reflection

Upon a New Path – Day 816

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Deer on Path – Photo: L. Weikel

Upon a New Path

I’ve been receiving intriguing new messages and following a variety of signs recently that encourage embarking upon a new path.

This happens every once in a while. In my life, specifically, the cycle seems to be around every 20 years or so. There are other patterns that come and go within those twenty year cycles, and they seem to repeat in shorter waves, weaving in and out, announcing perhaps more subtle changes that perhaps aren’t quite as big as the double decade.

Perhaps this shift of path I’m sensing is related to the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction that takes place every twenty years. Yes, we went through that back at the end of December (the Winter Solstice – December 21st, to be exact), when we witnessed the Grand Conjunction that I wrote about (and documented pictorially) so often. But let’s remember: it’s a twenty-year cycle. So if I or you or any of us is only just now starting to get a sense of how our lives may be changing as a result of this ‘spark,’ I think such lag time is understandable – and forgivable – particularly given the rather momentous distractions that have been playing out all around us.

Take a Look

When you think about all we’ve been through, collectively, since December 21st, I think it only stands to reason that we might not have had a chance to give ourselves the time and space to actually reflect upon what was going on in our lives during the last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction.

So maybe now that we’ve had a chance to breathe a little and settle ourselves down into a slightly lower sense of anxiety, it’s time to consider where things may be holding some change for us. We can start by looking at what area of our life, if any, experienced a major shift around the time of the most recent conjunction (before this past December), which occurred on 5/28/2000.

And for those of you who, like me, can reflect even further back, the other dates of this specific planetary conjunction were:

  • 1/1/81, 3/6/81, and 7/25/81 (clearly they conjuncted, then Jupiter scooted forward for a bit then went retrograde, causing it to come back and conjunct Saturn again, kept going retrograde, then went direct again and conjuncted with Saturn one last time before continuing onward in its orbit);
  • 2/18/61; and
  • 8/6/40, 10/21/40, and 2/14/41.

As I say, personally, I can see how specific major changes in my life happened in close proximity to these conjunctions. As I engage in this reflection, it’s helping me understand and interpret the signs, messages, and signals I’m receiving now.

Perhaps you’ll find this to be true for you as well.

A New Path – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-295)

Another New Moon – Day 617

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Photo: L. Weikel

Another New Moon

Ah yes, tonight is yet another new moon, another new beginning in the lunar cycle that definitely and peculiarly influences us, whether we realize it consciously or not.

There is a period of time each month known as the ‘dark moon,’ when the night sky is the darkest because no portion of the moon is illuminated. The ‘upside’ to the time when Grandmother Moon is invisible is the way her absence allows our eyes to take our star-gazing to a whole new level. In the darkness, we’re actually able to see a whole lot more of what’s really out there.

Is This a Metaphor?

I don’t know why, but this new moon I am more acutely aware of the darkness than I’ve been in a very long time. It feels like we’re cloaked in darkness at the moment – our country, our world. And yet, at the same time, precisely because we’ve plunged into this darkness, we’re seeing things that have been there all along, but we’re only just now allowing our eyes to adjust enough to really see.

As I’ve written about a number of times before, at the time of the new moon, it’s a time of new beginnings. I’m usually enthusiastic about the opportunity a new moon gives us to plant new seeds, to set the intention of what we want to start cultivating in our lives over the next month or year, cultivating as our future.

Something’s Different

I feel a need to shift my focus a bit this month, take a bit of a different approach with this new moon. Yes, I want to set some intentions and call in new energy. I want to infuse new life into some of my greatest hopes and cherished goals. Absolutely.

But for some reason or another, I feel like the power of this new moon lies more in its ability to reveal a whole lot of stuff that’s been lurking behind the scenes, hiding in plain sight, but remaining unseen because we’ve been blinded – or at least distracted – by the light. And it feels like it’s time. It’s time to stop for a moment, in this Time of the Dark Moon, and take stock of what it is that’s right there, right in front of us, being revealed for us to finally see.

Because right now, if we don’t take the time to look and see what’s been there all this time – and deal with it – it will be a huge missed opportunity. Why? Because nothing we plant at the time of this new moon will flourish the way it could, the way we hope it will, if we don’t act on what’s being revealed in this darkness and get rid of that which either never or no longer serves the highest good.

Photo: astrologyally.com

What Light Nurtures?

It’s important to remember, sometimes, that the light that’s been distracting us hasn’t even been ‘Light’ – meaning light that originates from its own source – light that’s generative, warm, and nurturing. No, it’s been reflected light. Illusory light. Light that can seem pretty bright and even dazzling at times, but doesn’t warm us, doesn’t feed us, doesn’t coax us to grow toward it.

