Jenny Heston

It’s All About the Balance Baby – Autumnal Equinox and 8 steps to harness this energy.

There are 8 spots on the wheel of the year and these are called Sabbats. 4 are major and 4 are called “lesser” in other words they are the mid point between 2 of the major. So this Equinox, which is also known as Mabon (named after the Welsh god, Mabon, son of the Earth Goddess Madron), is a lesser Sabbat as it is mid way between the summer solstice and the winter solstice. Does this mean it has less energy – heck no!

This is the second harvest, the fruit harvest, late July we celebrated the first harvest festival which was Lammas. With this festival, you are being invited to look at the seeds that you sowed in the Spring, on every level, and reflect on how they have manifested. Most crops are in and the fields are beginning to look brown and are slowly going to sleep for the winter (unless they are filled with gorgeous orange pumpkins). I personally have pulled up all my soft and tender zucchini plants and am almost done harvesting my tomatoes, but I am going to leave my carrots and beets in the ground until first frost (it makes them far more juicy!) In my wanderings with the hounds I also found a gorgeous old, old abandoned orchard filled with apple trees and have been harvesting apples galore (although the bears have had something to say about that!)

What you need to appreciate is that Mabon is the balance point, the place where there is equal amount of day and night. While we harvest and celebrate the glorious gifts we are receiving we have to accept that the soil is dying, and release. We have food to eat, but warmth is gently tucking behind us and cold and dark lie ahead. Now if this if making you gulp a little, don’t! Remember you can’t experience light without the dark and vice versa. When the day and night are of equal length, it offers a powerful vibration and harmony between the time of creation (night) and the time of manifestation (day). This allows the flow between creation and manifestation to be more seamless and flows with ease and effortlessness. There are no limits on what you can manifest during an Equinox, however, for a Spring (Southern Hemisphere) it is a time of new beginnings and for us in Autumn it is a time to harvest, release and let go.

So how do I mark this time and celebrate it and harness this glorious energy you may be asking. Good question and there are a myriad of ways, so pick whichever resonates for you. You can do more than one most certainly, but if it feels like a chore – put it to the side!

Create An Altar

Now if the word altar makes you uncomfie, call it a celebration nook or a gratitude space. It could be on the dining room table, a kitchen counter a dresser – you name it. Gather up leaves, acorns, seed pods, rocks, twigs – whatever calls out to you and put them in a lovely spot and enjoy them. Take your kids or friends on a Nature walk. When you have gathered and placed give them a little blessing and thanks. It’s the ritual of taking time to acknowledge that’s important, not the objects per se.

Clean House!

With the longer nights soon approaching and most of us spending more time inside than out, this is a perfect time to do a fall version of spring cleaning. Gather together the things that no longer serve you, it could be clothes you don’t wear anymore, books that you aren’t going to read again, those random arsed odd soxs that you hold onto just in case…… Release them. Gift them to a charity shop (not the odd soxs), take them to your library, but give them a little pat and thanks and pass them on to someone else who will enjoy them. Give your house a good clean and then do a smudging. Decorate your home with symbols of the harvest season. Buy or pick a gorgeous bouquet of orange, gold and green and have it somewhere where you can see it daily.

Celebrate Your Abundance!

When we say abundance, it doesn’t necessarily mean material or financial gain — you may be abundant if you have friends who love you, a satisfying family life, or a rewarding career. Think about that things you have for which you are most grateful. I get Notes from the Universe, every morning (and I love them) and today’s was – “If you’re reading this right now on a phone or computer, you’re rich. If you have somewhere to go today, you’re connected. And if there is anyone anywhere for any reason knows where you are at this moment, you’re loved.“

You can turn it into a game with your family at dinner time and everyone takes turns to share what makes them feel abundant (it’s very cool to hear all the various responses).

Play With Your Food

If you have access to berries, apples, pears or whatever fruit is around you right now. Gather it all together and create an abundance mandala. In other words, play with your food! Get your most favourite dish out and arrange the fruit in any way that you like that resembles a mandala and have it for dessert (or your main course). Involve your kids, have friends over, but celebrate!

