“Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.”

~ Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

Do you know this feeling of waking up exhilarated to start your day? When your days are filled with excitement and joy, and you feel alive and in love with life? Can you say what characterizes these days? Are they typically weekdays or weekends? During travel or at home? Do they happen when you start something new or on ordinary average days?

We all have some experience of this type of passion for life, which fuels us with vitality and makes our actions seem effortless. Maybe you felt it when you started a new love affair, or moved to a new place? It is usually easier to feel the spark of life when we start new things. It is more challenging to cultivate through our daily routine and in our long-term relationships. Challenging, but not impossible.

Yesterday I took my first Krav Maga class. While I was practicing with the teacher, it hit me that in the fifty years of my life, I’ve never hit anyone. I am so averse to violence; I can’t even watch most of the TV shows today because I find them too violent. Participating in an act of violence, even when it is meant for self-defense and is done in a safe space, brought up many feelings. I enjoyed the outlet to my anger and frustration with what’s currently going on in the world. I felt repulsed by the act of violence, and I felt elated for doing something for the first time in my life. All in all, it was a profound Aries experience.

Aries is the sign of new beginnings, masculinity, physical movement, and action. On the low road it is the sign of war, violence, conflict, aggressiveness, impatience, restlessness, and reckless behavior. On its high road it is the sign of the spark of life, inspiration, passion, assertiveness, initiation, spontaneity, courage, strength, speaking up for the underdogs and fighting for peace and justice.

If we want to have more passion for life, we need to look at Aries and what it stands for. Anything courageous, spontaneous, new, physical, and creative will do.

“If your life does not excite you, make it exciting. If life is not fun, make it fun. Obviously, you can’t control everything. The human experience is not always fun, but no matter what your circumstances are, you can always make things better for yourself, even if it’s just a change of attitude. “

Yael T.W., Tiny Buddha

Four years ago, I lost my spark, mainly due to health issues. I knew I had to move to a new place to reignite my passion for life. This initiated our move to Asheville, NC, where mother nature nourishes my spirit and heals my body.

The wiser we are, the more we learn how to find our spark of life in the daily and mundane. We learn how to be grateful for what we have and to not take it for granted. Every day when I wake up cuddled with my husband and my son in our beautiful home, I am filled with joy and gratitude, which light up my spark.

Yesterday I talked with a good friend who recently lost her spark. She was burdened under the heaviness of the ongoing war in Israel and the devastating fact that our brothers and sisters are being tortured in captivity for more than 5 months. My friend has been waiting for the war to end and for the hostages to return, so that she could feel her spark of life again.

The important thing about our spark of life, is that it can’t depend on outer circumstances. You can’t assume that it will just come back once you find your true love, get that job, or anything else that isn’t entirely in your hands. You have to think – this is my situation. What can I do right now, that will ignite my spark?

Together with my friend, we realized that for her the best practice was to start paying more attention to acts of kindness around her, to people who are smiling, to flowers blooming, to things that could inspire her throughout her busy schedule.

To ignite our spark, or strengthen it, we should integrate new adventures and initiatives, with finding joy, gratitude, and excitement in what we already have.

Suggestions for this week:

• What can you do this week that is new to you? Try to think about one thing you’ve never done before and have always wanted to do, and do it.
• In which areas of your life did you lose your spark and passion? Can you see these aspects of life as if they were new again? How would you feel if they were taken away and then given back to you? Would you be more grateful and appreciative of them?
• Make it a practice to look for what’s beautiful and inspiring around you.

Mercury starts retrograding in Aries this week. Think less, do more. Trust your body and your instincts, rather than your mind. Speak out of passion, not out of anger. I will write more about it next week.

Wishing you a wonderful week,

With love,

Yael