The Diamond Room Newsletter

Happy New Moon!

AND

Happy Lunar New Year!

Moon cakes. Firecrackers. Money. Lanterns! What's not to love about the Lunar New Year?!

Every year in Seattle there's a big Lunar New Year celebration in the International District. It's a whopping fun time and sure to be a hoot this year. Personally, I feel like people pull the stops out whenever you get to do anything dragon-themed. Dragons are just innately cool, man.

Now, you know I love a new year. Give me any excuse to dress up and set new intentions, I'm there for it.

There is something interesting, I think, in the space between the beginning of the new year on the Julian calendar and the Lunar calendar -- which is to say, between January 1st and now.

I know I'm not alone in often finding the energy of January counter to the desire to rev up for the year ahead. It's like running in molasses, or spinning your tires in mud, or trying to get Comcast to answer the phone. A lot of work for not much reward. Like banging your head against the wall.

I have a new theory this year. It's this: January is for resting.

We're trained by our lovely capitalist grind culture mentality (which we've been trained into since birth, practically) to work hard and sacrifice ourselves on the altar of productivity. Is that dramatic? The results of this experience are dramatic. We are a culture of overworked, overstressed, exhausted people who think napping is a form of giving in, unless the Powers That Be allow it (ie. using your vacation time).

This means that we've also been trained to view a turnover into the new year as a time to get even more in action. To go vegan or join the gym or make some kind of sweeping declaration about how This Year Is Going To Be Different (Goddammit!).

And I'm beginning to think that's bullshit.

Think about it. What other part of nature revs up in the winter? Avalanches? Ice storms? They're doing great this time of year. But everything else is chilling out (ha) and taking a well-deserved rest break.

If you're in the global south, then buddy, you are likely sweating right now. Literally. It's important to take breaks to enjoy life when the summer sun is shining, too, not just wait until we're burned the fuck out and too exhausted to go on. That's insane.

We need rest too.

It's insane to always expect more from ourselves. It isn't sustainable. And neither is our grind culture capitalist lifestyle, as is clearly evidenced by the high amounts of burnout we've seen since the pandemic and the upsetting effects that capitalism has had on our species' odds of continued survival.

Wow. That went dark fast.

Here's the point: you need to rest (yes, you do, you beautiful animal) -- why not take the moment now, when it's just barely the start of a new lunar cycle of the year, to start prioritizing yourself over all of that other productivity bullshit noise in your brain and in our culture.

All right, thank you for coming to my TED talk. 😂🤣

Now, let's turn it over to the Akashic Records, shall we?

Back to you in the studio, Bob...

Some wisdom from the Akashic Records for the month ahead

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The fire and possibility that the Dragon brings us this year is healing from trauma, regret, and past conditioning.

This month's new moon Akashic insight is coming to you on the soundwaves, like a little bitty podcast episode exclusively for the members of this newsletter.

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Listen to the full Akashic Records audio here! (26:37)

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The full audio is well worth a listen. Here are some of my favorite highlights:

The Records are very clear about this aspect of healing: it's not about the exact nature of the trauma involved; healing any old pain is about being willing to feel all of the emotions about the thing that are still present now, in community and a safe support network.

Any major healing work cannot be done alone. We need other people to support us, and to reflect back to us the other versions of ourself, other facets of ourself, that the part in pain cannot see in the moment. It's important to have our people who remind us that we are powerful, we are stronger than this fight with our past, that we are hope and joy and quiet abundance in life. That we've got so much more going on for us, and in our favor, than just the small(er) part that's going through major traumatic revisions of our own personal story.

And that's it! Happy Lunar New Year, my friend. Eat something delicious!