Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Moon Dark and Morning Pages

Moon dark is  that time in the lunar cycle when the face of the moon hides behind the shadow of the earth.

It's a mystical time when perceptual curtains in my psyche are drawn back and I can see, finally, what's been hidden  in the shadows of my consciousness.  Insights and epiphanies that have eluded me may reveal themselves when the moon slips into nothingness.

During moon dark, I see more clearly.


   

Astrologers call it the balsamic phase -- an inward, mysterious time.  The moon goes dark, creative energy ebbs.  I'm poised between cycles, waiting for the slender crescent to appear among the springtime stars.

This week, while the moon has been hidden in shadows, my own shadowy, unconscious dynamics became very clear.

I wrote some morning pages a few days ago.  This is a practice recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way -- writing three long-hand pages every morning to get rid of the mental clutter that's in the way of my creativity.   It's a private exercise.  No one sees my pages.

I haven't done them in a long time.  But during this quarantine confinement I felt tension building, so I sat at my laptop. What poured forth was like a giant, unflattering mirror dragged out of the back of the closet and propped up where I couldn't avoid my own reflection.

Maybe the virus has done this for you too?

It's as if life is a desk, piled up  with things to do. This and that to attend to.  Life flowing by.

And then the virus sweeps it all away.

Leaving open space.

My friend Deb, with unexpected time on her hands, is cleaning and organizing.  Yesterday she said, When I'm done with this all I'll be left with is my thoughts.

Exactly.

Writing those pages -- it was as if my consciousness was fed up with waiting to be heard and it didn't mince words. 

I'll spare you the content of my pages, but I have shared them with friends.  This is a big deal for me, letting peeps I trust see me exactly where am.

When I don't have my sh*t together.

Lo and behold, they relate.  They give comfort and good advice.

Today's new moon marks the beginning of a new cycle of creation.   I enjoy planting seeds of intention in the freshly tilled soil of my fertile psychic space.  Anything can happen!




In the next few days I'll experience that subtle shift from shadow toward light, as germinating seeds strive for the sun.  I think of that rich inner dark space as a deep well of potential.

Giving myself space to get clear -- by reviving the morning pages -- turned out to be a gift.  It woke me up to patterns of resistance that I've gotten used to, rationalized, and then felt crappy about.

And in response, so much wisdom came my way in the guise of friends who are, respectively, a life coach, a therapist, and a shamanic practitioner.  They say:  Let yourself be, for God's sake.  Soak in Epsom salts.  Put CBD oil under your tongue.  Try giving up dairy.  Or maybe stop judging your physical pain as bad.

This ascension we're in the midst of?  It's taking a toll on me physically but I don't have to assume it means I'm doing anything wrong.

Enter Uranus, the Great Awakener, whose cosmic agenda is to pierce through levels of unconsciousness and resistance! *




Astrologer Elizabeth Jones suggests that the most important question isn't related to ... what we've let go of but rather about what we are letting in (to our awareness).

This is huge...this sudden change, very likely a cosmic prompting from Uranus, has opened a window of opportunity  to co-create with the Universe something extraordinary.  

Something perhaps you've only dreamed or hoped for.  

Something that requires time you didn't have before

 and space to breathe 

and a new set of priorities 

and, perhaps most important, a fresh perspective of what might now be possible in your life.*




This new moon in Taurus, courtesy of Uranus (who moved into the constellation of Taurus in May 2018 and will hang out there for another seven years) has the potential to shatter outdated, no-longer-true-for-me, inherited beliefs.




In case you haven't noticed, this is happening in the collective consciousness as well. (Understatement.)

This would explain my meditation yesterday.




I came upon a doorway, set in a forest.  Sunlight was streaming through delicately budding branches.  Petals of early blossoms drifted like snowflakes to the ground. The double-door came to an arched point.  The left door was closed but bright yellow light beamed out of the right open door.  Inside, it was blindingly light.  I sensed myself on a cool healing slab of rose quartz.

It was a classic shamanic experience of instantaneous combustion.  I heard the phrase, Burn it all down.  I knew what this meant for me.

Uranus rules lightening, which is...how its energies work, often in an unexpected flash!*




Only my luminous bones are left -- the core of my being.  The scaffolding on which to build a new me.

How I come back to life, how I am re-animated by my own spirit...

Its up to me.

Collectively, it's up to us.





*Elizabeth Jones, Monthly Beacon: Astro, 4.19.2020, p.2



Thursday, April 9, 2020

Hawk Perspective and the Great Awakening

I'm thinking about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief.  After a loss, I know I can expect to experience a range of emotions, but not in a linear way.  I might think I'm done with denial, for example, but find myself back there, unable to comprehend my pervasive sense of loss.


