Waxing Crescent Moon Phase 45 – 90° – September 2014

I thought I may be too late–is the Moon gone beyond 90 degrees yet?  We started with the New Phase at 0 or 1° Libra and now the Moon is at 9° Sagittarius today as I write this.    Since there’s 30 degrees to a sign and we started at Libra, progressing in order through the zodiac in the lunar cycle we have…

Libra 30° + Scorpio 30° + 30° Sagittarius and 30 x 3 is 90 degrees; so we’re still in the Waxing Crescent Phase which is from 45 to 90°. Whew! I’m not late with this blog post.  The Moon moves into the next phase when it gets to Capricorn, the next sign on the wheel.   I’m not too late and the Moon didn’t leave me behind.

Today the Moon is 69° into the next phase–the Waxing Crescent that follows the New Moon phase.  So, right on time then, I will continue.  We’re not at 90° yet.  Moving right along because I’m starting to sound like the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland fame.

I’ve had one thing on my mind lately and so when it is said that you should plant a seed during the New Moon (dark of the Moon) or set an intention for the month, there’s no doubt about what that was for me in my life.

I won’t detail that here at the moment (it’s personal for now) but may share it later.  It’s still pretty new; just a seed after all and I don’t want to be digging it up or creating anything that could keep it from taking hold in the soil and pushing up above ground.  More on that in a moment.

The Moon entered the Waxing Crescent Phase when it was at 45° from the last Sun/Moon conjunction.  What was that date?  30 Libra + 15 Scorpio = 45 degrees.  The Moon hit 15 Scorpio on September 27th, 2014 in the wee hours of the morn Sunday last or late Saturday night however you prefer it depending on your bedtime, eh? That’s when the Waxing crescent phase began officially, Eastern time.

So here we are… we’re in that Waxing Crescent Phase now.  Something happened in my life at the end of the New Phase that relates to the seed I planted–it was only a word, a whisper, an inkling of the seed stirring, but it happened!

And now well into the waxing crescent phase I find myself energizing that whisper with many thoughts, hopes, imaginings, visions.  So we will see how it goes as we near the Full Moon–follow along with me through the phases and I’ll keep you posted and maybe even reveal what its all about.  No promises though; we’ll see how it goes.  Like I said, it’s very personal.  Anyway…. back to the Waxing Crescent Moon Phase for now.

Waxing.  I’ve got to tell you that the choice of words there has always sort of irked me a bit.  Couldn’t they come up with a more descriptive word for indicating that the Moon is growing brighter and larger in the sky?  Can’t begin to tell you how many times while learning this bit of Luna lore that I’d scratch my head and say what’s waxing mean again?  I think of wax as the stuff you use to make candles and I’m not sure what that…. well, “waxing” according to dictionary.com, is from the  Old English weaxan; related to Old Frisian waxa, Old Saxon, Old High German wahsan, Gothic wahsjan,  Whatever!

So the Moon is getting larger, waxing.  We just have to accept that’s what waxing means and try to remember it.

After the FULL MOON it wanes (gets smaller in the sky to our eyes) and the word wane makes more sense to me.

But now we have this Waxing Crescent that we’re well into now (September 29th, 2014) but the date is not much matter since we’ll be here in this phase again next month and every month thereafter, “Lord willen’ and the creek don’t rise” as that saying goes.

We can pretty much count on the Sunrise and the Moonrise and their rhythms; that’s another reason to love astrology–it represents something we can count on and those things are far and few in life. Getting back to business now…

The Waxing Crescent Moon; the separation of the Moon from the Sun is between 45 – 90°

In this phase feelings of hopefulness abound and there is a sense that lingers of that other-worldliness from the earlier phase and the impulse toward action or activity is increased yet there is a struggle to put into the outer world what the inner world is experiencing.

There is the struggle with the need to withdraw from social interactions at this time of the month.  Psychic work at this time will carry the tune of inspiration.

A distance of 45° in astrology is called a semi-square and there is a struggle here, says Dane Rudhyar, for something concrete–a structure or mental concept.  There is the shock of discovery at this angle–it’s thin and new.  There can be a feeling of excitement with a tendency to want to slow down and look at things from all angles.   To our eye the Moon won’t have a distinctive shape until it reaches the First Quarter 90° when it looks like that distinctive semi-circle–until then the Moon’s shape is a straight line more-or-less.

