Update! HG Can Also Be Seen on TMW!

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Twice the fun!

In addition to catching great HG info here on our official main site, you can also catch reprints of our astrology info on April Claxton's The Movement Within website. I'm proud and happy to keep the light burning in the Astrology Corner.

Also, if you're friends with TMW on Facebook, I'm now a proud member of the INSPIRE Team. I'll join forces with some other cool ladies (CEO April, Advice Columnist Alisa, April K., and Debbie) to help inspire you to be YOU. And love YOU. The shiny parts. The scared parts. The little parts. The parts that glow in the dark and the parts that get bigger all the time.

And here's the cool part. We're all learning. We're all growing.

Me.

April.

Alisa.

April K.

Debbie.

And YOU!

Think of this as a big massive game - the game of joy and life.

And this is where my 1/5 of the Inspire Team, Mr. Happy Ganesh, gets on his party hat and starts dancing around. Because Happy Ganesh is all about bringing you back to joy, finding your creative spirit, and empowerment through a variety of sources, whether it is through astrology, creative manifestation, or messages from your loved ones.

Twice the fun!

Using Fear As a Bridge

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It's not the destination, it's the journey. How often do we hear that? To focus on the process and not the outcome?

And what about fear? How do we use it? What do we do with it? Do we freeze? Get stuck? Eat ourselves alive?

Do we breathe through it? Allow it to go deep, where fear needs to go? Or do we ignore it?

This weekend, I worked with one of my own fears.

This weekend, HG was happy to be a part of Gilda's Club's Arts Day. Gilda's Club is a cancer support community, named for comedian Gilda Rader, who died from breast cancer in 1986.
To return to Gilda's Club was a personal triumph for me.

Ever since the death of my mother in 2007, Fort Lauderdale is often a very emotional place for me to travel. Both my parents died there and I've had to fight my own grief and fear for years. I've thought of it as the "Square of Sadness." I remember well the harried and frenzied trips to and from hospice during mom's final days. And Gilda's Club? Mere moments away. My logical brain does not often care that I live less than an hour from this area. My brain usually hears "Fort Lauderdale" and goes into shock. Death. Horror. Pain. Watching my loved ones slip away from me, leaving me alone. The root of so much. The crux of it all.

A month ago, I told my best friend I didn't need to go.

"There will be other charity events," I said. "There's one right down the street. Maybe I should go to the one that's five minutes away."
"Or you could go back. Didn't you go back last year? Why is this hitting you now?" he asked.

He's right. I did go back last year. I worked an event and I had a wonderful time. But this time?

Oh, this time was a showcase - a parade! - of all my terrors and triggers. Driving to Fort Lauderdale. Past the place where they died. Driving on a highway I hadn't been on alone since February of 2007, where I drove back from the place where my 50-something year old mother lay dying and inarticulate, in a coma.

So, this was my chance to go through it all again. But I wanted to go.

I created Happy Ganesh because I love what the god Ganesh stands for. I believe in joy and the removal of obstacles. I believe in expansion and growing outward. I created Happy Ganesh because I want to hold space in the world for connection between the living and the dead, between life and grief and back to life. I created HG for others to find their own answers by taking part in these things.

Mostly, what I'm finding is that I've also created HG to also hold my own space in the world.

Going back to downtown Fort Lauderdale took on grand proportions, assuming the depth of an international journey. I started preparations early, about a month ago. I sought professional support. I started making lists of my fears, my outcomes. Why I wanted to go back. Why it meant the world for me to go back. And this year, I chose to go forward. I paid the fee. It's for Happy Ganesh, I told myself. You can do good there. You can help make connections between the living and the dead. It's to get out there, to give something back.

At 2 pm the day before, I was ready to bolt. Why should I go back? Why should I even try? Far better to pull on footie pyjamas and watch my 34th episode of Xena. I'd just call and cancel. That's it. I'll mess with my professional and personal integrity, no problem. They'll never know I'm gone. Maybe I can even put my house up for sale and move to Nebraska. I hear it's nice this time of year.

At 10 pm, I was going again. I'd resolved to myself that I was going back for some kind of nebulous reason, that I was not going to die on the thirty-minute commute, and that maybe, just maybe, moving in any direction towards freedom was better than forcing myself to sit in an emotional space that is so, so, so, so READY to move.

It was creaky and scary. I cried when I drove past the hospital. I remembered my mother. My heart raced when I first hit the highway. But then, something strange happened.

I remembered that this was fun.

That before everything, I used to love this route. Before I knew it, I rolled the windows down. I sang along to whatever pop rock was on the radio. Before I knew it, I pulled into the parking lot.

And I found nothing but joy on the other end of my fear. NOTHING BUT JOY.  I met with old friends I hadn't seen in ages. I lit luminary candles for my parents. I made new friends and helped new clients. I felt blessed and expansive - something inside grew bigger in response to moving through my fear.

How do you feel when you move through fear?

Do you let it guide you? Do you push it away? Drop into it? Ignore it? How do YOU work with fear? It's a powerful tool and a powerful teacher. Do you let fear tell you where the pain is?

The 13th Zodiac Sign Causes Mass Hysteria... It's All Okay.

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I knew something was afoot when I had a freaked out and confused message from my Aries pal, Nick. "Have you heard this? There's a thirteenth zodiac sign! Apparently, I'm a Pisces." There was a long silence as he tried to wrap his brain around this one. When I got the message, I was astounded as well.

