March 2009 Energy Update via Dana Shino March 9, 2009

• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: http://rareseeds.com/
  
• Everlasting Seeds: http://everlastingseeds.com/
  

That only skims the tip of the iceberg but should get you thinking.

Now, onto that June/July window. This is why its important for you to complete whatever it is that you need to by early summer because during the time of June/July there seems to be the time of some heavy duty, hard core decision making going on, both on the personal level but also as a mass consciousness. I don't know if this is attached to some kind of global or national event (it seems to lean that direction). Here are the energy dynamics I'm picking up on. In the June/July window, it's a time/space frame of the masses choosing and changing potentials. ('Are ya gonna go left or right?' Are you going into the awakening and new energy or into the sleep and old energies? For whatever you choose, what are you going to do? Your choice and time are soon up). This is literally like the turning of the mother of all ships on its ear in the water and still keeping the ship upright. (How do you turn wheelies in the water without dumping the boat?! – especially when we have how many billion people aboard? Folks, we're probably going to lose a few people over board.) To me, June and July are about 'the people' deciding and causing an exterior global physical outcome OR a global physical effect (that we create through our subconscious) causing us to have to make our decisions about whether we participate in the new energies or continue to bury our heads in the sands of the old energies. This, more than likely, for whatever it is, will take much of our attention, time, energy and money... THIS is why it's so important to get done whatever it is you feel intuitively compelled to get done this spring. Because June/July leads right into...

August. I'd almost skip going over August of this year because August is lost in the aftershock of June/July on the front end and then sucked into the vortex of September on the back end. We're going to think we're going to have our little bit of time to recover from June/July, but by mid-August we'll already strongly be feeling the energy dynamics of the next Saturn/Uranus opposition for September 15, 2009. Also, August of this year eerily reminds me of August of last year. Last year in August I pretty much shut my business down and energetically went into a deep state of energetic insulation. I couldn't feel much of anything, and I couldn't understand why. It drove me nuts. Now, as I see the years spin on their circular, annual turntable, one on top of the other, I'm beginning to see that I/we experience the energetic ricochets from previous years, but also coming years. This year, standing and looking from the perspective of last August and then coming into this August, I think I get it. The withdraw and the thick energetic insulation (protection) of last year has something to do with preparation for heading into September this year. Please take note for those of you who are especially so sensitive.

Which brings us to September, which feels like a great storm to me. For many, September will be the 'cause' and the something to 'blame.' But that's not it at all. September is all about the result of what we've been building to for so long, for years, ever since we got on this track at the time of the Harmonic Convergence of August 1987 (Remember Black Monday occurred that October? It was an energetic harbinger marking the old energy.) So, during September the Saturn/Uranus opposition of September 15, 2009 will probably kick the remaining legs left out of the economy in a process that started many years ago and became very public in October of 2008 when a very loud energetic canon boom went off. We've been living through the gradual watershed of this ever since.

(Especially during these months of tumult, for those of you who came for the new energy and are sensitively wired for the new energy, here is our challenge. We must continue to remain open, waking up and connecting in with our sensitivities, but we are going to be required to live through probably a very painful and bumpy time on our way to get there. During these months, it is imperative that you remain aware of energetically insulating yourself through this bumpy time and taking care. Running light is imperative. We need you here. We need you here more than you know. I know how difficult it is to be a functioning sensitive on a predominately insensitive planet, but we need to stay. The planet cannot be left unattended in this transition. Our presences are imperative to anchor and run light so that the new generations will have space to seed and grow. Our job is to set space and keep the door open.)

As for September, it would be very easy (and a lot of fun) for me here to get mired in the political and economic banshee-ing of the time. But that's just an easy distraction to get sucked into and I don't want to go there. Let me put it to you succinctly. The system, the VERY model itself that we are looking at and so used to functioning within is primarily of old energy. This old energy cannot and will not be supported into the coming time of the new energy, the new consciousness and so we are living through and witnessing the process of its systematic collapse. (Fixing the model will not save the model because the model itself is past its shelf life). To me, this is not just an economic downturn that can be solved with a few twists of the economic dial. It's deeper than that. This is not a depression that will cast us back into darker ages that we must scramble up out of. No – it's none of this. Instead, we are entirely leaving the model we've known for our lives and our parents have known for their lives and their parents knew for their lives. Right now, we're in the process of living through the departure of this old model that is a Piscean mind based, mental model, set in the structures of male, linear power systems in preparation for making way for the new Aquarian heart based, female energy, conceptual energy, broader consciousness model. Even though we have ingrained in our cellular memory what the old model looks like and we think this is how things must be – it really isn't so.

