Bulbs like Eyes: Beauty in the Dark with the Full Moon in Libra

The Pleiades, courtesy of NASA

A Spider Moon

Last night’s Libra Full Moon was a Super Moon, called the Wind Moon, or a Pink Moon. For me she is the Spider Moon. Venus looks like a spider in the sky right now too, in her web, as she crosses the Pleiades, and right now there is a spider installed over my bed, a spider hanging over my body.

Pluto Conjunct Jupiter

Pluto was recently conjunct Jupiter which can explain a lot about our current feelings of magnified darkness and deep encounters with death. The recent Pluto Saturn conjunction also in Capricorn brings heavy lessons around limitation. These are powerful forces moving us all. Yet the confinement of the current social situation has the effect of making me more aware of small, magical correspondences, of relationship, of scale, which also makes sense. Libra, where the Moon shone out so beautifully for us last night, is all about relationship and balance, and suddenly I see it all around me, the beauty and harmony of relationships between elements of the Universe, from the smallest to the biggest, from the interior of my room to the immensity of the cosmos. The globes of my eyes and the globes of the planet, the globe we live on. Synchronicities appear everywhere, and I feel woven into the fabric of the magic that is all around me.

Spider Medicine

Spider medicine teaches that we weave our own reality. I’ve been experimenting for a while now with uncovering my true unconscious desires underneath the ones I identify with outwardly, using a method called Existential Kink, EK for short, invented by Carolyn Elliot, which basically entails finding pleasure and enjoyment in those aspects of your life that make you cringe. She just published a book on it if you are interested in finding out more about it. This method doesn’t just make the darkness light, putting your pretty shades on so that you don’t see the things that repulse you, it helps you cut through darkness to the darkness beneath, and it is overwhelmingly liberating. It allows you to see the darkest desire behind the darker desire (the ones we don’t want to admit). I’ve learned, for example, that my unconscious desires for scarcity and rejection are always pointing me towards freedom and liberty. I want to be independent at all costs. I even want to be free of love and money. Yes, those things that everyone is supposed to want, and that so many people lack, especially now. Strange that at a time when we are in quarantine and our more mundane liberties are being taken away (with sometimes scary implications - read this article by Charles Eisenstein for more on that), I am becoming more acutely aware of my own true desire to be utterly free, a desire I think we all share on some level, the founding desire of the country I live in now, supposedly, liberty and justice for all. And we are all also simultaneously becoming more aware, if you weren’t already only too aware, of inequity at this time. Were our movements ever free if so many of us live in bondage to some institution, structure or history? The very structure of our society limits what we can do and how we can do it because of the aforementioned more conscious desires for, you guessed it, love and money. The picture people are waking up to is not pretty, but I believe this time holds great potential for new methods of existing in relationship to ourselves, each other and the world around us, if we can push through the discomfort and grief. I say “push through” but I don’t mean it. I mean be with, be with the discomfort and the grief, be with yourself, be with each other, stay there a while, and see what transformation happens.

Being Free

At the Full Moon it is good to plant seeds. My unconscious desire for liberty has planted many seeds for me which have led to my current situation of scarcity and I see that I won’t be free of this scarcity until I become appreciative of all that these unconscious desires have done for me, liberating me from the tyranny of my more conscious desires for love and money. In this way I am also more free. I’m one step ahead of the patriarchy, however it wants to paint me. I beat it at its game. I don’t have what it tells me I should want, and I can take pleasure in this. And there is abundance in this. There is delicious, tender abundance when I look at all that is in the space around the things and the people I miss. There is the abundance of Spring, for one, the reminder that everything I need is literally growing at my doorstep. There is the abundance of love from the family I see in person and the friends I see virtually. “Poor me” becomes “Free me”.

