We are officially in Taurus season now, and I’m feeling juicily rooted in Spring. It’s really happening. The branches are bursting into my favorite greens. Yesterday’s Full Moon, the second of two in Libra, had me fasting and darkly contemplative. What do I need to let go of? I thought of my relationships, as one does when a celestial body is highlighted in Libra. Some are falling away. I had very vivid dreams before the Full Moon and I fasted and did some inner alchemy work to open my own perception. I walked in the fathomless fathoms for a day. The world felt strange. But today I woke up clear-headed and I notice that the warm relationships around me are blossoming as I shed outdated versions of myself and commit to more fully living in my heart. As I let those relationships fall away that want to fall away, there is more room for fulfillment within those that are present. I hold them close to me.
First Libra Full Moon and Young Magnolia Tree
The Moon-Bathing Plants
The first Full Moon in Libra was on the Equinox and I didn’t write about it specifically, though I mentioned it in my last post. I took a walk in the night and experienced my connection to the moon-bathing plants. At the time I didn’t know how it was related to relationship for me, but in my evolution from that night to last night, I can see how the lunar cycle changed me. I think both moons taught me something about what it means to be human.
Movement Defines Life
Studying biology with my student, I am reminded that movement defines life. In movement, we encounter others, and this means that to be alive means to be in relationship. What kinds of relationship surround us? We relate to other humans, of course. We are born into a family and if we are deprived of relating we do not develop. We are beings of language and we know (from some sad, accidental “experiments”) that if we don’t relate to other people, we don’t get language. The kind of relating we get defines the kind of language we have, so the two are entwined, our words and our becoming human. Materialists are aware of this level of relationship. We are also, inevitably, as animals, in relationship to our environment. We can be aware, perhaps not always consciously, of our relationship to that which surrounds us. This is our Earth home, our ecology, and we cannot survive if we do not carry some sense of this awareness. There is another level of relationship that I am aware of and this is our relationship to the unseen realms, to spirits, to potential worlds, and to our imagination, which I believe is outside of us.
We Are Floating In Story
Hildegard von Bingen said that the soul is not in the body, rather it is the body that is in the soul, and I feel this: I feel as if our bodies are floating in this sea of relationship to soul or to source. As we are created by language, we are floating in story (as my teacher Martin Shaw reminds me), held by these unseen realms as though in a thick web of being and becoming. We are always moving within this unseen network that ties us to the land and the heavens, to the past and future. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming; maybe that is why our materialist society isn’t very good at seeing it.
Second Libra Full Moon and Street Lights
My relationship to the plants (first Libra Full Moon) has helped me see how my relationships to others (second Libra Full Moon) are conditioned by my ability to sense into how interconnected I am to the whole. If my sense of connection is missing on one of the levels I described above, whether interpersonal, environmental or spiritual, my relating will be off and I won’t be able to fully relate to anyone, including myself. Yet it is difficult to maintain this feeling state of interconnection in today’s world.
On Trauma and Connection
I posted an article on Facebook that I will share again here, on trauma and connection, which seemed to speak to many people who responded to the post. Perhaps many of us recognize on a deep level that this life is merely a process of becoming more and more connected again, where death is the final merging, and I think that is why I want to work with the plants and help others do the same: they bring us back to this feeling of connection to the whole that we, for the most part, are sorely missing.
Wood, On Some Level, Is Meant To Burn
When Notre Dame cathedral was burning in Paris, my first thought was that wood, on some level, is meant to burn. Wooden churches burned all the time in the Middle Ages. It is surprising that that roof survived for so long at all. Everyone was very sad about it. So much money poured in for the repairs. It seems to represent much more to people than starving families or devastated rain-forests, dying oceans or drowning islands. Many people on social media were critical of this, and I was too, though I can also understand the widespread dismay. It was something we wanted to hold on to, that we wanted to stay, a symbol of who we are, a reassuring fixture. Yet the medieval forest in the roof of that cathedral was in some sense waiting to rise into smoke. It is our human hubris to think that it needs to exist in order for us to feel a connection to our past or a spiritual connection. And I remembered my experience of Our Lady, Mary, whom I met in Corsica three years ago, brought to my knees, in tears, smelling roses as I passed in front of the church door - it was the strongest spiritual experience I have ever had and such a gift of forgiveness and wholeness. I, a Quaker, almost became Catholic, and with what I know about the history of the Catholic Church, that is saying a lot. I know her as a divine life force whose essence is the feeling of grace, who helps me remember my connection to the vast flower of life. She is invisible, though I do give her some form on my altar. Notre Dame is not a place; it is an energy, like love, that ties us together, and she wants us to feel connected again. Maybe that is why she burned that day. There was a general movement of support and communion around her glorious edifice. And her windows are intact. I was very pleased with that.
What Does It Mean To Be Human?
So, what does it mean to be human? It does feel hard to find the words for that, but this is my take on it, for what it's worth. I hope it is satisfying to you in some way. My thanks to Nicole for the prompt!
I worked on my website some more today: new buttons to connect to my Patreon page and a new page with my writing on it and a better home page design and some improved copy I hope.
I’ll be traveling the next two weeks but connected and happy to connect with you at any time. You can schedule a free exploration call with me or an energy healing session under the creative coaching and energy healing tabs on my website. Or you can write : amy@enosburghessences.com
May Our Lady bless your connections and hold you in the light.