So I am finding myself contemplating this a lot the past few days. Yes, the full moon is usually when we realize the completion of things, the realization that some aspects of our life may have reached their peak and need to be released.

But the new moon, with its attendant darkness, is also an opportunity to let go. It gives us the chance to see what’s been hiding in the light, hoping we’ll be entranced by the brightness and fail to notice the stuff that perhaps doesn’t have our best interests at heart but wants to remain undetected.

Perhaps, in our own lives, these cloaked beasts are lies we tell ourselves about situations or people, lies about our fears or our weaknesses. They hide in the dark. But maybe this is the window when we can see them and face the truth.

Bring Them Into the Sunlight

If we bring those hiding saboteurs into the sunlight, everything can change. The entire landscape of where we plant the new seeds of our desires and intentions is cleared.

Take a look at what might be lurking in the darkness. Don’t be afraid to see it and call it out for what it is. Only then can we plant the Seeds of Our Becoming without fear of the distractions of a false light.

(T-494)

Tonight is Silent – Day 576

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Magical Twilight – Photo: L. Weikel

Tonight is Silent

Perhaps it’s because it’s a Tuesday evening and everyone who isn’t working a night shift somewhere is probably at home in bed. The night tonight is silent.

I imagine those who are just getting back to work this week, their job resurrected by their state or county ‘moving to yellow’ – or perhaps even ‘green’ (albeit not around here) – are reeling a bit from the unfamiliar chafe of resuming their old routines.

The past 11 weeks or so have proven uncomfortable for many of us. Initial binges on bread, Netflix, and puzzles actually, maybe, gave way to a gradual unraveling of the knot that’s resided in our gut for longer than we can remember. Perhaps we actually were getting the chance, for once, to sit with that knot for a bit and start picking at it. Loosening the restrictions. We began untying it ourselves.

Oh Those Retrogrades

There’s definitely a comfort to resuming old habits. The rhythm. The routine. The sense, real or imagined, that we have control over our lives. Or at least some dominion over our unique piece of real estate in what we collectively experience as our reality.

But now that we’re back to work, how does it feel? Has the extended time spent away from the mundane made the mundane feel any more or less compelling? I’m asking completely without judgment, just wondering if your job feels like a welcome relief or a much bigger oppression than it did 11 weeks ago.

With four major planets retrograde right now, our arms are being twisted to review, reassess, and remember. We’re being asked to look at what we’re doing and how we feel about doing it.

How did we feel when we thought, however fleetingly, that we might never return to our job? Does it feel as though we’re putting on an old, comfortable slipper when we return to work? Or have our feet spread out a bit, connected barefoot with the Earth while we were off, and now refuse to fit comfortably in those work shoes?

Grackle Persists

What jumped out at you in Grackle’s message last night? Are your emotions congested? Is there a situation in your life that you realize right now is keeping you stuck, trapped, or disempowered? Perhaps it isn’t your work that’s hindering your breath but another aspect of your life.

Perhaps you’re just supposed to stop talking (to yourself or everyone else) and act.

To be honest with you, I’m still reflecting on the myriad ways in which Grackle’s message dips in, pulls out, circles around, and braids an amazing tapestry of interconnection between my mundane life and the stuff the rest of the world is confronting.

The night tonight is silent. No crickets, no peepers, no bullfrogs nor owls. No foxes screaming or raindrops splattering. No wind whooshing through freshly unfurled leaves.

Just silence. My thoughts. And a willingness to dream a new reality into being.

Grackle Pair – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-535)

Mercury Rx – Day 122

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Mercury Retrograde (Rx)

I had a nice start on a post tonight and just deleted it.

It was an incipient riff on all the glitches, slow-downs, and common irritations I’ve been experiencing on my laptops over the past few days, but especially today.

It’s no big deal, or rather, these hiccups shouldn’t and wouldn’t be all that remarkable except for the fact that I am achingly tired this evening.  As in, I can barely keep my eyes open as I try to write this quality tired.

March 6th – March 28th, 2019

Of course, anyone who is familiar with astrology would chime in that these glitchy annoyances are associated with the fact that “Mercury is retrograde.” As I described in my post a week ago, it is said that when Mercury goes retrograde, communications are often hung up, misunderstood, confused, or delayed, electronic devices tend to break or ‘go on the fritz,’ and it’s generally thought of as an inauspicious time to either buy electronic stuff or enter into contracts.

The reason behind this is that the planet Mercury is associated with communication and electronics. So when it is retrograde (which means the planet appears to be going backward in its orbit from the perspective of Earth), the attributes Mercury usually promotes tend to go awry.