How Bulbs Teach Me to See

I’ve been contemplating the bulbs that are coming up around me, thanks to the mysterious fire force of Spring. The Aries Sun shines down on my bed and wakes me too, warming the windows and activating the flies. I want the Spider to stay above my bed because there are so many flies. I open the windows to let the flies out and warm up in the sunny spots around the house. The bulbs are waking too, and I’ve written two poems about bulbs being like eyes, seeing in the dark, feeling safe there, finding security in the scarcity. I think it is the Daffodils talking to me, waking up too. What else do they say to me? They tell me of the darkness that gives birth to light. I ask them “Do you feel the slowing down of human activity as you quicken into blooming, into life?” I ask them “Teach me to embrace the night”. I’ll put the finished poem of this dialogue over on my Patreon page for subscribers, but in essence they tell us how to appreciate the darkness and grow towards the light.

Purple Iris

Speaking appreciating the darkness, I’ve started to offer my line of shadow flower essences up on my website. These are flowers that have helped me in my own process of shadow work and integration or have communicated to me that they are here to help people process trauma and difficult life experiences. The most recent one I attuned with, Purple Iris, says it beautifully.

Darkness that pierces through darkness,

purple flame, light of spirit,

light me up, speak the truth.

Messages I receive from Source, 

divine guidance from darkness, 

expansive, I am able to share.

Sovereign unto myself,

I channel words of clarity 

from within a cave of protection.

I am not afraid of death.

I approach it for insight.

Clarity comes from purple light.

The Moon says, deep desires illuminated beautifully.
Beauty round illuminates you the desire.
I wrote that last line in the moonlight.

Be whole, be you , and don’t forget to talk to the flowers.

Love,

Amy

Oh, and make an appointment with me here if you want to talk about working with me and the plants to expand your creative practice or heal stuck patterns! I have opened up my hours and offer a free exploratory call if you are curious or just want to talk. The flowers have taught me how to listen.

Waiting for the Full Moon in Sagittarius: Observing Shadow, Finding Skeleton Woman, Setting her Free

I’m waiting for the Full Moon in Sagittarius, fasting and watching what comes out of my shadow. I’ve been deep in shadow work the last few weeks, watching old narratives play out and dealing with old emotional reactions, feeling at odds in some ways with the waxing moon which often brings me more light and energy, but seeing how she sheds light on all things as she grows. She’s up there conjunct Jupiter, showing me the expansive nature of my gestures to escape myself. Sagittarius is about idealism and travel, going beyond and above, while Jupiter wants to party at home, so the Moon opposite the sun there, square Neptune, can fuel conflict as we are forced to see the ways we try to escape our situations, inevitably getting pulled back down to where we came from. Mercury and Mars on the North Node are opposite Saturn and Pluto on the South Node, and that feels like a real showdown, dark and fiery, my past versus my future versus my trajectory in this life. I haven’t been feeling very comfortable, have you? I haven’t felt very empowered to change any emotional patterns either, I’ve been feeling sort of stuck, but maybe this is because I am in the midst of adapting to intense exterior change, and because all the waxing moon is really meant to do is reveal and show. Almost a month ago I officially left Switzerland where I’ve lived since 2003. Fifteen years of identities are falling away and I’m not sure who I am. This is what I see:

• A woman with a PhD who feels like a child most of the time. I just moved back in with my parents, and while I was transitioning the last two years, moving back to the US from Switzerland, this seemed like a good idea. Now that I am no longer transitioning, the reality of how it makes me feel is sobering. Sometimes I wish I were miles away again. Yet I’m here because I followed the stream, went with the flow of life, took the path of least resistance, and this is important to me. I believe that this is where I am supposed to be. All my striving to always be somewhere else, be someone else, had to end. I’ve always been running away from myself. I’m not sure what to do with what I see, however. It’s a discovery. 

• A woman starting a business who doesn’t feel valid and compares herself to others. There is the feeling of being a fraud, which follows me around no matter how experienced I get or how many degrees I have. What makes me deserve to be in this position? Why should I strive to be independent when the rest of the world is not in the flow at all but running in the rat race? Because it is vitally important, for the world at large and the particular animals and plants that we stop running. And that is what I am doing. I want to stop running. This does engage some risk, however. If I stop running, where will I be, who will I be? It’s a discovery.

