New moon ramblings
When I look back over these blogs, I see a very clear theme - one of Goddess and moon weaves itself into so many of them! My life has increasingly become orientated by both and over time my connection to nature has deepened and expanded into something I never truly new was possible. I have always loved this planet that we live on, I have always had an affinity to the sea especially, and I have always been drawn to trees. I have always been curious about faeries and ethereal beings too, but with no way of knowing how I might access these other realms.
Life has a tendency to give us what we need when the timing is right. It blows my mind at times, the way that this works. When my stone friend entered my life last spring equinox, I had no idea how much my life would be changed by this and there isn’t a day that passes when I don’t give thanks for this. Sometimes we just don’t know what might happen next, such is the nature of life and its uncertainty. I am continuously reminded too, how abundance takes so many forms, if only we can see beyond the material.
Marie’s passing has changed things for me, I don’t have so much patience for the nonsense in this world, for all the polarity and judgements and division. Life is just too short. We forget that. We can be ever so arrogant in assuming we’ll live forever. Our choices are often made for our own gain, without a thought for future generations. That’s the reason i so love the ethos of The Children’s Forest Project and of Embercombe, where there is an underlying awareness, a Native American Indian thing, of making decisions based on the next seven generations.
I have to dig hard not to drop into judgment myself, when I get pushed on my bike to the sides of the lanes by huge cars driven by one person. So many decisions made to feed the ego, to give us a sense of self worth and allow us to feel like we have somehow ‘made it’. A friend of a friend was honest about this in her choice of luxury vehicle admitting that it is far too big and she has trouble driving it but it shows she’s made it in the world. ‘Made it where?’, i might ask, before realising that i’m about to enter polarity, judging, making her wrong and me right.
I suppose it doesn’t help that I am continuously reminded of our impermanence. We are impermanent and we cannot take it all with us. Watching a friend clear our his family home since the death of his parents, I am also aware that our ‘stuff’ simply becomes an annoyance to future generations, something that has to be cleared out, to sit in landfill or clutter charity shops in the vague hope that it might be loved again by someone one day.
It could all get very depressing. Life continues to throw curved balls. But the funny thing is, the more I see the chaos, the ways in which we play out our stuff, the more amused I am by it. I can laugh at myself a little more easily these days. Not take myself and my stuff quite so seriously, I see how much of our lives can so easily be lived by someone else’s narration if we are not careful, with conditioned responses and expectations - the norm. With discernment we can choose another way. It’s not always an easy way. Its often a very uncomfortable way. But it can be extremely fulfilling if we choose it.
The new moon is upon us Wednesday lunchtime. It’s a Libra full moon, air. This is an airy time of the year, not least the autumnal dryness, which sadly seems to have passed, but the winds. It can throw our vata off balance if we are not careful, make us feel ungrounded, out of body, blown about a bit. Libra also brings up balance and this is really where my thought process has been taking me. Balance. Not balance in so much as whether we are living a more balanced life, but where we sit within the balance of life on this planet.
We might ask ourselves how we feed polarity and division, and the ways that this takes us further away from unity consciousness. The vaccine rumbles on, highlighting our division and the extent of our suffering and opposing viewpoints. I got bored of this a good while ago as you know, could feel the harm being done by holding on to one narrative or the other. I also started to see the many ways people were allowing themselves to become victims, on both sides of the coin - feeding our victimhood never serves us either.
So where does this leave us?
I suppose it leaves us where it always does. Learning to know more of ourselves and live in greater inner harmony. We always have a choice about that, depending on the thoughts we think and buy into, and the choices we make. We can be ever so judgemental and close minded at times, if we are presented with something or someone out of our comfort zone. I find it helpful to observe this and have had ample opportunity these last six months as my stone friend has opened my eyes to my many self-imposed limitations and ways of seeing this world (and others).
We have to be careful when we begin judging. Because usually it’s an indication that we are judging ourselves, that our vulnerability has been triggered in some way. There’s nothing more confronting than realising that there is more to us than we could have ever imagined, that there is another way, if only we can get out of our narrow mind and allow it, if only we can open to greater possibility. It’s worth exploring. Notice how much you judge others just in one day and ask yourself why that is.
I have been judged over and over again by people who are confronted by what i have to say, of the way I teach yoga, that takes us deeper into ourselves. It breaks the mould of the norm, of the external and superficial, of feeding existing patterns and habits of movement, that keeps the mind stuck. People struggle to let go into new ways of being. It’s huge! To change perspective means that we have to let go of how we once saw life and that rocks our very foundations. Like finding out the tooth fairy isn’t real (or is she?!). It feels like betrayal and no one wants to be betrayed.
It has hurt at times, triggered feelings of rejection and vulnerability, but I can’t betray my soul and the practice and lineage. I can’t give up on the hopes and dreams, of the drive towards greater consciousness and freedom from suffering for all beings. For me, it has to be about more than just myself and how I’m viewed by the world. It doesn’t interest me whether I’m seen as having ‘made it’ or not, I’ve had to do a lot of letting go of caring about such things, about titles and other people’s perceptions, of people pleasing and insincerity, saying one thing but meaning another. This serves no one.
It has to be about integrity. There is no one way to live our lives, really there isn’t. Integrity comes from knowing more of our true self and living increasingly from this place, trusting in it. Sure there will be tests along the way. I’m being tested now. We have themes that come into play, to allow us to literally play out our stuff. Mine is around safety and security. I have to be very gentle with myself as I am triggered, feeling in my body the discomfort and sitting into it. I notice the way my mind seeks to resolve it, as quickly as possible. I have to stay with this too, dig deeper, let it come and let it go.
At the end of the day, there is a reason we are here, have incarnated right now at this interesting time in humanity’s time line. We each have a gift and a purpose and the moment you find it, life changes beyond recognition. We don’t care so much about all the other stuff, about materiality and outward expression of who we believe ourselves to be - when we know who we are, we don’t need to prove it, we start to live it instead. Its like Reiki. By Master level you’re not ‘doing’ it, you’re being it, it’s your life and you have embraced it.
This is what the new moon is currently bringing up for me. This year has been about stepping up and stepping in, of taking responsibility, of making changes - or having them made for us, the eclipses back in early summer certainly helped with this. We have to wake up, really we do. get beyond our own limited narrative, try to see a wider perspective, put ourselves in someone else’s shoes before we judge, and consider the underlying nature of our judgements. I’m trying to be aware of this too, of not allowing myself to become disappointed by other’s choices and to reflect that back at myself - cultivate greater compassion.
The new moon reflects back the sun’s solar energy, this changes things for us, can take us to dark places. The dark places are often where the magic can be found, I am increasingly aware of this out on the land. Maybe we ask ourselves what scares us the most, and we watch and see how that awareness changes things for us. It’s also a really good time to see the blessings in the curse, to appreciate that ever polarity has a different side to it and to embrace it all - is it really bad, or can it be good? What’s one person’s treasure is another one’s junk. I suppose really, it’s about cultivating the other perspective, this shows up in the Yoga Sutras, and is definitely worth further exploration another time.
For now, enjoy the new moon!
x
