An Open conversation on Religion…

Good morning!

This is the kind of thing that I usually hesitate to post, because I do not want to make anybody uncomfortable by getting too political or too religious ever. We are fostering an open and welcoming place- so I typically try to steer clear of overly divisive topics. 

But I was flipping through old journals whilst looking for inspiration and the right words as I was writing my wedding vows and I came upon something I wrote awhile ago very early on in my own spiritual journey and I had to remind myself that the topic is only divisive if you make it divisive, and that part of the way to create an open and welcoming space where people CAN discuss things, and learn from each other, and decide WHAT they believe for themselves is by talking CALMLY to people who believe differently.  

That specifically, the reflection in question was full of questions I was asking myself and that I wished I could ask somebody else. It has always amused me, talking to the parents of friends or other people’s families who don’t allow their kids to learn about other religions because they are afraid their children will be “taken in” or “converted” and it never made sense to me growing up. How are our young people supposed to know what they believe in if they don’t know what they don’t believe in, or what other people believe. I always wanted to say “you must really not trust how you have raised and taught your children, or in their decision-making abilities if you think that learning about the rest of the world is going to change them that quickly. What are you afraid of them finding?” It always sounded to me like people were trying to teach their kids what to think instead of how to think. Which is a very different thing.  

However, I digress. As I was rereading this old reflection it reminded me that what Taylor and I are trying to do requires courage. You must be open, and self-exposing, welcoming, and willing to discuss difficult topics yourself first before you can ever hope to inspire somebody else to be willing to do the same. That this is the place for those intimidating conversations to happen. We want to normalize the inner thoughts and the questions that we all have.  

So, in what I truly hope is the first of many conversations, I have posted below my thoughts from a younger Mikaela who was just beginning to find herself after a rough period of growth and self-awareness. It’s okay if you don’t agree. I hope you ask questions. I hope these sparks thoughts and reflections of your own. I hope we can talk and teach and learn from each other. I hope if we do disagree- we can do so with grace. So, from a much younger me: 

It’s been a long time since I originally wrote that in 2017 and there were a number of upheavals and hate crimes happening in the world at the time. But I think the bulk of this thought process still holds true for me. 

No matter your beliefs, or your stance on the matter, I hope we can discuss it with kindness, curiosity, and a genuine desire to understand and love others.  

All the best, Always.  

Mikaela 

Let’s talk about intention setting. It’s something you hear thrown around directly and indirectly all the time. From mindset and goalsetting gurus to psychologists and even the old adage ‘It’s the thought that counts’; your intentions guide almost everything you do. We place a lot of moral weight behind someone’s stated or hidden intentions. The concept of intentions has sparked some of humanities oldest proverbs and colloquialisms:  

• The road to hell is paved with good intentions. 
• Let a wrong-doing repeat itself at least three times: the first may be an accident, the second a mistake, but the third is likely to be intentional. 
• He who covers up his mistakes intends to make some more. 
• No matter how brilliant an action, it should not be considered great unless it was the result of a great motive. 

This is one of the fundamental differences in the conversation between magic believers and non-magic believers. Some people would argue that it’s the difference between magic and science, but I fall into the camp of people that believe all magic is science that we don’t have the ability to explain yet. That doesn’t make it not magic. Things that we now refer to as common knowledge science would have gotten you burned at the stake 400 years ago. Then there are those things that I believe mankind just isn’t meant to unravel or dissect- they just are part of the magic of existing. 

Whilst I hate being the kind of person that loads you up with definitions- some things bear defining. So let’s start there.  

Stated simply your intentions are your goals, aims, hopes, and meanings. Intentions encompass everything from all that you hope to accomplish to the thoughts behind actions you do for and to others. That’s a lot of weight to put on one little word.  

Intention setting is one of those science meets magic subjects that I love. Why? Because right now- the majority of people on the planet consider it hippy woo-woo metaphysical, magical, mystical and otherwise two solid frog hops from the Crazy Pond. Meanwhile the Scientific community is just starting to seriously explore the concept of intentionality in serious depth. We’re at one of those awesome crossroads where we can watch the process of the scientific being used to explain the magical. Its an exciting thing.  

