Hello Lovelies and welcome to the newly designed Warp and Weft missive, where the threads of soul-centred tarot, fiction, poetry and life coaching combine in a rich cosmic brocade.

In this energetic envelope I share with you the reboot of my year, the power of small incremental change, some kooky wisdom to do with planetary hours and most excitedly, I officially open the door to my coaching practice.

It’s more than a month now, since I hit a hard reset and officially broke my calendar year into two halves: a summer year and a winter year. Before I continue, let me back up for just a moment on the subject of “years”.

While we all are intimately acquainted with The Gregorian calendar, it is not the only ‘year’ we can access. (As an aside, the Gregorian calendar is considered the most successful civil engineering feat of all time!) The Chinese New Year begins on the second new moon after the December solstice. The Islamic Hijiri calendar is also lunar, and in 2021 begins on the 10th August. Unlike the Chinese calendar it begins on the crescent moon, several days after the new moon.

There’s the astrological new year that starts with the sun moving into Aries on the March equinox. Our personal year begins on our birthday, and according to the ancient astrological timing technique of projections, every 12 years we begin a new cycle. There’s also school years (here in Australia they begin differently in each state, somewhere between the end of January and the middle of February). And of course, the start of the financial year. Here in Australia that happens on the 1st of July.

It’s comforting to know a year holds so many new beginnings if we think outside the box of January 1st.

I have no idea where I came across the concept of a summer year and a winter year. Attempting a Google search was like throwing chaff into the wind. Deep in my bones I know it is ancient and feels like it belongs to the far northern latitude lands of my ancestors.

To honour this new half year I pulled a new ‘yearly card’ and another thematic word. My summer year’s card is: flexible. My word is: flowing. This is what will help guide me through to the December solstice. The overarching mission of 2021 continues in the vein of “not building bonfires, laying foundations’.

For me flexible means having a strong core to facilitate the necessary bending and shifting. That strong core is the morning and afternoon self care practises which have become non-negotiable elements of my on-going healing and what is the perpetual management of the new energy I’m living in, and the human response to that. These are the hard bookends of my day.

Flexible and flowing are the perfect energies to be working within for my summer year; a time I see as moving out the intense inner work of the winter year and back into the light to show up in a more public way.

What has happened in the last month has been truly miraculous. If June was meeting the light at the end of the tunnel for me, with successive short strings of good days and the pivoting of difficult mornings and afternoons, into something better afterwards, then July was stepping out into the startling daylight for the first time in six months.

There’s lots to be excited about. On the 1st July (hello new financial year, though this was not planned!!) Adam, Rus and I met for the first time to chat in real time about upcoming projects.

The meeting (and publishing ticket for the next 18 months which came out of it) gave me necessary direction to begin adding small work tasks around my core of exceptional self care. I added time incrementally as the month progressed. Writing to you on the penultimate day of July I can proudly share that I finished three projects: two projects, years late in completion but done and ready for the next leg of the journey now; and a brand-new editing project which pushes Rus VanWestervelt’s next book closer to publication.

Hitting ‘begin again’ was powerful and I am so glad I let go of how I’ve done things in the past, to evolve a new way of doing things. A little like learning to do a new version of me!

It would be easy to consider June 'an overnight success', but we all know sudden thrusts into public consciousness come on the back of years of hard work and dedication. July was the culmination of months of subtle shifts, tiny changes, micro transformations and an uncompromising commitment to get well. From the outside, so many of the things I did, in the moment, looked insignificant. It could have been easy to say: why the fuck bother? How is clearing this shitty bench helping me? How does this make me well?

Why the fuck bother? Because small, incremental change is cumulative.

Lee Harris, chanelling the Z's early in July said: "Change is compounding energy...the more you practice small, comfortable changes the better you'll get at the big ones when they come along."

Then several days later, astrology and tarot reader, Austin Coppock, spoke to the same theme of making small changes, outlining it in three simple points:

1. make promises to yourself which are finite.
2. put yourself in situations to earn your trust.
3. make changes small but challenging.

For me, one clear bench became a second and then a third. Suddenly my kitchen was a clear and bright space. It was easy to prepare dinner each afternoon. It was easy to keep it clean and organised even at my lowest ebb. The kitchen became the outward anchor of my desire to be well. In the past, the only time I could keep on top of house care was when I was well. Now, each time I walk into the kitchen, or the bathroom, or my bedroom and see how tidy and organised they are, the identity of me as a person who is well is reinforced. And in beautiful, cyclic harmony this redoubles my desire to continue to maintain these spaces. With love and joy. I now look forward to my Saturday morning of pottering around the house caring for it, and in the process, caring for Me (Now and Future).

