Happy Monday! April 25, 2022

Happy Monday! April 25, 2022

– Third Quarter Moon Phase – realign, revise, reorient, surrender, complete

– Moon in AQUARIUS – Void of Course 4/24 @8:33 PM – 6:15 AM 4/25 Moving to Pisces

– Best Days (from the Farmer’s Almanac) –  April 25th – 26th – Brew Beer, Can Fruits and Vegetables, Potty Train, Wean, Mow to Slow Growth, Castrate Farm Animals, Get Married

– Planting Calendar (from the Farmer’s Almanac) –   April 25th – 26th  – Set strawberry plants. Excellent for any vine crops, such as beans, peas, and cucumbers. Good days for transplanting. Favorable days for planting root crops.

– Aspect of the Aeon Sophia: (Wisdom): Chinnamasta – Goddess Who Expands the Mind

– Aspect of the Aeon Thelete: (Will/Desire): Ian Achonesis– God of the East, God of Wisdom

– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Month – New Moon in ARIES “a flock of wild geese ” (& coal mine )

– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Year: –“ a flock of wild geese ”

SUN – 06 TAURUS: a bridge being built across a gorge

EARTH – 06 SCORPIO: a gold rush tears men away from their native soil

Happy Monday! Smile more. Smiling can make you and others Happy!

Never underestimate the value of a smile. Having had an all too extreme dosing of lamestream media and news over the past week, I am in need of a positive pick-me-up. And what better way to start than with a smile.

Consider for a moment how much control you have over your moods. Do you ever gauge them? Are you aware when you are generally happy? Do you know when you are glum? Stressed? Angry? Annoyed?

All of these and many more can be part of our world. The question is whether you have the ability and willpower to exercise control over these moods. Or do they control you.

A Few Tips to Improving Your State of Being

LAUGHING – A while back, I talked about motivational Speaker Ed Foreman and his prescription for 15 seconds of laughing 2 times per day (add another 1 or 2 doses for severe cases). The idea is that you can artificially change your state of being (for the better) by forcing yourself to laugh.

I often use this technique. But you have to be able to A) Recognize the need, and B) actually do it. Sometimes it is easier if you watch or listen to something funny. Especially if you are not alone and others watching may think you need to be committed for randomly laughing.

Once you do it, do a self assessment of how you feel. Are you still down in the dumps? Are you still thinking the worst of life? While this technique does not change your circumstances, it can change they way you look at them. And it can also help you see things differently and possibly find other solutions that you could not see in your previous condition.

CHIN UP – This is a method I learned back when I was about 12 or 13 years old. If there was any time in my life that I really suffered from what might be called depression, it was then. I was a mess. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like my life. I had become obsessive and neurotic. Counting the lines on the pavement and obsessed with numbers.

It took a while for me to realize it. I did a self assessment of sorts. More like screamed out loud because I noticed my obsession with the lines on the pavement.

What did I do? I decided I had to stop looking at the lines. At that moment, I had to keep my chin up and stare outward rather than down at the ground. I hate to say that I may have gotten this advice from the movie version of Charlotte’s Web. But it worked.

By changing the way I physically looked at the world, my demeanor changed in many ways. Other people did not see a brooding, bent over kid. They looked me in the face. I was more open. And I noticed I liked it more.

Funny thing also now about 40 years later. I have been suffering from neck and shoulder soreness. My chiropractor recommended this exact same regiment. Chin up. Head back. Seems like a new positive outlook from here as well.

SMILE – As the Happy Monday message suggests, Smile. It has profound effects both internal and external.

Internally, like with laughing, smiling sends a message to your brain about happiness. And it shows not just on your face – more than just the turning up of your mouth. Your eyes radiate the smile for all to see. Your posture and demeanor can follow.

I made it a personal mission back in 2020 to smile more. After the George Floyd fiasco and the Summer of Hate, I asked myself to do a personal assessment about human interactions. Specifically, how much truth was there in the feelings blasted out by the media that People of Color feel alienated by non People of Color. And if it is happening, what can I do to change that.

It is a hard road here in PA Dutch country – Eastern Pennsylvania. I had that trouble myself. People around here seem horribly unfriendly. No one looks each other in the eye. People rarely hold the door. I realized it was something about this area where people acted this way. Not necessarily unfriendly. But more that they are so private that they do not want to let anyone in.

I found it so very different from where I grew up in California. Not that people are overly friendly there. But it just seemed that they were more so than in PA. Back then i would experiment with the Smiling and saying hi to random people. They really seemed uncomfortable when I did it. So I did it more often.

Back to 2020, I wondered whether trying to offer a smile to people – especially people of color – would make a difference. Did it? I do not know. But I will say that the looks on people’s faces have been overwhelmingly positive. Is it surprise that other people might be polite? Or is it just a feeling that people in general are good.

That is what I would like to think.