A Reminder to Breathe

This blog came upon me unexpectedly. As I find they so often do. The seed is planted and then it seems to grow very quickly and organically. Authentically. This one was planted just this morning as I prepared for, and presented, my weekly Mindful Moment. There were lots of Spring Shedders on the call and I wove in the relevance of the Spring Shed time astronomically and astrologically. And then I started preparing a short written piece for the Spring Shed portal to accompany the recording. But this short piece just grew and grew. And then as I was writing it, I realised it was not just being written for the Spring Shedders. It was being written for you dear One. Because you need to know this too. Because it’s important.

Whether you’re in the Spring Shed or not, this is relevant to us all. This is a very powerful time. And if you read (or watch the recording of the Mindful Moment this morning or do both), and decide you would like to join us on the Spring Shed, then we’d love you to join. We close the doors at midnight on Thursday 3 October. No exceptions. But until then you can sign up here.

And if you want to know if it’s worth watching, here is a comment on the Spring Shed group from this morning … “@Nicola Aylward – Your words this morning touched me in a deeply profound way – a wave of emotion hit me and awoke this deep yearning to want to live as a wise woman, aware and in tune with nature, the moon and all her cycles, in tune with her breath and my breath. I am still trying to make sense of it all…. I am so grateful – THANK YOU 🤍”

And my response was “You’re being called ‘home’ – back to your true self. As we all are. It’s a process and a journey and a beautiful, exciting one we are doing together ❤️ as we shed our “stuff” – the layers we have gathered through life – and we learn to Live Life Lighter 💫

So here we go … let’s dive in …

As you may or may not know, today – Wednesday the 2nd of October – is the new moon in Pisces, and also an Annular Solar Eclipse – or Ring of Fire. A pretty spectacular sighting and occurrence. The new moon (dark moon) will pass in front of, and cover the sun, allowing a ring of fire to be seen on the outside. It’s a Micro Moon which is opposite to a supermoon – a moon closer to the earth than usual. This new moon is now very far away and so is perceived as smaller and doesn’t cover the sun completely.

The Ring of Fire will be seen over South America, but the energy of it will affect the entire world, and you can watch a livestream online at 7:15pm this evening on this link.

I became fascinated with the moon when I started to understand how it connected to our menstrual cycle – both are 28 day cycles. In fact, our calendar used to be a 28 day, 13 month calendar …

“The 13-month, 28-day alternative has been in use on this planet for more than 6000 years. In prehistoric India and China, and throughout South America it was the standard time-keeping system. The Essenes, Egyptians, Polynesians, Maya, Inca, Lakota, and Cherokee used a 13-month, 28-day calendar. The Celtic knowledge of the Druids is based on the Tree Calendar, also a 13-month, 28-day calendar. Today many cultures are still using their traditional 13-month calendar system …

By 1583 the Catholic Church installed its “reform” of time known as the Gregorian calendar. Simultaneous to the proclamation of the Gregorian calendar was the development of mechanized time, the basis of all machine technology. Instead of the 13:20 galactic frequency of time, the planet was bequeathed with the 12:60 (12-month year, 60-minute hours) frequency of machine technology.”
Jose Arguelles
13 Moons In Motion
https://blog.calendartruth.info/2017/03/22/history-of-the-13-month-28-day-calendar/

What I started to realise was that the new Gregorian calendar of 12 months completely dissociated us from the moon cycles, our menstrual cycles, and the cycles of nature. It is actually disempowering to live like this. We didn’t realise (because we had to really pay attention to notice and we weren’t told growing up), that most women ovulate on the full moon and menstruate on the new moon. Not all women, because you can’t have all the women in the community out of action, as women used to retreat for their “moon time” or menstrual time – it was messy and they needed to rest and restore. More wisdom we have lost and I explore this far more in my Feminine Wisdom courses.

