The Moon is in Leo today, about to trine the Sun and Mercury in Sagittarius and then Jupiter in Leo before an evening square to Saturn in Scorpio.
Kickstarter news: last night we not only crossed the $15,000 mark, we crossed $15,500 in just a few hours. Since the kickstarter still has 21 days to go, we’re going to set a new goal and keep going. If we make the $20,000 mark, then here’s what I’m going to do. First I’m going to pay my birth chart counseling staff at the school for working with our scholarship students in the program (they’ve been doing this for free for four years). Secondly I’m going to pay our guest speakers at a higher rate (since our programs run by donation they often don’t get paid what they should!) for the next year. And last but not least, my wife Ashley and I have decided that we will launch an annual student/community publishing press, called Sky House Editions, which will feature essays, artwork, and case studies on the subjects of astrology, yoga, herbs, myth, etc. I have no expectations around this goal, like all the others I’ve set since we began this kickstarter.
And this actually leads me into today’s posting on the planets. Last night I had a small internal crisis. After we met our goal, far surpassing what I dreamed possible, I sat down and asked myself, “Then why was I led to choose this kickstarter as a 40 day campaign? What do I do when there are still 21 days left?” I didn’t choose the number based on a fear of scarcity or not making it, so what should I do with what’s remaining?
About a week ago I actually contacted the Kickstarter management and told them that I didn’t like their policy about not allowing people who have already met their goals to not call it a day, thank everyone, and collect the funds. I said, “I should be able to say it’s over, and that I picked too long a time period to begin with.” They responded, much to my surprise, by saying that people who are highly successful at their campaigns tend to continue raising money all the way to the end, and that though my response wasn’t uncommon they always encourage people to honor the entire timeline of a campaign and to keep setting new goals and raising money for their work until it’s really over.
Then last night, I had a dream. Jupiter is currently stationed on my venus in Leo, and with the Sun and Mercury approaching Jupiter by trine right now, I realized that the intention I set, to raise funds for 40 days for a year’s worth of horoscope writing, was a very powerful prayer. In my dream I saw a golden-red lion with a kind of white tattered shawl around his face and mane. He was silent with his eyes closed in the middle of a dust storm (it was howling wind outside our house last night). I realized that this lion was in me, or with me, and that it was deep in prayer. Then I remembered, in my dream, that the kickstarter was 40 days long and that Jupiter was stationed on my Venus. I also remembered my commitment was to write 300+ more horoscopes in the next year, and that each morning writing these for the past year I had concluded with prayer. In my dream I knew all of these things while the image of the lion wrapped in the shawl and praying in the sand storm continued to impress itself upon me. Then I remembered that my kickstarter was ending on new year’s day. “Of course that’s when it officially ends,” I realized, “because that’s when I will begin a new year of daily horoscope offerings.”
I realized how thankful I am that no amount of cynicism about the new age, no amount of distrust toward those cliches about manifestation and intention and abundance, ever kept me from closing each of my daily horoscopes with prayer. The past year has been a deep time of learning for me around the acceptance of death, uncertainty, and the unknown. My prayers this past year have been so deep around these themes that sometimes I’ve almost forgotten I’ve been praying. You don’t remember sometimes that your daily prayers are still prayers, in other words. You don’t remember that your day in and day out commitments, the ones you make from the heart, the ones you keep showing up for, are building and growing something special inside of you. It’s so easy to think, “it’s just what I do.”
Eventually I woke up from the dream last night and I shook my head in disbelief. I’ve almost raised as much money in this kickstarter campaign as I earned writing my first book for a major press. This after a year in which I had to set down my new book and listen entirely to the call to write these daily horoscopes each morning instead.
Leo the lion is like this. Leo asks us to live our lives from the callings of our heart, every day, with loyalty. Never forgetting that the call is beyond us and will always retain its own power and personality. Where destiny isn’t about luck. It’s about that simple recognition that we’ve followed our heart to the place of a dream.
Prayer: May we find the prayer of our hearts and stay true to its calling. Amen.
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To learn more about the Nightlight Astrology School, or to follow Adam Elenbaas:
www.nightlightastrology.com
https://www.facebook.com/adam.elenbaas.3
Image by courtesy of myfear, at creative commons image licensing.