I want to share with you how happy I am tonight. For the first time in a long time, I am full-to-bursting with happiness. Tonight, I get to be myself. We are celebrating Yule as a family, for the first time ever. It has been a long road in the past year. We have moved houses, from my mother's house into our rental house - the first house I've lived in that has been in my name. My husband and I have been together for ten years now, married for a year and a half. My oldest son has moved out and is working and lives with a roommate and has a girlfriend that he is bringing home for Yule dinner. My younger son has a girlfriend and is a junior in high school - can you believe he's fixing to start applying for colleges? My daughter, the light of our house, is the very embodiment of the holiday spirit - she has been the one responsible for cooking today - though, I heated up the ham! - and she has done all the decorating this season. We have a little potted live tree that we plan to use for the next five-to-seven years. Our house, our life, is not perfect, but it's ours. I am so blessed behind/beyond measure.

I hope there's a happy Yule/Christmas/holiday season for you. I wish you all the happinesses in the world.

My friend from yesterday was struck by how accurate my reading was for her, regarding the past six months and requested a six months into the future reading. I used the New Year spread from The Gaian Tarot and tweaked it a little bit. Since we are close to her birthday - I did a personal New Year and a calendar New Year. Personal is more about you and your actions and how you affect yourself and the world; calendar is about the world and how it affects your situation. It brought up some interesting references: the magic well in The 10th Kingdom, Faulkner's Sound and the Fury, Trump. I am glad to have this practice.

As I said yesterday, I don't do a reading for someone else without doing one for me, as well. Her birthday is 2 days before mine, so I will do the same spreads for me, too. And I might offer to another friend whose birthday is today. In fact, I think I will. Be right back.

Ok, that's done.

1. What do I leave behind in the Old Year?
Personal: Four of Air. A fallen-apart nest. Time alone, personal space, ideas stolen.
Calendar: Three of Fire. Holding me back, abandonment.

2. What do I open up to in the New Year?
Personal: Ace of Air, reversed. Metamorphosis.
Calendar: The Moon, reversed. Psychic, non-rational realms.

3. Key Opportunity of the New Year
Personal: Ace of Earth. Manifestation: good fortune, renewed health, nurturing, strength, grace, stability, an unfolding of the spiral path.
Calendar: Three of Water, reversed. Choose joy.

4. Key Challenge of the New Year
Personal: Lightning, reversed. The financial situation may last longer than expected.
Calendar: Justice, reversed. You may be reaping the consequences of bad habits.

5. Hidden Concern
Personal: Explorer of Water, reversed. Grounding spirituality in the physical world. Connecting brain to body and waiting for it there.
Calendar: Eight of Water. You are taking action to live authentically, even though it's very difficult to swim against the current. But the increased effort will make you stronger.

6. Deep Wisdom
Personal: The Magician, reversed. In what ways might you be refusing to take responsibility for your life or step into your own power?
Calendar: The Tree, reversed. Haste and aggressiveness will undermine your peace of mind.

7. Key Theme of the New Year
Personal: Awakening, reversed. You may be attached to old ways of doing things.
Calendar:  Two of Air. Silence and stillness.

I never read for someone else without reading for myself, too.

A blessing on my head, mazel tov, mazel tov/To see a daughter wed . . . Nope, slow that record down. No daughters wed yet. She's only 13 and this is not that day and age. Though, once upon a time, she would have been well-nigh old enough, if not married already to a man almost definitely her senior. <sigh> No, I don't wish that for her, even if it meant teenage angst could go live somewhere else. Sheepish. It's been that kind of week, y'all.

I read for a friend for this first time on Facebook this morning. The first time I've done it "in public." Where people can see who I am and what I do and that I do this and believe in this. I won't record those insights here. This here is all mine and my insights. She can publish hers on her blog.

This is a new spread called "The Light of the Solstice." It was in the Llewellyn Tarot newsletter this morning. I use The Gaian Tarot almost exclusively now. I have the Anna K Tarot on eBay, if you're interested.

You can find it here, if you are also into such things: http://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/2056?utm_source=tarotup1216&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tarotup1216

1: Returning Hope.What are you hopeful about?
Card: Ace of Fire. You are bursting with new energy.

(That's true this morning - I've already mostly cleaned the kitchen and done downward dog and plank and gotten three eBay orders ready to go.)