My promises are small and finite. I made a promise a few months ago that each week I would let go of something. I have been doing this for ten weeks now. Sometimes its physical stuff. Sometimes it is less tangible workings with energy or old stories. A few weeks ago it was someone. These again are tiny, incremental changes. At the end of a year, it will be a momentumal amount I've let go of, but the point is to keep it simple and present focused. My letting go is small. They're usually challenging. And each week when I achieve the letting go, I'm motivated to do another. And another. I'm building confidence in myself to follow through. And perhaps moreso, I'm learning the art and joy of moving slow. Of building. This is the laying of foundations I have been so insistent on learning in 2021.

So when it came time to add work back into the equation after our fabulous and inspiring annual JAR Writers meeting I knew I could. My day was already book-ended by meditation in the morning and my afternoon ritual of dinner prep/brain rest/puppypalooza. I knew exactly how many hours I could devote to anything. Again, I started out small; alotted an hour (in that first week, aligned with the planetary hour of Mercury) to read and take structural notes on a long-neglected project. I got a feel for how long it was going to take to read the whole manuscript, budgeted the number of days it would take to finish and assigned days in my calendar. A finite promise (with some of breathing room). I won't lie and say I breezed through it. Resistance came from mental muscles long-atrophied screaming at the exertion.

Like riding a bike though, I don't ever forget how to read critically. I don't ever not know how to interrogate fiction to know where it needs to be strengthened. The wobbles decreased. My speed picked up. As did my confidence. By the final week in July I had finished three projects. Not once did I compromise my self care though. There was one day, when the high coming out of editing was dizzying and I could have continued on and on, until I finally crashed (and oh my, I recognised it as an old pattern that used to drive me to work into the early hours of the next day) but I didn't. At 3pm I shut my lap top and started on dinner prep.

I long-thought that any kind of routine or structure would kill my freedom-loving spirit. Instead it has grounded me to be free to achieve what's most important. To be where my heart sings. I believe it's possible, that at our most primal, we are still wee ones who need a known structure to thrive; especially when we are fragile. Especially when we are healing. Especially when we are rebuilding our trust in ourselves. Especially when we think it is the last fucking we need.

For decades I created cycles of crash and burn. In more recent times I've self-sabotaged to ensure a regression into illness to secure essential rest. Now I'm a work-in-progress in consciously scheduling essential rest, every day, so I don't need to subconsciously create it by burning the house down. Sometimes I forget or get confused about what rest I need (because not all rest is equal!). Last week I was told I needed three days of 'sleeping rest' to recover from a general anaesthetic. Not three days watching Netflix. Or even reading. It was rest that prioritised sleep (which I executed imperfectly, but I did try!).

In August, I am adding writing to the mix: a small amount, five days a week. I've never been a daily writer, but I think now is the time to change my thoughts and habits to see what's possible. So far, so good. I look forward to sharing more next month.

What is possible for you in August, with a little tweak of routine and some renewed self belief?

There... phew. I said it (metaphorically) out loud.

Since March this year, I've been training with the Coaching Guild, under the expert heart of Lisa Hayes, to become a life coach. While 'dream jobs', 'dream houses', 'dream cars' and a 'dream life' have all been some what perplexing for me (it just doesn't make sense in my head) there's been a tugging yearn toward something bigger and deeper to extend and anchor my tarot practice, especially around holding space and helping people with trauma.

And I'll be honest, I thought training with Lisa was out of my reach. So instead of invoking the energy of The Fool last year (stepping into the void with trust it will all be fine), I instead signed up to go back to uni (because the Government would pay for me to do that!) Then things changed. I changed. And The Fool came calling again. And this time I said 'yes' -- well yes, with side serves of 'but' as I worked through my fears of stepping into the void.

There is something incredibly powerful about being validated as 'being more important than money'. As it turned out, when I said yes, the money arrived to pay out my tuition, from an unexpected source, within two months of starting.

Now it is time to take one small step beyond just being a student of the material to embrace the energy of 'apprentice' and walk the material out into the world. It is time to invite others into the space to partner with me as clients, to grow and change, as I grow and change.

