2015: A Hard Wood Year

Let me bring you songs from the wood:to make you feel much better than you could know.Dust you down from tip to toe.Show you how the garden grows.Hold you steady as you go.Join the chorus if you can:it’ll make of you an honest man.Let me bring you love from the field:poppies red and roses filled with summer rain.To heal the wound and still the pain

~ Jethro Tull, from Songs from the Wood

Hard Wood Year:  February 4, 2015 - February 3, 2016

Each year is imbued with the energy of one of the 8 personal elements. 2015 is a Hard Wood year. For Hard Wood element people, this could be a great year or  it could be extremely challenging. Balanced Hard Wood people who are honoring their needs and living a life in alignment with their values will do well. Out of balance Hard Wood people will be given every opportunity and everything they need to heal themselves and their lives. The other personal elements will be effected by Hard Wood energy in various ways in every area of life. Following are some brief descriptions of the Hard Wood personal element and energy and what you can expect to experience in 2015.

Hard Wood Personal Element

In balance You embody the shocking thunder. You have the strength and stability of a mature tree. Just as a tree reaches up to the sky while staying firmly rooted in the soil below, you reach for your dreams and dig deep to make them come true. Just as a tree in a forest competes for sun, water and nutrients, you may be competitive with family, friends and colleagues. Just as deciduous trees blossom and bear fruit, you change your colors with the seasons. You are community oriented. In an effort to make a difference in people’s lives, you lend a helping hand by planning and organizing things and bringing people together. Outgoing and energetic, you are a perfectionist who seeks out the best things in life and likes to come in first. You feed the world and make the Earth beautiful.

Out of balance You may become upset, emotionally unstable, difficult and frustrated, especially by what you see to be obstacles. You can also be inflexible, narrow-minded, judgmental, argumentative and self-righteous. Personally, you may not be able to make decisions and stick to them. Socially, you may become insensitive to other people’s feelings, intolerant of their opinions and disapproving of their life choices. You are prone to anxiety, panic attacks and nervous breakdowns.

Hard Wood Personal Energy

Hard Wood energy is gentle and graceful, kind-hearted and caring and full of goodwill toward others. Hard Wood years are about being gentle with yourself and handling difficult situations with grace. Learn to cultivate kindness within your own heart and take better care of yourself. Forgive yourself for personal failures and perceived flaws, show yourself more compassion and give yourself permission to not be so perfect all the time.

Hard Wood people have a gift for taking care of people’s physical needs and providing for their emotional needs. Hard Wood years are about taking really good care of YOU! Run yourself a luxurious bubble bath. Go to a day spa and pamper yourself with a facial or massage. Make yourself a delicious meal and eat it by candlelight while soft music plays. Buy yourself a new outfit or some really comfortable walking shoes. Schedule regular adjustments, acupuncture treatments or Reiki sessions. Schedule some talk time with a counselor or trusted friend.

Hard Wood people are a yang energy element. They have a tough exterior that protects their often tender heart from the hurt and pain of the damage caused by wounds. Hard Wood years inspire a desire to experience and express the real you, the you no one gets to see, the sensitivities beneath the tougher exterior, the vulnerabilities under all that stoic strength to expose the softness at the core of the mighty oak.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

~ E. E. Cummings

Hard Wood is associated with Spring, a time of new beginnings, a season of new growth and flourishing new life. Hard Wood people resonate the most with birth and the first stages of growth and development. They have the wonder, joy and excitement of children who are seeing and learning about everything in their world for the first time. Hard Wood years are defined by renewed hope in humanity, a youthful exuberance for life, rebirth and accelerated personal growth and development. Ask yourself what you have given up hope of ever being, doing or having. Know that you are worthy of the life you would like to have.

Hard Wood is represented by every living green thing on the face of Earth that goes through changes with the seasons. It blooms in the Spring, blossoms in the Summer, bears fruit in the Fall and bares it all in Winter. The Hard Wood element in all its glorious changing colors is what makes the world a beautiful place. Hard Wood years challenge you to grow and change, turn over a new leaf, be fruitful and bare your naked soul to your loved ones and caring community.

Emotions

Hard Wood is one of two emotional elements. Both Hard Wood and Soft Wood people are highly emotionally intelligent. Hard Wood years inspire all of the elements to cultivate their own emotional intelligence. This year you will be asked to heal your emotional self. You will be inspired to heal your relationship to your emotions. You will experience a wide range of emotions and actually feel those emotions instead of act out on them, avoid them or over analyze them. You will develop the ability to distinguish your thoughts from your emotions. You will become more empathic, feel what other people are feeling and show compassion.

The ‘I’ in illness is isolation,

and the crucial letters in wellness are ‘we’.

Health

Hard Wood is associated with health and family. Hard Wood people are really good at taking care of their family and tend to neglect their health and become a martyr. Hard Wood years remind you, sometimes in not so subtle ways, to take care of you, your health and your personal well-being. Do whatever it takes to nurture your mind, body and soul so that you can continue to love and care for your loved ones. Gather a team of healers and caregivers around you so that you can move through illness to wellness together and find the gift in it for everyone.

Hard Wood is the archetype of The Healer. Besides the nutritional and medicinal value of the Hard Wood element, it also has considerable skillsets when it comes to caring for emotional health and well-being. The body only provides a physical manifestation of something amiss when you have believed an untrue thought or ignored an emotional or spiritual problem for too long. Hard Wood people are able to recognize, describe and work through their emotions. Pay attention to how you feel. Ask yourself what that emotion feels like in your body and describe the sensation. Then release it with a clearing statement or breathing exercise, in a workout or meditation session, in conversation with a friend or in a conversation with God.

