Estelle Erasmus, an award-winning journalist and writing coach, has written for over 150 publications, including The New York Times, The Week, Next Avenue, WIRED, The Independent, The Washington Post, Salon, AARP: The Magazine and more. She has been editor-in-chief of five national consumer publications. She is also an adjunct instructor for NYU’s School of Professional Studies/Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts, where she recently received the 2023 Teaching Excellence Award, and teaches a journalism course at NYU’s lauded High School Academy each summer for rising seniors who travel from around the globe to attend. She also hosts the popular Editor-on-Call events for NYU, where she is in conversation with top editors from prestigious publications.
Erasmus was the “All About The Pitch” columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine, and teaches writing classes there. She is host/creator of the popular podcast Freelance Writing Direct. She is a three-time Blog Her Voice of the Year winner, and performed an original work in the inaugural New York City production of Listen to Your Mother. Estelle’s articles for the New York Times and Washington Post have gone globally viral (with more than 500 comments on her NYT piece, “How to Bullyproof Your Child”). She has appeared on “Good Morning America”, “Fox News with Ernie Anastos” and has had her articles mentioned on “The View”.
She speaks often about publishing and improving your writing at conferences such as The American Society of Journalists and Authors, The Writer’s Digest Conference, Hippocamp, The Erma Bombeck Writer’s Conference, Mom 2.0, and more.
Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published from New World Library is available for order online and wherever books are sold.
Despite once being called the “Dating Diva” in her single days and teaching Power Dating (as noted in her New York Times Styles Tiny Love Story), she’s been married for nearly two decades, has a teenage daughter and a Havanese dog. She loves to decompress by watching reality television. In her spare time, she loves singing, reading, visiting museums, playing tennis, and acting as taste-tester for her daughter’s baking adventures and her husband’s wine explorations.
The Full Wolf Moon (Native American) at 5* Leo will culminate, January 25, 2024 9:54am pacific/12:54pm eastern (Farmers Almanac).
This Leo Moon is helping you become adventurous and curious again. You want answers to questions and your aspirations are higher than they’ve been in a very long while. You’ve decided shining in the world really is a good thing. Also self-accomplished when you’re recognized for your giving and charitable impulses. You don’t know where your life slowed down, but you’re ready for it to be filled with happiness and goodwill. You’re putting your best foot forward. This may be your actually walking outside your home experiencing spontaneity or maybe cooking and/or creating projects that will bring you joy. But joy it will be, you’re counting on it. When you actively develop your attitude, manners and activities, you are making concerted effort to make your life “happen”.
Creative ability starts with getting into the right mindset and being ready to begin. Organizing your thoughts and time seem to be a big part of generating ideas. Whether its through art, music.
Step 1:
Brainstorm, who and what inspires you and why. Gather material, writing in a notepad some of your ideas.
Step 2:
Gather materials or things you need to implement your ideas and plans.
Step 3:
There is a beginning, middle, and end. Start doing it. Take small breaks, keep going.
Step 4:
Don’t take yourself too seriously, but take yourself seriously enough. Critique with solutions, don’t be discouraged.
Step 5:
Completion, know what isn’t done and what is over done. What is the next stages of the projects journey…
Journal Questions:
3-5 sentences+ for each question.