Your sense of self is heightened and you are feeling assertive. You are charged with creativity and can't wait to begin new projects

(this blog! I am super-excited about this blog!)

You may be discovering a new way of expressing your sexuality

(I think expressing it would be lovely, in and of itself. We're stressed.)

You are beginning a transformation of some kind, 

(yes, I'm letting go of quite a lot of things this season. Everything that clutters me.)

and quite possibly a healing as well.

(Yes, decluttering, which sounds like such a utilitarian word, but really is getting rid of everything that brings me dis-ease. It's been quite healing already. I can't wait to be rid of all the hangers-on. I expect to have more energy.)

2. Making Wishes. What does your heart desire?
Card: Five of Water. You are hovering on the edge of grief, despondency, or discouragement. You may be regretting lost opportunities or missing someone terribly. Depression has been called "anger turned inward," but also "intuition unheeded."

(I am sitting here trying to discount these sentences, because I'm in a happy, good mood right now, but the truth is, intuition says I need to say this to you: Yes. I have been on the edge lately. My mother, my father, all my grandparents are dead. My mother used to make a beautiful Christmas and I am dealing with letting her way go and not letting it get in the way of being able to make Christmas, or Yule, to be more accurate, my way still pleasurable and meaningful. Also, I'm having money troubles. It's ok; I think I've finally gotten my head around the situation now, but it's discouraging. I never really had to deal with this before.)

It can be hard to find a way out of the gloom, and yet, it is not impossible. There's a boat in the distance that will take you through the mists to the farther shore.

(Avalon!)

What is on the other side?

(The other side? So many death/Vampire Diaries references, so little time. I think I am already on the other side of it. I have money in the bank and I'm grateful. I'm content to be here, typing away, I'm grounded to the earth, albeit through the carpet, and my soul is at ease. Cue Arrested Development.)

3. Seeking Visions. What is your vision for the future? Where do you see yourself next year at this time?
Card: Strength. You are learning to embrace the wilder, more instinctual facets of your personality. If you were taught to consider the body and the material world as inferior to the mind and spirit, you are discovering now that is not the case.

(So much this! I read this quote this morning and posted it on my Facebook wall: "None of us are above our pain or above being human. When we try to be, we pass our suffering on to everyone around us. None are above being wounded or above being the one doing the wounding. Life is a weighty gift. Full of chaos and consequences, full of choices and challenges, full of healing what we can and making peace with what we might not be able to. For us, life can only be lived through the very flawed vehicles of our humanity." - Chani Nicholas, astrologer.)

The development of your inner fortitude (my Grandma's favorite word) is the unseen blessing of difficult times. When you face your fears, when you accept the reality of an unpleasant situation (I have put too much money into my business), when you acknowledge the truth of what you've been avoiding, you develop the courage that allows you to persevere. If you've never before been tested (pfff. My mother, my world, had cancer,) you may be surprised to discover a wild source of strength you never knew you had - like a woman giving birth alone in the wilderness.

I never answered the question. Where do you see yourself next year at this time? I will be a better steward of my resources. My business will be flourishing and supporting itself. (You can help with that: go here = https://JenniferChappell.po.sh) I will still live in this same house. My family and I will be another year older. My husband will be about to graduate from college. My oldest son will still be healthy and happy and working. My younger son will be in the middle of his senior year of high school. My daughter will be in the middle of her last year of middle school and be accepted to either the performing arts magnet or the liberal arts magnet. My animals will all be another year older. I will finally be able to do a 10-second wall handstand and 5 minutes of hill sprints and 25 consecutive bodyweight squats.

4. Sense of Balance. What will restore balance to your life?
Card: Five of Earth. You are dealing with stress on a survival level, most likely with your health or finances. (Finances. Working on it.)

5. Goodwill Toward Others. How can you give of yourself to others?

(I can go hug my daughter. Be right back.)

Card: The Builder, reversed. Stop stifling and micromanaging others. Make decisions. Be a good steward of your resources. Sustain your resources. Set limits and boundaries. Try to have a positive attitude about fatherhood.