The 5 Stages of Grief & Loss


I'm mourning the loss of our ability to gather --  in classrooms, workplaces, and coffee shops.  I'm mourning the loss of connection that comes from celebrating Easter together, when Judy brings her famous meatballs, Marisa brings a giant salad, Sa stirs brussel sprouts, roasted until even I like them.  Ray entertains us, Bailey rolls her eyes, the adult kids arrive with wine and dessert.  The boys launch projectiles from the balcony. Joey lights candles. Michelle pours me a glass of sparkling Moscato. We reminisce about the ones no longer with us (irreverently).  Steve loads the dishwasher despite my protests.

I know we'll do all these things again.  I'll give my daughters big hugs.  I'll grocery shop without low-grade anxiety.  I'll place my hands on a client's heart chakra and channel pure love without worrying if I feel a cough coming on.

But right now?

I find myself in the anger stage of grief.  Between bouts of exasperation (I can no longer watch White House press updates), depression waits on the doorstep of my awareness.  I don't usually entertain depression, but sometimes I think if I'm not depressed, there's something wrong.  Deep sadness is warranted now, as daily death tolls rise alarmingly.


So I allow my troubling emotions.  But I also know that deep shifts are occurring. Something is stirring in the collective psyche that will
tolerate nothing less than the highest levels of integrity, truth, and honesty which will clear the way for new paradigms....*
This is the spiritual message of an astrological event that occurred over the weekend, the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction.
Pluto's immense power is felt in world events  and in the great tides of history.  It influences masses of humanity, enormous groups of people, and large organizations....  The planet governs the beginnings and ends of cycles of life....  Pluto clears ground for the future.  The force of Pluto is felt as an undercurrent of turbulence and uncontrolled energy.
Right?


Pluto
Expansive Jupiter rules over knowledge, higher learning, breadth of vision, and honesty.  The knowledge that Jupiter imparts is on a philosophical level....**
Maybe Jupiter's influence helps me remember that I am not my anger or anxiety -- I am the one who has the ability to watch myself experiencing my troubling emotions.  I'm feeling them, but also raising my awareness to hawk perspective -- soaring above ever-shifting states of mind to a level of consciousness  that's steady, free, eternal.

Where I can  breathe again.

The Hawk | Oracle cards, Animal spirit guides, Cards

Eckhard Tolle explains it best:

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not...the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe your [thoughts]. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. ***

Without this capacity -- this higher-self perspective -- I risk being swept into a maelstrom of emotions that threaten to pull me under.

I use my spiritual sight, my hawk perspective, to slip into the realms of knowing beyond my thoughts.


Boat Dock Wallpapers - Top Free Boat Dock Backgrounds ...



Ascending to hawk perspective helps me comprehend the pandemic in the context of the great awakening that has been foretold for these times we live in.

The Maya prophesied that we, together with the precession of the equinoxes, would come full circle.  The hugely significant galactic synchronization of 2012 is the context of the  spiritual and cultural renewal that will enable us to solve our ecological problems and usher in a new...age.  


The Precession of the Equinoxes Explained with Graham Hancock ...


The dominant message emerging from the Mayan prophecies...is that we are the prophecy, and that whatever happens in the future is dependent on the choices we make.****

I can only comprehend this evolutionary big picture from hawk perspective.

When I get lost cycling through my sometimes-erratic thoughts and feelings, elevated awareness brings steadiness.

Oracle 33 Card Deck - Empowering the Teenage Soul by Shana Lee ...


So when scary news reports and reality-TV press conferences become too much, I pull on my metaphorical wings.  I survey my surroundings like the hawk presiding over the pond from the highest bare branch.  Longing for spaciousness, I launch myself into the open sky, gathering momentum  until I'm spiraling ever upward, gliding above the fray.

Unfettered from my anxious mind, I surrender to spaciousness as open as the sky.




A lost ancient civilization with advanced knowledge of  great  cosmological epochs looked to us  as the bringers of light to new age of enlightenment. 

Adopting their galactic vantage point, I comprehend the pandemic as an event that will prompt ways of being that are more strictly in alignment with Who We Really Are.


Mayan Mural

Visionaries have a way of soaring aloft to perceive an ideal.  Bringing vision into reality is the very  heart of creativity.

If we are the ones we've been waiting for, there's not a minute to lose.




Sources

Jones, Elizabeth, Monthly Beacon, 3.20.2020, p.2

Joanna Martine Woolfolk, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need, p. 283 (Pluto) and  p. 258
Jupiter)

Tolle,  Ekhart,The Power of Now,  p. 14

Benedict, Gerald, The Mayan Prophecies for 2012, p. 188