Intro/Outro Music: 0:13

Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an illuminating space where psychology, spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Author, psychologist and spiritual educator.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 0:34

Aloha everybody, welcome to your Heart Magic. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright, and today we are tapping into the Pisces new moon. We have a few new moon notes and we are also talking about the idea of nurturing dreams and how to nurture our dreams. So this episode is inspired by the Pisces new moon. It's coming out this Thursday on the new moon day and I was thinking about that moon cycle today as I sat down to put the material together to share and it just felt so organic to tap into the magic a little bit more, since we ride those new moon waves up until the next moon cycle, so they will last through the end of February into the beginning of March. It also sets the tone and is the opening of eclipse season. We'll talk more about that in a moment and I wanted to rock that magic a little bit and just use this episode to be very Pisces new moon fluid, intuitive, imaginative and interconnecting all sorts of different ideas. So, first of all, this new moon happening on the 27th is the beginning of the eclipse season and the way that I often think about eclipse seasons is there's not an eclipse happening on this new moon. The lunar eclipse is on March 14th, that's a full moon in Virgo and then we have a partial solar eclipse happening on March 29th and that is in the sign of Aries, and then the following full moon on April 13th in Libra, is like the other bookend. So I always think about the moon cycle right before the eclipses happen and the one right after is being these two bookends and these bookends hold the two eclipses that will happen in between and they are the cover and like the back of a book and then the story that's going to unfold and the different chapters and themes and transformative possibilities that will be coming up are the arc of the story that will be within those pages. So this is a cosmic gateway of sorts and I always love a Pisces new moon.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 3:02

Pisces is a very emotional sign. It's a very sensitive sign. Pisces ask us to tap into our heart, to tap into our feelings, to tap into our sensitivity, our empathy. It asks us to be more intuitively minded and consider our creative self and our dreams and work with feeling, our interconnection with all things. And it asks us to allow the boundaries to loosen a little bit and some of the rigid boundaries that sometimes we put in our mind and expand and imagine as a creative and, as a writer, I always love any moon cycle that will ask me to tap into some aspect of creativity, and Pisces is certainly a very creative sign. It's also the last sign in the zodiac calendar of the year, so we start this new at least zodiac astrological New Year begins next month in Aries, and so there's an emphasis on completions and endings at this time.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 4:12

I like to think of this whole start of the new year almost like a triple start. We've got January 1st, which historically many of us recognize in the Gregorian calendar, and we have a lot of celebration around New Year's Day and thinking about it's a new calendar year. We have a bright, new, shiny number. What will this be? What will this mean? And I usually think of January as this slow moving month where we have this like big burst of energy. But oftentimes for me, january feels like we are moving underwater or like things kind of start and then stop, or we have some false starts. We're test piloting some things and trying it out. And then comes the lunar new year and I'm like, okay, that's like second new year. We sound like hobbits here. Right, we got first new year and second new year and third new year and in second new year.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 5:06

We have this opportunity whenever the lunar new year is, which is right at the end of January, beginning of February, usually, depending on when the new moon falls and it's this chance to integrate the lessons of January and think about, like now that we are into the first month of 2025 and we've kind of tested some stuff out and we're getting a feel for the themes coming up this year and where we're at and where we're at on our journey. Now here's an opportunity to cement those a little bit more around the new moon and to look at how to align our intentions and to recalibrate and step deeper into alignment and deeper into our authenticity. And then we get to have the new year that starts with the astrological new year and that won't be until March 20. So we have a little bit more time. But this Pisces new moon kind of marks this last stretch of time before we go into the astrological new year and it's definitely an invitation, especially as we start to go into eclipse season, to really look at what themes have been coming up for us, what transformative possibilities have been happening for us, how have we been guided to creatively redirect our thoughts, redirect our attention.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 6:30

How might we be understanding ourselves in a new way based on the new material and information that's emerged over the past couple months? How might that impact what our hopes and our wishes and our dreams are, and how we are moving our energy at this time, how we are feeling called to shine our light? So it's just an opportunity to dive into those things even deeper and to take a moment and energetically dust yourself off this new moon. Do something that symbolizes the energy of an ending and a beginning, something that is about setting intentions or nurturing a vision or thinking about what you're envisioning in your life right now. It might just be an opportunity to get in touch with nature or your spiritual connection or your intuition, and be a little bit more mindful and think about some of the qualities and energies that are associated right now with the cosmic cycles going on, and how do they apply to you, what sense do they make in your life? What keywords might light you up? What associations might you have with some of the things that we're talking about today? What intrigues you? What is calling you forth? What might you feel curious about or like you want to reinvent? We don't have to have a well-formed picture, to be drawn to something and have a reaction towards it, a feeling towards it, a resonance towards it. So whatever feels most relevant to you, go with that right, because that's what Pisces is all about. It reminds us that we're all interconnected and our unique individuality is part of the whole and we become part of the whole and we celebrate that interconnection through being our unique, creative self, through trusting our intuition, through following the wisdom in our heart and through bringing our energy and our contribution through at this time.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 8:38