(Each fall I've written about this as we made a pass through those August, September, October, November energies of change. For those of you new to this list and Energy Update, you might want to go back and read those Energy Updates from those years – 2007 and 2008.)


The New Energy and Letting Go of "How"

So, yes, there is the sobering thought of physically living through the tumult of the only model we've ever known leaving at this time. What then? What next? Well, we can't get to the 'then' and 'next' until a few things energetically occur. First, energetically, if there is no space for the new energies, they can't arrive because there is simply no room. It's the same analogy I tell clients all the time: If you are waiting for your new situation to arrive, but you have your fists clenched in fear around the old situation, there is no energy flow. With no energy flow, nothing can move, nothing new can come in. Our first part of the process here is to 'let go and let it go.' I suspect we will be living through the fall out of the old energy, old model purging for a good couple of years if not more. The first foundational energetic platforms of the new energy coming in I feel are around November of 2011.

As we see and experience this old model representing old energy leaving, hand-in-hand with this transition is also the energy dynamic of the new energy coming in. Though we won't see or experience these new energies in their full flourishing for a number of years, these new energies are already here and we are already using them whether we know it or not (Notice how the veil is so much thinner and manifesting occurs so much more rapidly than it used to? Notice how the Divine E.T.'s are here in greater numbers to help? Notice how much more the conversations of consciousness, psychic themes and spirituality are more common in our cultures?) So, really, this is not so much a time of the great fall out (though there is that), it is the time of the great transformation if we are willing to move with the times.

Though for many of us, we have the old model ingrained within our cellular memory; but for those of you who can hear me, we also have in the roots of the light in our DNA the model for the new time (this is what we came for). Frankly, we are living, breathing beings carrying this new model, this new energy, this new program within us to put into place. Our time is finally here. We can feel it. We know it and yet, we're unsure. We can't see what this new energy system looks like. We don't know 'how' it is going to work, but yet it is still here.

That's just it. Even though we're living through the greatest transformation of all time, even though this is the most exciting time to be here on this planet, even though we are here for this new time with this new energy in us and coming through us -- we are still human. In our human-ness, so many things boil down to one little word: how. I hear myself say it. I hear others say it. How how how how how.

As is very serendipitous and synchronistic, what I was going to write in this paragraph was just interrupted by a phone call. The person calling me called to tell me a story that fits perfectly and much better than information I was going to write about the 'how.' So, in the spirit of metaphysical journalism, we're going to segue to something that someone else channeled/shared with me concerning this discussion of the 'how.' Here is local colleague, Janet, commenting on the theme of how (through a digression of a story first).

Janet began by telling me a story about how she is working with an energy that can best be described in wording as an 'oversoul' in a walk-in situation. This is not an Ascended Master guiding from her exterior, this is not an entity hosting situation – yet the energy is with her coming through her (mutual agreement). This energy is not necessarily another part of herself yet at the same time it is. Mostly, she has felt this is an energy or consciousness that is here working with her in partnership during this transition into the new energies. In the partnership the oversoul has insights into the etherics and ephemeral that Janet does not and at the same time Janet has insight and experience into working with energies in the physical world that this being does not. By pairing the two, they are able to create the more. In this situation, the power of two is four.

Janet also mentioned something very interesting to me about timing. Evidently, in her timeline, Janet feels the June 2009 window is very important to 'manifest whatever it takes to anchor the new energies here.' (If you recall in the earlier portion of this energy update the mention of June/July 2009 being paramount as to our mass consciousness making a decision on this planet as to the energetic directions each one of us is personally taking.) Here, I think its worth note that many of us are being asked strongly to step into the responsibility of our roles here on the planet into greater roles of acceptance (in essence, greater initiation than we've ever embraced before).