Apple Magic

Apples are the perfect symbol of the Mabon season. Long connected to wisdom and magic. The apple has figured significantly in many sacred traditions. It is known as a symbol for life and immortality, for healing, renewal, regeneration and wholeness.

If you cut an apple widthways it reveals a pentagram containing seeds. The five points represent the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water with Spirit at the top, and thus also the directions of East, South, West, North and Within. The circle of the apple around the pentagram represents the eternal circle/cycle of life and nature, and of wholeness.

So if there are apple trees nearby, or a local pick your own orchard go get some apples! Then think of the pies, crisps and crumbles you can make with your glorious fruit. You could also dehydrate (dry) the apple circles and make them into an edible wreath.

It’s All About the Balance Baby

As I mentioned earlier, Mabon is the perfect time of balance between light and dark. So why not give yourself the gift of balance. Take a few moments or longer and just sit and breathe slow and deep and meditate on balance. Reflect on how you handle pressure, how you manage your emotions and other people’s. Is your life in balance? Do you make sure you get enough rest, water and play or are you pushing and striving and feeling a tad overwhelmed? What little shifts and changes can you do to create more balance in your mind, body, work, home life, family? Do you need to practice saying No more or do you need to practice saying Yes more? Get it? So just take some time and if you feel inclined write down a few small tweaks that would make you feel more in alignment and balanced.

Decorate with Sunflowers

As I have said repeatedly, I love, love sunflowers! Their big bobbly heads that track the sun, their glorious cheerful faces that waft in the breeze. But as with all things, that changes. The petals are starting to drop off and the seed heads are beginning to curl back a bit and the leaves are drooping. So I’m gently going to trim the heads off the flowers, save one and dry the seeds (so I can’t plant my seeds at Spring Equinox) and with all the rest (and there are quite a few), I’m threading them on fishing line and hanging them in the branches of the trees for the birds. That way the birds and the squirrels can stock up on seeds before the winter comes.

Light ‘Er Up!

Get a candle or candles and as you light them you can ask for blessings on your home, hearth and self. This doesn’t have to be complex or over the top (although if you want it to it can be). You can just simply take a breath, light your candle and say “Goddess or Green Man, I ask for your blessing on this special day. Bless my harvest, my home, my hearth and my self. Keep us safe and warm, the winds away from the door, harmony and health abounding. I give thanks and so it is.” Voila! Remember though, please don’t leave candles unattended and most certainly don’t go to sleep with one burning.

If you like ritual there are two gorgeous ones here – one is for Autumnal Equinox (Mabon), and the other (if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) is for Spring Equinox.

So delicious one, that is how to celebrate and harness this potent time of Equinox. I hope you give yourself the gift of doing something to mark this special day.

Enjoy!

Spring Equinox Ritual

Jenny Heston · 5:11 pm ·

Ritual for Spring Equinox

This ritual is wonderful for manifestation, protection and a clear creative mind.

What you will need:

About 10 brightly coloured flowers

A candle – preferably pink, yellow, purple or white

Your favourite crystal and here I would recommend Citrine if you have it.

Pen and Paper

A willingness to get creative and clear

Find a little space and a spot for your ritual. Personally, if the weather is half decent I go outside.
Hold your crystal to your heart and envision that as you breathe in long and deep you are breathing in through both the crystal and your heart.
Pick up your pen and paper and write down what you want to create, attract, manifest or bring into form into your mind, body, life, work, home. When you have finished writing, gather up your flowers and arrange them in a circle leaving one for later.
Pop your candle and the paper you wrote on into the circle, but keep hold of your crystal.
Say your manifestation aloud 3 times and then light your candle.
Just sit and take in the energy of your sacred circle. Just breathe and enjoy.
When you feel ready, release what you spoke aloud out to the Universe by picking up your flower that you put aside and tossing it into the air. Feel the Universe grab your words and whisk them off on a glorious Spring breeze.
Take the piece of paper you wrote on and burn it in the light of the candle. Then gently gather up your flowers and pop them into a vase so they can remind you for the next few days.

Awesome! You have just set the wheels in motion for creation.

Autumn Equinox Ritual

Jenny Heston · 5:07 pm ·

Ritual for Mabon

This is a great ritual for releasing the past, clearing negative beliefs or feelings and welcoming in something new.

