Today is the day we contemplate peace on earth and goodwill
to all men, yet for many of us Christmas brings extra stress and challenges and
can seem anything but peaceful! This week we’ll take a look at the energy of
Capricorn and her opposite sign Cancer and see how, by balancing these energies,
we can begin to balance out some of the imbalances that contribute to stress.
In Esoteric Astrology, by Alice Bailey, the Tibetan Master
Djwaj Khul explains that there are really only six Zodiac energies, yet we
experience them as twelve signs because of the current dualistic perspective of
the human mind. As we evolve into unity consciousness the apparent polarities
will resolve and we will not experience Cancer and Capricorn as though they
were polar opposites but as one energetic spectrum.
Cancer and Capricorn are different expressions of the
same energy. Cancer is the sign of emotional intelligence, compassion and
empathy, while Capricorn is the sign of mindfulness, method and skill
cultivated through patient application and practice. When we bring them both together we have a powerful
combination of knowledge, compassion and skill at our fingertips! Three of the
biggest challenges that we might experience around this time of year
are anxiety, depression and difficult relationships, and all three can be
addressed with this combination of compassion and skill.
If you have some experience with watching your own mind you
might have noticed that thoughts have a tendency to continually switch between
past and future. Most of us live in this ‘psychological time’ where we are
either remembering or reliving something that happened, either just now or
farther back in our past, or we are imagining or planning something that will
happen in the near or distant future.Very rarely are we present in this moment.
If you spend a lot of time
thinking about the past, this can bring depression-type feelings. If you spend
a lot of time concerned about your future, this can bring anxiety. This is why
we often feel anxious when we are planning this year’s Christmas, and can feel
depressed if we are remembering ‘Christmases past’!
The solution is very simple, yet takes the
patient application, practice and persistence of Capricorn to achieve: living and experiencing this present moment as deeply as you can. This can
mean simply bringing your full attention deeply to what you are doing, and letting all other thoughts, plans and inner ‘dialogues’ just fall
away. Modern therapies such as cognitive behavioral and mindfulness-based
therapies, which are extremely successful with mild to moderate depression and
anxiety states, have their origins in mindfulness practice.
To truly succeed we
can’t be too hard on ourselves either. As we saw in last week's newsletter, discipline is about learning, not punishment. So we also need the emotional intelligence
and compassion of Cancer to be gentle with ourselves (and others) in the process! When we
are fully present we relate to others differently and relationships are less
challenging.
To see how this works in practice we have a
real-life example! Earlier this
month my colleague Anya Sophia Mann (who has Sun in Cancer) gave some very practical and helpful
tips on negotiating difficult relationships on her Quantum Alchemy Radio show "The Best Tips on how to Negotiate Difficult Relationships". She did this while remaining fully present in the moment and coaching callers live on the show! In doing so she exquisitely demonstrates advanced emotional intelligence and communication
skills, and it is a perfect example of
emotional intelligence and skill in action!
To listen or download the recording click here to
register and the details will be sent to you.
See you next time, and in the meantime...
happy exploring!
Best Wishes,
Ruth
