spring equinox

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.