There is gradual revelation in this phase which also includes the sextile (60°) and that’s where a comparison and contrast becomes evident and exciting.  In our current cycle that happened when the transiting Moon was at approximately 1° Sag. (Yesterday, Sunday 9-28-14).

There’s no stress with any kind of sextile and in this phase there’s a good deal going on internally.  There needs to be an isolation from the external world so the soul can ponder what’s taking place and begins to think about the effort and skills needed to work in harmony with the seed that is taking shape.

This whole waxing crescent phase is about allowing the evolutionary intent to take root–new energy with a new purpose.  Keyword:  allowing.

And here there can be those fears… fears of the past repeating itself.  No!  don’t let yourself go there!  We are doing evolution and NOT de-volution.  Right?

(I can feel that within my own experience now and it is very much in alignment with what the books all say about this phase.)

The Moon here in the waxing crescent phase is is young and full of possibility.  If we put this in terms of seasons, we could say that the Moon here is still in “winter” and we know spring is around the corner.  We still feel the ‘otherworldliness’ that carried us from the New Moon phase that came on the heels of the Balsamic phase where something was about to be conceived.  It was conceived!   And now the energy wants to rush out and to manifest.

Before this Moon cycle began, it was abstract and we couldn’t quite conceive of  how our desire or hopes could come about–it was dark and confusing but then a trace of light happened in the New Phase and into the Crescent and it has been growing all along!

Sooner or later what we want to happen will–that’s the feeling now but it feels awkward still.  Yet, at the same time, we’re ready to take it on, go with it, roll up our sleeves and work in harmony with it.  There’s an urgency feeling of something that has to get done but you don’t want to jump the gun that’s loaded and ready to go off– it’s not gone off yet!  And you don’t want to just sit there and do nothing either.  There’s the struggle.

Rudhyar says, about this phase, that people born in this phase “may be characterized in some cases by a deep, subconscious sense of being overwhelmed by the momentum of the past and the power of “ghosts” or karma”.  [i.e. doubt.]

There’s a feeling of not wanting to let things slip through the fingers, not wanting to miss the boat.  The hands are being untied now and there’s a strong desire to use them well.

In the month of October and on the 8th of this month — next Wednesday from now to be exact — there will be a FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE.  (That’s a whole other blog)

Anyway, the energy now indicates that something bigger than one’s own self is about to give purpose, direction and shape to the life.  

I don’t know about you, but I’ll drink to that–raising my coffee cup to the Moon and the Goddess therein!

[I will see you somewhere near the Square, the 90° angle of the Moon to the Sun and that’s going to happen (as stated earlier) at 1° Capricorn.  In this time zone (Eastern) this happens on October 1st!  See you in a few days; that is, if I can stay on time here with my blogging intentions I will. :0] 

 

QUICK MOON PHASE LINKS: 

New Moon 

Crescent (Waxing)

First Quarter

Gibbous (Waxing)

FULL MOON

Disseminating (Waning)

Last Quarter

Waxing Crescent – Balsamic 

 

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Non-Self and Illusion of Emotion – How to Hold Your Horses and Not Get Pulled In

 The Illusion of Emotion Hold Your Horses and Don’t Get Pulled In

“Hold Your Horses” and Don’t Get Pulled In

On the subject matter of non-self, consciousness, awareness, spiritual awakenings and psychic energy, I recently posted this Nisargadatta quote on Facebook:

“On what we think as REAL taking your idea of yourself for example: “You cling to personality, but you are conscious of being a person only when you are in trouble; when you’re not in trouble you do not think of yourself.” 

And I did so because I came to this quote rather magically (I believe in magic@!) after having an experience that relates to the quote itself.

Someone asked, “But how do we overcome thinking about ourselves when not in trouble?” 

Logical question; good question I suppose.  Surely, I don’t have all the answers but perhaps my humble speculation will be of some use to someone, other than my self.  Let me share my experience and that may be self-explanatory.

