Being Called to Pause in Reverence for the Sacred Gift of Life – Solar Eclipse in New Moon Pisces at the Spring Equinox 3-20-15

Being called to pause in reverence for the sacred gift of life – Solar Eclipse in New Moon Pisces at the spring exuinox

It’s just over a month since the last blog–time flies.  The New Moon (Pisces) Solar Eclipse Spring Equinox thing carried forward (for me anyway) a theme that I’d been contemplating since before the New Year.  A theme of thinking about how precious each moment of our life is and how easily we take it for granted.   You hear people kvetching about their ‘soul mate’ or the ‘perfect job’ or carrying on about not ‘getting theirs’, whatever they think they must have to experience peace, happiness, joy, satisfaction and bliss.  Boy-O-boy its just never enough sometimes, you know?  “If only I could ____ or they would ____ or she/he didn’t _____” and meanwhile where’s the appreciation for life itself gone?  Where?   Sometimes we need a crisis to get it back or a crisis to raise what’s there even higher.

I always try to elevate suffering or mishaps or misfortunes of any kind–maybe that’s old Catholic training (‘offer it up for the soul’s in purgatory’–the nun’s would say) and of course Buddhist (more my own cup-of-tea as I age) speak of Tonglen Meditation with sufferings of any type (same principle).   So that’s why I write this blog to today, to elevate something.

So where were we?  Yes; revering and honoring the sacred gift of life.  Nothing takes away from that like bitching (sorry to be frank) about what you don’t have or what you want.  Boy–talk about lowering a vibe and being irreverent  and  not appreciative of the gift of one’s life!

And its not always about the relationship partner, the perfect job, benefit’s package or home with a view that keep folks out of tune with the cosmos, religious or so-called spiritual folks seeking the ‘highest dimension’ or ‘enlightenment’ can be just as distracted.

I’m talking about the simple things like that ability to breathe in and out!  Yeah, let’s go down to that level.  Our life is so precious and also so vulnerable and can change is a flash–in the blink of an eye.  We don’t want to think about it of course.  But all around us at any given time we see evidence of how quickly life can change or (yes it does) end completely.

I live near a main road that is in between the local hospital and the downtown area. The sound of the ambulance is frequent reminding me how someone’s life just changed.  Last year I had a dramatic response to a flu/virus and passed out from weakness and high fever–as I was loaded into the ambulance I wondered if it was to be the time of my exit from this life.

The truth is that absolutely anything can happen to us at any time and that’s my message and the message of this solar eclipse in Pisces — don’t take life for granted!

The Solar Eclipse underscored that for me this week, really driving the point home, putting that exclamation point at the end.

For months now, each day the appreciation of life and the sacred gift that it really is… our breath, or body, our movement, our each and every ability and talent… how it is woven into the fabric time and into everyone else’s life too… how interconnected we all are yet how vanishing it can all be since we and all of life are simply energy and consciousness playing out and anything and everything can change in a heartbeat.

I almost went down that road again but it wasn’t a road–more like a side alleyway.  And that little jog off the the main path of my life drove home the point and I felt that I really must write about it here, now.

Pisces Moon, by the way, at the time of this new Moon eclipse was at 29° –a culmination point.  It’s like dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s so-to-speak and for me it was regarding a realization of what I’d been working with or coming to grips with.  (And for astrology buffs–the Sun/Moon were in my 8th house, naturally ruled by Pluto/Scorpio, Lord of the Underworld.)

You know, people can give lip-service to how precious life is but not really getting it on an experiential level.  My life-partner of 22-years who is the father of my 3 daughters crossed over to spirit world this year and those ambulances go by each and every day.  On Facebook there are “friends” who post when a loved one is ill or injured or dying–we shouldn’t shut out or ignore those reminders around us but look straight at them and use them to pause in reverence for the sacred gift of life.

The deeper contemplation is how our mind’s are constantly drawn outward through the senses.  Yet, at certain times (and I recently had one of those) we are able to attain the vision of the undying self again.  I say again because there have been numerous sightings.