6. Advice. What can you do on the mundane level?
Card: The Moon. There is nothing mundane about The Moon.

It all starts Here: http://www.outsideonline.com/1870381/take-two-hours-pine-forest-and-call-me-morning?utm_source=fitness&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=12072016&spMailingID=27270455&spUserID=NzQ1NjI1MDE5MjcS1&spJobID=941639112&spReportId=OTQxNjM5MTEyS0

"Indeed, in 2008, the world reached a curious milestone: more people lived in urban areas than outside of them. In the U.S., urban areas grew faster in 2010 and 2011 than suburban regions for the first time since the 1920s. According to Nicholas Carr’s 2010 book The Shallows, the average American spends at least eight hours a day looking at some sort of electronic screen. Then we try to relax by watching TV. Bad idea. Research shows that this only makes us crabbier. Logan asserts that, since the age of the Internet, North Americans have become more aggressive, more narcissistic, more distracted, more depressed, and less cognitively nimble. Oh yeah, and fatter."

The thought lodged: could I live without screens? It seems like an easy question, doesn't it? But, for five whole minutes, it sent me to my bed, scared and depressed. What could I do? What would I do? Would I close down that particular webpage, stop reading that article? Let it go without posing the question to my friends and family?

No. I may be scared because it's an unfamiliar territory, but that's not a good reason. Everything is unfamiliar, until you explore it.

So, let's do that. My world without screens. What would that look like?

I wake up anywhere between 3:30 and 6:00 am. Instead of checking my phone to see what time it is, I check the clock in the kitchen, one room over. After all, we still have electricity. Next . . . I check my eBay sales - nope. If I'm going to sell things, they are going to have to be to people immediately available to me. Yard sale? Resale store? Check my LinkedIn - nope. I'll have to get to know other people in the sustainable agriculture industry where I have immediate access. Get to know my local farmers at the downtown market. Check my Facebook - nope. There goes my Perfectly Posh business, down the drain. The company is not local and I have only one local customer. I do have lots of samples I can hand out, but I will be unable to order more product - it's only available through the Internet. Friends? Again, my friends will be relegated to local or people with whom I write letters. Ah ha! The old-fashioned address book comes back into being. My fitness routine will have to be of my own devising - Nerd Fitness also only exists on the Internet. PayPal becomes obsolete. Email? Ha! Anyone who wants to get in touch with me will have to know my address and send me mail or visit me. Everyone in this house has smartphones - without those, we have no phone service.

This blog becomes a diary. My meticulous to-do log, also on paper. Paper books, no more Kindle. Computer games - gone. What will my teenagers do, without YouTube and Overwatch? My older teenager-at-home will study. He has just realized that he will be a senior next year and wouldn't it be lovely if he got into college? He asked me just this morning if I can pick him up from school later so he can study. The computer is too much of a distraction to study at home. Music in the car, well, good thing I still have all those CDs! To the tune of "the knee bone connects to the leg bone," we have "the smartphone connects to the aux cord."

Without these, what do I do during the day? I cook. All the things I've been meaning to cook and then, I don't. I learn to sew. I pay more attention to my family and my animals. I write letters. I send packages of love to faraway friends. That doesn't sound so bad - it sounds positively blissful . . . I read books. I make love with my husband, instead of binge-watching Bones on Netflix.

My husband has to actually go to the college campus where he's in school. Without screens, we have no need for computer techs, so he learns to cook instead. He doesn't have to get to the next level of Skyrim, so what does he do during the afternoons . . . he is pondering this now.

My daughter doesn't watch her shows on YouTube or movies on the dvd player. What does she do, instead? Inquiring minds want to know. Upon inquiry, she says she would make a nuisance of herself. However, I think that would get old and she would learn to entertain herself in other ways - not a bad thing at all.

So, now, at the end of these musings, what happens next? What do we do with this idea? What would you do with this idea?

Today, I am capable. Today, I walked up and down the hill towards the forest three times, even though I am injured.

My name is Jennifer and I live on the edge of the forest.

Today, I got out of bed, dressed and went out. I nursed my pain yesterday - if I let the pain stop me today, I won't be able to move tomorrow. I ignored the little twinge that says, "Stop. You don't know what's out there. You don't know what wild beast is waiting to tear your world apart." I focused on the front of my mind, I sang to myself, like I always do about this time, and I went out into the world. I bought a hot drink from a merchant and a meal for my husband. I returned my daughter's literature to the one from whom she borrowed it. I procured money to be able to feed my horse and I came home again, through the winding roads to the house on the edge of the forest. A successful morning.