It is also worth note that as Janet spoke about her oversoul experiences, they began to 'ping' and register with something I've been experiencing since fall that I refer to as my 'old soul rising.' Beginning last fall and since, at certain junctures, when I am most open, most deep, most calm, most relaxed, a being that I can only describe as part of me but not -- and very wise, knowledgeable and ancient, rises from the depths through me into a space of great sacredness with me. And this old soul, who is me, but not me is with me, letting me know that whatever I do not know, he holds and carries. He is my unknowable knowledge carrying a great deal of the energies of 'you are taken care of.'

Also, Janet's descriptions and experience reminded me of seeing this 'old soul' or 'oversoul' in others. Recently, on occasion, I've viewed these oversouls or old souls surfacing in the faces of others ESPECIALLY when the energies, communication and consciousness saturating the situation embodied higher consciousness, sacred consciousness and/or whole consciousness. It's as if the over souls or old souls rose up from the depths and formed, showing through in these persons' faces.

So, back to the course of the discussion at hand (now that we've totally digressed for good reason) concerning the 'how' theme. Many of us know we've come for this time, this great change and transformation and yet our physical concerns of 'how,' that we believe are so legitimate, are actually acting as an energy killer, an energy blocker, an energy stop sign. Yes, I have the concerns about the 'how' too in the unexplainable parts of living a physical life through into the more esoteric energies of the new time. Here is what Janet channeled through to shed light on dropping the how:

"...this is a time of crossing a bridge and you can't see either side. Where you've been is disappearing, so you can't look back. Where you're going is not there yet, so you really can't look forward. Being in present moment is the most powerful thing you can do as the river of water (or lava) flows beneath you. Recognize the direction your heart is leading you and have the courage to act on your inner guidance. This is the practice of working on the acceptance of divine will (Lepidolite assists in acceptance of roles). Flow has to do with gratitude and joy. The 'how' is the flow of gratitude and joy."

As we move into the new energies, have the courage to accept your role (initiate), let your heart lead you beyond the how. Know and allow your old soul/oversoul to rise and work beside you in partnership. This is walking in the new energy, making the two into four and the four into sixteen and on and on.

• The De-Stress Kit (a good reminder and resource):
  http://www.destresskit.com/ – from HeartMath.org
  Thanks to Jen for sending!
  

"I'm Glad We Don't Burn Witches Anymore"

Now that I've finally written the Energy Update for this round, here's the story behind the Energy Update that will help you understand how huge this undertaking was this time. I understand that what I write about here in these Energy Updates are my truth. And my truth might be different than your truth. But by speaking our truths, we begin to create and align a greater landscape of the collective of what is occurring on the planet. I know you may not agree or like all I say. Some of it you might. For me, having the courage to step forward and speak my truth regardless is probably one of the greatest lessons and gifts of my life.

Both in this lifetime and past lifetimes speaking my truth meant and means great risk – I think especially I know this at a cellular level that resonates with life risk. It isn't too farfetched in my soul that I know I've received bodily harm and probably even death at some junctures just for saying what I thought was true. These are the thresholds I've been working on breaking through and healing past these months.

Like all of you, I'm not immune to the energy shifting at hand, and if anything, with the work I do it is amplified and accelerated. So, as I work with clients, interview and write, I'm also journeying through the lands of working with the new energies already here and releasing whatever wound energy is knocking on my door for me to remain present with and heal. Most days this feels like no small task, yet it is the most satisfying and rewarding work of my life.

So, almost two months ago, when my throat chakra began blocking up as I came to another energetic layer leaving my energy field, I was disoriented, disappointed, hurting and frightened – not to mention that it was gumming up my writing, one of my primary ways that I love to express myself. I thought I'd already gotten past a lot of what I considered my tough stuff – leaving my ex-husband; psychically awakening during my divorce while working a toxic job; rebuilding my life twice; awakening to the darkness in duality only to find few others were courageous and competent to communicate with me about it; journeying through two entity removals and subsequent healing work; understanding the very damaging (and ultimately empowering) role my mother plays in my life; and flying into the winds of fortune by launching and building a psychic business when logically, technically it shouldn't succeed (but somehow is). You would think that would be enough. Right? Wrong.

