It’s been quite a while since I posted a blog.

I gave myself a vacation from writing over the holidays and new year but now, with January wrapping up, I’m feeling recharged and motivated to get back into the habit of writing again.

I wanted to share my New Years Resolution – even though or actually, in honor of the end of this first month in the new calendar year – I will be practicing accountability or sovereignty in action all year long.

This year I’m not allowing room for excuses – internally or out in my direct world. I’ve vowed to approach each new event, situation, communication, en devour, etc. with as much transparency, responsibility and clarity as I am capable in that moment. No procrastination or distortions – or as little as possible. That’s the level I’m at with this new cycle.

Another New Years ritual I have is to read my tarot cards for the year to come. I do this New Years Eve typically and I allot a card per month and a 13^th card for overall theme/flavor/lesson/point of the year. This was the first upbeat, empowering projection I’ve received in well over 5 years, I think. The point was pressing – things are picking up speed, hurtling onwards and it’s time to perform at your topnotch level – but you’re ready for it, you’ve trained all your life for this.

My personal theme for 2023 is the Five of Pentacles – don’t fret or jump to extremes if you’re a tarot reader yourself, or an avid fan of tarot and you’re familiar with the card – this one is like an old friend to me and my unique role this lifetime. I’m not put-off or worried about the representation of a chaotic financial space or shake up in my material world at the least.

It’s kind of quirky but my husband and I sort of embody the five of pentacles as a lifestyle and we’ve been wearing this card on our sleeve in a way; learning and fumbling through so many material world lessons. It’s been very difficult over the years but at the same time, so worth the struggles.

We’ve learned so much and this year it’s as if we’re being asked to show our work or to put it all in motion and demonstrate our knowledge. It’s empowering and terrifying all at the same time but I know the key is to stay in the moment, to hold true to the end goal of seeking positively and to make conscious, aware decisions when a choice point pops up.

So – with all this newness in mind – I sat down to get back in the swing of blogging things and kick off my new year writing about something dear to my heart and currently offering a ton of working points in my direct world; the topic of material items and Sentimental Value.

I thought to share a personal struggle as an example of what these themes and lessons look like when they play out in real life, along with some of the insights and workings I received while going through the event.

The themes/lessons/concepts I’m going to be touching on and working through are as followed:

• You are NOT your things
• Just because you no longer have [that physical item] does not mean the memory is gone – and even if/when the memory is fleeting, the truth of existence is known always to the great Observer – no action within the aether goes unnoticed or unrecorded
• Items are merely physical representations or imitations of the more important and eternal energetic gift of the true live/original experience
• Your experience here as a human is more complex than you can comprehend now as a human – remember perspective is everything and you cannot take anything with you when you leave
• Keepsakes, mementos, souvenirs, relics all have their purposes and some provide sturdy railings for wobbly knees of some present human bearing a difficult load or burden – but we must remember they are tools to be used in real life to help us through and to be passed on to the next generation – not simply held behind glass as untouchable trophies, symbols of prestige or worth – to be worshiped and idolized, hoarded and boasted about.
• I am so much more than my single journey here just as all others I encounter, love, cherish, respect, admire and appreciate are more than the mere memory of them – no soul can be lost or forgotten on this great journey, so never fear abandonment – we will be reunited at the conclusion and all will be known

So much of my internal life has centered around memories and sentiments. Ever since I was little, I can remember feeling strongly attached to my stuff. I felt connected to and supported by my stuffed animals as a child. I worried whether one would feel left out if I didn’t include it in my bedtime setup or during playtime. I kept my things neat, I appreciated each item – from toys to clothes. I even remember the detailed way I absorbed the outside world around my childhood home. Little spots and hideaways I claimed as my own, a certain crack in the sidewalk with squishy dirt poking through, a perfectly bowed limb of the ancient magnolia tree in our front yard, a certain dirt path within the woods, a weirdly shaped rock. I really felt, and can still feel, all those special, unique connections.

To me, this ability to differentiate energetic connections, to feel and make these little realities within certain relationships with other things/beings resonates with the One Truth and can sync harmoniously with all life if we work to align the intention positively. It’s when we wrap up negative energies, expectations or assumptions into these relationships and communal spaces that we end up tangled up and in trouble. The obvious key to success? Balance is everything – it’s the one truth in action, just from the first person POV.

But in the moment, it’s hard to remain in that observer role and see your life as energy alchemy work. You must try to remember we are all taking part in the experiment to gain mastery of balancing our creative energies. Give yourself a break and allow mistakes, misunderstandings and reconfiguration. We are here in this world to be alive, 3D, solid yet malleable so it’s okay to dig in and get messy but you must remain sovereign – you came in alone, you go out alone.

Lessons from my 3D/real life example:

My journey through life has brought me far away from the safe haven of home I reveled in as a child. Maybe not that far in a linear, 3D way – since I’m merely an hour away from my hometown – but energetically speaking, I mind as well be on the whole other side of the world because that childhood home resides only within my memory now.

That was one of my first hard lessons – letting go of that rooted home and it’s physical presence, which had been so powerful and timeless to me growing up. When my grandmother passed it was like the centrifuge of our family died out and with nothing to rotate around anymore, we all just drifted off in our own directions.

