It’s a rockstar morning in Hawaii. The Oahu sun is shining too brightly as I peel back my eye mask and feel the weight of fatigue. I feel like I went on a bender last night, when in reality I ate a healthy meal, worked out and went to bed. I recollect that we were here in Hawaii during the Leo Full Moon Lunar Eclipse at this time last year (then, having no idea that we’d move here), and today, here we are, new residents of this beautiful island. This change, that felt it was taking place so awfully slow over the past year, now feels like it happened quickly.

Cognitive dissonance is a thread that runs throughout these first days, here. Life continues, with its necessities to be bought, dinner to be made, dogs to be walked, it’s easy to be lulled into “same routine, new place”. Until my head spins and I realize how floaty I feel, and I squirt my B vitamin into my mouth and the bright cherry red liquid lands on my only t-shirt (because our household belongings, including my wardrobe, is still on a boat). Well…maybe I should just lay down.

I go to a Starbucks, where I sit and attempt to collect my thoughts. Really, I’m just people watching at this point. I watch the young smiling girls in line, wearing their bikini tops and cut-offs. Older people gather to share coffee and “talk story”. I could be anywhere, Starbucks is like that. Except I am in Hawaii.

Ooh, I love the energy here. It is elevated, higher, so different from what I’m used to. It’s like drinking a shot of wheatgrass, energetically, and this higher vibration resonates with me, even if it’s going to take some time to California detox and adjust. The fact that I go to a coffee shop to get centered, instead of sitting at home, makes me smile. In Marin, I’d never been able to sit in a crowded coffee shop and stay in my own energy field… but here I am.

Honestly, it’s a bit confusing for my Ego. I’ve gotten so used to fielding aggressive and fearful Ego vibrations that being here in this elevated vibration- the HI life– is akin to a miracle, really. I waver between feeling high and giddy, and like a hung-over rockstar, but overall my entire energy body has been liberated. A small part of me worried the other shoe will drop, what if it is fleeting, what if it doesn’t last? Another, wiser part of me knows that’s not true and is singing glory, glory hallelujah to the highest. I periodically burst into happy tears of joy- at the sight of a full rainbow greeting us upon first arriving at our new neighborhood (see picture above), my first visit to the beach, at the invisible barriers once so solid that now gently, easily, fall away.

The invisible barriers are falling away. A big issue I’d been struggling with for years, that has kept me from feeling fully liberated, suddenly freed itself the other day -just a subtle shift in perception that I wasn’t able to “get” back in California, effortlessly revealed, here. This has happened enough for me to see a pattern.

I don’t just attribute this to Hawaii, not entirely. It’s not unusual for eclipse season to usher in new energies, create openings, accelerations of awareness. Astrologers refer to eclipses as portals for rapid spiritual openings, expansion, awakenings. I’ve found this to be true. Big biographical events in the external world (moves, births, deaths, endings, beginnings) tend to get a lot of air play during eclipse time and that’s not unwarranted – but this is a lunar event. If you keep your eye on the external world, focusing on the loud lives of other people and events, instead of what’s going on inside of you, you’ll be missing out on juicy goodness for your self.

During this Leo-Aquarius eclipse cycle, realizations we experience can liberate us from old patterns, roles, expectations, the status quo… and into the unfolding fullness of our authentic, Divine expression. I am unfolding into the fullness of myself. I can feel it, a depth and intimacy within myself, full of promise, expansion. I’d been living with an anchor chained to my ankle, making everything extraordinarily laborious, hard, but arriving on the shores of Hawaii has freed me in ways that I couldn’t do in California. When I described this feeling to my husband, he said, “I’m experiencing the same thing in my professional life.”

He and I have talked philosophically about how easy it is to use the experience one is having (the unfulfilling job, relationship, life) as proof that it’s all we can have- and how that can keep you in chains, stuck. Because from the moment this adventure began unfolding, those illusions showed up as what they really were: fear of change, of our own greatness, our own power, worthiness. Over and over, as I’ve put faith in my Soul’s truth, all the Ego’s fears proved unfounded.

When you receive a message from your Soul, trust that the Divine already has your coordinates in hand. The hardest part is to gently but firmly redirect the voices of doubt/fear into faith. Then to trust, listen, and then trust and listen some more.

Lately, a line from a Prince song called Breakdown runs through my mind: “Baby, baby, see there’s a door that you can walk through, where there used to be a wall…” Yes, yes, I say to myself. This is happening. On so many levels.

Eclipse season is a magical time. Eclipse energy feels big, it’s exaggerating the message for a reason. Go inside your self, listen to your heart. Because, as crazy as it sounds, there’s nothing stopping you from following it. And if you doubt that, “Baby, baby, see there’s a door that you can walk through, where there used to be a wall…”