What you will need:

Herbs

Bowl for water

Candle preferably white, yellow, green red or orange

Your favourite crystal

Pen and Paper

A Willingness to Release

Give yourself the gift of time and space. Find a nice quiet spot. Light your candle and place it next to your bowl of water.
Hold your crystal for a few minutes and just breathe. This helps to clear your mind, get you focused and to release.
Put your herbs into the water. You can use whatever herbs you have, in fact you can even cut open sachets of herbal tea.
Using your finger, stir the herb water around in a clockwise direction 5 times.
Take your pen and paper and start writing. Write down anything you want to release in your life. It could be small, big, it doesn’t matter.
When you are done writing, say it outloud 3 times. Then fold or crumple up the paper and place it into your herb water.
Swirl the water around again with your finger 3, 6 or 9 times. Watch the paper get soggier and soggier.
Take your bowl (and being careful not to slop onto yourself), lift it up to your heart centre. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale, breathe over the water. Then state loud and proud “I release all of this for my highest good. So be it.” Then pour your water out and throw the piece of paper away.

You have released and created space for something new and lovely to fill that space.

Holy Hannah it’s almost New Moon and Equinox! Weekly Reading September 18th.

Jenny Heston · 2:00 pm ·

Happy Monday, happy new week, happy nearly New Moon and Equinox! (Happy glorious day to you delicious lovely!) How are you? Did you take some time in the last week to rest, relax and play? I pushed it a bit too hard over the last few weeks with work, staining, staining and more staining (I think there should be a staining recovery group) and my body finally said – meh, this is not fun and so we are going to hand you a lovely little virus that is going to make you feel like shit, slow down and sleep. Bugger! I am a very grumpy sick person to be honest, however, I have paid attention and took the weekend to read, sleep, eat soup, sleep and read. Although I did push a tad and insisted on building a gorgeous arbour header, stained and mounted it on Saturday, which I am very happy I did. Every time I look at it now I smile. Why? Because it is beautifully shaped and it has all the phases of the moon carved and cut out of it and that resonates for me. So once I had finished that I donned a big sweater, made a cuppa tea and curled up in a big garden chair and read my book and watched the chickadees attack the sunflower heads with vigour.

We head into birthday season tomorrow (note I said season), as there are 3 of us in September, 3 of us in October, 3 of us in November and 1 in December! Can you say – ribbon by the largest spool possible? It’s my son Ry’s birthday on Wednesday which is also the New Moon and mine on Friday (the Equinox), so we are going to have a joint celebration of birthdays and Equinox! Whoot! Whoot! Ry very kindly gifted me as my birthday present the new book from Brene Brown called “Braving the Wilderness”, it just came out on Tuesday and if you haven’t got it – go get it!. I was reading it this past weekend and wow, she blew it out of the park again. It’s about the quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone. As Brene says – true belonging is not about fitting in, pretending, or making the people around us comfortable because that’s safer.

I don’t know about you but there have been times in my past where I was most certainly a chameleon and tried to ensure others were comfortable even though I most certainly wasn’t. Not a great way to spend one’s time that’s for sure. So it was interesting to see which deck wanted to come play this week, I most certainly thought it would be the Divine Circus however, it is one of my other new decks, The Isis Oracle and it’s very appropriate actually as it addresses the fact that you are a powerful soul who is awakening. The crystals that wanted to come play are Amethyst, Smoky Quartz and Rose Quartz and of course Selenite as an amplifier.

With all that being said I invite you to take a moment and just settle into your body. Feel your feet on the earth (give your toes a little wiggle even if they are in shoes), lengthen your spine and roll your shoulders up, back and down. Breathe gently in through your nose and sigh it out through your mouth. Give your shoulders another roll up back and down and when you feel ready, pick the card or cards that resonate for you. Trust yourself.

Have you picked?

Shall we go see who wants to work with you this week?

INITIATION

When you are being spiritually initiated into the mysteries of light, love and power, there are moments of deep challenge. The key is to find the light within the challenge – the learning, growth or wisdom that can be summoned to turn the challenge into an opportunity for healing. Initiation will occur at various stages. Sometimes your entire life will feel like an initiation, at other times specific areas will be flowing easily whilst others re deeply challenging. Please know you are not needlessly suffering. If you can find the light within the struggles, tests or challenges that face you now, you will experience breakthrough healing.

