Jar of Jems January 2011

Happy New Year Jems!

Before I start this first column for 2011 I would like to acknowledge that it has been nine years of our cyber conversations. Can you believe it – this is our ninth year of sharing our lives across the World Wide Web. Of course of our connection was established a long time before that. Sometimes I feel that we have known one another for many life times. I feel that our connection has endured a myriad of struggles. In previous lifetimes I know I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder in the face of adversity.

I wanted to start this New Year off with this acknowledgement as I feel so honoured to have you as my soul-sistar. You are a shining light in my tunnel of fear; a source of inspiration so precious and dear. Thank you, again and again for your love, wisdom and kindness as we navigate the stormy seas of our emotional realm.

Jems, the Full Moon eclipse in December has created a spiritual spark in my emotional empire. It is sort of like, the empire strikes back! I have been shunted from one galaxy to another. The storm troopers marched in and said “hey you get a groove on girl and get back to the star ship enterprise.”

In 2010 I toiled really hard in my 10th house. I started out on a debilitating sour note. I felt disenchanted, undervalued and sadly disrespected. Fortunately I teleported out of there and landed in a much; much better place.

At the end of 2010 a number three year I realised the blessings of the great benefactor, Jupiter and how he swirled his cornucopia of blessings right through my life.

I worked hard I did not sit on a rock on the side of the road waiting for Lady Opportunity to tap me on the shoulder. I put myself there – taking careful, deliberate and positive strides in a new direction.

Teetering of the edge of a new year I am excited about the unknown. I want to dip my toe in the inky unknown and swirl it around. 2011 is a number four year. Uranus is the ruler of this year and he brings “the unexpected”. Jems I am excited about this unpredictable energy.

As you know I love to plan, organise and project manage my life. This year I am going to embrace the uncertainty. There will be goals of course but in between the stepping stones there will be sails billowing in the wind and a course set for unchartered waters.

So, ahoy my Hearty – see you out there on the sea of love and friendship!

Love and Peace,

Jar


Dear Jar,

Happy New Year! It is amazing to be writing the numbers 2011 – and to realize that those are the numbers that define where we are in the timeline of humankind. As a child, I remember being terrified of life after 1999 – the numbers beyond that somehow felt scary to imagine. As it turned out, my mother passed away in the year 2000, and my childhood fear became a real-life grown-up nightmare. But time marches on, and heals all wounds. (And of course, also wounds all heels!)

It’s interesting how we assign values to numbers ~ physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Mathematicians play with them, and along with scientists, juggle theories about space and time; numerologists assign to them theories of behaviours; gamblers risk their possessions and sometimes their lives on them; children sing of them; we groan over the accumulation of them at birthday time; we place them on price tags to prove the worth of something; we may fudge them when revealing our weight...it goes on and on! Yet numbers do not exist! This language of values was created to assist us with communication and order, and sometimes we allow those extrinsic values to totally overtake our lives, as we continue to search for deeper meaning.

I guess those are the themes I am enamoured with at this time: numbers, meaning, and values. I have been reviewing the past year and how my life has evolved since we sat at the computer writing the Jar of Jems at this time last year, looking ahead toward the upcoming year of 2010! At that time I was marvelling at the technology we use to communicate – and also taking note of the ‘blue moon’ eclipse we were experiencing on New Year’s night. It was conjuncting my natal Uranus at that time. I guess it was a trend that lasted the whole year through.

The chaotic and unpredictable Uranian vibe squiggled through my psyche and daily routines all year, invoking unexpected responses from and to the people in my environment. Morose Sister Saturn also skulked in the back door to join the planetary party and brought her grey cloud inside for awhile. I experienced a lot of loss and sadness, due to the particular form of employment I was involved in – working with seniors in a residential home. To add to the list, I even lost that particular job. So there was an emotional uprooting of sorts, which was, now that I look at it, tilling the field for new perspectives. I just didn’t know it at that time, since I spent so much time grieving. I was focused on reshuffling my value system, and now I can look up, deal a new hand, and play a new game.

As I observe where I am, who I am with, what I am thinking at any given time, I am struck with the surprising thought that whatever we have or love, only matters because of the value we have assigned it. In fact I have discovered that anything, all by itself, doesn’t really matter! It is the relationship/interaction between things and the value we place on them that gives us something to live for. And how we were wired will determine how and what we will strive for in this life. Unconditional love overrides all the wiring.

The other morning I was given a vision of how we are born into this world which seems so solid, so real, so concrete, and we learn to maintain and dust the encrusted attitudes and rituals that continually keep us enslaved. Yet I also saw how the light of each new soul that enters this realm offers a chance for this mass of quivering protoplasm (Earth and its inhabitants) to move in a new direction. I am looking at what light I have been given, and asking myself if I am hiding it under a bucket, or if I am using it to help others find theirs so we can all shine brightly together?

So, Dear Jar, the last time we were in a number 4 year, was when we began this Jar of Jems! Talk about delving into the unknown! And here we are, nine years later, entering yet another year of cyber-talk. We have endured many cycles together, yet so far apart! I am filled with gratitude and also a sense of awe that we can maintain this banter across the miles!
Right here I must come back to my theme – numbers, meaning and values. This is also where I must toss up some numbers –although tremendous, we can measure but not hold, just how many years we have known each other. We can also measure, but not hold, the many miles apart we live.
Yet it is our friendship that I AM able to hold, close to my heart, but cannot measure it! How can I measure something as expansive and priceless as that?

Thank you for yet another measurable year of your friendship, Jar! Happy New Year!

In love and light,
JEM