The basic concept of formal Intention Setting is the basis for most forms of magic. Intention setting is the first step in Manifesting. It is the spark and creative power that pushes our desires, hopes, and dreams out into the universe so the Law of Attraction can work is magic. Setting an intention is more than just stating what you want and waiting for it to happen. It’s a purposeful direction of psychic and physical energy toward a goal. Anything less is just a wish.  

We talk about setting intentions constantly for both big and little projects, seasons, our lives; Before rituals, going into classes and experiences. “What are your intentions? What are you hoping to get out of this?” Setting intentions means being mindful of your thoughts and your inner dialogue. 

The law of attraction is founded on the premise that the quality of our most prevalent thoughts, moods and attitudes determines the quality of what we manifest in our lives (What Is The Law Of Attraction? – Forbes Health). Its quite literally the power of the mind and how it interacts with the positive and negative energies of the world.  

Ever had someone turn to you and say “Mind over Matter”?  

This isn’t a new concept. I mentioned in a previous post a quote by Napolean Hill “The Mind attracts the things it dwells upon.” Which is a more condensed version of his original “Our minds become magnetized with the dominating thoughts we hold in our minds and these magnets attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts”.  

In an Article by Forbes, Christy Whitman, a master-certified law of attraction coach in Scottsdale, Arizona, the founder of The Quantum Success Coaching Academy and author of The Desire Factor, has a great way of explaining the basics of the theory: 

“Thanks to the contribution of Albert Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2, we now understand that matter and energy are inseparable, and that energy is the basis of everything in our tangible universe,” she continues “Everything that manifests in the physical world does so by a process of resonant energies being drawn together.” Whitman explains that it’s like when a C chord is struck on a piano. “Every other key that is tuned to the chord of C quivers in response to the note that’s been sounded, because frequencies that resonate at a similar vibration are magnetized together,” What Is The Law Of Attraction? – Forbes Health 

Some of the most successful people in the world swear by the ‘Power of Positive Thinking’. Oprah Winfrey discusses it in her book ‘The Secret’. Other celebrity names include Jim Carrey, Lady Gaga, Denzel Washington, and Jennifer Lopez. Whilst I am not a huge follower of tinsel town- what I’m getting at is that there are some very successful mainstream icons that are beginning to recognize the science behind it. The idea also falls in line with the Power of Association (when your parents used to say “I don’t want you hanging out with so-and-so, they’re a bad influence!) and the idea that like attracts like. It’s the concept that the direction and intention of your thoughts has the ability to interact with the Intentions and purpose of the Universe; and in the words of Bernard Shaw “We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.” 

When we talk about intention setting in magic we’re talking about the power of setting your mind to something, of setting yourself firmly on a decision or path and using your will to make it happen.  

According to Bruce Lipton, an American Developmental Biologist and former professor of Epigenetics states that when we set intentions “the beliefs we hold in our minds are converted into electromagnetic fields by nerve cells and the brain ‘broadcasts’ this information to all of the cells within our body. Cells respond to the information in these energy fields and use it to control their behavior and gene activity.” On the flipside of that same coin, if we are prone to negative thinking and fail to set positive intentions within our lives, our cells will respond by preparing to Fight-or-Flight, adding stressor triggers subconsciously in our day to day lives. 

Science is beginning to be able to measure and demonstrate this. If you want to read more about the connection between biology, the brain and mindfulness and how intention setting can affect our neurology and in turn our physiology, this article (The Biology Of Intention-Setting: Our Body’s Response To Activating The Mind – Thrive Global) talks a lot about Dr. Richard Davidson and his work on Neuroplasticity. 

Another Phenomenal Read is “The Intention Experiment” By Lynn McTaggart which draws on findings of leading scientists around the world. McTaggart uses cutting-edge research conducted at Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and other universities and laboratories to discuss how intent is capable of profoundly affecting all aspects of our lives.  

One of my favorite Excerpts from that book is a quote from William A. Tiller, a professor emeritus at Standford University. “For the last 400 years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call physical reality. Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for todays world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct.”  