As an Initiate, honour life as a gift and treat any challenge or pressure as a way for you to grow into a brighter and purer light capable of great spiritual service on this planet. That spiritual service includes growing an ability to be able to love freely and beyond limits, to love with courage and faith.

In fact initiation for you now, dear one, is an opening to new levels of power and peace, self-possession and love. There are such sweet fruits waiting for you at the top of the tree you are currently climbing. It may seem as though you are in barren land at times with little hope, nourishment or encouragement, yet your spiritual oasis is not far away! The Lady Isis and the Power of Ra together are helping you grow. Stay focused on the Lady and Her love for you and you shall pass through the desert of the Initiation unharmed and deeply transformed.

MAGICK AND RITUAL

Effect in the external world can be created through inner practice. Magick and Ritual can support your Divine Path now in the physical world and you are encouraged to enhance your power with regular practice. The results that you experience will encourage you to continue with the practice as you grow in power, grace, love, ability and wisdom, and apply your inner beauty to transform your outer world.

For us to grow empowered and potent we need to honour our knowing and being and cultivate sacred practice. Sacred practice becomes the habit of growing our spiritual power and consciousness. Like a garden needing regular care and watering to blossom and flourish, our inner garden of the Soul, where our creativity, joy, spiritual gifts and bliss bubble away, also needs regular attention. Coming to our practice takes strength and inner will – even though it can feel amazing, we still have to wake up, set aside time and discipline ourselves to show up for our own inner growth. We will reap the benefits when we do, but we must allow ourselves to fall in love with our practice, to craft something that really speaks to us, so that we want to do it. The desire and discipline together help us engage with our practice regularly and we can grow so fast it can be quite shocking!

You have great power and wisdom within you, but you need to provide channels for it to flow and be active and empowered in your physical life. Sacred Practice is such a channel. Without these channels, the ego is left to create on its own which is not much fun at all! The ego believes in fear and separation and no matter how much it may want to feel love, bliss, connection, joy and fulfilment, it really cannot do it without your spiritual presence in life. Choose what feels good for you and experiment with what might be a regular pattern of practice for you. You are worth the effort! Remember, whatever effort you do put in will be repaid to you in wonderful benefits many, many times over!

FLOWER OF LIFE

You are entering a fertile period of your life. Focus on your innate creativity and how potent this is becoming, and watch it rapidly grow! You are guided to think of yourself as a creative being and to surrender your control over how things will manifest and instead allow them to do so. Don’t resist change, instead flow and let it happen. Now is the time for your blossoming. Your Soul is hungering for creativity and manifestation of the beauty in your inner world, to witness it and live it in your physical world too. Much of your spiritual energy is directed into creative process and your creative powers are growing fast now. As you are gaining more potency in your creative flow, it is important that you use this growing ability wisely. Become aware of how easy and quick your thoughts and feelings are manifesting into conversations, situations and responses from the Universe. Notice how quickly your prayers are confirmed through sign and dreams, intuitions and opportunities opening up for you. You are becoming more and more swiftly that which you choose to think, feel, speak and believe.

Align yourself with love each morning so that your thoughts will serve you well and the manifestations you set in motion will be ones that enhance your life experience, rather than more of what you do not want to experience! It can require time, habit and consistency to change patterns of thought and behaviour but it can be done. You are guided now to allow yourself absolute and radical permission to detach from past thoughts and behaviours, to bear the challenge of not knowing who you are or how you will be on the “other side” of the transformation, in order to let it happen.

The Flower of Life contains repetitive patterns, each interlacing and inter-relating to the other. In this way, all that is required is to tap into one part, one element, one thought or one behaviour that relates to your desired creative outcome – and integrate it into your life. All the rest will flow through natural connection. You are in the midst of a changing pattern and although it might be uncomfortable at first, it holds the seeds of what you desire and to allow it to happen is wise and loving to the Self. Be brave, beloved one. The Flower of Life is nurturing you into a more whole expression of your Divine self.

