Cardinal Grand Cross of 2010

While many of us are busy anchoring down on earth during what appears to be a very stressful summer on so many levels – the economy is still shaky, natural disasters seem to pop up like mushrooms on a wet field, relationships are strained and people feel ‘stuck’ – astrologers around the globe are keeping their eyes firmly on the sky, as a very unusual configuration of planets is lining up in the heavens.

Personally, I am at a loss when it comes to technical information associated to planetary patterns, so I would not be of much help trying to explain what’s happening, but upon close observation of what professional astrologers have described, in relation to what’s been happening on earth, I have become quite fascinated by the Cardinal Grand Cross of 2010.

According to experts in the field, we are facing, this week, a culmination of sorts, and since several planets will be opposing each other as they align to form the cross, explosive events are likely to be triggered imminently. The forecast is not good – financial crashes, tempers clashing, social unrest and conflicts – but it is general consent that things will begin to improve in the next three weeks, after some of the new energy has had a chance to settle and be assimilated.

So, what does this mean on a personal level? This new energy has prompted many to end old relationships and arrangements that no longer work; we are nudged to let go of the old to make room for the new, to clean house and accept new patterns in place of old, ill-fitting ones. Old jobs are lost, governments are questioned, awareness of personal responsibility is raised, relationships with others are regrouped, and all around us humanity is rebelling to an old system of authority that no longer fits our current needs.

As is with everything, things are bound to appear worse before they get better, and the upcoming week truly appears to embody the doom and gloom associated with change and transition. With such new, explosive energy pouring in, many are bound to feel restless and emotional this week, and even prone to arguments which have the power to escalate rapidly. So, if you feel moody or fearful, or you suddenly feel more confrontational than usual, you are not going crazy, but only getting on with the scheduled program of a global shift of consciousness. The key phrase of this week – and of the next two, though events will not manifest as brutally after this week – is to ride the wave and float with it, rather than swimming against it. Be happy about the small things, tell your loved ones you love them, even those – especially those – you haven’t talked to in a while, and most of all, let go of what no longer serves you; you will be a much happier person once you finally understand it’s easier to walk without carrying so much baggage.

Stuck With Someone Else's Garbage

While I was driving to the mall, last week, one of my neighbors called my cell phone and asked if my son could possibly take her trash can to the curb for her, since she and her husband were out of town. My son, who was sitting in the car and heard the conversation, promptly agreed to help.

We got to the mall, shopped and talked, drank coffee, ate dinner and took my daughter to the play area; by the time we got home, we pulled directly into the garage and completely forgot about the neighbor’s garbage. The next morning, I watched the collectors drive in front of my house, stop at the curb and empty the receptacles – my husband had taken ours out before going to work -- and still no recollection of my neighbor’s trash can swam up to the surface. I walked outside to put a few pieces of mail into the mailbox and watched another neighbor wheel his receptacle back into the garage, and suddenly I remembered!

Praying in my heart that my son had remembered and had gone to the neighbor’s house after we got home without telling me, I glimpsed the curb, and to my expected disappointment, I knew he had forgotten as well. I felt terrible. I walked back to my house and looked up the number for solid waste collection, hoping that, if the truck was still in the vicinity, it could detour a bit and come back by. No such luck. The truck had already left my subdivision and I would have had to pay $50 for them to come back around. Attempting to be helpful, the person who took the call suggested I drive to the nearest landfill.

After hanging up the phone I weighed the landfill option – I drive a small sport car which could never house such a big receptacle, so maybe I could just take the bags out of it and fit them in the trunk somehow…

That idea quickly dissolved like fog in bright sunshine the moment I lifted the lid. Filled to the rim, the stench was overwhelming even in the open air; there was no way I could load those bags into my car. So, I was left with one final option…asking my husband to come to the rescue. I called him on his cell phone while he was picking up our son from Drivers Ed, and explained the situation. Though not happy about it, he drove back to work, borrowed his brother’s pick up truck and came back to load my neighbor’s garbage receptacle to empty it at the dumpster behind his business.

Within thirty minutes he was there, and he and my son took care of the dreaded chore. While I waited for them to come back home with the empty trash can, I thought of how unsettling it is to remain stuck with someone else’s garbage. Even if in this situation I had ‘stuck’ myself with it by forgetting something I had committed to do, there have been times when I have been an unwilling recipient of emotional garbage because I haven’t set proper boundaries.

Many mistakenly believe that by setting boundaries they will be less compassionate, while in most cases it is quite the opposite. One can be compassionate and able to sympathize with a family member better if their point of perspective is fresh and untainted. If, on the other hand, one is busy carrying one’s own personal garbage and that of others on top of it, this person will be completely overwhelmed and will be of little help to anyone.

My consulting editor, Dena, has come up with a genial way of being involved without being sucked into the drama of others, and she has brilliantly called it ‘being compassionately detached.’

Agreeing to be compassionately detached allows one to be open up to the energy of others and encourage them toward seeking a solution, while avoiding to remain stuck into someone else’s drama. Each person has a path to walk and lessons to learn, and sometimes wishing them well on their journeys is all one can do.

Drama, My Love...

“I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain. I want to weep at the sound of your name. Come make me laugh, come make me cry…just make me feel alive” ~ Joey Lauren Adams


Sometimes I don’t think we realize how much we enjoy drama – even those of us who claim to denounce it completely. We love and fear it at the same time, mixing an intoxicating cocktail that speeds the heart and inebriates the mind. Even if many of us will never own up to it, we welcome drama in our lives, for even if it turns our lives upside down, it allows us to appreciate certain things we wouldn’t notice otherwise.

