of mindless postponement. It’s about what happens when you burn up the pretty and petty little obsessions. It’s about emerging from the empty suit and empty machine of society that goes around and around and sucks away the vital bloodstream.
It’s about shrugging off the fake harmony of the living dead.
When this kind of creation overtakes the world, only then does the world become what it should be.”
“Were you to embark on a uniquely passionate course of creation, enlarging the scope at every turn, you would launch out of the realm of the push-pull humdrum Earthside disintegrating disaster…..and into the realm of what you INVENT….
Magic.
As more and more of us moved forward in this way, THAT would become the transformation we have been unconsciously hoping for.”
Some ideas to ponder as you explore Jon’s full article at the link shared.
Giving AND Receiving – Keeping in Rhythm with the Universe
I spent last evening putting together gift bags for the beautiful souls soon to arrive at the upcoming Reiki Renewal Retreat on the 20th and it had me again pondering the art of giving and receiving that is another of the great lessons I have had to learn to balance in my own life. This prompted me to write this short share about it.
I feel that it can be a challenge for many to balance giving and receiving in a healthy way and especially in terms of opening to receiving and embracing your own value and self-worth that comes along with that. I know that there is a lot of conditioned victim or martyr energy we have learned and this is an essential aspect to look at integrating, as self-denial and self-worth will have a direct result on your ability to tap into your natural abundance innately available to you.
Just like Reiki teaches us, everything in the Universe is energy and naturally, energy just wants to keep flowing and cycling, as is its innate “beingness” to do. It does not judge, attach, or stop and block the flow – we do. We are the ones that block it and this is what creates challenges and dis-ease in our lives.
Giving and receiving are two parts of a whole that coexist, are essential, and create natural balance. When we only focus on one more than the other – never allowing receiving to take place, or never freely giving – we are blocking the flow of energy to cycle through us both ways, and we then create energetic imbalance that manifests as challenges in our lives on any or all levels – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
As we grow spiritually, this often presents experiences of greater receiving and giving in our lives to embrace. Since both are energetically equal, coming from the same Source, they increase mutually. So it doesn’t make sense that giving increases while receiving decreases, does it? They will both naturally increase together, which means receiving well entails giving well and giving more means we must be open to receiving more – ultimately supporting and embracing what serves the greater good and well being when we do so.
In order to have a fulfilling life, your giving and receiving must be in balance and rhythmic harmony. Balance is essential to every aspect of life and we are constantly in practice of creating what that harmony means for each of us, as there’s no one formula that will work for everyone since we all have different strengths and limits.
Stress can be a result of over-giving, which can lead to other effects as a result, including damaging emotions that can build, and the same can happen if you are receiving in imbalance.
So if you are feeling you are receiving too much, start giving now, and if you are giving too much start finding ways to appreciate what you receive and have. Keep on top of not overburdening yourself with the responsibility of giving, as well as be mindful of creating guilt, or not being grateful, for all of the receiving you’ve been gifted.
Simply recognize where the flow may be blocked and on a one way street, then start making adjustments to balance out the energy with either some random acts of kindness, donations, and offerings, or with more thank you’s and allowing to mirror your new found self worth.
In doing so, you will tap into the limitless and abundant being that you are and this will be reflected in all ways in your life to enjoy.