• A daughter who wants to help her family and community and save the world. Of course all of this running couldn’t be stopped if I didn’t have a place to stop, and I am very grateful that I do have a kind of pause setting to be on for a little while, while I build my business and settle. But there is a kind of vulnerability in doing what I am doing that I am not used to. I have been embracing my vulnerability in the last few years, seeing strength in it, but it still feels strange to be here and to not really know what I am doing or where I am going, a big step forward into humility, and my critical mind often won’t let me be. How does one belong to community? How do I help my family in a way that feels regenerative to me? How do I stay when I have never stayed? How do I stay free of despair in the face of all that is dying around me in order to take the ethical action needed to change the world? It’s a discovery.

Maybe the eyes of the flowers have taught me to see myself more clearly. It’s as if I can see myself devoid of color. I’m a kind of outline. The material is fading. I suppose I’m getting back to some more essential core of me, but what if nothing is there once I get to it? That is fear. Stories teach me to embrace it.

I am reminded of the Inuit story of Skeleton Woman that Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote down in her book Woman Who Run with Wolves. Skeleton woman drags along clanking behind us until we embrace her and bring her home. So I’ve been hunting and running and finally, back home, I have to cry on myself and take out my heart and hear it beat and sing myself whole again. It’s a long journey. Sometime, I don’t know when, I wrote a poem about it:

I’m smilling at Lady Skeleton.
Underneath the skin
of our perfect bodies,
there is fear.
But why? It is only bones,
only that fragile stuff we are made of
only what is necessary, intrinsic, true,
the other side of beauty and of joy
this dark mother that will pull us to her breast.

I would like to look at you
and say we are the same
and pull you to me too
and forgive this mighty love
for that pain which, because we are human
and small, must drip from its bones
or grow from its head like hair.

I would like to go to you
and embrace this darkness too,
this freezing that must come
for there to be a thaw.
I’m smiling at Lady Skeleton.

Maybe the light of the moon is so bright it is like an x-ray, teaching me to see through me to the skeleton within so that I can smile at myself again, make her whole again. I know she wants me to be free.

Nobody else has the plot line for our lives; it is up to us to make it.

Do you want to work on uncovering your shadow and singing or writing or drawing yourself back whole again with the help of the plants? I’d love to hold your hand as we discover what it is we are all about. You can sign up for a free exploratory call with me here. I’d love to talk to you about connecting with the flowers too. Are you curious about how they might help you see yourself more clearly? Have a look at which ones call to you here. My shop is up and running and I can take payments with Paypal and credit cards! This feels like a miracle. If you are not subscribed, sign up to get my blog and special gifts and offers here - coming up soon, a free guide to plant communication!

I hope the moonlight helps you grow all you want to grow and release all you want to let go.

Lots of green and growing love,

Amy

Sensing into Autmn: Venus Retrograde, Full Moon in Taurus and Shadow Work

The leaves are falling, the flowers are sleeping in their seeds, and we are turning inwards again on the wheel of the year. I flew to Geneva again for some seasonal work, leaving behind the golden mountains of home, and jetlag has given me some strange productive hours. There are many things I want to share, for the first time in a while, and I will try to weave them all together here.

Shining Light on Our Darker Places

Yesterday the Sun moved into Scorpio, shining light on our darker places, the obsessions we'd rather not have and the pain we would rather bury sometimes. But I've been there for a while; Venus has been retrograde for a few weeks and she's been bringing me events from the past to survey, times when I didn't feel good enough or loved enough. Tonight, at the Full Moon in Taurus, Venus will cross paths with the sun, forming one of the points of her star shaped movement through the sky and reflecting back to us the beauty of our wounds. I've been working with my shadow for a while now, since she first went retrograde at the beginning of October, and this time around she's brought to me an even deeper compassion for my darker places.