The momentum of my adult life has always been fueled by my children and so I centered my new perception of stability around them and knew as long as I had my little family unit, I was home. Home is where the heart is became my mantra back then.

I worked my way through so much anger, bitterness, and negativity in that top layer with this initial lesson. I felt I’d had my support network ripped out of my hands. I saw myself as adrift and alone. Thankfully, I was also enduring a spiritual and mental awakening at that time as well, and so I was able to draw in cosmic connection and tap into Source’s unconditional love to ground and center myself.

I was able to start the journey to forgive my self, my family and the circumstances that led up to losing the house. I just didn’t realize at the time how deep the lesson truly is or how long it would take me to finally grasp the weight of it.

Regardless, this first round of lessons brought me through releasing so many entanglements and distortions I had tied myself up in through childhood around things like what kind of life I felt I deserved, how good of a mother I was, how successful or important others saw me as.

I spent years combing through triggers, losing my way, underestimating my strength and over amplifying my faults, mistakes and fears, but all the while I also kept finding small successes and reasons to stay trudging through swamps.

The real life catalysts have never stopped for too long, but hindsight now shows me that this was all for good reason. My husband and I stumbled through so much of the journey, like blindfolded fools but we’ve never stopped learning and hoping for better. Yeah, simple triumphs feel wonderful at first but the excitement fades so quickly; whereas the pitfalls may hurt to land in but you’re strengthened and invigorated by the climb out and the joy of perseverance remains long after the bruises fade.

And so the second lesson became accepting movement, change and unpredictability. This one has been a difficult layer for me to sink into. There’s so much programming focused on cementing us into place, forcing society to measure a person’s worth on how much material or financial assets they’ve amassed. Breaking out of the box and refusing others to stuff me back into theirs has been an ongoing process over the years.

I thought I was doing pretty damn good with lesson #2 up until December 2022 – and perhaps it was because I was doing such a great job at detaching and releasing that this catalyst popped up… maybe the universe wanted to test me to see if I really have learned to respond more fluidly.

Whatever the case may be, the stars aligned, the events lined up just right (or wrong) and I was thrown into a disruption I did not fully expect. For months, my husband and I had been bouncing around the idea of cleaning out our storage locker, taking only what we really wanted and closing it out. But we never got around to it, since it’s over an hour drive away and our schedules are pretty busy these days we kept making excuses and putting it off.

Well, as fate would have it, we got behind on the bill and found out it was due to be sent to auction in February if we didn’t get current with the payments. Immediately I spiraled into reactions of anxiety, shame and guilt. I felt like it was 2014 all over again and I was losing my home but this time, I was aware enough to see with clarity.

Presently I know I am not my things, just as I know I am not my body. I’ve already found my inner worth and sovereignty – essences that can never be taken from me.

This faith based knowing anchored me this time around and deterred me from jumping off the ledge. Instead, I approached the issue with a level head and allowed my inner mind to sort through why these things are so important to me, what I would do/feel/respond to if I did actually lose that stuff. I walked in the pain of loss, I felt full-heartedly the sadness and emptiness that comes with letting go.

And strangely enough, this time around I felt a great understanding crack open and leak into my being – just because I no longer have some item does not mean the experience didn’t happen and in fact the true essence of that ‘thing’ is already within me – recorded, maintained and stored forever.

Once I mentally sorted through the options and realized that no matter the outcome I’d be happy, just as I already am, then I knew I was ready to for whatever may unfold in the future.

This is where lesson 1 and 2 mix – how to hold onto that feeling of home yet simultaneously release that need to white-knuckle grip the steering wheel while you drive there. It’s not an easy task.

Humans are a tribal species – we are natural stewards and guardians. I feel this is true in the depths of my soul, however if I allow myself honest appraisal of the present moment, I must admit we’ve had this truth stolen or hijacked along the way. Now we’re made to believe we are only worth as much as we’ve got in the bank or our latest credit score. The more money and material comforts you have the more affluence you possess and that is the only way you can get noticed or to climb the ladder of success in today’s mainstream world.

This inversion is deeply rooted in the archonic takeover happening within the 3D Matrix space and we must all work to shake free of it as much as possible in order to see the true way to succeed as a whole. But I won’t get bogged down in that now, as I’d like to share the final layer of my journey and add the icing onto this lesson cake.

These kinds of lessons are usually quite obvious to us; but it’s picking up the practice points offered where things can get complex, complicated and difficult. Everything is how you choose to see it – things will be as uncomfortable or as easy as you choose make them.

A perfect example of this notion in motion is how perfectly the timing of bills, payments and incoming finances worked out, just in the nick of time to align and allow us to get current with that unit and save our stuff.

Through meditation and spiritual seeking I was guided to release the need for those things. I allowed myself multiple sittings over days and weeks to cry it out, to dig around and sort through stagnations and to release expectations both of the outcome and of my own self. I examined why I felt deep love for certain things, what memories and emotions were sparked by thoughts of keepsakes, relics and special items and why I feel the need to hold so tightly to those things and memories.