It was a few days after the New Moon Solar Eclipse and Spring Equinox of March 20, 2015 (a few days ago) when I suddenly (and I do mean suddenly!) fell ill.   I am still recovering here as I write this from a cold/flu that came on fast with chills/fever.  It came swiftly like last year–the chills. It was a rather cold and rainy night and none of my children were responding to my texts or calls and none have an extra key to this new place.  (I keep forgetting to get extra keys made.) What if that which happened last year happens again?  What if I loose consciousness with high fever?  

(for the record, I’m not afraid of dying–just don’t want my body discovered by my children days later–gross; but its the truth)

I had turned my heat setting up to 74 degrees and was wearing layers of clothing and a head covering beneath layers of down comforters and still was shivering cold just like last time.  I was alone.  There was nobody but the angels knowing of my condition, but luckily the major muscle aches and fever broke around 4 am and normal heating and cooling returned to the body–whew!  I’m now, as I write this,  left with headache, some stiff neck, sneezing, sniffling and stuffiness; but hope to raise all of that up to higher benefit by writing this blog today in hope that someone out there pauses, as I recently have, to consider the sacredness of life.

The whole time I lay in bed awake and alone (but for my angels and guides) with the chills of fever in the night, I realized how much I had really been appreciating life lately.  I was being called to pause in reverence for the sacred gift of my body which had been responding so well to my meager training at the gym and the physical vehicle which  provided lift and jaunt for a recent day hike around the zoo with my family.  How precious my body is!

I’ve always thought of these eclipse times as cosmic ‘attitude adjustments’–major life theme patterns change.  There are times when kvetching just isn’t part of the picture–call those times when our usual monkey-mind victimization talk is eclipsed somehow by Life Itself and  we come away from the experience with a whole different perspective.

We can most fully appreciate the sacred moments of our life when we are not attached to them, realizing they can change again in an instant.

Meaning of the New Moon in Aquarius January 20, 2015 and the Aquarian in Your Life and The Chariot with Queen of Cups

New Moon times.  Could these be times in which the door to the psyche is open for us to enter and redirect our play just a little bit–at least emotionally?  And is it a time for us to create and debate and elevate as well as fixate about our emotional nature?  New Moon times could be  the most important part of our creative nature since it sets the tone for how we interpret the world.  Each month the dye is cast so-to-speak by our response to life at the New Moon time.  If we could mark the time and be aware of it, we could control the nature of the dye we cast for the upcoming 28’ish to 30-day lunar cycle.

If you happen to know  the house that the New Moon is in (for you), you can derive more insight from the vibes but even if you don’t know that information, it’s still beneficial to open to setting a new tone for your emotional responses to life.    (If you should happen to know what house 0° Aquarius falls in your natal chart, this will give you an idea for the areas of your life that will be activated and in what life categories the potential for renewal will be natural and beneficial to cast your emotional die for the next 30-day cycle.   But even if you do not know which house your 0° Aquarius is located, you can still benefit from simply knowing the sign itself.

So we have a New Moon in Aquarius!  This sign rules the 11th house of hopes, dreams and also carries a humanitarian and “friends” as general meaning archetypes.  Innovative thinking is part of the Aquarius vibe as well as freedom seeking qualities being a part of this energy.  In evolutionary soul astrology, it also links with “the wound” of the past lives.

So in any of those ways we can cast the dye for this next month–changing our emotional responses to life in those areas.

(Again, if you know the house of your natal chart that holds 0° Aquarius, you can factor in that information as well.)

I just had a brilliant idea!  (Now that’s the stuff that Aquarius is made of actually–brilliant ideas.)  Anyway, why not draw a few tarot cards to add insight to the Aquarius New Moon meaning here?  Why not?  It’s my blog and I can do what I want!–that last sentence (too) is very ‘Aquarian’ in nature.  🙂

Let me first reiterate that a New Moon relates to heightened sensitivity to a particular energy for the purpose of casting new dye for the purpose of renewing the potential of that part of your psyche.  Using emotion to rededicate yourself in some way–that’s another way to say it.  We can toss in “desire nature” as well here in that what we desire usually has a rather significant emotional derivative so using that energy to create something new in our lives.

