One of the greatest lessons I've worked through over the last few years -quite a few, actually, if I think all the way back to the earlier, uglier lessons that sparked the transformation of the lesson- is understanding the magnitude of the concept that what I believe in creates my life.
It sounds like such a simple thing. Overall, big picture you can be thinking, 'I'm going to have a happy and adventurous life' but if you're lacking the details as to what that means to you it can be really challenging to keep believing that statement. For years I didn't really know what I wanted to be when I grew up, I truly still don't but am much more open to the journey now rather than focusing on a set destination. One of the things I've learned had been that sometimes you set your sites on a destination and it either doesn't work out for you at all (you never get there and feel like a failure), you get there but there are many detours along the way, you get there and it's not what you wanted after all. The variations can go on infinitely. That's the beauty of the details you can't know but that doesn't mean that you can be more specific than 'happy and adventurous'.
Lately I've been focusing a lot on synchronicity. It seems every time something catches my attention more and more supporting coincidences follow until I've drawn something entirely new into my life.
It's only recently, really, that I've drawn into my life people and events that support my more fully embracing this part of myself and allowing myself to express it more openly and more often. The beauty of individualized faith, I've found, is just how individualized it is. No two people believe in exactly the same things in exactly the same way. It's made for me feeling awkward sometimes. I was taught as a child conflicting points of view in regard to religion and beliefs but most of them shared an element of judgement. I'm working it out these days and learning a lot more tolerance for  views that are dramatically different from my own.
I'm also kind of coming back to astrology a little more these days and embracing it and learning how to work it into my current spiritual puzzle (what a great expression of Neptune in Pisces transiting the first house, yes?).

The stars have been good to me.

The magical moments really surprised me today. I get a bit stuck in my head when I'm trying too hard which is what happens when I have too much time on my hands...
Earlier in the day I had some things to attend to and felt really in the flow but by the end of the day all I seemed to be doing was waiting around for the routine markers: time for the animals to eat, time for our walk, etc.
By the time I was out walking the dogs I was conscious that I was trying to keep things flowing. And honestly, I almost didn't get why this evening's magic was so hard to interpret.
It came in the form of a random encounter with an old work friend from quite a while ago. I knew it meant something as I haven't seen her in so long but I didn't get it because talking about old work gets in my head and bugs me.
Hours later now and a number of revelations later -all brought on by the insights she shared in out conversation- I realized just how lucky I am to be in the position I'm currently in.
I've always known this but I have to admit that I had never fully noticed and acknowledged all of the magic and luck that I encountered on my path to the present. I have known that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing for a long time. I sometimes feel a little awkward about it as doing hair isn't really all that "important", like being a doctor, for example. But I enjoy it, I have a natural talent for it and it really makes sense to me as being both creative and practical -it's something that cannot be done by a robot, cannot be outsourced and everyone gets a haircut at some point. I actually did consider this when making my decision and was surprised that she came up with this same point, as well.
As I was saying, I knew I'd been lucky in a number of ways but you know, sometimes you lose track. Also, sometimes you don't feel like you're getting the support and enthusiasm you feel you need from the universe and you need someone to remind you in language that really speaks to you and this is what happened for me in that conversation.
Mazel tov means "good luck" in Hebrew. I already knew that, I was raised Jewish. What I didn't know is that the literal translation is actually "may the stars be good to you".

The most amazing magic that's been happening in my life lately is synchronicity. It seems that all I have to do is exist, as I naturally do, and some perfect piece of information, inspiration or guidance finds me just as I need it. 

This evening I read a spiritual forecast for the month of July on a website I found via a friend posting to facebook an article from the same website they were sharing with another friend. 

The forecast for July talks about the energies for the month, which are Expansion, Discipline and Magic(!). 

The first reason I love this so much is because there is a voice in my head telling me that I always have to push and work hard for even just bits of gain. There's no logic behind it, it's simply the mainstream notion that this is the only way to create anything in your life: make happen by action. What I'm really working to master is making things happen by intention and understanding that it is my intentions that determine what my actions should be and that, in fact, my intentions will generate the need for action rather than action generating the need for action.  

So I was really excited when I was reading this article but it was a little bit conceptual at the same time so as I read my thoughts were kind of wobbling between, "This is exactly what I've been working on!" and "Maybe I don't understand what they're talking about..." the latter thought encouraged by the section on Discipline that I hadn't yet reached. But as I did reach it I found that the Discipline that was encouraged was the Discipline to continue working on Expansion and my heart smiled and I felt... justified?

Which brings me to why I'm writing about my experience of having found and read this post (and why I decided to write about all this): keeping focused on any kind of work can be really hard at times. Sometimes it's hard to make yourself clean the house, sometimes it's hard to make yourself work on something for your job, there are times when what we know we should do feels hard. What I'm working on that is feeling particularly hard these days is my faith in my self, my intuition, and my values. These are all really important things, obviously, but some days when life isn't going quite the way I (really, really) need or want it to, it's easy to wonder if it's a total waste of time to meditate or write lists of what I'm grateful for twice a day or get myself someplace where I can be immersed in nature. 

Just as I've begun questioning my practices and everything that I believe in, I find something that tells me that what I'm doing is important and so important, actually, that now (when it's just become so difficult to focus on) is the time to not just keep at it but to make of it all a discipline.