The farther science gets into the study of intentions setting, the more power they are finding resides in the mind. We are even beginning to use the power of intention setting in psychology as a form of therapy and trauma healing as well as traditional medicine. Doctors discuss the idea of “setting the intention to get well, even if you don’t know how to yet.” That the idea of openly stating an intention to get well, to heal your body, and to focus on your health in that time can act upon the subconscious and not only speed up the natural process, but actually open pathways in the body that trigger the body’s natural healing processes on its own. Your body is designed to heal itself- it wants to be at homeostasis. It’s essentially stimulating an immune response. 

If you’ve ever heard someone say, “you can’t help someone that doesn’t want to get better.” It falls under this same principle, just on a smaller, more subconscious scale.  

Now this isn’t to say that chanting “I am going to get better.” Is going to cure you of cancer. Modern Medicine still plays a roll and for very good reasons; your mind cannot fix 100% of anything- but it does play a huge role. Who knows what science will discover in the next ten and twenty years; in the meantime, the notable improvement in processes of the body that are already there make it worth pursuing. I can’t see why someone wouldn’t use every tool at their disposal to help their body do what it needs to do. If I had an infection and a doctor told me to drink lots of water, get extra rest, take lots of vitamin B and an antibiotic- I wouldn’t skip out on the vitamin B but do everything else. Sure, you’ll probably get better otherwise, but why wouldn’t you try and do it faster? If you’re trying to bake a cake and you only use 90% of the ingredients- you’ll still end up with something edible- but it might not be as good.  

The truth behind most modern Magic is at the end of the day pretty simple and straightforward. In more elegant words it’s a combination of intention setting and intense gratitude for what the universe gives us. Call it self-fulfilling prophecy, or the placebo effect. To dumb it down even further- its spicy psychology. And you can label it hippy woo-woo if you choose too but seeing the world the way that I want to and slowly manifesting or out-stubborning it until it reflects my vision has worked pretty well for me for twenty-eight years.  

That’s basically all it is. I decide what I want to happen. I set my intentions, very specifically. I focus my whole being on what it is I am trying to accomplish or manifest. Sounds simple huh? But simple and easy aren’t the same thing. Sure, you can say it out loud; whatever the intention may be. But at that point its just a wish more less. We’re talking about actual magnetism and attraction, which works on a molecular level. Its about actively changing your personal narrative and your subconscious on a chemical level. Which is harder than it sounds because humans are complex creatures.  

This is in some way, another area that the idea of mindfulness comes into play. You have to be aware of your intentions and your thoughts and your focus in order to direct them. And it takes discipline to build that skill. You’d be amazed at the number of people walking around the world with their thoughts higgledy-piggledy (or maybe you wouldn’t be) with little to no actual awareness of their thoughts or intentions. How many times do you hear “I dunno, I just didn’t think about it.” In response to a question regarding why they did something. And thoughtlessness is exactly it. The awesome thing about this though, is that its totally fixable. Its learnable. It’s something that you are in complete control of within your life.  

I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter, your experiences, or your questions. If you’re so inclined, please accept my challenge: Take a few minutes to set yourself an intention. Start small, and don’t give yourself a list a mile long (rule one of goal setting/ habit creating/ or manifesting). Pick one thing. Be Specific. Write it down. Say it out loud. Declare it to the Universe (note here I say the universe and not ‘people’). Pay close attention to how your personal narrative talks about it and thinks about it in your head. Any time you catch yourself referring to it in the negative correct it. Don’t just stop the negative- you must replace it with the positive. Repeat it to yourself multiple times a day. Affirm it. Be very intentional with this one thing. For 60 days. Then come back and tell me what happened and how you feel about it. 

Now go get intentional! 

All the best, 

Mikaela 

What are the parts of a natal chart and what does each one represent? 

We talked about what astrology is a bit in a previous post. Feel free to reference our What is Astrology? post if you do not remember. But more than likely, if you are here, you have a basic idea of what astrology is and want to dig into its meat and potatoes. Brief recap though… 

Astrology looks at a snapshot of the celestial bodies in the sky at your birth and how that affects who you are and how you interact with/view the world around you. This snapshot is called your natal chart. 

