My dear friend Jae took this picture during the first Advent weekend. It's the first picture I've seen that contains a spirit orb (or an orb of any kind for that matter). Personally I think this may be my daughter's guardian angel. My daughter is the little girl looking directly at the orb hovering above her.

I Googled orbs to find out more and came across an article on Wikipedia that claimed that orbs are nothing but dust particles, droplets of water or small insects that are out of focus and catching the light. If that were true, I'd have a lot more dust orb pictures from inside my house lol

I do believe that perhaps not every orb picture is a picture of a spirit entity but I have a feeling this one certainly is - in spite of the snow machine blowing soapy 'fake snow' in the background. The reason I believe this so strongly is that the day before the picture was taken, I was able to see orbs with my own eyes against a clear blue sky (this was the day when Uranus went direct in Pisces and the veil between the worlds felt very thin).

Also, Jae managed to capture some orbs in her garden the day after this picture was taken....

I would love to hear from all of you who have experienced orbs. What are your thoughts, feelings, intuitions?

For those of you who would like to know more about the spiritual take on orbs captured with digital cameras, I recommend the book 'Enlightenement through Orbs' by Diana Cooper and Kathy Crosswell. A lot of their insights ring true with me, and they also mention the fact that perhaps not all photos of orbs contain spirit manifestations. We need to use are intuition and ask our angels for guidance...

Last night I celebrated the last day of the old year. One of the advantages of not being tied to any religion is that you get to celebrate the New Year twice. According to ancient tradition, the night of Samhain is when the veil is the thinnest between the worlds, so I asked for a dream to guide me.

This new year is all about me, my boundaries, my integrity. The dream I had last night showed me that I was pregnant with the most beautiful baby boy I'd ever seen. I saw his features even though he was inside me (I was 8 months pregnant in the dream) and unlike my three real life children he didn't look like his father but like me. He was healthy and glowing inside me, and I couldn't wait to hold him in my arms.

As soon as I woke up I knew what the dream meant. I'm birthing a new, stronger yet equally flexible consciousness... one that has the power to carry a vision, to shape my own future instead of  being battered by the 'winds of fate'.

This is my Sun/Son, my precious baby... The future King... How I love him already! I wonder... what will giving birth be like? One month to go!

The painful space shifted yesterday. Not by doing, but by grace. Thank you, God.

My heart opens up like a flower to the sun on a bright and sunny morning.

The dark clouds are gone... three rainbows appear... larger than normal and without any rain preceeding them... They were my miracle yesterday... as was our new family member Myrra, a 5 month old kitten... as were the prayers and loving support of my dear friends alder and Jae.

And so it becomes clear that grace flows from everywhere and that I have to do nothing for it to start pouring through me...

The energies were swirling and dancing in my crown chakra all day yesterday. I can still feel them today off and on...

A parasite that had been suffocating me for as long as I can remember was fluhed out... It had a whiny voice that kept telling me that I wasn't good enough to be loved for who I am... Every time I would step out to become more self-sufficient it would growl 'You'll never make it on your own! You are weak and worthless...' It's elongated black slimy shape wrapped itself around my rib cage. This parasite got fatter and fatter as the years went by and it fed on my fear. My ego needed the parasite like it needed me... some kind of sick symbiosis...

Then yesterday, coil upon coil of slimy suffocating darkness lost its grip and fell away, leaving me liberated... free to choose... to truly choose for the first time... Because when you feel needy you can't really choose... you rely on co-depency patterns.

I sat on the bus on my way in to Richmond when I felt the shift. It was as unexpected as it was expansively liberating... I felt like giggling... In fact, I think I may have done like some kind of lunatic... or like someone in love...

Yes, love has come into my life, but until yesterday it brought more fear and pain than joy... Not how it's supposed to be, is it? All the times I've run away... all those spaces done with... sweet release...

Yesterday I was dressed in white. God lifted my veil and kissed me passionately.

Peace.

I pulled the Princess of Cups as my Card of the day from the Tarot of Dreams.

This archetypal energy represents vulnerability and receptivity. It's a representation of the emotional lessons life brings us in both new and old spaces. The space often opens up when old patterns are brought to light through new relationships. Layers of defenses are peeled away when we engage with someone new who is blissfully aware of the little games we play to hide our hurts, fears and scars. We are left naked and vulnerable... exposed... we are forced to see ourselves... to feel those emotions we thought we had tucked away permanently.

The space also opens up when a relationship comes to end... when we have to ask ourselves 'What went wrong?'.

Naturally, this card also brings new joyful expressions of emotion, but that's not the growing space... in my experience the growing space is always painful.

I pulled this card today because I have many uncried tears... the pain this year has been unbearable and so I have resisted the expression until I've not been able to resist any more... saving it up...

So I do what I need to do. I sit with it and wait for release... I'm afraid... Will I survive the release this time? What will remain on the other side? I'm afraid to breathe deeply because the tears have lodged themselves between my ribs...

