The energies are intense the last week and will continue to be throughout most of July. We have eclipses, full moons, and several planets in retrograde. It is a time to consider what is holding us back and where we are ready to commit to change.

I've had a lot of "itchy" words show up in my universe lately like DISCIPLINE and STRUCTURE and ROUTINE. Why these bother me so much I'm not sure - but I am aware if I play with them in a new way and get rid of some old points of view (POV) then my entire reality and joy will change to something greater.

As I prepare to head back to Chicago after visiting my husband in Europe, I am ready for whatever is coming. Ready to shed the old and create the new. Ready to be more of who I truly be.

My invitation to you this week: Look at what's holding you back in your life. What words or energies keep showing up that are prickly and feel yucky or you have great resistance to. Spend some time exploring WHY this is and let that go. I wonder then how...

I’ve spent more than 20 years in the fields of genealogy/family history and military history with a focus the last decade on World War I and World War II. I taught myself a lot where genealogy was concerned, and attended classes and conferences. I participated in the community’s professional genealogy education. Throughout everything I studied or read, the focus was on names, dates, places, sometimes historical context, but never on exploring the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual side of family.

When I began researching in-depth both world wars, which led me to teach and write books on how to research any branch, there was no one to teach me what to do. No one in the country had written educational materials. Yes there were two very outdated books on barely researching Army service, but beyond that nothing existed. The few people who were starting to lecture on this were not going beyond the basics of “all the records burned and here are some online...

For more than a decade I have been researching all branches of the military in WWII. In 2015 I finally went to Europe to walk in the footsteps of my cousin James Privoznik, fly his final burial flag over the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) Luxembourg Cemetery where he sleeps, and then walk in the woods here he was killed.

Earlier on that trip I visited my first ABMC cemetery at Normandy. Having extensively researched and read hundreds of Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF)s and the work of the Graves Registration Service, I thought I was prepared to stand in that sacred space.

All the research in the world, all the reading of books in the world, is not the same as standing where your family member fought, was wounded, or died. Nothing can compare or completely prepare you for that moment.

Have you traveled in Europe after doing the military research for your family? It isn't enough to look at your father's discharge paper and say, 'Oh he was in that unit.' Usually...