So I want to share a passage today to speak a little bit more about the matter of dreams. This is called Bigger Dreams. It's a short passage from my book Small Pearls, big Wisdom, and this is passage number 40. If you don't dare to dream, nothing will ever change, including you Maybe. Even if we aren't always in a place in life that allows us to pursue our change immediately, it's still worth it to envision the dream. Because what if it's the dream itself that begins to change us? What if it's planting the seed of the dream and allowing it to take root inside us that helps us consider a bigger possibility of self? What if imagining a bigger scope for our lives opens our hearts to a more expanded vision of who we could be. What if the manifestation of the dream is less important than taking the risk of opening to its genesis? Maybe the genesis is exactly what we need to stand a little taller, walk a little braver and believe in ourselves a little bit harder so we find the courage we need to move forward in our lives with faith, fortitude and love. Whether or not our dreams manifest in the form of our initial vision, dreaming allows us to see wider, reach higher and believe we are worthy of more. Over time, our hopes and beliefs begin to add up, creating the path needed to live with conviction and dare to dream even bigger dreams, bigger dreams.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 10:30

Something that I love about this passage is the idea that it's the act of dreaming itself, the act of being a dreamer, of daring to expand and consider higher possibilities for life, that helps us grow into who we need to be to actualize a dream. That the act of dreaming, the genesis of a dream, that sitting down and brainstorming about everything from the tiny little dreams that we might have to the big grand visions that we have, like just that right there, opens us up to a greater possibility of self. And what if that greater possibility begins to change us? What if it takes root? What if it starts to grow in us in a way that opens us up and opens up our energy and opens up our hearts and makes us feel a little bit more expanded, a little bit more hope driven, a little bit more motivated by self-belief and believing that bigger things are possible? And how might we change? How might we choose to express ourselves differently, to carry ourselves differently, to move our energy differently, if we were coming at it from just the genesis of a dream and embodying that genesis and really stepping into something for me is greater and bigger, and I believe it, and I've got some ideas right now on what that might look like. But I'm a little less attached to that exactitude of what it has to be and I'm just more intrigued by the idea right now that I am a creature of infinite possibilities and I am able to dream my life into being and to keep creating new dreams and keep creating and expanding and growing, no matter where I find myself. Like what if that changes us?

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 12:21

And when I think we start to operate from a different paradigm, a more expanded view of what might be possible in our lives? It gives us more courage, it helps us find the fortitude to take a risk or do something that feels brave. Things that once felt impossible all of a sudden feel a little bit more doable. We might find what we need to take that first step and to attract something into us that matches the vibration or the frequency of that dream. And it might not come in at all in the form that we thought it would.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 12:57

It could look entirely different, but something else that I believe about dreams is that they are fluid, they are malleable, they oftentimes take on a different form than what we initially envisioned, but the essence is still the same, and so, in that fluidity, we might start putting out there to the universe this is my vision, this is my dream, and we create a new core vision inside of ourselves that we begin to believe in, we begin to believe in a bigger possibility, and that shifts our energy and that shifts what we might be open to and thus what we might be open to receiving, what we might attract and magnetize into us. And I think that it says to the universe I want to attract into me something that's on this frequency, and right now the version I have of my dream is the best I know to come up with, because I only know what I know. Maybe you know something better. So I am open to another possibility that matches this, even if it's not exactly what I thought it was going to be, and I'm actually open to something even better. Maybe the universe and all of its vast divine intelligence knows a few things that we don't know in our limited thinking and our limited information and view of how we might think of the world, and so maybe that vast intelligence has a way of alchemizing and bringing something together that creates the path that we were hoping to create all along, and we couldn't have envisioned it because it hadn't been created yet. It was waiting for us to open up to it and to expand and to say I'm going to follow this thing inside of me that's calling forth this dream, and so sometimes we have a very firm step that we take with the dream and we maybe say I want to be a writer, I want to write, or something like that.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 14:57

