Ageism
Timing is Everything
Failure is Fertilizer for the Garden of Your Life
There are lots of titles I could use to tell my story — “Late Bloomer” is another example. Let’s begin by acknowledging how success has been defined for decades.
On the whole, success is measured by our net worth. This is a process by which one must first: 1) determine a career path; 2) get a degree in that field or acquire the necessary trade skills; 3) enter the work force, submit resumes, go to interviews and, hopefully, land a job that may or may not match the skills described in the resume.
One might need to accept several jobs, competing with others in a similar market and keep climbing the ladder of success until, finally, the salary awarded is commensurate with the skill level required for such a position. One works until the proper age for retirement, or until their retirement fund is adequate enough to allow them to get off the hamster wheel, slow down, relax, and enjoy more of what life has to offer.
Since I grew up in the 60’s the other path to “success” was to get married, hopefully to a man who could support me, or at least supplement my salary. This would enable us to establish a home, put down roots, and grow financial security.
Well I’m here to tell you that my story didn’t follow either of the above scripts. I’ve moved many times, had a brief career teaching music, but have held many different types of jobs while searching for my purpose and the means to support myself doing what I love, which integrates astrology, music, writing, and teaching.
“Failure” is Fertilizer
Looking through the lens of social status, that is, defining self-worth through net worth, my life has little value. If, on the other hand, my experiences are seen through the lens of soul, there is abundance galore.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes, miscalculations, etc., but I have held myself accountable every single time so that I could make the most out of the perceived “failure” and use it to fertilize another pathway forward. I’ve experienced countless, joyless jobs, failed relationships, being ghosted by friends, feeling misunderstood by those closest to me, and often feeling utterly invisible.
The “facts” of my life tell you nothing about the “truth” of who I am, my struggles, and all the inner work and transformation that has kept me going through some very tough times.
Bruised egos heal. The theme running through my life, which has been one continuous conversation with the Universe, the God-mind, has always lifted me up in my darkest hours and deepest despair. Messages from the God-mind often come to me in “random” signs while going about my everyday life.
One example occurred while living in Sarasota, working part-time, finishing up massage training and taking graduate courses in Oriental Medicine. I was lamenting — again — about my life, feeling like it was passing me by, feeling like I was “behind schedule”. As I pulled into a local grocery store and parked my car, I looked up to see these words on the side of a truck: “You’re not old until your regrets replace your dreams.”
“Turning the Mundane into Myth”
Another example came through during a guided meditation in a writer’s class called “Turning the Mundane into Myth”. The instructor told us to pull something out of our purse, backpack, etc., and use it as the focal point of the story. I pulled out my Nalgene bottle. I’d never written a story before, and had no idea what could be said about a Nalgene bottle, but I heard a tiny voice say “The Genie from Nal”. And once I heard the title, I was able to step aside and let the story reveal itself through me.
You can read it in its entirety in my book The Return of Planet Sedna: Astrology, Healing, and the Awakening of Cosmic Kundalini.
The story is about a crone who collects water bottles (water — emotion; bottles are containers for the emotion and the water element signs who tend to blend into their environment). As she’s making her way through the village of “Notimehere” she discovers an unusually beautiful bottle that “glows with a halo as if to beckon life from another realm.” The Genie from Nal appears, and explains to her that he’d been left behind by his people who, while very advanced in technology, were dying from lack of connection to the heart. “And since no one connects with their heart anymore, what good is a genie who grants the heart’s wishes?”
He explained to her that her real father is Kairos, the God of Right Timing, not Kronos (Chronos) for whom she’d been named. He told her to call upon the three sisters of Kairos: Synchronicity, Serendipity, and Magic, and they would teach her while she dreamt. If she followed their guidance and passed it on to the rest of humanity, she could reverse the curse of time.
If I had to sum up my story to you, this would be it. I no longer associate myself with the crone — I associate with Synchronicity, Serendipity, and Magic. I won’t allow regret to replace my dreams…and I still believe in the dream of a peaceful Earth.
I’m in Good Company
My journey is a lot like “The Fool” in Tarot. A nomad with a single backpack taking each experience as it comes. The Fool, however, holds the position as both the first and the last card in the deck — it is “0” and “22”: the naive novice and the experienced master. It represents the beginning and the end of the “hero’s/heroine’s journey”.
In the process of discovering who I truly am, I’ve had to let go of every preconceived notion around who I thought I was or wanted to be at the time.
Each time I experienced “failure” as I perceived it at the time, I used it to fertilize my inner garden…asking the questions again and again: who am I and why am I here? As I reflect upon my life, I’ve come to believe that only the journey matters…not the destination.
For those who resonate with the term “starseed” and feel they’ve been on a long and humbling journey on planet Earth, this message is for you. It’s from my first book The Science of Planetary Signatures in Medicine: Restoring the Cosmic Foundations of Healing:
“This book is dedicated to all souls whose ancient self already knows what is written on and in between these pages, but may have forgotten. When darkness seems to divide us, there is a light inextinguishable guiding us back to connection, and a voice that calls us ever toward harmony.”
