Sorry I missed last week’s reading.. I forgot my cards at my parents house over the holidays! I feel like it was a sign, to take a break and enjoy the season and New Year’s with my family. 

This week’s card reading to start off the year is just beautiful. Love and compassion for ourselves and others, blessings after the storm, and spiritual unfoldment. For anyone who had a bit of a rough year last year, it appears the storm is over, and if we give ourselves and others the love we all deserve, then there are wonderful blessings that will show up. Most importantly, in the form of our spiritual growth. We are all beautiful, and once we can embrace our love and compassion, most importantly for ourselves, that beauty will unfold in our lives. It is inevitable if you trust in our Creator and give the love we were meant to. Love yourself and others is the message for this week, and really is a message to kick off our New Year! 

Love (Compassion) – In this beautiful Image, we see hands reaching toward each other through a heart. The Green field surrounding them is the color of the fourth, or heart, chakra. It’s when we feel love in our heart center that we not only naturally emit the healing energy of compassion, but we also attract love and compassion. Studies by the Heart Math Institute reveal that the electrical signals from the heart are up to 60 times stronger than the brain’s, and the magnetic field is as much as 5000 times more powerful. It’s a given that are thinking patterns affect our feelings and, in turn, our reality. What we put out, whether it’s love, fear, empathy, sadness, and so forth, contains an incredible amount of power to shape and influence our reality. When the focus of our attention and intention is love and compassion, we recognize no separation between self and other.

All wounds stem from the illusion of separation from Source and all of creation. The route to healing this wound is through cultivating love and compassion for every being on this planet, including yourself. Not a bland standard of unquestioned acceptance, but a heartfelt sense of profound relatedness to whatever you perceive as apart from yourself. True compassion requires not only the feeling of warmth that emanates when you are in touch with your heart center, but in act of kindness, even if this simply means being a fully attentive listener. Respect the fact that your heart is a giver (putting out electrical energy) and a receiver (drawing in magnetic energy). These energies are best sensed by attending to the steady flow of your breathing, while also noticing your heart area. Righteousness, fear, anger, and judgment are some common ways to block your natural desire to love. Forgiveness is not only letting go of judgment, but also seeing through the illusion, that you and all-that-is are separate. Look about you and inside of you, and do your best to love whatever you see.

Rainbow (Blessings) – A rainbow is created by the collaboration of sunlight and water in the atmosphere. The water droplets become tiny prisms that collectively diffuse and disperse light into a ribbon of colors that is the essence of every hue we’re capable of perceiving on this planet. Rainbows symbolize many things, including good luck, a bridge to heaven, and abundance. It’s difficult for any of us to ignore the majesty of a rainbow and the gentle power inherent in it’s display. It’s such a simple blending of the elements coming together in perfect visual harmony to create one of the most beautiful sights in all of Creation. Although there are diverse meanings attributed to the sight of a rainbow, a common thread is that it offers blessings. The artist of this image created this rainbow to commemorate a friend who had just died. She worked on it whenever she felt her love and appreciation for her friend, the blessings he brought to the world and into her life, often after a spell of tearful grief.

The storm has passed, and it is time to enjoy the refreshing beauty of the cycle, even though it has been difficult to appreciate any sense of purposefulness in what you have endured lately. You can now, as they say, count your blessings. Do not just look at the “brighter side” adhering to some academic mantra that has no heart or depth, but do so slowly and with genuine gratitude that is expressed up close and personal. This ever-evolving process of life itself is a blessing, and opportunity to exist as a human being on earth. The planet is a beautiful garden, even if it does not always appear to be so. Sometimes it is only when you look back at a memory of an experience that you can truly see the blessings that have come from them. Bless your difficult or painful experiences, and let them go.

Lotus Flower (Unfoldment) – The lotus flower sits upon one of its leaves, having risen to the surface as the sun – held in the hand of God – invites it upward toward the light. This unique plant is rooted in the mud and muck at the bottom of the water, it’s stem reaching up to the surface, where it’s leaves rest quietly. At night the flower sinks below the surface, only to rise with daylight. What we learn from this amazing plant is how our own spiritual path unfolds and opens to the light, then at times gently folds in on itself for a proper rest when the daylight fades. This period is just as necessary for growth, for it allows the plant to integrate what it has gained in nourishment that day. It’s also just as important that it is rooted, and it is yet another miracle of nature that something so exquisitely beautiful is formed from the mud and silt at the water’s bottom.

Your spiritual unfoldment is occurring at all times, wether or not you are aware of it. It is inevitable as long as you put your trust in the hands of the Creator, the one who holds the light. Like the lotus, your soul is always reaching for the light to fulfill its karmic destiny, but even in that process there are periods of darkness and times to rest. It is a natural cycle, one that cannot be truly coerced or halted. It has an intimate rhythm of its own, one that is unique to you. You do not need to strive for spiritual growth, or be driven by spiritual ambition. It does no good to try to force growth upon yourself. Just be your beautiful self, and love yourself and the world around you as much as you can. Allowing is the key here. Allow the place in you that naturally wants to follow the light, to do so, while recognizing that even when you have complete faith, you will face challenges and, occasionally, suffering. Your steady faith and love will guide you on your journey of returning to the light.

💝❤️💝

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