Greetings, my friends!

It’s that time – Black (Madonna) Friday, the gateway to the Season of Lights, gratitude, and appreciation; and the sometimes (okay, often) scary Holiday Shopping Season.

What’s more, we’re still navigating some amplified, sometimes challenging astro-energetic transits (passages, activations) with the recent Full Moon and Scorpio-Sagittarius transits, as well as the super-activation of the Galactic Center midpoint, and concentrated energies (slowly shifting into Saturnine Capricorn where a meet-up with Pluto awaits).

Those activations are still underway.

First, though …

I’ve missed you, and I hope you are becoming more and more well — even inch by inch — as we enter what for many around the world are year-end Festivals of Light or other Holy Days.

I’ve missed you and the Sophia’s Children cyber-garden as I’ve stepped back a bit from my online time and stepped more into in-person Sophian work in my community, while continuing to respond to your much-appreciated messages and inquiries.Thank you for being! 🙂

Wisdom does guide us where She will, sometimes leading us into serving-grounds and learning-byways that we wouldn’t have expected and that prove unexpectedly meaningful or, at least, by which we learn a whole lot more than we knew ‘back then’.

Be the Light, Help Illuminate the Way … [Image shared in an e-message from the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism]Holy (by whatever name we call it) is present in calm and in chaos alike — just sometimes more challenging to see and sense when it’s chaotic!
Yes, it’s that time again, and I’m seeing themes in the Sophia’s Children visits, the messages I’m receiving, and even what I’m seeing around me as these last weeks of the 2019 calendar year approach and unfold.

I, too, have mixed feelings. I do love the lights and deeper meanings or values that are part of the season, and long-ago started to redefine and reclaim meaning (beyond shopping and commercialism) of the Season.

For me that’s a necessity, because I feel a disconnect from making shopping and buying the sole reason for the season, and as an empath, I definitely sense the isolation, anxiety, frenzy, and joy (sometimes bordering on mania) that gets stirred up in the shared-field.

For many, in the U.S. and certain other places at least, it’s a challenging time of year when quite a few people feel the stresses of the “shopping season” and various familial discords or disconnects.

Black Friday shopping horde. Image courtesy of eBaum’s World.

Many folks shop and celebrate too, of course — as you’ll realize if you hazard a step into a mall or department store this time of year and see the chaotic mess left on merchandise shelves (and floors) that retail workers restore to order after the frenzied shopping days.

But sometimes there’s no way but through it, so may we find our way as mindfully, appreciatively, and as centered as we can — and yes, that does take (for most of us) effort, intention, and practice.

There is, after all, always some beauty, perhaps even miracle, in our midst.

Here are a few Sophia’s Children treasure-vault posts on themes that I revisit at this time of the year (and throughout the year, truth be told), so maybe you’ll find timely inspiration in them as well.

It’s Black (Madonna) Friday, Again

Your Uncommon Skills: Being an Island of Sanity

The Magic of Gratitude, Revisited

And for those of you who are empathically and psychically sensitive,

Energy and Psychic Hygiene

Be well, and thank you for being the Islands that you are (of calm, sanity … pick your magic-medicine)!

Love,

Jamie

Featured Image Credit: Lighthouse with lights blazing. ONTARS lighthouse directory website.