Holy Hannah. Have I said how much I love the cards and how they work? So we have gone through Initiation, to creating a Sacred Practice to Manifestation. If you have never seen the image of the Flower of Life, there is a great article here. I have often used this pattern for crystal gridding and love it. So delicious lovely have a superb week, remember to plant your seeds with your New Moon wishes and if you are on the wonderful email list keep your eyes peeled on the 22nd as my birthday gift to you is a fun ritual for clarity, manifestation and magic on the Equinox. Remember to breathe, receive and allow and have frigging fun! See you next week or possibly Friday! Huge hugs and big love.

Post Full Moon, School is in and Fall is approaching! Weekly Reading September 11th.

Jenny Heston · 2:45 pm ·

Hello, hello, hello my delicious lovely – happy Monday and how the heck are you? It feels like weeks and weeks since I last dropped into your mailbox (and it is two weeks!) Did you take the opportunity to work with the gorgeous Piscean Full Moon last week, the energy of adjustment, intuition and creativity? I most certainly did and had a lovely ritual with candles, releasing, tuning in and mind mapping.

We have had months and months of hot weather (brutally hot as far as this redhead is concerned) and weeks and weeks of smoke. In fact the smoke was so thick the other day I had to remind myself that I live on the side of a mountain, there is in fact a huge lake somewhere down there and a city as well, because you couldn’t see any of it. It felt very much like being trapped in a Victorian Jack the Ripper movie where the fog is so thick you can’t see anything until it’s right on top of you! (Thankfully no Jack the Ripper was lurking in the smoke). Thus with all that and deciding I hate straight lines (which I knew) so decided to carve what felt like miles and miles of fence – one board at a time in a glorious undulating wave pattern in the heat and the smoke (so I wore a tea towel over my face and was accused of playing cops and robbers with myself) lol. It was such a relief to receive rain this weekend.

When the gentle first few drops hit I was outside staining said fence and I laughed with glee. Then it got a little stronger and I realised that staining the fence was a bad plan so packed everything away and decided to go weed the garden. Then the rain got a tiny bit stronger and I soon got rather wet, time for tea, a comfy chair under the outside roof and just watched it. I could literally hear the earth sigh with relief and the crick, crick sound of plants stretching out their stems and leaves to catch the precious rain drops. Thankfully the cute summer shower was enough to wash the smoke away and I was thrilled to wake up and be able to see blue sky, the sun and go hiking with the beasts without feeling I was inhaling a bonfires worth of smoke. The smell of freshly washed plants and nurtured dirt was divine! I did a massive Happy Dance!

To me it’s very important to celebrate the shifts and changes in life, nature, work, mindset – you name it. Ergo, I did do a happy dance way up in the bush with the dogs and fully celebrated the rain fall. Let me ask – what did you celebrate this last week? Did something cool happen and you just let it slide by with a – meh, that’s not really important, anyone can do that? If so I highly encourage you to take a moment and think about the myriad of things that you have done, or have happened around you and they don’t have to be big at all, often it is the cumulation of little things and celebrating them full out that brings on the big things. So what do you want to celebrate from the last week or two? The deck that wanted to come play was most certainly “The Oracle of the Dragonfae” and the crystals are all raw geodes. Oh yes, and wild flowers from the garden came to help you to remember to celebrate and pay attention.

With this energy in mind I invite you to just be still for a moment, breathe deep into all the corners of your belly and let the air out with a sigh. As you take another deep breathe put one hand on your belly and another on your heart. Give your shoulders a little rotate of up, back and down and just breathe to your palms and allow yourself to be filled up with celebration, love and gratitude. Keep breathing this way and when you are ready pick a card or cards that whisper or loudly call to you. Trust yourself, trust this is a divine, abundant, loving Universe and you are being guided.

Ready to pick?

Have you picked? Ready to go see who wants to spend time with you this week?