I’ve never tracked this closely in my personal life, but I try to keep it in the back of my mind, simply as a form of cosmic good hygiene. And you may recall, I did have a bout of intense aggravation during the last Mercury Rx with my Dell laptop (resulting in my decision to use my MacBook Air for all posts since)!

If I can postpone buying an electronic item during the approximate three weeks that this astronomical situation takes place (three or four times a year, I believe), then I do so. I also try not to sign contracts unless it’s absolutely necessary, and bearing in mind the potentially cantankerous effects Mercury Rx can have on electronics in general, I tryto laugh when stuff randomly stops or slows to a snail’s pace. Or blips out. I’ll admit it: I said try. I didn’t say I’m successful.

Effect of My Weekend Reflections

A recommended strategy to deal with Mercury Rx is to focus on such activities as reviewing, revisiting, editing, and reflecting, instead of moving forward with new projects or initiating big changes. So I find it intriguing that I ended up engaging in the ‘reflections’ I did over the weekend. They were big for me. And I really feel like the act of expressing them ‘to the world,’ in a sense, liberated me.

For myself, that meant that I finally felt ready to move on to digging into reflections of another sort. I haven’t yet had a chance to perform this contemplation in the manner that I’d hoped because other people were engaging in their own re-enactment of dramas from years and years ago, and these happened to affect me personally.

Spiral of Evolution and Growth

As a result, I’ve been distracted. But I like to describe this process of facing the issues that come back to push our buttons again not as living life in a circle, but rather in a spiral. Being given an opportunity to deal with an issue again is like being given an opportunity for a ‘do over.’ The most practical approach to this spiral metaphor is to realize that we don’t go around in circles. Hopefully, we’ve raised our expression of our energy high enough that we approach the problem from a slightly, or perhaps greatly, shifted point of view.

Thus, we (hopefully) never repeat the exact same response to a challenge or an issue. We’ve evolved (again, hopefully). And so we’re given another bite at the apple; or looked at another way, another chance to choose a higher octave of response to our situation.

It feels as though I’ve been ‘holding space’ for a number of people, myself included, to experience this upward spiral toward growth.

As a result, I am in extraordinary need of reviewing and realigning myself with the comfort and wisdom of a clean set of sheets, the backs of my eyelids, and a long night of sleep.

There are some good stories brewing. I just have to watch some of them play out before I tell them.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I hope your personal reflections are yielding powerful insights and affirming the evolution we all hope to see and feel in our lives.

Rooting and Reflecting; Photo: L. Weikel

(T-989)

 

Happy New Moon – Day 115

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The start of a ‘moonless’ night – Photo: L. Weikel

Happy New Moon

Yes, I know, new moons happen every 28 ½ days. Month after month. Never ending, just cycling over and over again.

So what’s the big deal?

Maybe it’s the simple rhythm of that cycle. The reassuring dependability that no matter what happens in the world, no matter what happens in our own lives, or in our country, or even on a global scale, the moon will experience a ‘new beginning’ every 28 ½ days. We depend upon it.

A Cycle That Never Deviates – Our Entire Lives

And then, with a precision and reliability that we simply cannot fathom being anything but what it is, the moon will proceed through her phases. Gradually waxing minute by minute, day by day, and thereby growing more insistent in her pull upon the waters of this planet (including each one of us, being mostly comprised of water ourselves).

Once reaching her apex of power and pull, bringing a sense of utter completion, the moon will bask in all her glory over us. Lighting our path so brightly, should we take a walk at night, that the shadows are as stark and well-defined as any might be in the full light of Inti Tayta (Father Sun).

And then of course she begins her retreat, once again, into hiding. As she begins to disappear, we are called upon to ask ourselves what it is we would like to stop hiding (from ourselves or others). It’s then, as we look forward to the ‘dark time’ of the new moon – and finally loosen our grip on how we think our lives are supposed to ‘go’ or how we wish they had gone over the past month and accept what is – that we embrace the exciting potential of a new start, a clean slate.

A Symbol of Hope

This unrelenting pattern of building and releasing and doing it again, and again, and again is a comfort to us, whether or not we pay attention to the moon.

For me, Mama Killa’s rhythmic waxing and waning is a symbol of hope. Each new moon gives me yet another opportunity to get things right or to do better ‘this’ time. Each one is a yardstick that can be held up to my life, giving me feedback on whether I’m making progress toward achieving my goals and dreams.

New Moon in Pisces

I am not anywhere near well-versed enough in astrology to have an opinion or even, really, a cursory grasp on the meaning of the new moon being in the sign of Pisces tonight. I can tell you that Pisces is the last sign of the natural zodiac, so it is the last hurrah. One might conclude, as a result, that today’s new moon could bring with it a huge set of metaphorical erasers. This represents a bigger cycle of endings and new beginnings than your average new moon.