Gradually, I am journeying through this throat chakra block and loosening it. As I have, any number of the buried fears, cellular level unfinished business from past life times (burnings at the stake and/or being drawn and quartered) and conscious fears connected to speaking truth have wagged their tails in my face. They've wagged their tails in my faces rather intensely too. Like clockwork, the energies I was holding and unloading from my blocked throat chakra and its wound drew in the manifestation from the external world mirroring it right there in front of me. Before I knew what was occurring a domino effect of situations lined themselves up at my door, each situation asking from that raw, visceral wounded level, 'Are you going to speak your truth? How are you going to handle this? What are you going to do?'

Each situation I encountered held its own unique elements, yet ultimately each one of them pointed back to consciously speaking my truth and supporting myself about how I uniquely experience and view my world from the experiential sensitivity I live with every day of my life. In these situations I encountered people oblivious to the dynamics of their own energy field and how they were manipulating it in interaction with me. Instead of running and hiding or destructing (me or the other person) like I've always done in the past, I began to learn and practice how to calmly, competently and compassionately as possible communicate what I understood to be true – even if I knew the other person might not see it or understand it. This was a substantial break from the pattern I've habitually practiced.

I've always lived with the notion that because of my sensitivities, something was wrong with me and I had to apologize because I wasn't like everyone else. I didn't fit. Early on, I learned to crumple myself into a ball and disappear because I didn't think what I had to say had any credence (if no one else saw what I saw or felt what I felt did that mean I was nuts or it wasn't real?) In situations when I really got shoved or pushed and had to stand up for myself, I found myself lashing out with a destructive amount of uncontrollable rage that terrified me even more (umm, smashed chairs, rocks thrown against walls, jaws hit, you get the idea). I've learned the emotional and energetic habits we absorb in childhood to create our own survival in the presence of the adults surrounding us die hard. Though these emotional and energetic habits serve us when we're little in certain ways, these habits work against us as adults, creating dysfunctional life patterns. My throat chakra was saying to me, "What is your new choice?"

So, knowing that I hold a fairly public role in Durango and probably will ever more so in the future, it was time for me to ante up. Hiding in silence or detonating with explosion was no longer going to work. It was time for me to try something new. In the process of stepping forward with my voice from those raw, unhealed places of my soul, I've been blessed with the graciousness of some souls truly opening to what I said and caring to work with me on it – and I thank them from the deepest places of my heart. It's a step forward in the right direction. Others have disagreed, some vehemently and disconnected from my life. I'm not going to lie, this hurts. Yet, ultimately, as I take each one of these steps, I feel my energy field shifting. I feel things letting go that I've carried for years including some of my mother's demons (you'd think carrying your own demons is enough, but no, we usually carry some of our parent's demons as well). I feel more of myself here with me and I feel more powerful in a grounded, calm kind of way. I'm learning that for every step I choose to take with my voice (instead of withering like a violet or blowing like dynamite) my sensitivity lives and lives knowing that I am and will more and more stand with myself in it.

So, it proved ironically humorous that in the middle of this truth speaking melee my Durango Herald column received its first angry letter-to-the-editor response. I'm thankful I didn't have to receive the full brunt of this man's anger on the street. The text on the page acted as a buffer but there was still enough angry energy coming through the writing. Once I read through it several times, I came to the conclusion of 'Wow, this guy isn't so much angry at me as he is just angry.' He also, whether he knows it or not, gave me the secret satisfaction of knowing that I made him think – which is ultimately one of my goals in life, especially my writing – to make people think.

Several days later another letter-to-the-editor appeared in favor of my column, supporting the diversity in the paper. In conclusion, this woman wrote, "I'm glad we don't burn witches anymore." Yes, I concur. I'm glad we don't burn witches anymore.


The Song "Be The Change" by Arlon Bennett

In the middle of all of this 'speaking my truth' business, one morning I stepped into my office, turned my IPod on shuffle and let it act as my morning musical oracle. As I sorted through the pile on my desk, finding the bottom, the IPod played through an African drum beat and then a New Age piece, and then it landed on a song I hadn't heard in awhile. It was Arlon Bennett's "Be The Change" song.