My Aries pal is as Aries as they come. He's a staunch self-starter, a fire-brand through and through. He's currently running two businesses and somewhere in there, he finds time to sleep and go to the bathroom. While he has Piscean planets, the idea of his sun sign, which casts your entire solar chart, turning backwards one entire sign? Clearly unthinkable.

My Aries-turned-Pisces friend is not the first innocent bystander of the recent "13th Zodiac Sign" kaffuffle.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been wandering around since the story broke Tuesday, looking at themselves in the mirror and in the windows of storefronts, confused about their astrological identity. Twitter has been blowing up (as noted in the CNN story below) with frantic tweets of people wondering if they need to surgically remove the Scorpio tattoo and replace it with a more accurate one (Gotta love your Scorpios!).

Ghostbusters Venkman, Egon, and Spengler are also clearly upset. They're not sure of their sun signs either.



It made Yahoo! news and my good friend, Astrologer-Singer Solaris weighted in, amused, to wonder if *this* 13th Sign business might be all that 2011-2012 predictions were about, after all.

Which led to me pacing and hitting the books tonight. Does this mean that 4000 years of astrological knowledge has just, with one quirk of the cosmos, been rendered useless? For my money, not until the next 2011 crop of astrology textbooks includes this 13th sign. Not until all the charts and ephemerides change. At that point, I might become (and now I'm sounding like the detail-oriented Virgo that I might be!) buried in paperwork and adjusting to a world in which the old ways don't work. But that day is thankfully not today.

Relax. Shhhh. It's ok. See? CNN said it's ok. (Read their article and get the facts here.)

No worries, friends. My Aries friend is still an Aries. And you are whatever sun sign you began the week as, when this story exploded the internet. That's the official Happy Ganesh weigh in.

Capricorn and Libra Square Dance, While Venus Sag, Mars Aquarius Push Us Forward!

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We're dealing with some harsh energy right now, as the Sun in Capricorn squares off to the Saturn in Libra. It's a cardinal energy fight to the finish as these two leadership signs stage a push-me-pull-you in the heavens. Since Capricorn and Libra energy are squared, Sun Capricorn's plodding, slow and steady climb to the top will conflict with Saturn Libra's more duo-oriented energy.  Got lots of Libra or Capricorn in your chart? You may feel the push-pull in houses ruled by Capricorn or Libra. Once the sun sign changes to Aquarius in late January, this energy will calm down.

As of Jan 7th, Venus, the planet of romantic love, moved off of Scorpio's intense, True Blood style of lovin' and into philosophical, blunt, easy-going, fun Venus in Sagittarius. Sag Venus energy may kick up our own sense of big-time adventure. Creative projects may get international legs (Venus rules creativity, Sagittarius rules travel and all things international) and expand beyond your wildest dreams. If Sagittarius planets are in your 5th (love affairs) or your 7th house (partnership), you may wind up with a Sag-style lover: a larger-than-life, humorous traveler!

Jupiter (planet of expansion, and Sag's ruler) and Uranus (planet of sudden change, and the ruler of Aquarius) are conjunct, united in dreamy Piscean energy. Simply put, we'll be guided to change and expand. But how?

Mars is in rebellious Aquarius from January 15th to February 22. So how are we going to accomplish all those New Year's resolution of ours? At least until late February (when Mars moves out of this sign), Aquarius holds the key. Go where you've never gone before. Mars is the planet of motivation and anger. In Capricorn, it gave off a solid, stable energy. In Aquarius, Mars needs to shake things up in an unpredictable, community based way. Random science experiments on passing strangers? Bring it. Tap dancing in the town square? Yes, please. The weirder and more unpredictable your goals are, the more you're being guided to just get on with it and do it.

What will all this new energy do for you? Contact me here to book a reading!

Image: Wasserman http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=aquarius#

Happy Ganesh interviewed bestselling young adult author Nancy Garden on TMW Radio!

"Be true to yourself and your own dreams. Remember that you're supposed to be who you really are. Whether you're straight or GLBT, or a dreamer or a doer, an artist or a scientist, a person who works with others or who works alone, all of those things are ok, if they are you, if they are honestly who you are." -- Bestselling Author Nancy Garden, in tonight's interview

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I am delighted to report that the Nancy Garden interview aired tonight on April Claxton's The Movement Within Radio Show!

It was the fulfillment of a dream to talk to Nancy Garden, who is the author of over 35 books for children and teens, including the groundbreaking and controversial 1982 novel Annie on My Mind. She's a woman who has learned to stand up to injustice, and is a passionate defender of free speech. Whether she's writing for children or teens, her books explore universal themes, from love and self-acceptance to courage and tolerance. Above all, she writes about what it means to be yourself and accept yourself unconditionally. I was honored to interview one of my personal heroes tonight.

Garden's books have won several awards from the American Library Association, and have enjoyed critical and worldwide acclaim. In the 90s, Annie on My Mind was the subject of a censorship suit and won with help from the American Library Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Garden and I spoke about issues of personal bravery, tolerance, and courage. We also discussed bullying in schools and ways to stop it - and ways to provide support.

If you are reading this and know someone who is bullied in school FOR ANY REASON, please know that that child is are not alone. Please help that child to know that they are beautiful and perfect just the way they are.

If you know of a young adult who needs support for GLBTQ issues, please go to The Trevor Project, or Lisa Smith's wonderful brainchild Outminds.net.

To learn more about general bullying support groups, check out OvercomeBullying.org.

All my love and light to you out there. Thank you for being who you are and showing up for your life.  There are so many lights within us and together, we can light up the world.

Love, love, love. And more love.