Let me draw two cards now to help us to know more about this month’s New Moon in Aquarius, asking how we can best use this time for our highest benefit and therefore highest benefit of all.  I’m going to use the Hanson-Roberts tarot deck for this one; here we go.  (By the way, I love the images on this deck and the cards are small and fit nicely in my hands during the shuffle.  This is a deck that I used to program meanings from the divinitory method using my own memories.)

I drew THE CHARIOT and QUEEN OF CUPS. 

Well, first impression:  male image/female image so a hint at balance confirmed by the yin and yang on the Chariot.  All those stars on the Chariot card really do remind me of the sign of Aquarius and now the Cup the Queen holds, definitely relates to emotions (cups equal emotion in the tarot system).

The Chariot also speaks of using one’s will, directing one’s energy and being determined; it is also about practice and practice making perfect.  Practicing what?  The Queen holds that answer–understanding your emotional reactions.  Satisfaction comes from practicing using one’s will to understand emotional responses and to keep on that path and exerting control in some way to achieve a goal.

Sometimes we let our emotions spin out of control.  Yet, these cards speak of the suggestion that this New Moon cycle the directive is about making it a goal to control emotions so that they do not spin out, causing us to break down, go off our intended path and by failing to maintain our balance and by neglecting to keep the positive/negative pull of our nature (yin/yang) under control.

I think of the Queen of Cups always as it relates to intuition and also empathy/compassion — those energies, too, need to be balanced so that emotions don’t spin out.

The Queen sits by an ocean and this hints, to me, that water can help in our endeavors this month and if there is a goal that you believe you’d like to reach regarding water in any way, this New Moon in Aquarius would support that.   Many people feel very “at peace” near water or even in water.  Aquarius, after all, is the “water bearer” (despite it being an ‘air’ sign.  The Chariot does relate to the Sign of Cancer and Cancer is ruled by the Moon and Moon energy always relates to water.

The Sun and Moon are joined together to create something new during the New Moon time

So on all levels I do get that a message for this New Moon time relates to emotion and the goal of harnessing those in some way that relates to Aquarius energy — friends, hopes, dreams, humanitarian causes, group energy or perhaps it relates to a person with the Sun sign Aquarius with the understanding that the Sun and Moon are neck-in-neck right along side one another at the same degree when there’s a New Moon.

Give it another go here–what I mean is to consider reading this post over again with what your intuition tells you Aquarius means to you!  Cast the dye consciously.

Final thought:  is there a way that you can balance emotions for a new cause, a new reason in this new lunar phase?

The Conflict of Inner and Outer World the time of Year between Halloween and New Years

Merchandisers Associated with Christmas pull us into their markets when the natural soul tendency is to go within

Merchandisers Associated with Christmas pull us into their markets while the natural soul tendency at this time of year between Halloween and New Years is to go within

 

There’s a Conflict of Inner and Outer World the time of Year between Halloween and New Years

 

INTO THE WOODS TODAY!  It is November 1st, 2013 as this post is being written.

The Moon is only 4% lit, waning, moving toward New Moon (dark moon) Scorpio. There’s a Uranus-Pluto square today, exact square… it’s a deep, shadowed time… a time to go deeply within… Uranus represents the individual subconscious and Pluto represents the depth of the soul.

The Celts saw this as a sacred or “hallowed” time of year. It is a time for honoring those in spirit and communicating with spirit world–yet, everything in our American or Westernized culture goes against the natural call of spirit.

This is the time of year that the old religions would use divination to look to the future. Is it any surprise that opposing forces created a completely different genre around this time of year?

My soul is directing me to go into the woods, as far and deep as I can go– this I can do metaphysically if not physically. The rain here today supports going within, being quiet–I may even skip my swim in favor of extra meditation or maybe even a dance meditation.

(New Moon date: Nov 3rd, Sunday ~ a good day to do a New Moon ceremony ~ unless the Xtian associated merchandisers don’t trigger the tradition of greed and pull you into the stores and malls.)

Feeling pensive today and at the same time deeply grateful for the freedom that is available to me and of course…. oops!  Spoke too soon; was going to say grateful for the quiet but that’s okay, I can cover up the human’s voices of downstairs neighbors from India with music… so change that: feeling grateful for music sound players!

Now to go into the woods of my mind and soul for a while…..  maybe you would like to join me?