The apprentice part of my tarot practice, back in 2017, was one of the richest and most exciting legs of the journey thus far. I was humbled by the people who stepped forward, said yes, and let me be utterly imperfect as I got to know myself better as a tarot reader and "my way" of doing it. I got to learn how to be me, by doing me out in the real world.

Now it is time to do it again.

Maybe you'd like to step forward and walk this leg with me?

Here's the official spiel...

Would you love to talk to someone about where you feel stuck in life? Or a challenge you’re facing that’s insurmountable every time you think about it?

I’d love to be your partner in that conversation.

Book a FREE 45 minutes discovery chat and we can talk about where you are at PLUS the first tiny incremental change you can adopt to reorientate yourself and rebuild your momentum.

I'm welcoming clients Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10am-2pm, AEST.

Places are limited, for now (as this becomes the new incremental addition to my life).

I’ve been experimenting with planetary hours as another form of structure (that doubles as an additional connection to the changing pace of the seasons).

The planetary hours are a form of ancient astrological timing. Each day is divided into 12 daylight hours and 12 night-time ones. The day hours are calculated by dividing the time between the rising and setting sun by 12. The same for night hours. This means the length of a planetary hour is always changing. In summer the day hours are longer than they are in winter, and the night hours shorter (and visa versa).

I admit to liking the fluid nature of hours defined  this way.

Like the days of the week, the planetary hours are ruled by the 7 classical planets of the zodiac (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, The Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon). So on Saturday (ruled by Saturn) the first planetary hour is ruled by Saturn, the second by Jupiter, the third Mars and so forth.  On Tuesday (ruled by Mars), the first planetary hour is ruled by Mars, followed by The Sun and so on.

The Lunarium has a brilliant and simple calculator you can use. Alternatively, apps like Time Nomad have built in planetary hours widgets, with a notification system.

Each planet brings a certain energy to the hours it rules, like bringing in an expert in a certain area to lend a hand. And in this way, each hour is better for certain tasks than others. I've geeked out and infused the following exploration of how the planetary hours work with my love of SuperStore.

Saturn is like Corporate and it's minions the Cloud 9 District Managers. They are in charge of structure and discipline, rules and bureaucracy. It's the boss vibe. The Saturn hour is great for working on anything attached to institutions (think along the lines of doing your tax), involves paperwork or allows you to work with elders/mentors. It is brilliant for long term planning, tedious tasks, organisation or anything that require you to be responsible.

Jupiter is like Glenn, "the good but slightly misguided boss" who genuinely just wants to do the best by everyone. Neck deep in enduring optimism, Jupiter is faith, benevolence and a willingness to broaden the mind. The Jupiter hour is brilliant for anything where a little luck wouldn't go astray. It is fertile ground for seeding new opportunities, working on something you want to grow or accelerate toward success.

Mars is a lot like Dina, the militant assistant manager, unapologetically open about her sex life and love of birds. Mars is bold, action-orientated and takes no shit. The Mars hour is perfect for anything physical. It is anti-procrastination central, offers dutch courage, momentum and the chutzpah to achieve what you desire.

The Sun is "Chateo", the hybrid bubbly exuberance of Cheyenne combined with the flamboyant ambition of Mateo. The Sun says "hello, here I am" and gives zero fucks about what anyone else things about it. The Sun hour is the time to be seen; use it to back yourself. Do promotion and publicity associated tasks or invest in health promoting activities.

Venus is Jonah, the idealistic associate, looking for moments of beauty in every day. Venus is all about what we value, love and what brings comfort. The hour of Venus is perfect for anything that involves beautification or artistic endeavours. It can be used for mediating disputes, social justice work or circumstances where business and pleasure co-exist.

Mercury is Garrett, store 1217's charismatic announcer and resident pop culture nerd. Mercury is associated with mental agility and technology. The Mercury hour offers boons for all forms of communication and socialising. It can be harnessed for networking, abstract thinking, negotiating/signing contracts or (preemptively) troubleshooting tech issues.

The Moon is Amy, floor supervisor turned store manager, who even before she was officially in charge of everyone, was a little like the store Mum, for better or worse. The moon is connected to cycles, emotions and memories. The Moon hour is a time of heightened intuition and imagination. It is perfect for anything that is impermanent (like daydreaming), related to self care (like resting) or domestically inclined (like home tending).