But this started my fascination with the moon and it started my “moon gazing” when I went to take Shadow, our little dog, out for a morning and evening wee. I noticed how the sky changes – how the moon was waxing and waning and the position of it changes nightly. And then I started using an app called SkyView (lite version) – suddenly I could see that the moon was in Leo – there is was, sitting amongst the Leo constellation, or in Pisces or in Scorpio. It opened up a whole new world.

At the same time during the dreadful Covid times, a few different friends shared some YouTube videos presented by various astrologers. I was sceptical of astrology because of my Christian background, but I listened because I found Covid such a dark time, and I was struggling to understand how and why this was unfolding as it was. And here I found explanations, love, tools, and great comfort. I listened more and it all made so much more sense. I wondered why we had been taught to fear astrology since God created the sun and moon and stars, and set them in the sky so that they moved in these incredible ways.

And I remembered the words of my “guru”, Dr Christiane Northrup (you’ll also hear a lot more from her on my Feminine Wisdom course), where she explained that the areas we’ve been taught to fear the most, are where our true power lies – birth, our menstrual cycle and bleeding time, orgasm, menopause, death. And I add the number 13 – number of the Divine Feminine – no wonder we were taught to be scared of it.

The solar eclipse in Libra is all about relationships, emotions and our defensiveness. Libra is all about balance (as the scales suggest – and there is no such thing as perfect balance) and relationships. It’s also a South Node solar eclipse. The South Node of the moon is all about the past (North node all about the future) – all our old “stuff”, our conditioning, and our “karmic patterns” coming up.

The new moon is always a time of new beginnings – it’s often the start of our menstrual cycles, biodynamic farmers plant at the new moon to encourage more “rooting”. This new moon in Libra is all about old pattens, old stuff coming up again, but this time to be cleared and healed more fully. We’re finishing off the old, fully resolving stuff, bringing an end to it.

Things could also get a bit spicy due to the new moon’s 90 degree angle to Mars, the planet of War according to Michelle and other astrologers. I really don’t understand it all but if you use the app and look up at the sky tonight you will see that the moon and Mars are in this “square”. It’s there for you to see. So there could also be a lot of conflict and we need to stay in our centre, and respond wisely but not react – we practice this a lot in our Mindful Moment like in our last one on 18 September on “Fear” which was focused on a very useful little exercise for us when we notice fear or anxiety arising. We acknowledge them, and their effort to protect us, but we don’t let them take the driving seat of our lives. We put them in the passenger seat with their seatbelt firmly on. Have a listen for more.

We can also use our dōTERRA On Guard touch roller, which is free gift with our oil orders if getting oils for the first time this month or next, or we can make one for ourselves if we already have dōTERRA essential oils. On Guard is our Protective Blend and is all about asserting our physical and emotional boundaries and we can use it for both …

We have to learn to bring ourselves back to our centres, to slow down our breath, to calm down our nervous systems, to create space in our reactivity – these are the tools we’re sharing and practicing on the Spring Shed. The new moon time at the moment is a time of pause, of slowing down, it’s a dark time in Nature, but the light is still there so we can connect to the light coming out of the dark.

There is a lot more on YouTube by Michelle McClulan if you’re interested, and I strongly recommend listening for 20 minutes especially today or tomorrow over the eclipse energy time (although it extends longer than that) to see what resonates with you personally.

I also wanted to reiterate what I mentioned on the Mindful Moment of the 4 September “A Hopi Elder Speaks” . The new moon of the 2nd and 3rd September was the day before and as usual it is a time for setting intentions and planting seeds – just on the new moon or afterwards. It was a new moon in Virgo, the last new moon before Eclipse cycle started in 2 weeks (2 weeks ago now).

Virgo is all about health, healing, “separating the weeds from the chaff”, cutting through people, finding what’s true, honouring the flow of body, mind, soul, spirit and reconnecting with our body and soul – what feels good, what doesn’t, how do I feel after eating this? Am I drinking enough water? It’s an excellent moon to detox! And it’s asking us to take full responsibility for our health and to be discerning especially health wise.

