It was an early morning on the road.  My husband & I sat up front and the two kids were in the back, headed out to Montana from Florida to visit my parents for a vacation.  Everyone had had a decent night's rest and we were all breakfasted & refreshed.  My husband - ever in love with his carefully curated playlist of driving music - had put the system on "shuffle" hoping to get a good mix up of his ultimate favorites.

We were somewhere in a midwestern state, heading northwest.  I remember closing my book, looking back at the kids who were surprisingly not fighting and not on any entertainment device, and enjoying the scenic views.  There were a series of really good mood-boosters from the playlist.  Then, a band of Florida-boys came up, their music gently rolling its bluesy tune through the speakers.  

You know those songs that you can't remember ever having heard before but just feeling like you know it?  One of those songs that seems to dive into your soul and actually pluck the string it wants to resonate with?
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This was one of those songs for me.  I heard my hubby start singing along, and - before I could stop myself - I had joined in.  By the time the refrain hit, all of us - even the kids - were singing as if it were the most popular radio-played song on the charts and we all knew it perfectly.  None of us can sing very well, but the heart & soul feeling of the song that just opened us up and filled the whole car was amazing to me. 

I love those moments!  It's all too easy in today's world for us to miss shared moments of impromptu, soulful resonance - even with those dearest to us.  And, don't be fooled by complacency either. We can have these moments frequently and still squander their gift by not acknowledging or noticing them, or not opening fully to reveling in them, or not recalling them fondly (whether in detail, or in sensation & energy).  May you find many moments of pure bliss & humor & light-heartedness!  May you remember to reimmerse yourself in those blissful moments, especially if things aren't too obviously blissful.  It's like a healing balm to the spirit.     ​

I thought I'd share one of the more mundane experiences in our psychic-everyday family-life.  Maybe we're weird, maybe not... It's likely not profound.  But, in the moment, those small ways when things just kind of make enough sense for you to relax in the flow... yeah, this was one of those born of chaos rather than one of those uppity-life-is-great days.  This was one of the pure "life is chaos AND perfect" days.

Nine of Wands jumped out while sitting in the car heading down for a family fun day south of Orlando in Lake Buena Vista. We had wanted to head out earlier in the morning but everyone slept a bit late and we weren’t even ready until after 11:30am. Then my husband’s calendar *dinged* with an appointment reminder - he had an in-office session at 2:30 in the afternoon. So we waited and had lunch. At least I got all my chores done easily before leaving and our dog-sitter managed to arrive before we left. The kids were restless and anxious waiting, but they helped me out, had a good lunch, and a tasty treat.

Although my husband was driving and would share a different opinion, the traffic through Orlando couldn’t dim anyone’s excitement. There was no major fan-fare or complications, no outrageous incidents.

So, early on in our trek when the Nine of Wands popped out of my deck while I was shuffling and settled in a tight spot under my seat, my husband asked what card it was, intent on the meaning. I told him that the Nine of Wands is a pause in activity before the close of a creative or action-packed cycle. It’s a moment of patiently waiting or taking a breather, possibly a rest period after recuperating from an illness (I had been suffering swollen gland & pain for a couple days and finally felt better). The Nine of Wands was telling us to slow down and take a break because, given the hectic energy of July (New & Full Moon Eclipses, with retrogrades & hard transits, ending with a second New Moon) and the coming forward motion of August and September, we need this!

It was a pleasant reminder that even though it seemed one inconvenient delay after another or expected plans changing in one fashion or another, the Universe conspires to get us to move slowly when we need to, let go of expectations or take one step at a time when we have to. There is no sense in getting uptight about things when preparing to relax.... just relax and ease into the moment one moment at a time. 

​We communicate. We communicate our opinions, our preferences. We communicate our wants and our needs. We communicate our boundaries. We communicate our frustrations, our sorrows. We communicate our love and our gratitude.

The point of communication is not to make the other person responsible for these things that we say. The point of communication is to let others know where we are in our own minds, what we are working on in ourselves, and who we are as individuals. Honest communication is born of personal responsibility.