To find your natal chart you need: 

1. Your time of birth (because every couple of minutes everything is shifting as the earth turns) 

2. Location of birth (because the sky looks different depending on where you are on the planet) 

3. Patience and research (or a free website- see a couple good ones listed in our What is Astrology? post)

Basic astrology takes into consideration 4 main things to give you your natal chart: 

• The planets (including the sun, moon, and Pluto) 
• The Zodiac signs which the plants are located in  
• The Houses 
• Aspects 

So back in the day (note I am saying this in an exaggerated old timer voice), astrologers would divide the heavens around us into 12 sections or archetypes. These are the 12 signs of the zodiac. Now we know (hopefully) that we are traveling around the sun, but from our perspective on Earth, it appears that the sun, moon, planets etc travel through the sky around us and as our observant ancestors noticed, it takes a certain amount of time for them to travel in set patterns “around” us. As astrologists tracked the path and patterns of celestial objects around the zodiac, they started noticing things like the fact that it takes the sun a year to make it through all 12 zodiacs and the moon a single month.  

Because the planets visual path across the sky is basically straight and “flat”, we can draw a 2D drawing to represent where everything is at a given time in the sky from our perspective at any given moment. We draw this as a circle and split that into 12 pieces like the ancient astronomers. Now imagine you lay down on the ground, look up at the sky and mark off exactly where all the planets are on that circle at the exact moment and location of your birth. Each one of those planets is in one of the 12 houses (will get into that in a later post). Because all the planets are in a circle, we can also look at the degrees of separation and the relationships between the planets on the chart (which is what we call aspects). Now if I look at the sky and chart this at 10pm in Seattle vs 10pm in Tokyo vs 4am in Tokyo, what I will see in the sky will be different each time which is why the time and location is key.  

Once all of this is drawn out, I now present to you…. your natal chart. 

It is still most likely a bit confusing which is I will be further diving into how that chart looks, the symbols, the houses, the aspects, elements, how to read the chart, etc in upcoming posts but for now let’s just talk about the 3 big pillars of the chart. The 3 big kahuna’s that most people have at least heard of even if they aren’t particularly interested in astrology or horoscopes.  

What is our sun, moon, and ascendant signs? What do they mean?  

Sun Sign 

When someone asks what your sign is, this is usually what they are referencing. Your sun sign is your core self, your basic identity, and who you are to the outside world. It can show us how we see ourselves. It is a very generic overview of ourselves, our path, purpose, personality, and ego. This is also the easiest sign for anyone to know since it can be determined just by knowing your date of birth. It takes the sun 12 months to move through all the astrological signs and so it is in each sign for a month.  

Moon Sign 

Your moon sign gives a much more in-depth look at your inner self and hidden potential. It is who we are in private and indicates what your comfort zones are. It will tell you about your subconscious side, your emotions, and your instinctive responses. To get your moon sign you need your birth date, birth time, and birthplace. Because the moon goes through a cycle much quicker than the sun, it only stays in a sign for 2 and a half days at a time making it a much more accurate sign.  

Ascendant/Rising Sign 

Even more narrowed down is your ascendant. Determined by your time of birth, it changes much more frequently than even your moon sign (think 30minutes to a couple of hours depending on how far away from the equator you are- remember the stars are different in Arizona vs Alaska!!!). This sign shows how we adapt to the environment around us, true inner nature, our outermost layers (like how we look which cracks me up still), and what first impression we leave on people. 

I can tell you that my sun sign is Pisces, my moon sign is Gemini, and I am an ascendant Leo. I am not going to get into my interpretation of what those mean to me yet BUT I will in the next couple posts as I further break out the zodiacs, planets, and houses and what their meanings are. I can tell you that astro café though does a FANTASTIC job of breaking out the meaning of your chart. I honestly felt a bit attacked with how accurate it was about parts of my personality, what makes me tick, and even how I act at my day job.  

Until next time,  

Taylor 

CHECK OUT THE FULL ASTROLOGY 101 SERIES:

• What is Astrology? Where Does One Start?
• Astrology Symbol Reference Page
• Astrology 101: What Is In Your Natal Chart?
• Astrology 101: Natal Chart Organization and Terminology
• Astrology 101: The 12 houses & Their Symbolism
• Astrology 101: The Energy of Planets and Other Celestial Bodies