We’re clearing out the old – the top down governments and structures, and creating space for a new reality to be in the famous “Age of Aquarius” which is actually the time we’re moving into now. This is a time where we will become more concerned with humanity, the collective, and the power to and of the people – just like we’re seeing globally and in the communities we’re creating in our Mindful Moments and our Spring Shed.

But there is also a last gasp at control and we may feel intensifying of control for next few months (like health regulations). Michelle McClulan talked about the founder of Telegram, a platform for free speech and far less controlled than some of our other social media platforms, arrested in France recently. This is a perfect example of that “last gasp” at top down control. We’ll also see secrets coming out – look out for it in our news and world leaders and high profile businesses – and perhaps in our personal lives and families too.

In this Age of Aquarius, we are co-creators, and everything is frequency. We are receiving assistance from God and the Cosmos about releasing old patterns, and the Spring Shed comes at a perfect time. We are literally supported by the Heavens and Mother Nature in our quest to Shed our “Stuff” physically and emotionally, the “layers” we have gathered through our lives, and to learn to Live Life Lighter.

We all live busy lives with so much news, information and intensity happening in our daily lives. We are all extremely busy, there seems a new levels of it all.

And yet we are called to make life more sacred. To ask the questions “What is sacred? How do we make life more sacred?”. We’re being called to bring more consciousness into our doing, and more presence into our being. We can do this by practicing mindfulness, connecting to nature, lighting candles, creating an alter in our home, earthing our bare feet on the ground, gazing at the sun, moon and stars, laying the table beautifully to create a special environment for a meal, cooking healthy nourishing food for ourself and loved ones, and so much more. Virgo asks us “What am I focusing on?” We are creating our reality. We have the control.

So on this very auspicious day, it’s the perfect time for setting intentions, not just mentally in our mind, but creating the feeling in our bodies as if it’s already here.

Have you set your intention for Spring Shed?

Mine is to create Breathing Space for myself – physically, emotionally, work wise, and in my relationships.
My mantra is “I am worthy of Breathing Space in my life”
A question you can ask yourself while deciding your intention is
“What allows me to feel light more often every day?”

And other mantras you may want to use are
“I move through life with Ease and Grace” and
“I am an eternal flame, and each day my light grows brighter”.

My intention is to do a breathwork practice daily – starting with Didi’s lovely offering yesterday. I will also use my Breathe oil which helps emotionally to give me “breathing space”.

Physically I will be focusing on my chronic blocked sinuses which I feel are the result of the spike protein in Covid and in the Covid vaccine. I didn’t have the vaccine but I did have Covid and I have really struggled with blocked sinuses since then. So I will focus on and share the oils and protocols I have used to help me – oils for chronic sinus infection and for opening airways, along with lymph drainage techniques and acupressure points, mouth taping, spike protein detox and more. These have all helped me enormously but I’m not consistent with them. After a few days I think I’m better but then I find I relapse again. This Spring Shed I intend to clear my sinuses properly to give myself physical breathing space. I hope you’ll join me as I know so many are struggling with this issue.

I also intend to give myself breathing space by pausing before responding to WhatsApp’s so I can reply in the time I have assigned and chosen – so don’t panic if you haven’t heard back from me, but if it’s been a couple of days, or it’s urgent, please feel free to nudge me with another message to put it back on my radar. I would be grateful.

I intend to set the tone for my day and not to be reactive in my work and my actions. I plan to create time blocking systems in this Spring Shed time that will be supportive to me. And to slow down as I do things – I often catch myself rushing through things, mouth breathing, breathing shallowly, in a mild state of “panic” and just generally not treating myself kindly when I do this.

And so takes us into our poem and our Mindful Moment which you will realise is more for me personally than anyone else but I hope you will find it a wonderful reminder too …

It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection. The harsh voice
of judgment drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn’t a relay
race; that we will all cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
were born for. As many times as I forget,
catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I’m going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly into the mystery.”
Danna Faulds

And for those who would like to listen, the recording is here. And please feel free to share.

And if you’d like to join us in the Shed, here is the door.