A lot of it boiled down to fears of worthlessness, worries of being forgotten or lost, extreme exhaustion, and an unsettling desire to preserve or reserve that which is “important” to me.

These are all heavily negatively oriented states of mind and I do not wish to embody frequencies like that. I know I deserve better. This awareness and faith has helped me to wash over and clear out the roots within these deep fears. Now I see the work for what it is and I see how much is still left to be pruned and nurtured. Instead of pushing myself to get to work healing, I chose to leave the excavation work exposed and see what happens.

I asked Source, my guides and ancestors in spirit to help me accept everything as it is now and to show me the best way through. I made a promise to myself that I would remain open and trusting this time and allow help to enter when it can. I put my faith in the divine plan and let go of the need and false illusion of control, for real – not half way or just some of the time – but completely and utterly knew that the best outcome would reveal itself when the time was right.

Days (or weeks – I’m so bad with time!) later, when the solution arrived, it actually surprised me, even though it was right under my nose the entire time! A path which wasn’t appealing the last time around had actually fruited and where before it just wouldn’t have worked – now things have shifted and the timing will be perfect.

Each small decision presented itself, like stones rising to guide me across a river, appearing as approached so we could fluidly jump to the next and the next. Before I knew it, we had gotten caught up and the risk of losing our unit and all our stuff was over.

This, I feel, has been a good example of how the Five of Pentacles card can act out in real life. The underlying moral/message to this card is one of learning how to move through failures because of course, disruptions and mishaps are going to occur to everyone at some point, but the hard times show us what means most to us, the things/people/experiences that money can’t buy, secure or create.

And furthermore, if we’re looking at these lessons through the lens of tarot and we cast our gaze down into the month of January for myself and my yearly reading, then we see it’s represented by the 6 of Swords, (reversed – if you acknowledge that).

I also let the moral of this card marinate through all of my thinking, meditations, light & shadow work around the situation, and used it as guidance in my verbal/mental approach each time.

If you’re unfamiliar with tarot, I won’t leave you hanging, the 6 of swords is all about deciding what to keep and what to cast away – both in your thought world and your communications with others. Recognizing what has worth to you versus what is holding you back (or stabbing a hole in your boat as the cards so often portray to us). It’s the knowing that time is precious and thoughts, words and action must all align in order for the goal to be reached. You must be willing to release any extra baggage and stick to the truth.

As I’m sure you can tell, if you’ve read this far – the work-throughs, the energy alchemy, my internal assessments & examinations were all inspired by a negative catalyst which only evolved into a wrecking ball crash because we had ignored the polite knocks to continue driving within a liar loop, distracted by scenery.

But as I stated at the start of this blog, the first of many in 2023, this year there are no excuses for us. I’m standing in my sovereignty and calling out the shadows as they appear. As much as possible, I’m choosing to remain conscious and aware of my truth and my internal compass and to live true to it. We’re speaking up and hashing out distortions as they’re sensed, instead of passing them off or hiding from them.

I’ve learned so much about why I value(d) certain material items and which kinds of mementos matter most to me – like my son’s special creations, school works and prizes, photos and traditional holiday relics. Also, I discovered that I’d never see myself as worthless, even if I had absolutely nothing but the clothes on my back, I still feel I would love myself and my family and this chance at life.

Most surprisingly, is the freeing sense of fulfillment that came once the sorting through was done. I felt a deep sense of peace and connection to the bigger picture after releasing my ties to all that stuff.

And finally – I must admit and relay to you that I’m super grateful actually to be given these hard opportunities to work through because I seriously have gained a lot of knowledge just by going through it all, things I would have never fine tuned without this particular experience. It’s so beautiful how the flow of infinite intelligence guides each one of us individually with such divine precision.

If I did not have these disruptions to work through I would have never been able to dig deep and pull out the shadows residing in the depths of my being. Of course we all want what’s for our best, but when it appears strenuous or inconvenient we tend to avoid or make excuses but as I’ve showcased for us all – we can only put something off for so long before the universe shakes up the whole foundation to get you where you need to be.

I’m sure I’ll have understandings bubbling up for weeks to come around this topic of sentimental value and what it truly means to me. I imagine I’ll be writing and talking quite a bit more about what we humans tie ourselves up with and why, how we got to where we are now with all the misconceptions surrounding worth and material goods and also how all this can be viewed within the spectrum of positive and negative service.

But for now, with January coming to it’s close and February arriving the day after tomorrow I’m preparing for the second card of my year – the Five of Rods. It’s seems an organic transition to me, even though it could be interpreted as as step backwards since the decline in the numerology – however the fact that the suit is rods and not swords signifies (to me) that the shaking up and sorting through of my mental workings and perceptions have loosened the other angles of my journey here and now this month coming I will be using the 6 of swords lessons to anchor back into my passions and creative powers to allow these new ways of seeing to permeate within my being to interact and shift the way I’ve been approaching my “rod”. The five is unpredictable but in this setting I can see how it will be very helpful to now return to my preset passions and rinse them out to find what’s works and what doesn’t, using new and old together to share my passions, my magic and to consciously co-create my life from this new higher perspective these lessons have given me.