Lion’s Gate 8/8: Release What Was Never Yours, Reclaim Your Light, and Rise

There are moments in the year that invite us to pay closer attention.

To look up.

To look within.

To notice what has been stirring beneath the surface of our lives and ask whether we are ready to meet it differently.

For me, Lion’s Gate is one of those moments.

Every year, this spiritual season is observed from late July through August 12, with August 8—8/8—as its symbolic peak. In the Lion’s Gate tradition, the Sun in Leo, Sirius, Orion, and the symbolism of the number eight come together to create a powerful invitation into courage, remembrance, abundance, clearing, and transformation. My teaching from last year explored this as a sacred alignment between Earth, Sirius, Orion’s Belt, and the Sun in Leo.

And yes, this gets a little woo.

I’m perfectly happy to meet you there.

Because whether you experience Lion’s Gate as a literal energetic portal, a sacred celestial metaphor, or simply a meaningful reason to stop running on autopilot and become deeply intentional about your life, there is something powerful about consciously meeting a threshold.

This year especially, my question is not simply:

What do I want to manifest?

It is:

What am I ready to stop carrying so that I can actually become available for what I say I want?

Why 8/8?

In numerology, the number 8 is associated with power, abundance, balance, infinity, and the relationship between the spiritual and material worlds.

It is an interesting symbol when you think about manifestation.

We can have beautiful visions, powerful spiritual insights, and heartfelt intentions—and eventually they have to enter the material world.

We have to speak the words.

Make the offer.

Ask for the help.

Set the boundary.

Receive the money.

Create the thing.

Change the habit.

Take the step.

The number 8 has always felt like a beautiful reminder of this dance between Spirit and form.

And 8/8/2026 carries an additional numerological resonance:

8 + 8 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 262 + 6 = 8

So symbolically, we have an 8 · 8 · 8 moment.

You do not need to believe that the number itself is magically going to rearrange your life.

I prefer to let it ask a better question:

If I knew I was being supported in becoming more fully myself, what would I be willing to choose now?

The Sky Behind Lion’s Gate

One of the reasons I love this portal is that its symbolism is written into the sky.

Sirius: the Spiritual Sun

Sirius is the brightest star in our night sky and has carried profound spiritual and mythological significance across cultures.

The Lion’s Gate tradition pays particular attention to the heliacal rising of Sirius—the period when Sirius becomes visible again near dawn after spending time hidden in the Sun’s glare.

There is something exquisite about that imagery alone:

A great light that was always there becomes visible again.

Ancient Egyptians closely associated the reappearance of Sirius with the beginning of their new year and the seasonal flooding of the Nile—a time connected with fertility, renewal, nourishment, and abundance. My Lion’s Gate teachings have long used Sirius as a symbol of intuition, clarity, soul remembrance, and what some lovingly call our Spiritual Sun.

And that language feels particularly meaningful this year.

Your light does not cease to exist simply because you cannot see it.

Your truth does not disappear because it became covered by conditioning.

Your purpose does not vanish because life became noisy.

Sometimes the work is simply to become quiet enough for what has always been there to rise back into view.

The Sun in Leo: Heart, Courage, and Radiance

Then we have our own Sun moving through Leo.

Leo is solar.

Heart-centered.

Creative.

Expressive.

Courageous.

It asks:

Will you let yourself be seen?

Not the curated version.

Not the version designed to keep everyone comfortable.

You.

Your life force.

Your creativity.

Your truth.

Your heart.

Your particular way of bringing light into the world.

This is one of the reasons I do not experience Lion’s Gate as a passive manifestation portal.

Leo wants participation.

It does not only ask you to visualize yourself standing in the light.

It asks you to stand up.

Orion’s Belt, Sirius, and the Sacred Feminine Rising

There is another layer of symbolism I find especially beautiful.

If you follow the line of Orion’s Belt across the sky, it leads toward Sirius.

In the spiritual framework I work with, I love contemplating Sirius through the archetypal lens of Isis and the Divine Feminine, while Orion carries associations with Osiris and the Divine Masculine.

I do not offer that as an astronomical fact. I offer it as sacred symbolism.

Because the image is gorgeous:

The masculine points toward the rising feminine.

Not to dominate her.

Not to replace her.

To recognize her.

To support her rising.

To restore balance.

