KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

July 7 through July 13, 2025

Monday opens on a high note as innovative Uranus makes a move into intellect-rich Gemini. This powerful planet will be in Gemini until November, then retrograde back into Taurus for six months before it finally re-enters Gemini where it will spend the next seven years. This is a cycle where new inventions, breakthroughs in the medical field, and sweeping changes on a global level are all possible. Though we may not notice its effects this Monday, we can be sure that new methods for communication and expression of ideas will begin to emerge. In fact, AI has been a precursor to this astrological shift, with more to come! We also have a few other things going on this week, including a Capricorn full Moon on Thursday and Saturn turning retrograde on Saturday. The particular full Moon in Capricorn will highlight physical stability, asking us to look at how our actions are contributing to the sense of well-being and financial security in our lives. If we have been neglecting our finances or health, the next two weeks are ideal for bringing those back into balance. Saturn will turn retrograde on Saturday, reminding us to evaluate our boundaries and how to use limits to achieve our goals.

The Garden as Sacred Space, by Laurel Woodward

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

I am a magically minded person who looks at the world with an animist's perspective as I mindfully acknowledge and honor the lives of the others I encounter, from the large elementals to the tiny devic energies underfoot. I talk to my plants and hug the trees. I call out greetings to the geese as they pass overhead and stop to help the earthworm stranded on the sidewalk. There is a message in the visit from tiny hummingbird hanging on the breeze, the crow cawing loudly in the tree, the surprise sighting of a garden snake, and the colorful dragonfly lighting on a grass head. The outdoors holds both magick and mystery, and I immerse myself in its beauty whenever I am able to.

Our brains evolved in nature. When we leave our man-made environments and return to a natural setting, we are able to step out of the busyness of our lives and leave our worries behind. Being outside is a magickal, full-on sensory experience that quiets worry, eases anxiety, and grants the spirit peace.

When we immerse ourselves in a natural setting, it boosts health by strengthening the immune system. Step into nature and you step into beauty. The act of catching sunlight in your eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin, breathing in the scent of the green world from the smell of the dirt to the fragrance of flowers, or having natural sounds fill your ears, like the call of birds, the chatter of squirrels, or the rattle of the wind through the trees, are experiences that foster healing feelings of serenity and joy.

While forest bathing and hiking are popular nature therapies, gardening in your own yard, if done mindfully, becomes a vehicle to immerse yourself in nature and foster a relationship with the natural world. If you have never tried gardening you might be surprised by how therapeutic the experience is. When you take up gardening, working under the sky with the sun on your arms and your hands in the dirt, it engages all of your senses to create a place of refuge and solace. Being out in the fresh air doing yard and garden work lifts outlook and elevates mood. The activity tones muscles and makes the body feel good, and when done mindfully, the overall experience fills the heart with a joyful sense of purpose that inspires creativity and helps us rediscover our sense of wonder.

When we take an area of land under our care we nurture a reverence for nature that allows the heart to swell with gratitude every time we invest ourselves in the work, because it doesn't matter if you are a first-time gardener or a veteran—there is always something new waiting to surprise and inspire. The simple joy of discovering the seed that you planted sprouted, the surprising beauty of a mound of clematis that opened overnight, or the delicious taste of a ripe, home-grown tomato you plucked fresh from the vine deepens satisfaction and improves our sense of well-being. Step into the garden and we step out of worry and into nature's grace.

The wisdom of an ancient practice waits in the garden. If you follow an earth-based spirituality, you will find the act of gardening creates sacred space and puts nature back into the center of your practice. By caring for plants and being aware of their life cycles, we become aware of the turning of the seasons and sync with the natural rhythms. The garden becomes a window into the workings of the Universe and allows us to sense the thrumming webs of power. It is in the garden we connect to the deepest parts of our being as we become a witness to the miracle of life unfolding right before our eyes.

If you have never gardened before, you may want to start by taking a few chosen plants under your care. Identify and research each one, making note of their individual needs so that you may provide what each needs to thrive. Visit them often. Talk to your plants and shower them with attention, and soon you will find you have made a friend that may become a helpful ally in your magical practice. While some plant allies provide food or medicine, others provide ingredients to empower ritual, potions, incense, bath magick, candle dressing, and wash water. When we use ingredients from a plant that we help to grow, we delve into an ancient craft laden with wisdom and knowledge, a craft that deepens spirituality as it acts a bridge to the past to help us see beyond modern restrictions as it links us to a reality in which we are able to recognize and interpret the magickal connections all around us. The garden then becomes a liminal space where we may go to meet Deity or converse with the Universe.

My garden is my church. Step into the garden and I step out of time and into sanctuary. Being in my garden allows me to leave the troubles of the modern world behind and take up the practice of the old ways. In my garden I find peace and joy. It is in my garden where I find magick. You, too, can create your own personal outdoor sanctuary, a place of safety and wellness to nourish your soul and help you foster a relationship with your local energy web. For more ideas on how to design and implement a garden plan for your very own personal sanctuary garden, pick up my new book, Backyard Garden Witchery, a guide to help you manifest a magickal space outside your door. Backyard Garden Witchery contains a collection of meditations, exercises, and an extensive list of garden plants and their magickal properties with suggested uses to empower your magickal practice.