And one last interesting twist to this new moon: Mercury goes retrograde today. For three weeks, Mercury will appear to our naked eyes, at least, to be moving ‘backwards.’ It won’t be actually moving backwards, as it is an optical illusion created by the movement and placement of the planets from our perspective here on Earth.

Mercury retrograde lasts approximately three weeks. This one begins on March 6th and does not end until March 28th.

Mercury retrograde is the perfect time to ‘re’ everything: retreat, review, rework, reflect – on our lives, our relationships, our projects and aspirations. It’s not usually a time to forge ahead. But it most certainly is a time to assess the progress we’re making toward achieving the things that matter most to us. (I think it also might be a time for me to get some Listening Retreats scheduled!)

The Dark Nights

So over the next three nights or so, when the moon is invisible because she’s gone dark and is actively hiding her light, when she is not reflecting any of the Sun’s rays, contemplate what you want to plant now. Given that we’ll also be experiencing the Spring equinox right around the fullest expression of the moon this month, it feels like that might be the first indication of how our seedlings are doing after two weeks of germination.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the culmination – the fullness – of the moon coinciding with the Spring equinox seems exquisitely timed to create the greatest impact on all of us. My sense is that we are all building up to the arrival of Spring this year. It is going to bring change to all of us.

I’m going to bed now. I need to plant my seeds and contemplate how best I can nurture them into fruition.

(T- 996)

Simple Pleasures – Day Sixty Six

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Photo by L Weikel

Simple Pleasures    

I feel as though I’ve written some intense posts lately. Or maybe they were just a little on the long side; I don’t know. Today I’m going with simple pleasures.

It’s a new day. It’s a new month. (Well, in the overall context of 2019. I do realize it’s the 16th of the month already.) But best of all?

It’s a new journal!

Out With the Old, In With the New

Yes! Today I filled in the very last page of my most recent journal. What a great feeling. And even better is the fact that my journal-keeper’s glow is sure to last two full days, since, as was the case today, I felt a wonderful sense of accomplishment witnessing the well-paced completion of those final lines of the last blank page in my bright green covered, college-ruled, wire-bound notebook.

That’s no small feat. It takes a bit of skill, some reasonable foresight, and maybe a scootch of discretion in deciding just how much to write today and how much to save for tomorrow in order to get the entry for the last day to end at a satisfactory place on that final page.

Aaah, but it is so satisfying. And then, once I’ve put a period at the end of that last sentence, I take a quick inventory of the ‘big events’ that I’ve painstakingly noted on the back inside cover. I’ve taken to creating a pseudo-index (even though my pages aren’t numbered) on the back cover so, in the future, when I want to try to quickly locate in which journal an event is documented, I can find it at least a little more quickly than I have in the past.

That’s been a lesson learned the hard way by someone who has, by a cursory count, 63 of those suckers lined up on her bookcase shelves.

And Tomorrow Brings It to 64

Tomorrow I get to revel in the sensual pleasure and pristine innocence of christening a completely fresh and unsullied wire-bound notebook. I love holding my new baby in my hands, appreciating the color of the cover I’ve chosen, feeling its texture with my palm and fingers as I appreciate the lack of bumps and dings that inevitably surface as a result of being taken everywhere.

But this journal is different. This one was a gift (although I did make my requirements for a perfect journal known ahead of time, such as a pocket divider for keepsakes, such as event tickets, photos, or sentimental cards I might receive). This one has two!  It’s from Boston University, my youngest son’s* most recent alma mater. And I have to admit, the only thing that could possibly make this better would be if the B.U. mascot were emblazoned on its cover. Because?

Everything is better with a Boston Terrier.** Trust me on that.

A New Adventure, Filled With Possibilities

Thus tomorrow begins a new adventure, at least in my mind. I wonder what events and dreams, adventures and aspirations, rages and sorrows will fill these pages. How will I have grown from who I am this evening, at the outset of this journal, to who I am when I write those concluding thoughts many months from now.

Will I still be writing 1111 Devotion posts? (Sure hope so.)

Will I have some new project in the works or be collaborating on something I have no inkling of in this moment? (It’ll be neat to see!)

I guess we’ll find out. And maybe, hopefully, we’ll all meet in this Ruffled Feathers space together to assess the changes that will inevitably have taken place in my life, in your life, in our country, in the world. Who knows what we’ll have witnessed by then.

Perhaps you’ll have started (or continued) keeping your own journal. And you’ll be on your way to celebrating the amazing two day extravaganza of simple pleasures that, in truth, are the delight of completing one journal and beginning a new one.

(T-1045)**See? Told you.

Spartacus Dreaming – Photo by L.Weikel

*Thank you, Sage.