Lassoing the Stars for a Better Life
Now Becoming:
Energy for Life:
A Column About Essentials
By Cyndi Dale
The Gift of The Stars:
The New Year
It’s a new year. And this column is changing—as are our lives, if we really want them to.
Every year at this time, we rip the calendars off our walls and post new ones. Which calendar are you going to pick this year? Maybe a picture-color perfect one with the Shetland ponies you never got to ride as a child; Venice canals you’ve yet to enjoy; mountaintops you haven’t dared to scale; chocolate desserts far too tempting to create. We can tell a lot about ourselves by what we choose to look at—and perhaps, never enjoy.
Maybe this year, we can stop dangling our dreams in front of ourselves and actually achieve a few of them. If we’re willing to do the following, that is:
- Believe in our dreams;
- Believe in ourselves;
- Believe that it’s the doing—not the accomplishing—that counts.
One of my favorite clients was an older gentleman named Henry. Henry came to see me when he was in his early 80’s. He had just been diagnosed with cancer. Henry didn’t come for healing. He came because he wanted to know what I thought about something.
“What ‘something?’” I asked him.
He looked sheepish. “Well,” he drawled. “The fact that I want to start jogging.”
Henry wanted to jog.
So I told him to jog. I told him to buy the brightest red tennis shoes he could find so that he could never misplace them or pretend he couldn’t find them on winter mornings and so he could always see that no matter what, he was moving ahead in his life.
I didn’t see Henry for a long time, but when I did, he entered my office with a big smile—and bright red tennis shoes. Not only was Henry jogging, but he was also taking a few college classes, just for “something to do.”
Henry didn’t live long enough to finish college. He didn’t live long enough to run a 5-K race or need a new pair of red tennis shoes. Did that matter? Were his accomplishments any less, in that he died without a diploma on the wall or a trophy of some sort?
As I think about Henry, I imagine that at death, he ran across the finish line—the boundary between life and death—feet first. I envision him even now, up in “heaven,” serving as a “errand boy” or page for God, distinguished by his red sneakers and an uncanny mind.
Henry understood what it took to live a full life. You set your goals. You decide that you are going to go for them no matter what. You design your life around them, right down to your footwear (we women will be happy to know about that), and then you embrace every part of the process, rain, shine, or sore feet. And you feel good about however far you get simply because you are getting there!
For those of you who have been reading Energy Astrology, know that I’m not giving up on searching the heavens for clues about our daily and spiritual lives. But this year, I’m changing the theme. Instead of looking upward—I’m going to look around. Instead of encouraging us to see what’s going to happen “to” us, I’m going to start insisting that we start happening “to ourselves.” Toward that end, I’m changing the title of this column, from Energy Astrology to Energy for Life: A Column About Essentials.
The word “essential” describes that which is essential or mandatory for our essence, that unique, brilliant, beautiful, amazing self that we really are. We’re here, on this planet, to express our essence in everything we are and do. We’re here to dance in the moonlight with others’ true selves, to give and receive wisdom with wild abandon, and to hold each other close when life hands out the tears—when we need a hand, not just a handkerchief.
In my revised column, I’m going to concentrate on sharing that which strikes me spiritually; that which the spirits strike me with; and that which will help us see everything about life as a reflection of spirit. I’ll present a theme each month—perhaps faith or truth or hope—but I provide no promises as to how I’ll develop that theme. I’m not going to just “pick these themes out of my head.” (Well, maybe I am.” Rather, I will ask—my guidance and The Above—if there is a special energy for the month. And then, I write about where this energy can take us—and where we can take it.
The purpose of this revised column is simple: To encourage all of us, including myself, to examine life for its essential goodness so as to live it fully.
Maybe this year, we can all decide to stop looking at the sky and the stars—the stuff that’s unattainable—and begin to open our hearts and minds to the world that’s already around us. Maybe this year we stop reading the astrological signs and celestial movements for what they are going to do “to” us, and decide what we are going to do for ourselves—and others. Maybe this year, we only post the calendars that describe what we’re actually going to do or become, not what we’re going to turn over to yet another year. Maybe this year, we buy our own red—or purple or pink or striped—tennis shoes and start running, even if it’s in place! We’re bound to get somewhere if we just get started.
Happy New Year,
Cyndi
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