Existential Kink

A gentle place to start exploring the shadow is through the book by Robert Johnson, a Jungian thinker and analyst, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1991). He explains what the shadow is in a reassuring way, from the perspective of its Jungian source; we all have one, it's okay, we can represent it for ourselves in concrete ways in the material world and rise above it's tendency to bite us back when we are least expecting it. I didn't begin with a gentle exploration of the shadow though; I jumped right in a few years ago with a practice I learned from Carolyn Elliot, in her course INFLUENCE, which she has coined Existential Kink, EK for short. This practice basically entails allowing your body to find its ecstasy through the fulfillment of desires it usually refuses, in a completely safe way and on its own terms. It's based on the premise that having is a sign of wanting and it turns around our tendency to feel like the victims of our lives. Allowing the body to relax into and enjoy the painful events of the past is liberating in a way that is hard to explain - you have to try it! It's probably best to hear Carolyn herself talk about it:

https://www.dreamfreedombeauty.com/witch-carolyn-elliott-on-shame-the-heroines-story-why-not-to-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-episode-54/

I think she's writing a book about it, so hopefully more people will have access to this powerfully transformative way of dealing with trauma. The practice has felt especially healing for me lately, so this Venus retrograde in Scorpio period that I was apprehensive about has actually been extremely liberating. I feel more free and accepting of the past then I ever have before, which is helping me be less troubled by the troubling events of our present, if that makes sense. There is a breath in, a breath out, and a real reaping of my introspective work, which has often been heavy and daunting, lasting for days if not for months sometimes. Phew. Shadow work pays off.

Not Blindly Giving Our Power Away

On the plane over I read another Robert Johnson book, Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection (2008). This short book was also very healing, and I learned again the importance of recognizing when we are putting our gold into someone else's lap, and the need to be conscious about drawing our soul light back, standing in our own light when we can, and not blindly giving our power away because we don't want to or are unable to hold it. In the sky, in the dark, I held my light in my lap and cried, one step closer to accepting myself and my life's learning journey. I wrote this poem a few months ago, but it expresses this current calling back to myself of my desires:

So I'm calling all my desires back to myself,
Every one wanted and then refused.
Every cell, blood red, that went out to gather
Vampire-like, ill-used, I call back to myself.
Every body touched and hurt
in darkness, every sun that shown
on my desired one, every wish fulfilled or spurned
every one, I call back to myself, as one.

I think it's a spell. I suppose I cast it back then, and now, here I am living it. I'm grateful, a step closer to feeling my wholeness, which I sometimes forget is there.

Embodied Earthiness

The sensuousness of these experiences are brought to you thanks to this Full Moon in Taurus, where she shines ample and worthy, embodied earthiness. See if you can feel into any of the discomfort she might illuminate. It might appear in the form of frustration, anger or animosity towards yourself or others. She is conjunct Uranus at the moment too, so our feelings may feel especially electric, new, or charged. As you sound them, see if you can use this energy to shine a light in the darkness and bring a playfulness to your story, however challenging it may be.

Lunar Wisdom

Enjoy her healing light tonight! Some lunar wisdom I've enjoyed reading that moves in the same direction as this and might bring you even more healing introspection are:

Sabrina Monarch, at Monarch Astrology
Mystic Mama, at http://www.mysticmamma.com/astrology-full-moon-in-taurus-october-24th-2018/
and Anandashree Astrology, for a soothing Vedic take https://www.anandastrology.com/blog/full-moon-soak-it-up-ashwini-vedic-astrology

If you want more of my writing on the shadow journey, as Persephone's choice, read https://badwitch.es/heroines-journey-persephones-choice-embracing-shadow-rewriting-myth/

A prose piece of mine, “Origins", which is largely the product of my own work with shadow and myth, was just published in Dark Mountain: Issue 14, TERRA, https://dark-mountain.net/product/dark-mountain-issue-14-terra/

I'll be writing more as the flowers are sleeping! I'm looking forward to sharing. Keep connecting! Our sparks in the dark.

(Originally published October 24th, 2018)