Yesterday, was a magical day, full of many synchronicities, connections, remembrances and blessings. It was my birthday, the best birthday so far. The day started with many birthday wishes. They came in waves from many different parts of the world. Starting from the East, then Europe followed  by America, and went back to Japan.  Thank you everyone for the wishes and sending love my way. Each wish seems to have helped touch my heart, helped it open a little more to be able to receive a little more love.

This birthday helped bring together various strands in my life – receiving healing through food/cooking, nature, mantras, yoga, astrology….

Normally I like to go out for a special birthday meal. On this birthday I felt very drawn to cooking a simple Indian meal.

This was followed by a wonderful walk on Hampstead Heath with my husband.

_____ fox glove hampstead heath

In the evening I went to the Deva Premal & Miten Concert with my husband & Reiki friends. Thank you Deva Premal, Miten & team for the magical, heart warming and heart opening concert in London yesterday. Thank you for coming here on my birthday, and so near me – the venue was only 10 minutes walk away from home. I experienced many profound, insightful moments at the concert yesterday, taking the mantras that I love to a deeper inner level.

There is a New Moon this coming weekend. Astrologically this New Moon is particularly significant. The New Moon energy is especially helpful with letting go of what does not serve us anymore, and planting seeds for new beginnings. To me, this new moon seems to be helping transform patterns to be able to live life with more ease.

Yoga teaches me that when I am comfortable, I am more likely to be still, and therefore more willing to be in the present moment, reducing the need for resorting to escapism. This can happen in so many different ways – through addictions, escapism and imbalance in the way I spend time – whether it is being glued to screens, even spending too much time with spiritual practices!

I find it very interesting that this insight about time is coming up now, as the planet opposing the Sun & the Moon is Saturn, the planet of time! An opposition is a call, an opportunity for receiving some more light, strength and wisdom to bring balance in my life. Feels good to realise that I can look forward to better balance in the way I spend time!

Saturn is not just about time, it is also the inner critic and the wise inner teacher. When I struggle with something, the inner critic would surface and I would think of what am I not doing or what am I not doing right. Now I am finding it increasingly helpful to look at the situation as an opportunity to deepen my connection with the inner teacher and stay open to receiving.

I experienced this at a Yoga class earlier in the week at my favourite Restorative Yoga class. I heard the teacher say that restorative yoga is about settling in a comfortable position to be able to receive. I have felt immensely comfortable in some of the same yoga postures before. But that day I just could not settle. I was wondering what it was about and it suddenly dawned on me that this discomfort was creating a window of opportunity for me to learn, for me to learn about receiving and about being at ease. At the end of the class, my Yoga teacher read the poem Clearing by Martha Postlewaite and it resonated deeply.

“Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worth of rescue.”

I received another way of deepening connection with the inner teacher at the Concert yesterday with the Mantra ‘Aad Gurey Namaha‘. Thank you Miten for this reminder.

One of the ways the Universe is helping us at this time, is with transforming the patterns that have been keeping us stuck so that we can live our life with more ease, presence, joy, love, good health and abundance.

One of the keys to this transformation is through connecting with what our soul longs for. Nurturing this longing can help with moving forward in life. Discovering these longings, knowing how to nurture ourselves is not always easy. There are many ways to connect with the soul. Paying special attention to our intuition and  emotions that are surfacing at this time can be very helpful.  At the concert yesterday, I felt that the Mantra ‘Asato Ma Sadgamaya‘ is also particularly significant at this time as it is a prayer to move from misperceptions to our inner truth, a call to shine the light of awareness on what is hidden (ie our longings) and needs to come up to the conscious awareness.

This feels like a great time to strengthen our inner light so that it can shine bright like the Sun.

I feel very blessed and grateful to have you and all these strands in my life, all my teachers, my daily spiritual practices of Reiki and Yoga that continue to strengthen my optimistic muscle, deepen my connection with the Source, my inner self, and keep bringing me back to balance, peace and harmony.