Last year, I taught this as a kind of celestial Sacred Union—the Feminine carrying intuition, self-awareness, receptivity, and remembrance, and the Masculine bringing structure, direction, wisdom, and purpose. Their meeting creates the possibility of inner harmony.

This is the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine relationship I care about most.

Not gender roles.

Inner capacities.

The feminine receives the knowing.

The masculine helps us do something with it.

The feminine says:

Listen.

The masculine says:

Now walk.

And Lion’s Gate asks for both.

Manifestation Becomes More Powerful When We Clear First

This is the piece I feel most strongly about this year.

Manifestation teachings can sometimes jump too quickly to:

What do you want?

Call it in. Visualize it. Affirm it. Become magnetic to it.

Wonderful.

And what if some part of you is simultaneously carrying a deeply embedded belief that says:

I’m not worthy of that.

It isn’t safe to have more.

People like me have to struggle.

I have to overgive to be loved.

My value comes from how much I do for everyone else.

Making money makes me less spiritual.

Being visible is dangerous.

I shouldn’t want too much.

Then we are trying to plant new seeds in soil still crowded with old roots.

This is why the Lion’s Gate experience I created this year begins with release.

Some of our deepest patterns were taken on before we had the wisdom to choose them.

We absorbed them from family.

Culture.

Religion.

School.

Relationships.

The nervous systems around us.

The people we loved.

They may have helped us belong.

They may have kept us safe.

They may have been handed to us with the best intentions in the world.

And they may no longer be ours to carry.

That is not rejection.

It is maturation.

It is the moment when we can finally say:

I honor what came before me. And I set down what was never mine to carry.

The Lion’s Gate Reflection Guide I created this year builds the journey around four movements:

Release · Reclaim · Receive · Rise

The workbook describes Lion’s Gate not only as a time to imagine what you want, but as an invitation to create the inner conditions that allow a more truthful life to emerge. 

1. RELEASE

Set down what was never yours.

Before there is room for something new, we may need to become conscious of what we are still feeding.

Old shame.

Inherited beliefs.

Outgrown identities.

Invisible loyalties.

Stories about our worth.

Roles we learned to play so we could stay safe, needed, lovable, or accepted.

We do not need to burn down our history.

We can carry forward the wisdom and leave the limitation behind.

Ask yourself:

What am I carrying that feels heavy, outdated, or untrue?

Whose voice do I hear when I question my worth?

What might become possible if I stopped organizing my life around this pattern?

2. RECLAIM

Return to the light beneath the conditioning.

Once we set something down, our hands become available again.

And then we can ask:

What was underneath it?

What did you silence?

Minimize?

Postpone?

What did you stop trusting?

What part of your radiance did you learn to dim because being smaller helped you belong?

Your truth did not disappear.

It waited.

This is the Sirius teaching for me.

The light returns to visibility.

The workbook puts it simply:

I reclaim the light I once learned to dim. 

3. RECEIVE

Become available for what is ready to meet you.

This may be the deepest edge for many women.

We know how to give.

To care.

To create.

To hold.

To help.

To keep going.

Receiving can feel surprisingly vulnerable.

Love.

Support.

Recognition.

Rest.

Opportunity.

Abundance.

Money.

Help.

Pleasure.

Being celebrated.

A life built entirely around giving eventually becomes depleted.

Receiving restores the sacred equation.

And manifestation requires receptivity.

We cannot continually ask life for more while unconsciously closing our hands when more arrives.

So ask:

What am I actually ready to receive now?

And perhaps even more importantly:

What would balanced giving and receiving look like in my real life?

4. RISE

Let insight become embodied action.

Here is where Lion’s Gate becomes especially powerful for me.

An intention can open a doorway.

Action carries us through it.

My reflection guide describes Rise this way: spiritual insight is not meant to remain only in meditation, imagination, or intention. It wants to become visible through the way we speak, choose, create, relate, and participate in our lives.

You do not need a dramatic action.

You need a true one.

Maybe it is:

Sending the email.

Making the appointment.

Naming the price.

Asking for help.

Resting.

Applying.

Publishing.

Ending something.

Beginning something.

Having the conversation.

Setting the boundary.

Saying yes.

Saying no.

Letting yourself be seen.

Leo does not only want your intention.

Leo wants your courage.

Durga: Loving Courage for the Threshold

Durga has also become an important part of my Lion’s Gate practice this year.

She is the fierce, loving face of the Divine Mother.

Protector.

Warrior.

Clearer of obstacles.

