It’s a gentle Sunday morning. The cuckoos coo, and the heavily Piscean energy invites lingering over coffee and puttering around the house all day long. Reading comics is a new habit I’ve adopted since moving here. It’s a gauge of how much lighter the energy is, here, how much lighter I am. I can laugh and be silly. Enlightenment literally translates to “lightening up”, which today means taking things less seriously. Not so long ago, a funny moment earned a dry snort. Now, watching a bulldog walk its owner, I double over in giggles, tears streaming down my face. This is success.

One of the comics depicted a smiling skateboarder, a Spicoli looking character similar to many I see on the beaches, here, asking his friend what’s been up to. Listing his many accomplishments, his friend then asks Spicoli, What about you? When are you going to stop goofing off and get serious? He replied, Can I ask you a question? Who’s the one grinning here? It reminded me of an attitude I’ve adopted lately. To every question: the beach. What should I do today? The beach. What’s my mission in life? The beach. The beach is always a good idea.

In my spiritual way, I’ve been a “producer” for most of my adult life. I affirmed and manifested that exact amount of money, spell-worked places to live and vision boarded soul mates. Because the Divine never denies a Soul need, when I align need with my Soul’s intention, magic happens.

Then, consciousness evolved. It was confusing for a long while, and I could hardly see it as an evolution, more like a dark night. The things I used to want – accomplishment, productivity, training, goals- tasted like sawdust. These things began to feel like an attempt to stave off the hungry machine of whatever I considered was keeping me from professional irrelevance and personal wholeness or happiness at the moment.

What did I want – really, want? Desire had always held a form, an aspirational thing. I  realized now that all I only and ever wanted was an experience of my self. This was not dependent on any form -any relationship, goal, pursuit, accomplishment, conference invitation, project or book deal. I couldn’t define the form it would take. Still can’t. I only can tell you how I want to feel. Connected to truth. Creative. Filled with light. Joyful. I imagine light pouring out of me and extending to everyone and everything. I feel fulfilled, beautiful.

What I really want is an internal feeling state — connection to Oneness, to my Divine Self. Which, I realized, nothing external can offer me, not truly.

Even the tarot cards and runes I used to occasionally consult for Divine Guidance stopped resonating, as if to prove a point with a Divine exclamation mark!

All “signs” were pointing me to consult the guide within, The Feeler, The Intuit-er, The Divine Self… to directly commune with the Soul, not its intermediaries.

And to pay attention to the particulars – the when, where, who with and how – I felt connected to light, truth, beauty, effortless ease, wisdom, grace, presence. These became my new coordinates. Yes, please, said my Soul, yummy, let’s do more of that. Likewise, when I feel bad, misaligned, icky with off-energy that is information about what’s not for me.

Is feeling good, gravitating only toward lightness and ease, enough to base life decisions on? Don’t we need grids, graphs, vision boards, affirmations and goal sheets; to obey the voices that tell us to push ahead when we don’t feel like it, to listen to our mind and its analysis of all sides of the matter when really all we want to do is flow with what our Soul says?

No, I don’t think we do… And I’m counting on it. When I disregard the information I receive in connection and presence in favor of the mind’s opinions, I feel anywhere from off to awful -which is information. The beauty is, we get to define our own ideas of happiness.

During Pisces season, your feeling and intuition turn up so you can tune in. How are you feeling? What do you know? Is there an intuition that, were you to allow, could create grace in your life? Are you in old patterns of force and striving, when acceptance would bring gentle flow and ease?

As Pisces season raises our spiritual consciousness, Virgo Full Moon reminds us to be discerning. Aligning with your flow does not mean interpreting what crosses your path as a sign that it’s for you to engage just because it’s right in front of you (which is also really bad dating advice). Over the past year and a half, I’ve learned more about myself from what I don’t want, than what I do. Remember the self-help book, Year of Yes?, with it’s “feel the fear/pain and do it anyway” credo? This used to work. But in this new day, my book would be called Year of No. Paring down to the essential yes’s of your life means getting very clear and solid on your no’s – what you don’t love or like. A “No” from our gut or heart is solid guidance; we don’t even need to consult the mind, which at that point would only confuse the matter.

And when we don’t know what we want… when all we’ve got is a formless feeling … this is where faith comes in. It’s more than a feeling. Maybe it feels like a dream, perhaps a distant memory of who you truly are, but just maybe aligning with how you want to feel has the power to pull in exactly what your Soul desires, even when your mind has no idea how. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who uttered those soulful, light-filled words, “I have a dream…” Maybe that’s how we can shift the collective, so many minds in duality, by coming home to our heart.

Join me in lightening up. Let’s put faith in doing only what feels good, light and peaceful, and trust that by holding the light we will get exactly what our Soul needs. Let’s lighten up, together.