The other day I was in a place of no-fear, no- desire, non-attachment and  for the most part this is what we may call a contented happiness state.  I say it that way because extreme happiness – or the kind of cartwheels in the street and jumping up and down type of glee is really the result of some type of attachment.  But life itself, the marriage of consciousness to life is contented happiness.   A state of (for the most part) non-self, just merged with the harmony of life, flowing in harmony with what is and this type of non-self.  No strong desire, no craving, no yearning, no fear, no anger, no frustration—like that.   Those are states that attach us to self—thinking of our self.  We may say, as the Buddhists do, that these are states of self-cherishing.

I was in such a state of flow with life; neither here nor there; doing what comes natural; no strong push or desire—and just letting the mind become blank periodically.  And then—DRAMA WALKS IN THE DOOR!

So here comes this energy around me and it feels like it sucks you into your body.  In fact we have expressions like this—“I got sucked into that” or we say “I got pulled into it”.  That’s how it felt quite dramatically and literally.  My ‘self’ wanted to become engaged with the energy and I felt my consciousness being pulled back into ‘self’ when moments earlier I was in a state (more rather than less) of non-self:  no fear, no desire, no attachment—only flow.  Now the flow was being yanked and tugged by my ‘sense of self’–mostly self-identity.

You know how it goes when one begins to feel insulted, right?  That feeling comes up in us and we say things like, “Do they know who they are talking to?!”  It’s ME, the all-important ‘me’!!  Yeah, personality was starting to think about how it was receiving an insult.

I’ve heard it said, “A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies.”   The truth that I could return to being an atom of existence or let myself be pulled in was before me—a choice.

When I remembered this—when I remembered that the energy which the personality was being tempted to wrestle with, the energy that was starting to be sucked in by the personality began to  dissolved once I remembered the nature of reality being illusion.

Oh yeah, trust me—I know.  Been there and done that so many times I’m an expert at making illusion really real!  It’s all a play of cosmic matter.

When we become identified personally with any energy we become a slave to it.

When, on the other hand we remember what I heard my higher mind saying at that moment that I began to become sucked in which was IT’S NOT REAL, the “self” subsides and mind merges back into the previous state of no fear, no desire, no attachments, no anger, no craving and so on—everything decreases and wanes and subsides into silence.

Then we stand apart from the illusion having not been sucked in and we become master of the energy instead of the other way around. 

Footnote:  I am grateful for the experience from the Drama Queen because I don’t think I’ve experienced the energy quite so clearly and witnessed the two opposite states so dramatically and felt the pull in such a profound way!

Paranoia or Psychic Perception – Maybe Both

Contemplation

Paranoia or Psychic Perception – Maybe Both.  Here’s the contemplation…

Alright, I’ll admit.  Today wants to end on a sour note, but I won’t let it!  All was going well until late in the day, my granddaughter came home from school in a snit (she’s only 9 after all, has a head-cold and should probably be given benefit of the doubt) followed momentarily by the downstairs  couple who forgot they weren’t out in the middle of the field in India as they came in from work.  Indoor voices people!  Geesh!  And while reading this stuff might be having the superior, significantly-spiritual type clucking the tongue away and shaking their head, maybe even with a sly smile on their face—let’s not rush to judgment about these things.

Is it my paranoia or true psychic perceptions that cringe when realizing some folks have taken that smile that starts to form at the side of their mouth when they hear these challenges that the mountain yogi me dealing with this daily distraction stuff!  Ha! One person said, “Easy to do it when you’re up in the mountains in seclusion but not so easy NOW, is it?” As if I’m now experiencing life for the very first time!

Wasn’t born yesterday my friends and I’ve been there, done that—after all, I raised three teen-age daughters on my own.

I come back into it now, however, realizing exactly what it all is—as before—but on much deeper levels.  Now I see it as mind being irritated, mind being restless, mind being frustrated (no me) and what a view of it all I have!  Can’t get this kind of stuff in a monastery you know!

For it’s the mind that is irritated—not me!  And I’d have not come this far without my granddaughter and the noisy couple from India.  Never would I have had this kind of ‘in your face’ stuff at these levels and in the perfect timing for me to reach these understandings with it all.  Beautiful actually—just beautiful.