How can you change sad or forlorn thoughts for content antidotes:
Sentiments
Regrets
Anger
Actual person
Job
Career change
Move
House
Town
Country
Money problems
Bad habits
Phobias
Health problems
Stress
–Rebalance:
People problems
Money problems
Relationship problems
Health problems
Personal issues
Bad habits
Phobias
Career problems
Past choices
Stress
Overwhelmed
Where are you most ambitious:
relationships
career
job
homelife
friendships
marriage
children
beauty
exercise
eating
inside maintenance
outside maintenance
person maintenance
place maintenance
thing maintenance
Your new viewpoint:
acceptance of yourself
acceptance of others
Spending too much time on others and not yourself
Spending too much time on yourself and not on others
Forward movement toward positive activities
Forward movement toward negative activities
–Time management, how long with each:
Family
Friends
Job
Career
Money
Beauty
Health
Harmony
Things
Strangers
–When creating a project:
Breathing deeply a few times a day
Drinking more water
Taking a walk
Meditating
Praying
Writing in a Journal
Creating a solution
Creating plans
Giving Hugs
Offering Smiles
Saying nice things to people
Waving here or there to people
Enjoying a color
Enjoying nature
Enjoying architecture
Complimenting your kids
Complimenting everyone
–Would you like to see a change:
What are you doing now
What job will you have next year
What job will you have in 5 years
What job will you have in 10 years
Do you stay with a career
Do you change careers often
Do you like jobs
Do you like responsibility
Do you like to be a boss
Are you a good boss
Are you a good employee
What makes you happy
When you were a child what did you want to be when you grew up
What is your career
What is your self confidence
What is your earning potential
What is your verve for life
Are you a winner
Are you sometimes winning
Are you winning yet losing
Are you losing but close to winning
What could make you win
What could make you content
—- We started as children wanting to create personal excellence. But programming, barriers and Low consciousness people hold you back from reaching greater heights. These include energy vampires, critical people, dishonest characters, and people with temperament issues. Let them go from your life and send them unconditional love as you do that. Invest yourself in the development of your consciousness, unlocking the subconscious, reactivating the super conscious and progressing forward to living a life well lived. Life is an exciting ride.
—–“Dont wait for inspiration. It comes while working. — Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Famous French Painter
The Full Beaver Moon (Native American) at 4* Gemini will culminate, on November 27, 2023, at 1:16am PdT/4:16 am EdT (Farmers Almanac).
This Full Beaver Moon is about building constructive communication within your family and workspace. We are being asked to be more insightful in how we talk and listen to others. We aren’t to act lackadaisical, careless, or uncaring when we use our words. We are to speak easily, not worrying about our articulation, although manners are always helpful. This Moon is about sociability, civility, and ultimately making memories before it’s too late. You might be wasting your time, frizzling it away, and not making the wholesome connections you came to earth to make.
You are paying attention to your soul goals, right? Let’s start with your family. Only those members who are good for you. And just make sure you are choosing family and friends who are your spiritual family. Your coworkers are to be supportive. All these people should be important enough to keep in your daily life. It’s a far-reaching component of your evolution. Awaken to what and who is around you. Taking the awkward moment and breaking the ice by asking someone close to you for their advice, or how they feel a plan you have…might be all the potency you need to gain confidence. Steps to learning to communicate are important and worthwhile.
Journal Questions:
Secrets you carry:
yourself
others
Family
Friends
Work arena
Neighborhood
City
State
Country
World
Are you seen as Constructive or Destructive?
House
Love
Family
Parents
Mate
Children
How do you communicate about:
Love
Career
Job
Health
Relationships
Friendships
Happiness
Exercise
What do you need to change in your personal life or work life: List 3 things if not 3 sentences
Love
Career
Job
Health
Relationships
Friendships
Happiness
Exercise
Your Aspirations:
Spiritually
Emotionally
Intellectually
Materially
Physically
What Inspires you:
(5 sentences or more)
Who Inspires You:
(5 people and why)
_____ To have healthy connections you work at meaningful and sincere responses and exchanges. Learning to Communicate effectively starts with allowing others to feel they belong. Asking personal questions and listening. Not always offering advice but taking notice of another.
—— “Communication works for those who work at it.” ~ John Joseph Powell (September 22, 1925–September 24, 2009) Jesuit Priest and Author
The Full Corn Moon (Native American) at 6* Aries will culminate, on September 29, 2023, 2:58 am Pacific | September 29 5:58 am Eastern (Farmers Almanac).