By designing your own unique garden setting, and implementing features that speak to you personally, you will manifest a sanctuary to nourish your soul. Keeping a flower garden, an herb garden, a vegetable patch, or even tending a collection of patio pots allows interaction with nature and opens a doorway for us to experience her amazing wonder. By working, and planting, and tending the earth, the garden becomes a liminal space to nourish our spirituality and connect us to the larger world. When you become a gardener, you become an artist working with nature to create amazing beauty, and as life sprouts and grows under your care, it opens the heart to wonder and solace as it provides flowers or herbs to use in your practice, or food to nourish your body, and the results bring an incredible sense of accomplishment. Gardening is a remarkable rewarding experience that has nourished mankind since the beginning of time. It has the power to change your life. If you have never gardened I hope you give it a try.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2022. All rights reserved.

I'm a fairly meek and mild person by nature, yet I seem to have dream rage. I tend to keep a lot of thoughts about things that happen to me and around me to myself, because I don't want to upset the apple cart. So I internalize a lot of my thoughts and feelings, which then seem to come out in my dreams. I get highly emotional in dreams and tell people exactly what I think of them and how they make me feel. Sometimes I even wake up crying because I'm so upset. Is this a healthy, appropriate way to release pent up emotions? Do feelings actually get processed when we release them in the dream state?

Thanks!

Lisa

Dreamchaser:

Venting frustration is a good thing, provided it does not physically or emotionally hurt someone else. I feel your dreams are telling you that you are TOO meek and mild in your waking hours. You were raised to be seen and not heard, to believe that women do not get angry, that we have to accept that "bad" things happen, and that anger is a "bad" thing. You are still living out that childhood training as an adult.

You need to face your own anger, Lisa. Doing this won't hurt you. I use a really simple method in my house. I get a big floor pillow or a pile of blankets, then I get a plastic bat and begin to pound away on the pillow. As I am pounding, I am verbally expressing how I feel. Most of the time, I wind up yelling, sweating and crying. It is a very healing process. I recommend it!

I also want you to look closely at WHY you hold your negative feelings in. You say you don't want to "upset the apple cart," but why? What are you scared the outside world will see in you? There is so much happening under the surface that you are afraid to look at. Once you see it and face it dead on, it will lose its power over you.

Holding in any type of emotion can lead to illness. My adoptive mother was incredibly sad and lonely most of her life. She would cry alone almost every day. She died of cancer at a very young age. My birth mother worked herself ragged her whole life, and had no time for personal attachments. She had a heart attack at a very young age, but she survived.

I'm sure both women manifested these illnesses by not honoring their true thoughts and feelings. My birth mother agrees that she created her own illness this way. She tells me all the time to vent what I feel, eat right, and maintain a good balance between work, fun and rest. If we are sick on the inside, it WILL manifest in our outer experience sooner or later. This could mean we get a simple cold, or it could mean something serious.

I'm not saying that by venting our true feelings we will never get sick. I'm saying that it is healthier on every level to express our truth.

I wish you successful venting.

*****

Astrea:

Lisa, our emotions are definitely processed in our dreams! Two centuries of psychiatric research back that up. A person can only take SO MUCH without blowing sky high. Your subconscious has relegated all the feelings you consider "ugly" to your dreams, where you feel "safe" doing what you can't do while you're awake. This often happens when we fail to set healthy boundaries in relationships. While there is nothing wrong with processing your feelings in your dreams, it doesn't solve any of the issues you're experiencing in your waking life.

In dreams you can tell people you don't like how you really feel about them. When you're awake, you're like most of us; you don't want to UPSET anyone! By letting your subconscious process your deepest feelings of anger and frustration, you release some of these intense emotions.

Is this good for you? It depends how you're processing other issues in your life. If someone is hurting you every day, wouldn't it be better to remove that toxic person from your Harmony? You must choose to either get OUT of that relationship or learn to stand up for yourself while you're awake. Sometimes we must TEACH people how to treat us better by facing our fears and letting them know our real feelings. Sometimes people don't want to learn to treat us with more respect, and then it's time to examine why we decided to be around them in the first place.

Of course, you can't divorce your family and most of us can't afford to quit our jobs so we can choose nicer employers and coworkers. I recommend you surround those people with mirrors in your mind, so that their negativity is reflected back to them. Surround yourself with White Light so that nasty people can't invade your Harmony. As you get stronger in your own resolve, those nasty people will start to remove themselves from your life, and you'll really be better off without them!

No one enjoys confronting people who seem to go out of their way to make us miserable, but we all have to learn to do that sooner or later. By making better choices for ourselves, we draw better people into our lives.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.