THE DAWN WATCHER

Never think that you are alone in this world…you do have guardians and I am one of them. I will literally ring alarm bells for you when you have need of forewarning and foreknowledge. There is nothing to fear when you receive these messages; you simply need to pay attention, take note and act when the time is right. I will always alert you and it is my particular domain and charge to watch for the new sky as the sun rises and to let you know that what you have hardly dared even hope for has every chance of coming true. Watch for the sunrise and know that as she does, so too do your hopes. And these bells will ring out for you to let you know of the approach of new growth, new warmth and a new energetic time coming for you. Listen and hear the bells ring for you. And then you shall awaken from your soul sleep!

It is time to be alert and aware; to arise early and to pay attention to the signs that abound around you – selectively. Focus on your mission at this time and work towards it. Be determined and do not allow others to distract you. Call on the Dawn Watcher to assist you to focus on the messages that are most worth hearing, and so that you do not go into fear. The Dawn Watcher is a very powerful guardian and will help you greatly be alerting you with plenty of time; all you need to do is pay attention.

Listen more respectfully to the bells of dreams, deja vu or of physical reactions to particular energies. The Dawn Watcher only weakens when you pay her bells no head, when you will not wake up and hear the calls. Know that you are always being watched over and being told through your body, your mind and your spirit of what is to come.

THE LOVERS AT THE FEAST

You are being sent a very strong message by the Dragonfae, the Goddesses and indeed all that is to take your healing into your own hands. This does not mean rejecting traditional western medical practice: it means investigating dietary components that may be compromising your perfect health. Nurturing food, with organic, fresh, and wholesome ingredients will be of great benefit to you at this time. You are healing yourself when you investigate this type of medicinal approach. Food has magickal qualities and is an amazing healer. Please investigate which healing foods would be best for your own needs, your individual system at this time. The time you take in preparing such foods will nurture your own self-love, which will come full circle as improved energy, vitality, emotional stability and strength, increased capacity for joy and better sleep.

At this time the invitation is to look at the food you consume as we feel it may not be supporting you and that you are not choosing the energy with which you create your life wisely. After a seeming famine, a feast will come. After periods of loneliness and hardship, where we each worried so about how our needs would be met, we have experienced renewed joy and the truth that we are amply provided for by this beautiful green and blue planet, Gaia.

How often are we led to the table of delights in this world, only to turn away from all the blessings that are offered, claiming there is nothing there for us? Here the Lovers at the Feast have returned to a place where they will eat well, in an environment filled with love and where each is cherished. It is time to release any form of lack mentality and turn to caring for yourself, eating well, loving the planet and feasting – all are blessings indeed. Your needs are always met and you are truly loved.

THE TIME GUARDIAN

The feelings you have, of time contracting and expanding, are real insights, not simply your imagination. Time is a living dimensional being, whose powers include the ability to devote more time to those of us who require it, and for time to speed up or slow down then it may be necessary, too. It is in this way that we are able to divine and travel through the threads and weaving’s of time, and move forward into seeing our future…in truth, we are already there. And much of who we truly are remains an echo. The time beings of the Dragonfae, of whom I am one, know this, and guard and protect you from confusion. Similarly, they can assist you when you require time to be created. If you feel you are short of time, send a thought message to me, the Guardian of Time, and I will send you all the help you need to meet your goals within the time you feel you have. Know that time is available to work for and with you; you need only tune into it as a dimensional reality, and connect with the time beings. Know that you are a timeless being. Know that you are dimensionally vast, that you are protected, cherished and loved.

If you work with time rather than trying to compartmentalise, control and define it, if we return to the lunar and solar and astronomical ways, if we celebrate the time changes apparent in nature all around us with the Wheel of the Year, then the time span we have will be richer and more joyful, our vocations will be discovered and we will no longer struggle to cram so much into our days. Because changing our perceptions is such a mammoth task, the Time Guardian is sometimes very tired, as the prevailing human mindset now is of time needing to be constrained and watched. He encourages us all to experience the natural flow of the energy we call time, and experience its multi-dimensionality. There is one simple way to work with him. Be in the present moment, more often.

Well that was a very interesting reading and some powerful messages about paying attention, looking at how you nurture yourself with food and being present! All pretty important things, the question is are you listening? Wishing you an amazing week and remember that next week there is a glorious New Moon and it’s Equinox!!!! (I love Equinox and it’s my birthday as well!)

Jenny Heston

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Release Anxiety And Claim Your Power