Saturday July 15, 2023, 8:00 am in Sydney, Friday July 14 at 6:00 pm in New Hampshire
Hello Beloved Reader,
I’m presently in Sydney, visiting my 85-year-old mother and three sisters: 45, 49 and 58.
Earlier this year, on May 2nd, I had emailed my older sister in Perth, Australia, “I’m wondering if it may make sense for me to go to oz for maybe 2 ½ weeks June 30-July 17.” She emailed back, “Qantas is having a sale, so I booked your flights for Sydney.” 😁
My older sister and her partner sold their business last year, and have been unbelievably generous with all of their loved ones. Talk about endless gratitude.✨🌟💖🙏🕊️
And so dear reader, I have been hanging out with my 85-year-old radical mother and enjoying lots of deep and meaningful conversations, touching on topics like sex, death, and enlightenment. Mum is a scorpio and I have moon in scorpio so we often enjoy a depth and intensity in conversation.
And if you’re one of those readers who sticks your nose up at astrology, as the CNN journalist Audie Cornish says at the end of this conversation with astrologers Dr. Jennifer Freed and Chani Nicholas in this CNN podcast:
You know, given all that you've said, it occurs to me that asking whether astrology is “real” or not, it sounds like it just kind of misses the point.
I love Dr. Jennifer Freed’s response:
Not only does it miss the point, it has missed the boat.
Millions of people are finding astrology relevant. So whether it's real or not, that’s a little off purpose at this point.
It's like any tool. How are we using it?
Let's be responsible, compassionate, forward thinking.
And as Chani and I both agree, let's use it as a tool for liberation, not just confirmation.
Dr. Freed’s most recent article, How to Use the Cosmos for Deeper Love and Connection, in Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper uses astrology in the most enlightened way: as a psychological tool for greater self-awareness and understanding of both self and others. She shares lots of lovely wisdom and I highly recommend reading anything Dr. Freed writes — the more tools we can learn to use to help our evolution of consciousness, the better off humanity and our planet will be.
My Australian mother has been interested in astrology since her early 20s when she met with an astrologer in London called Ingrid, who told Mum that she had been her mother in a previous life. My mother, who grew up in a country town in New South Wales, had never before met anyone like Ingrid and she says that she felt an instant connection with this older English woman.
Over the years with Mum’s interest in astrology, she encountered many scoffing and mocking attitudes. But Mum used astrology as a very effective tool for parenting: it allowed her to understand the character and psychological makeup of all four of her daughters in a way that perhaps Myers Briggs or personality tests help managers understand their employees in a corporate setting.
In any case, yesterday Mum and I sat at her dining table enjoying a cup of tea — the Sanderson women are all particular about our tea; Mum enjoys a cup made with 2 teaspoons of black Madura tea, 1 teaspoon of green tea, and freshly grated ginger. And as I like my tea sweet and ginger spicy, my 49-year-old sister gave me some of her coconut sugar which she told me is healthier as it doesn’t spike your blood sugar levels.
As we drank our tea, Mum told me about an Englishman she had heard about from listening to You Tube videos from the English astrologer Pam Gregory. The Englishman’s name is Rory Duff. At the same time she was telling me about him, I Googled him.
This is the kind of synchronicity I love. As Mum described how Rory Duff studies Leylines and Earth Energies, I read on his website:
He says that this seems, at the moment, to be leading him to raise awareness of the main Energy lines and to help get people gathering at their key sacred sites all around the country four times a year. These are the harmony times when all the Earth Energies move at the same frequency. He now considers that group prayer and meditation on these harmony times is intimately linked with the rise of the divine feminine and a coming rebalancing.
(my bolding and italics)
First of all, I cannot tell you how many times these days I’m experiencing the synchronicity of reading about the rising of the divine feminine, or the re-claiming of the divine feminine (after our world has been dominated by the patriarchy for the past 4,000 years), and I love how Rory Duff talks about “a coming rebalancing.” My sense is that we’re in the midst of this rebalancing now.
And what makes Rory Duff’s words feel even more synchronous to me: for two years during Covid, 7 of us — women writer friends — gathered online over Zoom to offer feedback to each other with our memoir writing, in addition to gathering at different sacred sites outside four times a year to celebrate the Solstices and Equinoxes. As Duff writes, “raise awareness of the main Energy lines and to help get people gathering at their key sacred sites all around the country four times a year. These are the harmony times when all the Earth Energies move at the same frequency.”
Perhaps our Solstice/Equinox gatherings were the seed of the Rising of the Divine Feminine in my subconscious that led to the blossoming of this Substack writing journey I began in September last year.
~
On Monday I will be returning home with a heart full of gratitude for the privilege of having been able to spend time with my 85-year-old mother.
As I’ve written about before, both my mother and my 49-year-old sister are very well practiced with not blaming anyone else for whatever feeling may arise within them. The senior Buddhist monks in the monastery across the road from Jamie’s and my home in Temple, New Hampshire, have this same capacity as well, and it’s something our human species needs so desperately to learn and master.
When a person lives their lives this way — not blaming others for whatever feelings may arise within, i.e. I am responsible for myself and my feelings — when a person has done this kind of inner work, time spent with them is healing and nourishing on a very deep soul level.
May more of us spiritual beings having a human experience do the inner work required to take full responsibility for our own lives and our own feelings, which will in turn help the rising and re-claiming of the divine feminine and re-balance our planet.✨🌟💖🙏🕊️
I’m also reading and loving Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s anthology, SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY, and will leave you with this excerpt from his book:
The Call of the Earth
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked what we need to do to save our world. “What we most need to do,” he replied, “is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.”
THE CALL
“SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY is a recognition that at the root of the ecological crisis we are now facing is a spiritual crisis, and that the essence of this spiritual crisis is a forgetfulness of the sacred nature of creation. Our present civilization has become separated from the story of the sacred that belongs to the Earth and our shared existence—that is at the foundation of life itself. As a result we have come to see the Earth as a resource to be exploited and polluted, existing to serve our materialist values, rather than a living being to revere and respect. The work of spiritual ecology is to reconnect with the sacred, so that we can return to a way of life that is in balance with the Earth.”
Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn; Ingerman, Sandra; Macy, Joanna; Nhat Hanh, Thich; Plotkin, Bill; Rohr, Father Richard; Shiva, Vandana; Swimme, Brian; Tucker, Mary Evelyn; Berry, Wendell. SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY (p. 248). The Golden Sufi Center. Kindle Edition.
Really enjoyed reading this; so many interesting and meaningful connections. Your family of generous and strong women sounds like a very loving and empowering group--continue to cherish each of them. 💚🌞 And I really appreciate the closing thoughts/quote you included about spiritual ecology--I think of how disconnected we (broadly in the west etc.) have grown from ourselves and our environment(s), and yet, as we each intentionally reconnect with ourselves and each other, and as we work to ground ourselves in healing and restorative ways, we are able to prioritize and genuinely tend to and care for selves, others, and our environment and planet at-large. So much generosity of spirit in your post--thank you for sharing all that you chose to here. 🙏✨🐢
Hi, Camille! I love Sydney! Was there (and elsewhere in Australia) in 2000 and always wanted to go back. I'm smiling because, talk about synchronicity! I was with my three besties last weekend and two of them are deeply into the Chani astrology app. The other two of us downloaded it and got started. It's really so useful. I'll check out that podcast. Was not aware of Dr Jennifer Freed, but one of my friends was into Pam Gregory, too.
I've long enjoyed Vaughn Lee's book. Good reminder to see about assigning a chapter to my students.
The excerpt has echoes of this gem, from Canadian David Suzuki: "The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity -- then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective."