Balsamic Moon Phase – October 2014 Leads to New Moon Solar Eclipse on the 23rd

Balsamic Phase!  [AKA Waning Crescent Phase] Yep. Moon is at 2° Libra (today as I type this) and that feeling of wanting to escape into a mist of a cloud and fade out is here again–it’s a regular monthly feeling for me.  Maybe you too?  The Balsamic Moon says things like  ‘I want change NOW or GET ME OUT OF THIS REALITY’…. that’s the feeling I’m describing that you may be able to identify with regarding this Moon Phase.  

THE SOUL AND THE DIVINE ARE ULTIMATELY INSEPARABLE AND INDISTINGUISHABLE — we can know that… have that experience in this phase!

The desire for peace and silence is overwhelming.  I currently reside (I changed the word live to reside just now)  in a parking lot type townhouse setting where every 8 feet on both sides of the narrow drive-through is a parking space.  Any time someone slams their car door, it sounds like a sonic boom going off around my head.  Most days it barely registers but the need for silence contrasts with the booms and bangs.  (No, I don’t have a headache but I feel the sounds in my body.  Has that ever happen to you?  You know the feeling, right?)

I have two roommates who bang around and dialogue early in the morning which I incorporate into weird dreams usually but it seems much more disturbing now.  This is typical of the Balsamic Phase of the Moon—the need for quiet, silence as the psyche on all levels needs to commune with the inner energy and distractions from the outer world loom much larger.  As I mentioned at other times in this blog, my natal Moon is balsamic (directly behind) my Sun and so this is true for me at all times, but at this time it is even more pronounced.   

Coping with the outer world takes huge effort and concentration and discipline because all parts of mind/body/spirit want to go far away from the normal routine.  I spoke with one of my daughters last evening who expressed feeling overwhelmed with the demands of earth living–the long drive to work, the financial stresses and strains and the having to work long hours without what she feels is proper reimbursement for her efforts.  That’s another way to describe this phase.   She didn’t know the solution or what to do about it but felt despondent–again, overwhelmed with the demands of life.  That’s the feeling of this phase.  And knowledge is power–and we know phases are just that, phases.  

We could toss in the mercury retrograde and the two eclipses this month on top of it (and personally I’m having a Lunar Return today), but then why complicate things further?  I’d like to stick to the blog post topic –the Balsamic Moon Phase.

Here’s the view from the perspective of the psychic/the sensitive.

The Balsamic phase AKA The Waning Crescent:  the Moon is 315 -360° growing into the “dark of the Moon”

This phase begins with a very deep psychic sensitivity and alternate realities make themselves known to the psychic.  Ghosts show up in this phase—like Halloween the veils are thin at this time. Communication from loved ones on the other side, spirit guides and angels are more common for everyone during this lunar phase but more so for the psychic.  Imagination and visions are at their peak. 

The archetype here is one of merging with Divine Will, surrender and a willingness to go into the abyss.  More than any other time of the month, the psychic wants to withdraw from life when the Moon is in the Balsamic Phase. 

There is a search for ultimate meaning now. And the desire is strong to turn ones back to the physical world.  We are more willing than at any other time to ask questions like, “What is the nature of reality?”, “What is the nature of the mind?” Or “Where do we go when we die?” 

We recognize the illusion of time and physical matter.  A psychic who is comfortable in this realm already can lovingly go deeply that they enter into “the universes of spirit world” and experience a liberation and freedom as well as wisdom  that… well, that helps one keep going through the next lunar cycle starting again with the New Moon.

New Moon happens again at 1° Scorpio which is also the time of the Solar Eclipse.  Again, Solar Eclipses are about something new.  Lunar Eclipses relate to some type of permanent ending.  These things don’t happen overnight and some eclipse energy affects people more dramatically than others (which depends on their natal chart points as they relate to the eclipse points) but that’s the core concept with eclipses. 

Date:  New Moon Solar Eclipse October 23rd.  It’s a good time to set your intentions for the new month and the season as well.  Do so and then follow the blog posts through the phases if you’d like using the links below.

ADDENDUM:  disclaimer:  Maybe it’s because I’m in the midst of a PERSONAL LUNAR RETURN but I wanted to come back to post a bit more about the ‘feelings’ now as they relate to the earlier phases of the Moon as it grew full–a comparison and contrast.  By the way, a Lunar return is when the Moon returns to the same degree and minute as it was on the day you were born.  So, that happens monthly. I think that’s going to be my next project:  to write about the Lunar Return.  I’ve noticed, through the years, the days when I’ve felt — for lack of a better word right now– I’ve felt FUNKEY, different, strange, weird or felt something was ‘off’ and so looked at my chart to find time and again that the Moon was conjunct my birth Moon on that day.  So I’ve been meaning to investigate Lunar Returns a bit more; my understanding at this point is that they are like a New Moon, but even more personal.  That’s as far as my knowledge goes–and up until now I thought of a lunar return as a double moon of sorts just intensifying emotion.  But I plan to find out more.

Anyway, back to this personal addendum on the balsamic moon phase.  I look back to the New Moon and the Waning Crescent as I had this dilemma and desire and planted some seeds— well, okay.  At the New Moon time I was  telepathically screaming into the heavens asking what is going on, what direction should I take and what is this all about and then stating my needs and desires best I could.  Stuff started to happen–very encouraging and validating stuff.  I felt, well… validated, confirmed, 10-4 good buddy message received and all that.  I knew what was going to happen and still do–eventually.  It hasn’t happened yet but I have been given full assurances–in the physical–that it will and soon.  Apparently, not THIS lunar phase unless something changes in the next few days–in which case I will be back to post it!

But it is strange — and this is the point that I wanted to make about this lunar phase — somehow the fire has gone out.  Don’t misunderstand.  It’s not that I still don’t want to have happen what I was assured will happen–it will happen eventually and it could be at any moment is what I was told.  And the circumstances around this are very true to point–it is a concrete physical thing I’m talking about here.  And the ‘any time now’ does make perfect sense in the 3rd dimensional physical reality–so that part’s ‘all-good’ as they say.  Yet somehow the fire has gone out a bit or at least we could say there is no more open flame and the logs of the fire are just red embers, still producing warmth [as an analogy] but, again, no open flame.  The excitement is over and the reality of life remaining ‘as is’ filters back in and there’s a sadness and at the same time there’s a feeling of how it doesn’t matter much one way or another.  Intellectually it does because my mind is yelling at me — it matters! it matters! it matters a lot!  but the heart of me is detached from the cares of the world, the earth and my own earthly life.  There are more important considerations even if I can’t exactly nail those down either.  There’s a desire to go sit on a nice huge boulder  somewhere that’s warmed by the sun and let the wind blow my hair and move across my face and be completely STILL.  Either that or transport into a fluffy white cloud in the sky and look down and laugh at the cares of the word and laugh even more loudly at my own life.  I am not depressed, i am detached–detached, except from chocolate.  Chocolate helps, it really does!.

QUICK MOON PHASE LINKS: 

New Moon 

Crescent (Waxing)

First Quarter

Gibbous (Waxing)

FULL MOON

Disseminating (Waning)

Last Quarter

Waxing Crescent – Balsamic 

 

 

Psychic residue from past lives create our reality! Latent tendencies and Boggarts

Latent tendencies interpret fast moving protons and neurons and project reality

This whole ground consciousness and latencies or latent imprints is totally fascinating.  That information comes from deeper study of  Tibetan Buddhism which is really, in my humble terms, the study of the mind and the nature of reality.  They say that the imprints are not the experience itself, but more like dormant seeds.

I think about wildflowers when I think of dormant seeds that are not receiving the right conditions to bloom.  And yet, when they do (especially in the northeastern part of the country where I currently reside), they do not last long.  The summer sun and rain bring the conditions for the blooms and then in the fall and winter, they are dormant again.

Wildflowers

I think the comparison to wildflowers is an okay or and adequate association in that these imprints are positive, negative or neutral depending upon whether they originated from a positive, negative or neutral thought or action.

Some things grow in summer but do not contain flowers—some contain thorns or brambles. As weeds and wildflowers grow, so go our own imprints–positive, negative or neutral.  And we are creating new imprints all the time–reality.

I really like comparing psychological, spiritual, philosophical aspects of ourselves to nature.  The natural world is a fertile ground for this type of relating.

Anyway, we are told by the Tibetan teacher (s) (the Rinpoche) that these seeds or imprints are activated with experiences in the here and now.  Those everyday types of experiences in life are then activated like the Sun and water and soil conditions activate the wildflowers in the summer.

And here’s the kicker!

These activated imprints are what give us the impression of solid reality (it is all energy vibrations and reflections in actuality and a quantum physicist will agree that a table or a wall is nothing more than very faSt moving neutrons, electrons, protons.  Horray for physics!  Anyway…

Back to latencies…. these are associated with external sensory experiences and give rise to the belief in dualism.  What that means is a belief that I am separate from other or interpreting everything in terms of “I” and “other”.  It is these sensory experiences provided by the dormant seeds come to bloom (so-to-speak) that give rise to a sense of individual ego or separation from All That Is.  And then we create actions based on that belief in dualism that create more and this is how we go round and round in the world of illusion.

There are those who believe that if there is a self that it is a conceptual stream of consciousness that receives these latencies and projects them as external phenomena.

Just consider that a moment as you contemplate your reality!  your life!  A stream of consciousness projecting latencies!  And in every moment we are creating more latencies based on how we respond to any ‘now’ moment!  Mind blowing!  🙂

Well, it has to be extremely more complicated than this;  but what if it’s not?

Sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, body) receive input and then process and transmit it to the brain–and when reading the word ‘input’, think energy vibrations.  The mental consciousness receives something like, “red, round, moving to the left, sharp edges” and then interprets it.

When you think that this has been going on in our stream of consciousness for eons of lifetimes, consider the amount of latent tendencies we have stored which create our reality as we experience it!

No wonder we have developed a belief that external objects are solid and real…  and no wonder we perceive what the latent tendencies tell us,  which is that the external phenomenon is solid and real rather than empty.

Psychic residue containing diverse thoughts rooted in past lives creates the forms.  The mind is transitory (fleeing, passing through, temporary, brief, in flux and in movement)–such is our life .  And eternal reality is actually nonexistent.

Conventional Reality vs Ultimate Reality

But then again, conventionally it is, meaning that conventional reality does exist.  Especially when you think of explaining to your landlord or mortgage holder that your external reality does not it exist and therefore you don’t need to pay your rent or mortgage!

We have all agreed upon this reality due to these latencies and karmic actions and therefore conventional reality exists but ultimately, as just explained, it does not.  So it’s a paradox that the Buddhists call “The Two Truths”.

One reason I believe all of this is that of my personal experience of it  in meditation is just as  has been as described by the Buddhist teachings and long before I read the Buddhist teachings–so, therefore,  I know the truth of  this via my own meditative experience.  Not intellectually.

There is what the Buddhist call shamatha meditation and this will show you the true nature of reality as one turns to look at one’s mind directly.

Well, enough for now.  Understanding these latencies and even just a wee bit can help a good deal in relieving ourselves or releasing our grasp on our attachment s and aversions.

Contemplate this and fear dissolves and aversions become laughable and attachments,  too,  seem ridiculous.

And the last word in the paragraph above reminds me of the brilliance of the scene in the Harry Potter movie (The Prisoner of Azkaban)  when the witches and wizards in-training worked with the spell to transform the Boggarts.  The word of the spell used was “Riddikulus”.

(A Boggart, by the way, is a shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of the viewer’s worst fear.)

The image to the left is the result of a wizard student projecting an image of his grandmother onto a Boggart ,transforming the professor he fears into a comical image of his grandmother.

Learning about the mind and nature of reality from the Buddhist perspective helps us to transform our own Boggarts realizing they are no more than mind projecting  latent tendencies… what transforms a Boggart after all is humor, laughter!  (according to author J.K. Rowling anyway)

So, keep it Light!

Aspiration:   May this post help someone in cyber world who comes upon it at a time of need to help ease suffering, enhance happiness and renew their sense of freedom and true liberation!  

Peaceful Reflection in Post Aversion and more on karmic tendencies

Not all apartments here are created equal, nor are all karmic imprints the same!

This post is me being bare-to-the-bones honest.  Sharing what I’m learning on this journey.  You may remember the posts since last year have reflected my struggle with… well,  straight to the point shall we?

Not all apartments are created equally, nor do all humans carry the same karmic imprints and tendencies in consciousness.

My inner question over many months involved knowing on deep levels that every irritating sound (or even smell; well, maybe especially smell) was illusion and my response of intense aversion to it was of course of my own making.

The sounds is ‘me’ and the smells are ‘me’ but at the same time in conventional reality obviously coming from the source of the downstairs neighbors.  For months on end, I realized this and argue with self, “…but it is so real (the loud voices the curry/garlic stink),… so real for something that is an illusion!

How could this be me when everything that remains of me that is still sane indicates the opposite?  

I knew the truth of it but the aversion was so strong that the reality of it increased in proportion and the whole thing kept feeding itself.  By the way, since moving I’ve learned that the apartment building itself where this experienced hell-realm is located is cheap construction and the townhouse I’m in now has very good soundproofing. Our neighbor to the right (this is a 2-level townhouse) consists of 3 people and a dog and we never hear a word, nor do the 3 of us living in this townhouse even hear one another’s TV or words from room-to-room or from upper-to-lower level.  So life is much more pleasant as far as that goes.   Not all apartments and townhouses in this complex are equal.

The other apartment  situation may have been karmic but it provided me the stimulus to ask more deeply about the nature of reality and the nature of mind.  I would never, ever wish to repeat it but I do see how the experience benefited my evolution.  

I knew deeply then as I always have in my core being that the external sounds, smell, appearances were empty and coming from the mind but the aversion was so strong… it was very confusing and I resisted it desperately causing myself compounded suffering.

The thing is when we look at something in meditation, we see the appearance of it in the mind.  Sounds, smells, all senses are this way.  The mind interprets everything and assigns meaning or judgment to it…  “i.e. this is pleasant, this is horrible, etc.”

And when we try to find the consciousness that see’s and interprets the energy, when we try to find the visual consciousness or the auditory consciousness or the olfactory/sense of smell consciousness that is doing the looking or receiving the smell, we cannot find it.   Mostly because it is constantly changing and in Buddhist terms it is “empty”.

Being a psychic this is known to me and seen in my work–energy is constantly changing and what we perceive is not the true nature of things, it is only our own perceptions which are deeply ingrained patterns (see last blog post)… latent karmic imprints.  

I have to admit here that there is difficulty in explaining in this written word what I know and what  am learning here now, post-aversion, in my continued  reflection and further study of  Tibetan Buddhism.  It’s complicated on one hand and so simple on the other!  All the Libra energy in me can hold the paradox but my Mercury in Scorpio feels it and has trouble with the words.

I realize even more clearly now that the sounds and smells [from my boisterous and cooking Indian downstairs neighbors and the guitar-singing neighbor who followed] were all simply energies which hit my senses that these sense consciousnesses had absolutely no opinion of those sounds or smells.

And further, and more importantly, I realize with more clarity that  it was my mind that  was giving it whatever meaning it had back then which was that of extreme aversion.

For another person with different karmic imprints, the situation would perhaps even been pleasant (although that’s hard to imagine) or at least the aversion may not have been as strong.

Why would it differ?  All those latent karmic imprints and tendencies were awakened and it seemed very difficult to have control over my intense aversions.  I am not making excuses, I’m demonstrating, hopefully, how something pleasant or unpleasant (attractions/aversions) may differ with person-to-person based on the karmic tendencies in ground consciousness [see last blog post].

Back then, I kept thinking [getting the thought]–this smell is ‘me’ and their yelling in Hindi is ‘me’ but (at the same time) how can that possibly be?    Karmic habituation of interpreting certain energy a certain way is part of the answer.

I don’t have all the answers but it’s all getting clearer now that I am in a new setting where peaceful reflection is possible.

(I share this in the hope that it may serve or be helpful in some way to another out in cyber world who may be experiencing any type of difficulty or confusion.  May we all be brought to clarity and contented happiness and freedom from all suffering and causes of suffering.)