What happens when you intentionally decide, like Henry Thoreau, to go into the woods? Or the mountains? Or the desert? Or the beach?
 
When you just decide to take some space, get outside of your current situation, get outside of your head?
 
When you decide to let to of the drama and the deadlines and the demands that we call life… And instead, you decide to be with yourself for a while, in order to discover who you really are?
 
In tribal societies, many cultures have an initiation or walkabout or vision quest, where a person goes alone in to the wilderness for a period of time, in order to attract guidance from the Universe. Often this person is moving from youth into adulthood; it’s a rite of passage. 
 
But a vision quest doesn’t have to be only for youth.
 
We can receive visions, signs and guidance anytime we choose to break routine; anytime we show up with the intention of receiving.
 
If you put off taking retreat, if you never slow down, if you never stop and listen…  you’re going to miss some astounding advice from the Universe.
 
The Universe is whispering to you right now.
Take some time, take some space—and let yourself listen. 

Where I live here in Oregon, it’s haying season.

That means fields once wavy with sun-bleached grasses are now shorn down to stubble. The tractors are baling morning till night, binding hay into stacks or rolls..  
 
We've been talking lately about the cycle of nines: the concept that we're now in a "one" year, once again passing through the same lessons we began in the "one" cycle that started in 2008.
 
We are surely in a planetary cycle, with the path of totality revealing the solar eclipse—a rare event for collective soul.
 
And we, at least in the northern hemisphere, are also in a cycle of summer.
 
It's s summer now, so we're making hay.
But after that, there’s nothing to do for a while.
We'll be at pause, rest, wait.
 
You see around here, the harvest comes in stages. First there's hops, then berries, now hay, then apples and veggies and corn, and finally pumpkins and grapes.
 
The hay is in.
Nothing else is ready yet.
There’s no harvest today.  
Nothing to do but wait.
 
These cycles of the growing—planting, growth, harvest, rest—have been part of our human DNA for a very long time.
 
When we follow these cycles, instead of resisting them, our whole life gets easier.

When the garden has been planted, you don’t plant it again.
You simply water it, maybe weed it.
But you don’t over attend.  

The same goes for now.
Whatever you planted in the spring, in terms of goals or plans or ideas or dreams?
Let it go for now.
The Universe has things well in hand.
 
It’s not the harvest yet.
What we're called to do now is pause.
To rest in the shade with cool glass of something and enjoy this moment of Now. 

Soul lessons repeat until we finally learn them. 
This is true for each of us as individual souls, and for collective soul.
 
Which is why is it is so interesting to look back into the past, compare it to the present, and notice the future we are creating.
 
In truth, all time is NOW. Yet we can use the illusion of time to understand the patterns that we are repeating, in this now.
 
At the beginning of 2017, we talked about the nine-year cycle. How this year, we're in the same starting place we were in 2008. You can refresh your memory on  that forecast here.
 
What is important to know, as we are just slightly over the halfway mark in 2017, is that your soul lessons are calling you. 

Look back again, to what you were doing in August of 2008. And there will be the answer, to what you are experiencing now: the same pattern, the same movement, the same shift, the same soul lesson.
 
• What happened in love?
• What happened in family?
• What happened in work?
• What happened in health?
• What happened in abundance?
• What happened in awakening?
• What else happened?

​Here in my small town, we’re lucky to have some visionary community leaders. People who get how important it is for small towns to come together for fun.
 
Lately, I’ve been going to Concerts in the Park on Wednesday nights. Thursdays is movie night, in which a family-friendly flick is projected onto a screen—the side of a large white truck. And on Fridays, there’s another concert.
 
Everybody shows up, even in 110-degree heat. Everybody brings everything: lawn chairs, blankets, picnic hampers. Since this is hops and vineyards country, you can buy beer or wine, if you’re so inclined.
 
And so it was a few nights ago that I saw Sol Seed, a terrific reggae band from Eugene, Oregon. The week before was a Billy Idol tribute. Next up is a Pink Floyd tribute playing Dark Side of the Moon—the night before the eclipse.

Whoo hoo! Go community! 

To see your neighbors dancing in the park. To see folks handing out free H20 bottles because it’s so darn hot. To see the lead singer suddenly stop in the middle of the set, and point above us ”hey everybody, look at the moon,” while we en masse look up at the moon, which is waxing gibbous in the still-blue sky, and is a beautiful sight to behold on that hot August night.
 
Community. It’s alive and well.
Collective soul is doing fine.
Pay attention to the reality around you.
We are connecting more every day. 

I am in the path of totality.
 
By this, I mean that on August 21, 2017, the solar eclipse will be fully visible from my hometown of Salem, Oregon.
 
On that morning, I will be standing at the top of my driveway with my solar glasses on, watching it all go down. And I won't be alone.. One million people are arriving to the state of Oregon for the eclipse event. This is stunning, there are only four million people in the state!
 
Salem, one of the prime viewing spots, is preparing for the deluge. Traffic is expected to snarl on the highways. Businesses are closing for the day. Garbage services are saying they won’t be able to deal with the trash.. Emergency services are gearing up. And everyone I know has already bought their special eclipse glasses, sold at every store counter in town.
 
I know not everyone is in the path of totality. However, the solar eclipse will shift us all, energetically and spiritually.
 
The last solar eclipse visible in the 50 states was in 1979. What were you doing then? There are always patterns when things return, and it is good to remember how you once were.
 
The bigger news is this: if you take time to mark the eclipse with ritual or ceremony or noticing, you will be expanded into collective soul.
 
Do you remember the end of 2012, which marked the end of the Mayan calendar? Collective energy focused on a spiritual event, and the shift in awareness was palpable.
 
Do you recall how you feel when you celebrate any solstice, new moon or full moon, and you realize that other people on the planet are doing the same thing? This is also spiritual connection.
 
It's a wonderful idea to treat August's solar eclipse with reverence and respect. It is not just a moment when the sun and moon align in a particular way. It is a moment when we are all going to be connecting in awe and wonder, together.
 
This is going to break down the veil of separation, in a new and powerful way. 
 
Change is here.
Don’t be confused by the media.
Notice how you have been feeling lately.
Notice how your spirituality seems to be expanding.

This is what’s really happening. 

Lately when head out, I’ve noticed that people are talking to me. 
Not just sometimes. All the time.
 
And it’s not that just they’re talking to me, which is usual when you're out and about.
It's that they’re talking to me in a NEW way.
 
And I’m wondering if this is happening for you too? For example:

• While walking in the small college town nearby, a woman makes a beeline toward me and starts talking to me like she knows me. She isn't just friendly or chatty. She's talking to me like she KNOWS me—personally, closely.

• Getting gas, the attendant starts talking to me like we're family members.

• A woman decades younger than me, whom I don’t know, calls me sweetie four times in a conversation. Not in an annoying way. With deep familiarity and affection..

• A woman crosses the street to me and starts asking me how I'm doing and how my day is  going—and I’m quite sure I’ve never seen her before.
 
All of these interactions are replete with more connection than I used to experience, even a year ago.

This is interesting to me, because I head out in the world in a pretty open state.
But this… well, this is MORE.
 
Something has shifted: either I have changed—which I know I have, or they have changed—which I am guessing they have. Or perhaps we have all changed, together.
 
What it feels like to me, is that there is more soul connection in the air.
 
The collective SHADOW being brought to our attention by politics and the media  has allowed us to take a long, hard look at who we really are.
 
It’s becoming more clear, to more people—even people who never realized it before—that separation is a myth.
 
Separation is a myth.
We’re One soul, in it together.
And we are starting to connect. 

Are you experiencing it too?