It snowed yesterday, and I plunged back into Winter, and into a dark moon internal landscape that was challenging. Snow on daffodils, clumped together, seeing in the dark. My eyes hurt. It was Earth Day. I felt darkness and instability. But today the sun is shining, it is above freezing, and the daffodils have regained their aplomb. I admire them for their resilience and tenacity. I’ll be like them, and bounce right back from a freeze. I’ll open my eyes to perceive a blue sky and the humming of life, if not yet of the honey bee. I’ll feel my bulb in the ground and feel the green stirring in my heart. This is where I am supposed to be.
Collective Grief
The New Moon in Taurus, almost conjunct Uranus and square Saturn, was last night at 10:30 EST. By that time, I had sufficiently attended to my own despondency to realize several things. One is that there is a lot of grief to feel, so I can chalk up my dark moon difficulties to the collective energies as well. A lot of souls are leaving us at this time. A lot of people are hurting more than usual. The Earth had her day, her 50th official Earth Day, and the forecast is grim. We have so far not responded adequately to an ecological crisis that we are witnessing and have been witnessing for as long as I have been alive, and even longer. I feel like a little girl who, born with a certain optimism about the world, does not understand the stupidity of her elders. The world is not as I want it to be and as I know it can be, personally, socially or societally. It’s not the choices I’ve made, it’s not personal despondency, it’s just a feeling we are not where we are supposed to be. Why have we not acted yet? What are we waiting for?
Another World is Possible
Well, apparently we were waiting for the corona virus which seems to be doing the job for us. The Earth is breathing a little easier. It’s still not the world I dream of though, the world of interconnection between all life, the world of listening and careful attention, with humanity safely back in its place in the larger scheme of things, but I’m starting to see my dream of another world reflected more widely around me. We are all slowing down. We are all taking the time to be a little more conscious now that we aren’t speeding around. This is encouraging to me.
The Work That Reconnects
But to get back to the New Moon and the grief I felt with it, there is a lot of grief to feel right now and we need to feel it to move forward. Joanna Macy, inventor of a method to reconnect us to the Earth and each other, The Way That Reconnects, speaks to this, and I know that in feeling some grief, in processing and letting go during the dark moon of just a little of the pain of the Earth and what we have done to her, even if I feel it in a personal way, even as it is pain that relates specifically to my story (especially as a woman), I am doing my part to heal her. I will keep healing her. Reconnecting means reconnecting to the pain that I have avoided, to the wounded parts of myself as well as to the pain reflected around me in the world, in others and in the plants and animals I see.
Uranian Energies for the New
Sparks are flying from all the healing we are doing, collectively and individually too. With the New Moon almost conjunct Uranus in Taurus, we can feel a special spark of desire for new beginnings of all kinds. Uranus has revolutionary tendencies, and we may set intentions at this time that are beyond our usual frame of reference. You may want to totally reinvent yourself. I know I do. And luckily, there is lots of energy there to help us do so. Can you imagine yourself shiny and new, emerging into the world to change it? This is what this New Moon asks of you. The square to Saturn reminds us that this will not be easy work. We need to strive and establish routines. We need diligence, not just passion.
Courting the Wild Twin
As I drove in my car through blushing pink yet still leafless Vermont mountains today, I listened to a beautiful new book by one of my favorite teachers, Martin Shaw. He talks about exactly this, the happy medium between the red and the white, the fire of passion and the goodness of routine. He writes of tempering, an old word that describes the appropriate mixing of the humors and I am reminded of medieval lessons on love. The heart needs to experience both the light and the dark in order to be forged into a diamond, to become the true lover. He tells two stories of the wild twin which tell the tale of this alchemical working, The Lindworm and Tatterhood. I realized that they are the perfect narratives to help me along on the shadow work journey I’ve been on for a while, a journey which asks me to embrace all the remnants of the neglected and exiled parts of myself, the bits of passions denied because they didn’t fit in or were too dark, and I’m starting to get the hang of it. My large and scary serpent, a gift of my rising sign in Scorpio, is no longer as threatening. When I’ve worked with Martin Shaw in person, he always ask us to consider where we are in a given story, as this can open up perspectives on our own lives. In the Lindworm, I’m the naked white worm getting scrubbed before becoming beautiful and whole. In Tatterhood, I am not sure, but I think my head is no longer hanging on a rusty nail in the witches’ long house. It’s a process in any case, and I am glad to have the company of these tales. I made myself a beautiful personal flower essence blend too, and the flowers help me tell my story in a new way, kissing old wounds away. Click here to find your way to your own soothing flower friend or make an appointment with me here to talk and listen in for a special blend for you.
Expansion and Abundance
The two words I got last night during a group ritual for the New Moon with another one of my teachers, Aeolian Heart, were expansion and abundance. The New Moon is traditionally a time of expansion, for the planting of seeds and the growing of dreams. Taurus reminds me of abundance and the earthy pleasures of this sign, which even if they are tinged with revolutionary fervor by Uranus, remain tried and true and stable. How am I taking care of myself at this time? How can I continue to do so? I pulled the Four of Coins tarot card for this week so I am asking myself what I am holding on to. This card is earthy too, and not always in a positive way, but this week I see it as a reminder to not give too much of myself away. To stabilize my own abundance before offering myself and my energies to others. This seems like a potent lesson at this time when we are being asked to look inwards and tend to our inner fires, however small or neglected they are. May yours move into blooming this Taurus season, and as the moon waxes, may you find ways to celebrate your own expansion into new aspects of you.
The Warmth Will Come
Shadow work expands your heart too. Maybe that is what the daffodils do all winter in the dark; they focus on their hearts, so that in the spring they can burst out into seeing the world with love, however cold it might be at first. The warmth will come, the warmth will come.
Blessings of reinvention and Spring abundance to you!
P.S. Make a free appointment with me here if you would like some guidance with your creative journey. Integrating our shadows unleashes enormous amounts of creative energy and I’d be happy to talk about this process with you.