Hard Wood is represented in nature by plants, herbs, flowers, bushes and deciduous trees. This vital element feeds the world with its food and heals with its medicinal plants. Hard Wood years inspire you to eat clean and let your food be your medicine. You may switch to a plant strong diet, adopt a daily green juicing habit or start supplementing with chlorella, spirulina, moringa and kelp. You may finally learn how to make your own kale chips, swap out a latte for a green tea more often and eat more raw fruits and veggies at every meal everyday. You may learn about the healing properties of herbal medicine or just start using fresh herbs in your juices, teas and dishes. You may look into the powerful benefits of medicinal plants and start using essential oils and Bach Flower remedies.

Each personal element is associated with different organs and parts of the body. Hard Wood is associated with the throat, the gallbladder and the feet. Each organ and part of the body is also associated with an emotion. Dis-ease in these areas can be healed by addressing and healing our toxic emotional states. For more information, read You Can Heal Your Life

Throat This year it is important to use your voice and pay attention to your throat chakra. Stay physically and emotionally healthy by speaking your truth, speaking up for yourself and verbally expressing how you really feel. Give your throat chakra energy clearings and extra Reiki. Use clearing statements to delete the programs running in the background of your life, the ones carefully taught to you and programmed subliminally or directly into your consciousness.

Thyroid Thyroid problems are a silent epidemic because they go undiagnosed for years in a huge percentage of the population. There are many environmental, emotional, dietary and lifestyle causes. Get your thyroid checked and follow the healing protocols that resonate with you for a healthy thyroid to reverse or prevent thyroid disease.

Gallbladder Just as the kidneys hold fear and the liver stores anger, the gallbladder collects pride.  Out of balance Hard Wood people tend to be critical and complaining, controlling and condemning.  Their own self-importance causes them to appear to be self-righteousness.  Be humble.  Admit to your mistakes.  Let yourself off the hook and everyone else too.  We are all doing the best we can with what we know.  Now that you know better, do better!

Feet The feet represent travel, new directions and moving. This year, you will be gifted with opportunities for more travel. You will change directions in your life, education, career and relationships. You will move out, move up in the world or move on from situations that aren’t working and relationships that aren't serving your highest good. Feet are made for walking and walking is the best exercise for everyone. Take care of your feet and let them take you for a walk every day.  Feet are also made for standing.  Take a stand, stand up for yourself and stand your ground.

Relationships

Hard Wood is associated with family relationships. Hard Wood years ask you to explore the health of your relationships, look at their effect on your personal well-being and work up the courage to speak your truth regardless of the feared or inevitable consequences. You will be given chances to heal and strengthen your relationships with family. You will be given opportunities to develop the ability to relate with people, especially family, in a healthy way.

Hard Wood people try to avoid hurting other people's feelings because they know how badly it hurts. They seek other people's approval because they don't want to lose the relationships they have. There are ways to express yourself, be honest and speak your truth in healthy ways that take other people's feelings into consideration. However, the way people respond to you is out of your control and is ALWAYS an expression of their own issues with themselves - not you. Be true to yourself. Be authentic. Be YOU! The people who really love you will love the real you!

Hard Wood is associated with the number 3. Hard Wood years encourage you to explore or eliminate your co-dependent relationships. Because Hard Wood people embody a spirit of cooperation, they tend to be very tolerant of people and their issues. Tolerance is inauthentic, hurts your personal energy and eventually leads to dis-ease and resentment. Let people show you who they are. Then decide if that works for you or not. Accept people for who they are. Under no circumstances tolerate unacceptable behavior, even from family. You get to decide who gets the pleasure of your company. Be more selective about who you give you time, talents, energy and attention to.  Opt for developing interdependent relationships.

Hard Wood is also associated with community.  Hard Wood people interact and contribute to their community in a real way.  They reach out, offer support and make valuable contributions to people  at home, at work, at school, at church and in other groups. Social media and other online forums provide a false sense of community.  Take a tip from the Hard Wood element: form and strengthen real connections with people through a conversation, a home cooked meal, a phone call, a sincere handwritten note, a coffee date, a family dinner and community gatherings.

Complaining about complaining is also complaining.

~ Abraham-Hicks

Communication

Hard Wood energy holds the potential for arguing, complaining and gossiping.  It is important for you to communicate clearly and avoid conflict.  You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.  Know what you need and learn how to ask for what you need in a way that doesn't make the other person wrong for not being able or willing to provide it.  Be self-expressed and more direct in your communication with others.  Take the guesswork out of the equation.  Gossip has become a socially accepted past-time, the focus of reality show segments and the theme of entertainment news and fashion shows.  Over sharing has become a sickness of the modern age.  Be more discerning about what you say, about whom you say it and with whom you say it to.  Many times people turn their attention to others and try to fix them so that they don't have to look at and heal their own lives.

Hard Wood is the element that makes our Earth a beautiful place to live.  Hard Wood people are naturally beautiful inside and out.  See the beauty in yourself and others.  Look for beauty wherever you go.  Create something beautiful in whatever you do.  Embody the beauty you want to see in the world.  Let the beauty of who you really are be revealed so that others can recognize their own beauty.

This year, be like a tree…

Stay grounded

Connect with your roots

Turn over a new leaf

Bend before you break

Enjoy your unique natural beauty

Keep growing

☯

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