This Aries Full Moon is all about Action. Hold on to your horses as you gallop into new scenes. You’ve been complacent and standing back letting your life slip by… and you’re awakening to the fact you have to take your health and well-being seriously. Isn’t your work important on a daily basis? If it isn’t, start to make plans to change what you do and how you do it. Life gives us explicit directions and instructions…
1. Take care of your health
2. Work steadily
3. Take care of others
4. Be Happy where your feet are standing
5. Love and Be Loved
6. Relationships are supposed to be Fun
7. Take a few extra minutes to do something right
8. Become Skillful
9. Smile and the World Smiles with You
10. Listen well
11. Speak productively
12. Open your heart and mind to have a great life
Journal Questions:
3-5 sentences+ for each question.
–What do you need to change, so you can move forward? –
Sentiments
Regrets
Anger
Actual person
Job
Career change
Move
House
Town
Country
Money problems
Bad habits
Health problems
Stress
Phobias
-How can you rebalance:
People problems
Money problems
Relationship problem
Health problems
Personal issues
Bad habits
Phobias
Career problems
Past choices
Stress
Overwhelmed
Where are you most ambitious:
relationships
career
job
homelife
friendships
marriage
children
beauty
exercise
eating
inside maintenance
outside maintenance
person maintenance
place maintenance
thing maintenance
Your new viewpoint:
acceptance of yourself
acceptance of others
Spending too much time on others and not yourself
Spending too much time on yourself and not on others
Forward movement toward positive activities
Forward movement toward negative activities
-Time management, how long with each:
Family
Friends
Job
Career
Money
Beauty
Health
Harmony
Things
Strangers
-When creating calmness in your life:
Breathing deeply a few times a day
Drinking more water
Taking a walk
Meditating
Praying
Writing in a Journal
Creating a solution
Creating plans
Giving Hugs
Offering Smiles
Saying nice things to people
Waving here or there to people
Enjoying a color
Enjoying nature
Enjoying architecture
Complimenting your kids
Complimenting everyone
-Can you clearly say this is what I do now and I like it or I’d like to see a change:
What are you doing now
What job will you have next year
What job will you have in 5 years
What job will you have in 10 years
Do you stay with a career
Do you change careers often
Do you like jobs
Do you like responsibility
Do you like to be a boss
Are you a good boss
Are you a good employee
What makes you happy
When you were a child what did you want to be when you grew up
What is your career
What is your self-confidence
What is your earning potential
What is your verve for life
Are you a winner
Are you sometimes winning
Are you winning yet losing
Are you losing but close to winning
What could make you win
What could make you content
——
*When meditating, remember you’re going to go past your mind and its set ideas, and proceed toward the heart, taking it deeper, releasing false sentiments, and just floating in your divinity, going deeper and deeper to your very essence. Reaching into the core of your being. Shift into knowing you will begin to float in calmness and flow freely forward into divine destiny.
——“We must be willing to get rid of
the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.
If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.
Hell is life drying up.”
― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
Autumn Equinox, 2nd Harvest, September 20/21/22 September 22, 2023 (Almanac) Mabon, (pronounced MAY-bun, MAY-bone, MAH-boon, or MAH-bawn) is the Autumn Equinox. The Autumn Equinox divides the day and night equally, and we all take a moment to pay our respects to the impending dark. We also give thanks to the waning sunlight, as we store our harvest of this year’s crops. The Druids call this celebration, Mea’n Fo’mhair, and honor the The Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees.
Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time. Wiccans celebrate the aging Goddess as she passes from Mother to Crone, and her consort the God as he prepares for death and re-birth. Various other names for this Lesser Wiccan Sabbat are The Second Harvest Festival, Wine Harvest, Feast of Avalon, Equinozio di Autunno (Strega), Alben Elfed (Caledonii), or Cornucopia.
The Teutonic name, Winter Finding, spans a period of time from the Sabbat to Oct. 15th, Winter’s Night, which is the Norse New Year. At this festival it is appropriate to wear all of your finery and dine and celebrate in a lavish setting. It is the drawing to and of family as we prepare for the winding down of the year at Samhain. It is a time to finish old business as we ready for a period of rest, relaxation, and reflection. Symbolism of Mabon: – Second Harvest, the Mysteries, Equality and Balance.