We live to experience thrills – a fast car, a heart-stopping ride at the fair, a good thriller on TV, a dangerous storm – because through it all we feel alive.

Love for drama is evident in everything that surrounds us, from the entertainment we choose, to the choices we make in life. Indeed living a life free of drama is possible, but it gets boring pretty fast. Staring at the crystal-clear water of a shallow pool is pleasant for a while, but it doesn’t take long before one craves the dangerous waves produced by a storm at sea.

Very few things create an electrical charge the way drama does. Through our connection with others we activate energetic extremes – positive and negative, both necessary to initiate a shock. We love some deeply and “hate” others with just as much passion; once the two charges meet, they create a current that keeps us electrified and in motion.

Drama is the earthly force that keeps us anchored to our human role. As unsettling as it is, it serves a purpose if taken in small doses, for without its powerful influence we would easily skip over many of the lessons our soul needs to learn. In so many ways, drama connects people on different levels.

Just as with any TV program, we have the power to end it just by switching the channel of our focus. And we never have to worry about losing the remote.

Boundaries of Compassion

"When everything is running smoothly...... Crisis managers create a crisis so they can manage it!" ~ Shine


Most people have met at least one crisis manager in their lives. They are, at times, fun to observe from a distance, as long as one can remain untouched by the drama they exude like cheap perfume.

I met my first crisis manager in middle school. Although she didn’t have much to complain about, this girl complained about everything under the sun. Sadly, she was so caught up into her drama that things really did happen to her. I don’t think she ever made anything up, but for a while I really thought she was the unluckiest person on the planet. Was fate really that unkind to her, or is it possible that she self-sabotaged to a degree? I thought about her a lot through the years, as she always seemed the poster child of misfortune, but as time went by, I met a few people who could give her a run for her money. To date, I think I have met four professional crisis managers. They are afflicted by everything – poor health, financial woes, betrayal and tragedies. Their afflictions don’t even spread through time, but rather they follow one another with no break in an invisible line-up.

By the time I met the fourth one, I started to really pay attention to their behaviors. They were always either elated or devastated, with no meeting point in between. The only way they could exist and be functional was if they were constantly running on high gear – anything less could not support their energy binges. The majority of us live on the safe island of the middle point; we get our blood pumping with a healthy dose of occasional drama and then go back to our normal lives. Crisis managers cannot do that. Attention feeds them and flatters them, and fills the inner void they try so desperately to hide. Intensity is the name of their game.

The only thing I found as a common denominator among the four crisis managers I’ve met is the fact that all of them had extreme childhoods. Two of them felt entirely rejected by the people they loved most, and treated with little respect and consideration – although their perception was not always based on facts, but was mostly dependent on the way they internalized information. Ultimately, all of them had come to realize that people responded differently to them whenever a crisis occurred. Crisis became their key to the door of connection to others. By dealing with the latest crisis, they sent out a shout to the world and showcased their warrior-like qualities.

We should always feel compassionate toward other people’s struggles, and be willing to sensibly help, but we still must remember that being compassionate doesn’t mean we need to jump into quicksand with them. Martyrs aren’t always heroes.

Breaking the Code of Human Drama

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.” ~ James Earl Jones


Mostly anyone who’s been around small children for any length of time has had the opportunity to see just how frustrated they become when they can’t properly express what they are trying to convey – they give in to anger and often lash out at the nearest target, or they become aloof and standoffish. Once their communication skills improve with age, their anti-social behaviors become more manageable.

A couple of days ago, one poster mentioned the fact that her father had not connected much with her and her siblings during her childhood, and for years the children had believed that their father didn’t love them. In reality, their father had cared for them deeply, but he simply didn’t know how to express his feelings.

Externalizing emotions is a learned process, as much as anything else. If one is raised in a home in which emotions are constantly guarded, they never really learn how to manage their own – they will either keep their own feelings on lock-down or they will explode in the opposite direction and allow their emotions to run out of control.

The same concept applies to a vast variety of emotions, and it is quite interesting how a display of certain responses is often the key to understanding the triggers behind one’s behavior. For example, if someone was often rebuked for being “dramatic”, they might become aloof as a direct result of the gradual conditioning, but the flair for drama will surface in different ways, such as being frequently ill or victimized somehow.

Expressing emotions has often been associated with being “weak”, and we are taught since early age that the best way to deal with negative emotions is to repress them before they take over our rational thinking. While keeping emotions in check - at a time when the free expression of them would be equal to social suicide - is often necessary, those very same feelings should be analyzed at a later time when we can do so privately. Unresolved feelings don’t just disappear; rather, they morph and pop back up when we least expect them like a Jack-in-a-box, disguised in such a way that we no longer recognize them for what they are.

James Redgrave has done a wonderful job describing the different types of human drama, and how they relate to each other. For example, if dad was an intimidator you may act as a 'poor me' back. If mom was an interrogator, you are likely to be aloof to her. Rather than getting angry at people for their behavior, it is more useful to determine what is possibly causing them to act that way.

Just knowing that others often relate to us in certain ways because they are unable to classify and express their emotions should give us an edge in shifting our focus, and teach us that we can’t assume how another feels unless we can think with their heads and feel with their hearts.