The energy that reminds us we are capable of meeting what stands before us.

Durga does not feel harsh to me.

Her fierceness is love with a backbone.

She helps us discern:

This stays.

This goes.

This is true.

This is finished.

This is worth protecting.

This is where I move now.

And that makes her an exquisite companion for Lion’s Gate.

Because sometimes the thing standing between us and what we desire is not that the universe has failed to deliver.

Sometimes we are still feeding the very pattern that keeps us unavailable to receive it.

Durga helps us stop.

Her mantra is:

Om Dum Durgayai Namaha

You might chant it before your meditation or journaling practice.

Use a mala.

Repeat it quietly while walking.

Or place your hand on your heart and call upon her:

Durga, help me release what keeps me bound.

Help me trust what I know.

Help me take the next courageous, aligned step.

The sky may illuminate the threshold.

Durga helps us find the courage to walk through it.

Your Lion’s Gate Practice

This year I created an entire Lion’s Gate experience inside the SOULutions App, and I’m making the central practices available free through August 12.

You can simply download the app and begin.

Lion’s Gate Meditation: Set Down What Was Never Yours

This guided meditation moves you through the Lion’s Gate threshold with golden-light visualization, clearing, remembrance, receiving, and aligned action.

You will be invited to notice the beliefs or patterns you may have absorbed before you had the wisdom to choose them—and gently set them down.

Then you will reconnect with the part of you who is already living more freely and ask:

What is my next aligned action?

Lion’s Gate Reflection Ritual Guide

The meditation also includes a beautiful downloadable reflection workbook built around:

Release · Reclaim · Receive · Rise

You can print it, light a candle, make some tea, bring your mala or favorite crystal, and give yourself the gift of making this portal a real ritual.

Not because you have to do anything perfectly.

Because presence transforms an ordinary moment into something sacred.

And meaningful thresholds deserve to be met consciously.

The Universe Can Support You—and You Still Have to Move

I love the expansive side of Lion’s Gate.

I love thinking:

The universe is on my side right now.

I love letting myself imagine that the sky is conspiring with us toward greater truth, abundance, courage, and awakening.

Sometimes we need that.

Sometimes we need to look up at an enormous sky and remember:

Maybe more is possible than I have allowed myself to believe.

And then—

feet on Earth.

Breath in body.

Hands in life.

Because manifestation is partnership.

We listen.

We imagine.

We clear.

We receive.

And then we respond.

My own Lion’s Gate intention this year is deeply connected to receiving.

I am choosing a new relationship with abundance—one where years of service, creativity, giving, teaching, and spiritual work are allowed to be met with equally beautiful receiving.

Not through force.

Not through proving.

Through alignment, visibility, value, courage, and participation.

I am asking life to meet me differently.

And I am also asking myself:

How will I meet life differently?

That is the question I want to leave with you.

What Are You Ready to Strengthen?

As we move through the peak of Lion’s Gate, take a moment.

Put your feet on the earth.

Look toward the sky.

Place your hands on your heart.

And ask:

What am I ready to release?

What truth am I ready to reclaim?

What am I finally willing to receive?

What action am I ready to take?

Then listen.

And when the answer comes—

walk.

Continue the Journey Inside SOULutions

Lion’s Gate is one example of the kinds of sacred portals, seasonal practices, celestial rituals, meditations, yoga, mantra, breathwork, energy healing, and embodied teachings we explore inside the SOULutions App.

These practices are not meant to take you away from your life.

They are meant to help you bring more presence, meaning, courage, and soul into it.

For Lion’s Gate, the meditation and Reflection Ritual Guide are available to everyone free through August 12.

Download the SOULutions App and enter the portal.

Release what was never yours.

Reclaim your inner light.

Become available to receive.

And rise through the next aligned action that only you can take.

The gateway is not somewhere outside you.

You have already begun to walk through.

Your Turn: What Are You Ready to Choose?

Lion’s Gate is not only something to read about.

It is something to work with.

So before you move on with your day, take a moment to contemplate the questions above.

You do not need a perfect answer.

You only need one honest one.

If this portal is stirring something in you, I’d love to hear it.

Share your thoughts, reflections, intentions, or the action you’re ready to take in the comments below.

There is power in naming what has become clear.

There is power in letting your intention be witnessed.

And there is power in taking one real step while the energy is alive.

Let’s use this Lion’s Gate not only to dream bigger—

but to live differently.

All my love,

Mindy