Symbols of Mabon: – Wine, gourds, pine cones, acorns, grains, corn, apples, pomegranates, vines such as ivy, dried seeds, and horns of plenty.
Foods of Mabon: – Breads, nuts, apples, pomegranates, and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and onions.
Incense of Mabon: – Autumn Blend-benzoin, myrrh, and sage.
Colors of Mabon: – Red, orange, russet, maroon, brown, and gold.
Stones of Mabon: – Sapphire, lapis lazuli, and yellow agates.
Activities of Mabon: – Making wine, gathering dried herbs, plants, seeds and seed pods, walking in the woods, scattering offerings in harvested fields, offering a ritual pouring to loved ones —Flowers and trees, adorning burial sites with leaves, acorns, and pine cones to honor those who have passed over.
Spellworkings of Mabon: – Protection, prosperity, security, and self-confidence. Also those of harmony and balance.
Deities of Mabon: – Goddesses-Modron, Morgan, Epona, Persephone, Pamona and the Muses. Gods-Mabon, Thoth, Thor, Hermes, and The Green Man. Mabon is considered a time of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World. Considered a time of balance, it is when we stop and relax and enjoy the fruits of our personal harvests, whether they be from toiling in our gardens, working at our jobs, raising our families, or just coping with the hussle-bussle of everyday life. May your Mabon be memorable, and your hearts and spirits be filled to overflowing!
Recipes: Salad Fixings—-Lettuce: any kind Add:
Sliced radishes
Shelled edamame
Cucumbers
Onions
Mushroom
Tomatoes
Peppers
Sliced fruit, like pears, apples, and mangoes
Berries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries
Grilled salmon
Roasted garlic, Wild rice, quinoa, or other whole grain
Beans, like pinto, garbanzo
White beans
Celery
Italian Parsley
Wheat berries
Fresh basil (especially nice with a deep balsamic vinegar)
Nonfat ricotta cheese (a little goes a long way)
Scallions
cabbage
Grilled chicken breast
tofu
Roasted beets
bell peppers, thinly sliced
Dill
Any Dressing of your choice. Autumn Apple Cider Chicken or Vegan Soup
Chicken (optional) cooked using pam spray, browned in cast iron skillet (preferably)
cut into cubes for soup pot
In big soup pot or crockpot
3 cups apple cider or juice
1 carton reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons himalayan salt (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 medium carrots, cut into pieces
3 celery ribs, cut into pieces
2 medium onions, cut
Sweet Potatoes & Ground Turkey or Vegan Casserole
5 sweet potatoes or yams, cooked-peeled-cubed
Saute’
1 or more pounds ground turkey (optional)
1 medium onion, chopped
5 Green Onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup low sodium tomato paste
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan salt
1/4 teaspoon peppe
Add the sweet potatoes or yams, cooked-peeled-cubed
Dash crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Minced fresh mint (optional)
South of the Border Casserole
4 cups uncooked pasta shapes (whole wheat/ gluten-free)
4 cups vegetable broth or water
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14-1/2 oz) diced low sodium tomatoes, undrained
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 cup fresh or frozen corn, thawed
1 can (10 oz) enchilada sauce
Add –
1/2 cup shredded cheese
Combine in pot, bring pasta and ingredients to al dente and sauce has thickened slightly, 12-15 minutes. Add cheese, melt in the oven and serve Apple-Cranberry Pie
Dough for 2 – pies with lattice tops
2-1/4 cups sugar or Monk sugar (same evalent)
1/3 cup whole wheat flour or rice flour
pie filling –
tart apples, peeled-sliced (about 8 cups)
3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
2 tsp grated orange zest
1-1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 cups frozen or fresh raspberries
Bake 375* 45-50 minutes Hot apple cider — In a medium-size bowl mix sugar or honey, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, mace, and nutmeg. Heat the apple cider until hot, add 1 to 2 teaspoons to the apple cider Repost Enquire: Sessions & Seminars +1-424-781-7103 Taraappointment@gmail.com
LifeForce Activation 