I stopped what I was doing and really sat and listened to the song with tears coming up in my eyes. As if to make the point, right after Arlon's song, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech came on next. I sat with chills running through my entire body. The two pieces were no accident. At first, these pieces were as if to say to me, "Yes, we know it's not easy right now. But you're doing it. You are being the change and it does count and it is working." But there was something else too. There was a feeling of continuation, of "Keep going. You can't stop now. Keep going."

This was a time I felt very visible words were stuck in my throat in plain view and easy target range for anyone to take pot shots at me and with no way for me to protect myself. It was all very visceral and raw with my inner children hanging out all over the place. I truly felt anything I said could open me to easily being annihilated by those around me. It was from this energetic and emotional space that I began to step forward in speaking my truth. It was time for me to move beyond the words sitting in my throat as unrealized wounds and show myself that I could use my voice in a way to take care of me. It was time for me to begin seeing my sensitivity from that space as more of strength than as a weakness. It was time to constructively identify in words when people unconsciously used their shadow energies in detrimental ways.

Arlon's song brought this into focus for me. It was time for me to be my own change. It's a reminder that each of us, in our own way, bring change to this planet at this great transformational time.

Arlon's song came to me via Bob through his work on Arlon's website. Arlon is a folk music artist from New York City. You can listen to Arlon's "Be The Change Song" at this website. If you love it, write Arlon and let him know:

• http://www.arlonbennett.com/
  

My hope in sharing this rather personal story about speaking truth through a throat chakra wound into healing gives you ideas about how you can do this for yourself, in your own way in your own time.


Passing of a Time - Saying Goodbye to the Rocky Mountain News

Speaking of voice, during this time of voice, I was very sad to say goodbye to the Rocky Mountain News here in Colorado. For some, it's just the sign of the times. For me, it's very personal on so many levels. I was born in Denver, grew up outside Greeley, and The Rocky was always one of the news fixtures coming and going in our household (along with KOA 850 and The Greeley Tribune). So, when The Rocky Mountain News shut down, something that I always thought would be there in the 'this is always Colorado' kind of feeling, was gone.

I allowed myself to feel the story in a way that I haven't allowed myself to connect in with other bad economic news. Watching The Rocky close was about real people with real jobs losing their livelihood and the state of Colorado losing a voice. As a quasi fellow journalist I empathized.

Yet, the closing of The Rocky carried into a thought that someone else said to me who is in the newspaper business: "There will always be news. There will always be storytellers. There will always be a need for individuals to tell our news and stories even though the medium it is delivered in might be different." Her words resonated with me because I feel that too. With the changing times, we may be looking at receiving our news in different ways from different sources and in very different venues than we traditionally have.

Which gives me a sense that it is all the more important for me to continue writing here, releasing my work and interviewing others--giving voice at a grass roots level to metaphysical, holistic and sustainable living people where not long ago there was none. So, although I'm not really part of the traditional journalism that I was schooled in (probably never have been), I passionately carry the need to voice from a new corner the new changes occurring on the planet at this time.

Eerily this rings of Ernie Pyle, the World War II journalist who died while covering stories about soldiers in Japan. The journalism school I graduated from was Ernie Pyle Hall at Indiana University. And Ernie Pyle's home town is none other than Dana, Indiana. I may not have learned how to journalistically dot my i's and cross my t's and color inside the lines the way I was supposed to, but I did catch Pyle's spirit of writing with bare bones honesty about what he saw and gave voice to the regular person on the street, regular soldier in combat. I pretty much consider that I'm in the trenches during this energy shift, giving voice to what needs to come out.

Book Excerpt from "Elephant in a Pink Tutu"
The Song of a Thousand Meadowlark
When the Elephant Sings with the Birds