2008 is the year I became homeless... I'm in temporary housing, having moved twice already this year... and I'll probably have to move again before the year is up... I'm too exhausted by it all to come up with a definition of 'home'... Maybe I'll know one day... I hope so...

Anybody else a bit amazed about how people in the media start talking about how we're all connected now that we're entering global recession... Humans are definitetly the thickest race in the Universe! It takes global recession for people to realise that we need each other... Never mind all those children starving to death for all those years... Never mind child soldiers and human trafficking... Grrrrrrrrrr

Can I have a ticket for the Universe next door, please?

I thought I'd focus on the meaning of the 8 of Coins in a relationship today. The energy of this card asks 'What can I do to ease my partner's burdens?'. It's one of the most selfless cards in the deck.

Perhaps you could give your partner a back rub, offer to make him a cup of tea or just be there for him when he tells you about his day at work... How long has it been since you cooked her favourite meal or left her a love note where she least expected to find it?

These little tokens of affection make us feel appreciated, safe and loved, and help us open up emotionally. They lead to greater intimacy on all levels and cost so little.

If the card is reversed it could mean a lack of care and/or empathy for self and others. Depending on the position in the spread, it could also mean that someone around you isn't willing to meet your needs.

The astrological correspondence is the Sun in Virgo.

The Five of Wands from the Cosmic Tarot shows two men either fighting, play fighting or practising some kind of martial arts. Exactly how the energy in the card is perceived depends on what's within the person getting the reading, as well as what is shown in surrounding cards.

As a one card reading, like today's 'Card of the Day' it could indicate a day filled with minor irritating conflicts or obstacles that have to be negotiated. The focus could also be completely internal, in which case there would be inner turmoil but no outside conflict. The lessons tied in with these conflicts/obstacles would always have to do with limitations to the ego, as the astrological correspondence for this card is Saturn in Leo.

Saturn in Leo in the 5th Sphere on the Tree of Life was once shown to me in a vision of black and red. From these swirling dark colours emerged a Flamenco dancer, a woman who expressed all the pain and conflict that each of us encounter our fair share of on this planet in the dance.

The limiting conditions that we experience as pain/conflict are the Saturn energies. The need to express them in a creative way in the public eye is the Leo energies. Gevurah, the 5th Sphere (ruled by Mars) demands aggressive movement, passionate action and response.

With Saturn in Leo, there is great resistance to transformation and to learning any lessons. The ego gets in the way and makes up all sorts of excuses for why the lesson does not apply. It's a bit like Jacob wrestling with the Angel: we are so sure that we deserve better than we're getting that we're willing to fight God.

I'm not suggesting we come out on top when we do this just because Jacob did. Not by a long shot. I know these energies very well by now and I truly believe that the only way to transform them is to dance. Saturn can't hold Leo down for long and in the dance, Leo might have had to learn some new steps to get around the limitations laid out by Saturn. If we're lucky, every once in while we come away blessed by the Angel of the Lord, and this most often happens because we touched the life of another with our dance...

 

When I was 31 I experienced another healing miracle. This was after my own major healing crisis a few years earlier...

It happened on a night in with my girl friends. All of us but one had children, and we were sat around talking about our babies. I could notice our hostess getting a bit sad, and she finally piped up and said she felt left out because she was the only 'barren' one. She explained that she couldn't have children because of having been exposed to radiation, but she was desperate to conceive. As if something else had taken over (and it wasn't the wine - I'd only had one glass), I felt an urge to offer her healing, so I took her to one side and asked if she would like some healing. She happily agreed and we went into another room where we wouldn't be disturbed for a few minutes.

At this point in time, I hadn't learned any method of energy healing or been attuned to any system, so I just went with the flow. I placed my right hand on her left shoulder and raised my left hand into the air. I said a short prayer, asking for the Holy Spirit to descend. There was intense heat and a light filled the room. Tears started streaming down both our faces. It only lasted a minute or two, but we both knew that something had shifted. Five weeks later she phoned me up to tell me she was pregnant... so was I! The angels must have been laughing that night.

My first healing miracle happened at the age of 20 when I was doing a solo InterRail trip through Europe, spending all of the student loan money I had hoarded that year. I'd been walking around in the heat carrying a heavy pack pack and wearing sweaty trainers for a few days when I got one of those killer blisters that you have no doubt in your mind about them having the power of finishing you off completely. It was getting quite infected too, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I'm going to have to head back home because of a flippin' blister.'

Then I remembered that I had religion (oh yes, I was a Bible believing Christian back in the day) and that as such I was supposed to pray in the face of adversity, so I figured I had nothing to lose by trying. I took my trainer off (luckily there weren't any people sitting nearby or they might have passed out) and cradled my foot on my lap. I said a prayer and lost myself in silence for a few minutes. When I came to there was no sign of the blister. It was gone. No, I couldn't believe it either, but it did happen nonetheless.