October 2023 Editorial

Hello Everyone,

     I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Fall, and are having a great beginning to your holiday season.  This is my favorite time of the year, and it always brings back wonderful memories of years past as well.  To me, the holidays are a special time of the year when we get a chance to spend time with friends and family, or our family of choice.  I have many, many warm memories.  I hope you do too.

     This holiday season is a very special one.  In many ways, it marks the beginning of a new era.  We have all been through a lot over the last few years.  With all of the changes that have happened in our world, many of us have drifted away from the people we care most about.  Many of us have been compelled, through differences of opinion or ideology, to choose a side, and step away from those we love.  Still others have lost loved ones to illness, or physical distance because we’ve had to move or change jobs. 

     As we move into this holiday season, take a moment to look back over your own most cherished memories.  Pull up the old photographs.  Reconnect with those people that you are able to if you can.  A phone call or a text is never wasted whether it’s answered or not. Wash away the differences and the distance with your love and appreciation for them, even if they are no longer present in your life to speak with.

     Now is a time for gathering the best of your memories together, and keeping them safe in your heart.  It’s also a time for letting go of the memories that have brought you pain or loss, and washing them clean.

     We are all getting ready to move into a new future, into a place we’ve never walked before.  Do the necessary purging of all negative things that need to be left behind, so that only good memories remain.  Plan to move forward into a new future you create with the memories of joy and community and love and harmony that will help you to create your best dreams.  Doing this in October will make the remainder of the season so much brighter!

     I like to do a little personal ritual on the full moon closest to Halloween.  It has two parts.  I’d like to share it with you here.

     This year the full moon that’s closest is on the 28^th, and there’s an eclipse during this full moon too, which makes it extra special.  For part one of my ritual, I use strips of paper. On them I write all of the things that have caused me harm, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, that I need to let go of and heal from.  As I write on each strip of paper, one at a time, I allow myself to feel again the anger, or pain, or fear, or loss, associated with the thing I wish to purge.  As I write a few words on the paper that recalls the situation, I send all of that emotion through my hand, through the pen, and into the paper.  I lay the strip of paper aside. Then I sit for a minute, imagining myself in a shower of light running over me and into the ground, carrying away the powerful emotion I felt into the earth. Then I burn the strip of paper.  I do this with each situation in turn, purging the pain of the past, one thing at a time, and then forever letting it go in the heat of fire. 

     For the second step in my ritual, I either use strips of paper to write on, again, or I create a vision-board, using pictures I’ve cut from magazines or pulled from my archives.  As you’ve guessed, the second part of my personal ritual involves my gathering all of the hopes and joys and dreams that I want to be part of my future in the next year.  As I put pen to paper, or gaze at the picture for my vision board, I let myself feel the joy and excitement that particular desire will bring me.  I feel it the same way a young child would.  Without judgment, or worry, just pure childlike enthusiasm.  If I write my desires on strips of paper, as I write each I put it into a ‘vision box’ which could be any small box that I keep near me all year, so that once in a while I can take out my dreams, revisit them, and add positive energy to them.  If I do part two of my ritual as a vision board, I paste the pictures onto a large sheet of cardboard to create a collage.  Then I hang it somewhere that I will see it every day.

     As I was writing this, I felt someone asking, what if the thing that caused me pain is someone that I love who died?  How do I let go of the pain their death caused, but not of the love I felt for them?  When you do part one of the ritual you remember the hurtful and painful events of the person’s passing, and that is what gets purged and purified.  When you do your vision board or vision box, a picture of you and the person healthy and happy goes in.  Always remember.  People don’t die.  They change their state of being from physical to non-physical.  Someone you loved, and who loved you, will always be with you.  You may even feel their presence around you very strongly as you purge the negative emotion you’d felt, allowing only the deep love and joy to remain.  Remember, Halloween is when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, so we can feel our loved ones very powerfully.

     It is also now, when the veil is at its thinnest, that we can really feel ourselves moving to that next level of consciousness that is our birthright.  A new era is truly beginning.

     Don’t forget to keep your eclipse journal this month, starting on September 30^th and ending on November 11^th.  That journal is your ‘movie trailer’ giving you a glimpse of your next 6 months – and launching the New Year as well!

Love and Light,

Sandy Anastasi