Good news! The June issue of the Cygnus Review is now online and in the post. It’s wonderful how aligned it is to what so many are feeling right now – a propelling drive to get real on all levels and to put our emerging Selves to good use. With a mine of ideas on how to do just this, the magazine takes us to the heart of what matters in this journey – to put it simply, the truth.
Seeing Clearly
All we’ve learned, through our individual challenges or adversities, about ourselves and about life, has brought us to this point where we’re not afraid of the truth and the Cygnus Review shows us what we can do from this vantage point. The editor’s choice, The Real Rules of Life sets the tone. It’s by Ken Druck whose daughter tragically died when she was travelling India, at just 21 years old. Having lost my father a couple of years ago, and my grandparents not long after, I value the profound, bittersweet insight that comes from grief and adversity – which is what we’re told this book is about and why I’m eager to read it. I found the author very easy to connect to, in the excerpt which you can read here, and so many are said to relate to him and find his teachings valuable. You can tell that he doesn’t sweep anything under the carpet which I think crucial; naivety doesn’t serve us and ignorance is not bliss. As we read in Ken Druck’s article, ‘life is a package deal. Only when I open myself to life’s cruel and brutal unfairness, and it’s miraculous fairness can I begin to make peace with life as it really is‘. By looking honestly at all the rules of life, we are better equipped to engage every element of ourselves and build up a solid faith that we have what it takes to make it through the other side of adversity with the same loving gratitude and compassion that Ken Druck clearly has.
You’re doing a grand job!
This sort of acceptance dispels fear and induces calm, allowing us to better work from our centre. Personal calibrations from here allow us to proceed with every aspect of ourselves working at optimum, symbiotically. This issue is packed with solutions to assist in this process.  For example,  Mind Mapping looks like a really clever way to turn our negative thoughts around; I want to try this method of adapting horse whispering techniques and Buddhist psychology to establish a calmer way forward. Then there’s Womancode which I am snatching up with both hands! Women’s hormones can get us pretty out of whack at times, I’m sure I’d get an amen from women and men alike on this. I’ve even started experiencing skin problems lately, like I’ve never known (teen years included). A book that promises to get to the nitty-gritty and explain all this to me, so that I can learn manage all my symptoms, is my new best friend. Finally (because I can’t fit much more in this email!) Atasha Fyfe illustrates how being compassionately proactive is also extremely beneficial when working on past life issues. Magic Past Lives is a perfectly sensible look at how past-life regression can be better utilized by giving an equal focus to the good things that happened in our previous lives while we work on the problems because the balance of both are necessary for the healing process. As Atasha says in her article ‘to truly move on we also need a positive, inspiring vision to lead us forward‘.
One love,
Louisa