All kinds of things happen—the just do.  Do I necessarily cause them to happen?  Life.  It just happens.  We choose our reaction—the Buddha taught all that jazz.

Oh, I can hear the spiritually significant tongue-clucker now—influenced by all the new age book mumbo-jumbo.  “You attracted your circumstances; it’s your karma!”  Well, partially true if we consider our desire to evolve perhaps; but even if we don’t.  Life unfolds as a matter of circumstances that we simply are privy to witness and we can only change our attitude about it.  (Unless we want to be arrested for assault and battery—a bit of humor.)

What matters is the attitude and not the events—the world is full of desires and fears and pain and suffering and people generally reacting to it all the time.  Today, my granddaughter and more times in the past few months than I can count, my downstairs neighbors are perfect examples.

And me too.  My desire is for quiet and like the Rolling Stones as well as the Buddha have said, “Can’t get no — satisfaction.”  Not from the outer world.

So where is it—it is beyond the world, even beyond the inner world—beyond mind.

Oh, you could say I’ve gone out of my mind and you’d be totally correct on some levels.  I’ve realized that place that is beyond mind and all from humans pushing me there in so many ways so-to-speak.

I’ve also gotten hold of memory—the meaning.  We mistake that we are this group of memories that we have created an ego structure out of.  I’ve given this a good deal of thought since the Indians below me triggered a number of childhood memories and stimulated a fair number of unpleasant dreams, a few out-and-out nightmares.  This causes one to question the nature of memory and dreams; but mostly memory in this case since hold a few and identify ourselves thus creating structure out of those aspects of mind and then say, “This is me; who I am”.

If our memories were our true identity then you’d think we’d remember more than we do—such as what you had for dinner last week or what you did on the 4^th of last June.  Unless something memorable, you don’t remember.  What IS memorable, we structure an identity out it and call it “me”.  It’s okay for getting by here but we have to remember it is illusion—and the ego’s reading this are screaming in your heads, “Not me!  I AM REAL.”  That’s okay; I wasn’t always ready for this understanding either.

Maybe it’s all about me getting ready for the inevitable event that we all face someday—death.  It’s going to be easier to let go of this identity structure if we’ve realized all along it wasn’t real in the first place.

Here’s something C said in reply to a question about wanting to live, “To live, to die—what meaningless words are these!  When you see me alive, I’m dead.  When you see me dead, I’m alive.  How muddied up you are!” 

Enough about death—before I loose subscribers!  People don’t like this subject.  About memory, I like this quote:  Use memory, don’t let memory use you!  I should put that one on Facebook.  Anyway, family stuff being triggered is all for the purpose of realizing its memory that I’m overly identified with—it’s all been very good spiritual fodder or grist for the mill as the saying goes.  We need that grist to keep ourselves in true awareness—so tongue-cluckers who think you’ve got it made in the shade because you’ve read all the books and had a few evolutionary experiences and intellectually think you’ve GOT  IT, maybe not so much or there’s always deeper layers and this has been a good one, still is.

The bottom line is we do not need to be set free—we already are.   It is our identification with our body and the structure we created from memory that we over-identify as “me” and our desires that keep us going round and round again, lifetime-to-lifetime, which keeps us from the clarity that we were never born and never die.

All I can say to spiritually significant elite-ist tongue-cluckers is that understanding this intellectually is one thing and living it in the face of human intensity and applying it—well, how deep down the rabbit hole do we go?  With each intense experience, I have deeper realizations that do not come from a book but from my own experience, my own mind but not even there… from a place where I am totally out of my mind.  Hard to describe unless you’ve been there, done that.

I’m grateful when I can be in the right place with it all and when not, I realize I will be—eventually, all in good time.  Patience and perseverance, virtues!

By the way, I am celebrating walking normally this week!  I can wear a regular shoe and barely limp at all; as the illusionary body heals and repairs my broken foot illusion here!  Have a great week dear friends of Light!

(Excuse me now while i light illusionary candles to absorb the illusionary cooking smells from the illusionary neighbors!  laughing as I go… one more desire released… no longer desire to visit India!  See, everything has a great purpose!  ha ha)