For many years now people have been saying that 2020 will be essential to our next stage of Spiritual Growth and Ascension and calling it the Age of Aquarius – which feels like it has been happening since the mid 80’s. What are your expectations for this new decade? I know astrologically we are going to experience some challenging events like in 2018 with both Mars (Sept to Nov) and Venus (May and June) going retrograde. However, beyond these astrological events it seems the greater events of interest is because of the transits at the end of the year and that is why there are wide expectations of this being an important Year for Spiritual Growth and Ascension. Saturn enters Aquarius Dec 17th (briefly entering earlier in May and June before retrograding back into Capricorn); Jupiter enters Aquarius Dec 19th and there is a Great Conjunction – where Saturn conjuncts Jupiter in Aquarius Dec 21st – which occurs every 20 years but the last time when it was in Aquarius was 1405 and will be again in 2080. The event has suggested celestial significance and belief that the Star of Bethlehem was actually a Great Conjunction.

So what constitutes a proclamation of a year becoming the Year of Ascension? Could astrological events determine the energies? I honestly can’t seem to feel what this new decade’s energies will suggest. I have felt years that have had significance and the energies felt clear to me. This year I’m unclear. Maybe it is because over the past few years I have come to a different understanding of what our purposes are here: that it isn’t about some miraculous event occurring that will change our energy but rather it is our choices and our fears that assist us to become more conscious and more able to Evolve in our Spiritual Growth. If we want to change, to evolve, we have to Become the Change. Nothing outside of us will create this change. We can be supported by outside influences but ultimately we have to want to change and make the efforts to create the change within us.

What creates Ascension?

Intentions

Consciousness

Less fear

Now moment living vs living in the past or future

Choices

It is difficult to determine what comes first. I think we need to begin with our Intentions. We have to start somewhere. We usually ponder all the things we don’t want first. This is a call to the Universe that we put too much importance on what we don’t want, our fears. So I believe we must become clear about what we do want. When we set an intention we proclaim what we are dreaming about and what we intend to do for this year and beyond and not only what we intend to do but also how we want to BE. So let’s remember to take a few moments and set our intentions to Grow Up and move toward our Ascension (whatever that may be). Last month I pondered how to make a Wish and this may assist us on what to set as an Intention and how.

Consciousness seems like the important next step. We must become conscious of our lives and how we are responding to our life happenings in each moment. Consciousness is a state of BEing. We are either conscious or we are living our lives on autopilot. When we are on autopilot we miss being aware of our lives passing us by. We aren’t engaged and we can’t find the sacred in each moment. We are stuck in a rut and our fears are keeping us distracted and in our ‘story’. When we are conscious we can use our senses to respond to our life. We will be aware of our choices and we can clearly reflect on our choices and reactions when something is triggering us. We can Breathe. We can Know how to respond in each situation as it happens – instead of feeling out of control and feeling like a victim. When we are conscious we can be in charge of how we respond – it allows us to Evolve and Grow Up.

Once we set an Intention and become more conscious our Fears will become more evident. We will discover just how much our fears play in our story. On autopilot our fears control us. As we become more conscious – as we have set our Intentions – we can see how ridiculous our fears are and that our fears are not based in reality. They don’t have truth. They are fears that we have picked up prior to the age of 7 and they have defined us for the rest of our lives. The Core Fears are: Fear of being alone, Fear of Failure, Fear of losing something (death), and Fear of the Unknown. With our consciousness we counter the fears by knowing we are Enough and also connected to all of Life so we are never alone and never rejected; we are Awesome and able to do whatever we intend so we never really fail; We are on an Amazing Journey of Consciousness so we never really die; And we are ultimately Consciousness and Connected so nothing is unknown. As the movie ‘Frozen’ keeps telling us: “Let it GO”. Our fears aren’t real – they can be faced and accepted. We can let them go!

Being present and in the Now Moment is when we can truly be in charge of how we respond to life. Typically on autopilot we are stuck in the past or worried about the future. We are in linear time – being controlled by our fears. We are stuck in our story that has defined us – the patterns of our life. However once we Breathe, set Intentions, and are more conscious then we can change our experiences through our awareness. We can identify our fears, our patterns that hold us back or out of the moment, our story and as a result: make a choice to change. It is only in the Now Moment that change can happen. It is in the moment that we are conscious, that we aren’t in autopilot, that we become aware of the fears that govern us. And in such moments we can decide how we want to BE. We can examine our Intentions, our fears, the story we have told over and over about who we are. In this moment we can define our next moment. We can change how we respond to the past and create our future. We can be aware of the fears and make different choices.

Which brings us to the last point about our choices. When we are in autopilot we are stuck in the story, our fears, distracting ourselves from our pain and usually feeling like a victim. We don’t see that we have a choice when we feel like a victim! Ironically we aren’t in control of anything outside us in the world – we can only be in charge of how we respond to what is happening around us. This means that we can choose whether we want to be stuck in the core fears – Fear of being alone, Fear of Failure, Fear of losing something (death), and Fear of the Unknown or we can choose to see beyond these fears. We can decide how to react – we don’t have to take anything personally because how others respond is through their own fears. It doesn’t excuse them but it does help us understand how our own fears are dictating how we make choices. My easiest example is of an ending of a relationship/marriage: it isn’t personal, it isn’t about either person versus the other person, it is about their inner choices and their fears – it isn’t personal as in person-to-person. I choose to Grow Up and I make choices from a place of Love and Acceptance and as a result my choices are aligned with where I see my life going and I make every attempt to not take other people’s choices as personal.

This year, 2020, this new decade, I choose to set my Intention to continue to Grow Up, to become more conscious of how I’m living my life, to face some of my deepest fears and acknowledge them, to live in the moment as much as I can and to make Choices that continue to assist me on this Incredible Journey into myself as an integral part of All That Is. I Intend and choose to be conscious of and to use the Support of the Universe, fearlessly, in my unfolding moments in and through 2020 (and Beyond) in my Awesome Journey of Ascension and Spiritual Growth. And as always I Invite you to share your Journey with me; assisting me to Grow Up. Happy New Years!