Creativity is always an easy one to use as an example. I want to be an artist, I want to do more with my art, and so maybe that first step is well, do you have a writing practice? Do you have an art practice? Are you doing something? And if the answer's no to that, a great first step for a dream would be okay. Well, just start there. Just start with embodying the energy of I am a writer and find a writing practice, even no matter what it is, make it fun, but something where you're writing either every single day or a few times a week, or you're doing a writing prompt a few times a week, something that helps you start to embody that energy. And as you get used to that, then the next step is going to open from there. That's usually how it works.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 15:42

We have these bits and pieces of what a dream is and as we step into that energy and learn to embody it, that next part of the path begins to unfold. So I think this Pisces, new moon and Pisces season in general, and then as we move into next month and eclipses and Aries season and the beginning of the astrological new year, it's like a ripe time right now to dream and to engage in the act of envisioning and to allow ourselves to let go of a specific form. If we're not sure what that is, we can always look at the energies and qualities that we want to cultivate in our lives and to begin to nurture the seeds of those dreams. And we nurture them through spending time with them. We nurture them through sitting down in our journal or spending some time in contemplation and just identifying. How am I investing in my dreams right now? How am I cultivating and curating my dreams right now? What does that mean for me? What's a simple, practical step that I can take.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 16:50

And I like to playfully envision for myself that I've got this like big magical cauldron going on, is constantly brewing something and kind of bubbling away and I add these different ingredients that help alchemize and help create whatever I want to envision from my cauldron of magic and dreaming. I like to think that I'm putting in well. I want more joy in my life. Right, that's part of my dream. That can be a dream. I want to create joy. I want to craft more joy. I want to have more opportunities for joy For myself.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 17:26

I am a writer. I definitely have ideas around how I might continue to build that. So I'm going to dump some stuff in around that and sprinkle in some creativity and maybe even look at some ideas on how I might want to manifest my writing in specific form, since that kind of fits where I'm at on my path at this time I'd like more peace fits where I'm at on my path at this time I'd like more peace. That's one of my dreams right now is learning to keep finding more opportunities for inner peace in my life. I have a lot of big things going on and I think for many of us, we have a lot going on right now. There's a lot going on in our world. I definitely look at where we're at right now and think, as human beings, we signed up to be here at this point in time on our soul journey, so we are in the right place at the right time, no matter what it feels like. And for myself, I've really been working on radical acceptance and surrender and not waiting for anything to shift or get better, but just being able to look at life right now and say like this is life, my personal circumstances, some of the bigger things that we're all umbrellaed under happening in our world. This is just life. It is this and that and everything in between. And how can I find peace in that flow? How can I keep learning to be a peace dreamer and to dream about peace for myself and cultivate more peace in my life. So I'm going to, of course, want to sprinkle some of that into my dream cauldron.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 19:01

So when we talk about the matter of dreams, it's important to remember that it's the act of dreaming that is so invaluable and a beautiful focus. Right now, you do not have to worry about the manifestation stage. Just engage in some fun dream work. Right now, our dreams are fluid and they're allowed to be malleable and they're allowed to shapeshift and transform as we change. And we are allowed to have a non-specific dream where it doesn't necessarily have a form attached to it, but we just know there's something more that we want to cultivate, or we're intrigued by intuition. We would love to live more intuitively. Maybe we don't even know what that means or what that means for us, but that becomes something that we're dreaming for ourselves.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 19:49

I want to see myself as more intuitive and feel more in touch with my intuition.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 19:54

I want to learn about astrology and feel more knowledgeable about that and feel like I can better engage with some of these cosmic cycles and use that as part of my intuitive knowing. There are so many ways that a dream can take form, so I encourage everybody to be expansive, to be generous and playful in how you think about your dreams, and I personally feel right now, the less pressure the better. That it's not about putting pressure on ourselves with anything. It's more about empowering ourselves to live with more joy and beauty and play and truth and fun and creativity and keep crafting the life that we desire within the ups and downs and ebbs and flows of the greater river of life. So happy new moon and Pisces to everybody. I will be back next week with a new episode of your heart magic, where we will be talking about something related to psychology, spirituality, creativity and storytelling and in the meantime, have a beautiful week and, as always, be well, be love, be you and be magic.

Intro/Outro Music: 21:26

Be love, be you and be magic.