Part of the reason you haven't had an Energy Update from me in months is that most of my writing energy is going into this book. The good news about the book is that its progressing. I've just completed section two and passed the 220 page mark. There's just one more section with about a hundred pages left. I'm closing in on completing the first draft for edits. This is no small feat considering I've started writing half a dozen books in my life and completed none. Completing this one will be a miracle in itself. And that's why I write about it here because if I tell you, I'm pretty much committed to finishing this darned thing. So, it should come as not surprise that during this great time and theme of 'voice' in my life I hit a few blocks and fits with the book I'm writing. As I neared the halfway mark in the writing, I felt myself go slower and slower until I stopped writing. I gradually came to realize that in parts of my psyche I feared for my life if I completed this book. Sometimes I sat down at the computer to write and my stomach twisted up into nausea and my heart hurt -- for no other reason than fear of writing my voice out in this book. Yet, somehow, I know I'm supposed to write a book this lifetime and break past the phantom that's blocked me from finishing in the past. I know that just the completion of writing this book will give me a level of personal power I've always walked away from. I can't do that anymore. It's time. So, I share with you part of one of the last chapters of the second section:

"In retrospect now I understand a bit better the magical process that brought me to the San Luis Valley and what occurred for me there (but not really). In trying to understand it I believe the magic of it dies. It is the magic of it and the magic in the San Luis Valley that gave me my life back when I arrived a very tired, hollow, shell of a person, straining against life, hurting and yet valiantly trying to make sense of it all when very little made logical sense.

Somehow, this is what I do know. The San Luis Valley was the valley that remembered me the first time before I arrived and it was the valley that remembered me the second time and brought me back after fifteen years, even though I had forgotten it myself. This was the valley that gave me my first pure channel "Tucked" in my very early twenties when I felt the beings around me and the writing flowed through me but then I did not know the nature of Spirit communication.

'Tucked'

Tucked in the country
of a place I’ve seen before
sits an old man
on a wooden porch floor.

And he sits and he sits
and he whittles as he sits
in his wicker wood chair
leaned back against the door.

His dog at his boot
peppered beard on knobby chin
and a worn flannel shirt
buttoned loose against the wind.

And underneath his breath
he whistles favorite tunes
to the beat of the wings
of a hawk above the dune.

This was the valley that as I allowed it, gave me my magical space to once again breathe in the ethers of my genuine soul breath like I hadn't done for years at the base of a monstrous and mythical Mount Blanca, a mountain I revered. This was the valley that helped me, in silent and sacred space, remember the beginnings of who I really am. This was the valley that gave me my first deep taste of living away and outside of what I now consider the matrix – a system that strangles the sacred spirituality out of most unconscious people without them even knowing. For once, I was living out and away from mesmerizing florescent lighting; waters filled with mind deadening floride; television sets filled with prepackaged commercials and predictable programming; big box retail outlets filled with homogenized products and canned music; the static of a city grid over my head and concrete beneath my feet disconnecting the celestial and terrestrial energies; the ever-connected jangle of cell phones, computers, internet and phones never ever letting people have just a bit of breathing room; and the swirl of standardized and accepted thinking and behaviors that keep so many of us in a box, unquestioning and unthinking; not to mention the fumes of exhaust from vehicles and other people's energy fields. I escaped all of this, if just for a brief period of time to understand what a hold it has on all of us, that it had had on me, without even knowing. I escaped long enough for my fine, sensitive tuning and antennas to begin to return after a lifetime of bludgeoning in the modern world.

So as my time in the San Luis Valley waned, the window of time that I cherished as my vacation from my life but also my exploration into a new kind of life and new way of living fast approached its dwindling end. But the Valley had a few more surprises in it for me. Aside from esoteric landscape, I'd lived through the bitter cold of the winter there and I was living through the ferocious spring winds that gusted in the valley at brutal speeds, making me thing the roof of my home would surely be ripped off and sailed away in the high winds to the higher sky. At times I understood how the pioneers on the Great Plains of our country might have gone mad living with the incessant and relentless winds. There were days I just wanted the wind to stop and to be able to leave my home without having to use a full body press against my door to get out of the apartment.

But there were days and times the wind finally relinquished itself, and when it did, there was such peaceful calm for my soul to soak. As we entered the full heart of spring, and the flourishing of life this season brings after the cold, frozen dormancy of winter that makes summer a distant memory, the Valley also came alive with life I hadn't seen or heard since fall. So many mornings I woke in the valley awestruck at the sunrise carving light etchings across the land, sometimes similar, but more often than not, insanely unique. I was frequently reminded I was only a visitor witnessing Mother Earth creatively sketching and shaping colors, light, texture and forms as the greatest artist I know."

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