I think 99 times and I find nothing.
I stop thinking, swim in silence,
and the truth comes to me.
Albert Einstein
The Full Moon on September 10, 2022 at 18 Pisces invites us to listen
to the deep current of feeling moving through us. This opens a portal to receiving a message, a way through some issue we are facing, that arrives from beyond the scope of our five senses and our realm of influence.
There is an increase of mental activity this fall that can have us scurrying about and feeling scattered. The Full Moon counteracts this tendency, encouraging us to embrace unstructured time where routines and schedules are relaxed or set aside all together. Beyond the zone of getting things done or figured out, something profound can be awarded us if we allow ourselves to dream, let our minds wander, and engage the imaginal. We are in need of the space and the time to digest and integrate what is unfolding in our lives. Our intuition is heightened and, rather than applying the power of our brain to resolve some puzzle, we can receive - as if by magic - a gift that clarifies and settles us in a way that no amount of diligent effort could
Full Moon Ruler Neptune conjunct the Pisces Moon
Uranus and Nodal Axis sextile/trine the Full Moon
Full Moon square Mars
Venus conjunct the Sun and square Mars
Mercury in Libra stationing Retrograde opposes Jupiter/Chiron and trine Mars
Three Stories come to mind this Pisces Full Moon:
The first story. When I was a program director at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, I was struggling with how to shape a particular program I was scheduled to lead on creativity. My mentor, a seasoned Kripalu program director said to me, “Go take a walk in the woods.” For years, I had noted that the program directors never seemed to be working, well not working like the rest of the staff. They were not at their desks or even in the building. I had always wondered where they were and what they were up to.
I responded to her, “I don’t have time for a walk, I need to finish this.”
She then said, “You won’t find what you are looking for sitting at your desk.”
“Its best I just concentrate, and my office is the best place I know to do that,” I stubbornly responded.
To which she said, “ I have regularly found the answer or insight that I am looking for comes when I am in nature. If I give myself space to take a break, to even not think about it, the answer appears.”
So, I took her advice, and it has served me well ever since.
The world is full
Of magical things
Patiently waiting
For our senses
To grow sharper.
WB Yeats
The second story. When I was studying AstroMythology with Wendy Z. Ashley, I was told that I first needed a demonstrated understanding of the sky's constellations before we worked on anything else. Wendy instructed me to go out every night and watch the movements of the stars. Optimally, I was to be out all night. I asked if I couldn’t just learn the constellations from a software program. She said, “No. You are to learn about them by direct experience.”
I then asked, “What will this give me to do it this way?"
She responded, “It will deepen your intuition.”
I then asked, “How will it do that?”
She answered, “I don’t know, but it just will.”
My experience learning the constellations and coming into a direct relationship with the movements of the night sky was a profound for me in many ways - one day, I will write more about this experience.
The Third Story. There was a book I bought called “Conversations with My Mother,” that was filled with pages and pages of questions. Between the questions there were spaces in which to write an answer. I went through the book with my Mom and asked her the questions which covered the full scope and breadth of her life, from childhood to her senior years. There were also questions that asked about her beliefs, knowledge and perspectives.
One of the printed questions asked: What advantages do your grandchildren have that you wish you or your children could have had?
In response, Mom said one word, “Technology." She paused and then added, "It is teaching them so fast.”
The next printed question read: What did you do as a child that you wish your grandchildren could do today?
She answered, “They are too busy. They don’t get any free time ... like laying back and just looking at the clouds. We would do that all the time as kids: lay and look at the clouds.”
My Mother’s words ring in my ears at this Full Moon. The lives of her generation and the generations before her worked hard in their lives yet there was time to sit on the front porch for hours, while away the night around a campfire, or just lay on the ground and watch the clouds. Today we can call this being unproductive or spending time that we can’t account for. Yet, something invaluable, perhaps even essential to our well-being and to the accomplishment of plans is integral in engaging in non-activity (oh so different than engaging our devices, TV, movies, dinners at restaurants). Their non-activity activity, whether they defined it this way or not, was less about doing something or getting something done and more about presence, listening, and being connected to something beyond the awareness of time, goals, and the pressures of life.
The central problem
Is not that you think too highly
of yourself. Nor is it
that you think too lowly
of yourself. Instead,
it is that you think
constantly of yourself.
Wu-Hsin
The Mind is Busier than Ever
Sun/Venus in Virgo oppose Pisces Moon,
Mercury turning retrograde on September 9
Mars is in Mercury’s sign of Gemini square the Full Moon
The Virgo New Moon two weeks ago cued us to give attention to creating or updating the routines and habits of our daily life. Our analytical mind has been employed to evaluate, discern and tend to the infrastructure of our work, our home life, and personal care. The Full Moon brings a dynamic tension that tempers the Virgo impulse.
There is potential for mental exhaustion if we rely solely on our rational mind to discern, figure things out, and arrive at an understanding of things. The pace of our thoughts is ramped up and we are more apt to worry and be hypercritical about some detail in a plan, a routine, or with ourselves. We feel restless about sticking with a task or giving extended concentration to something that we decided needs it.
The Full Moon cues us that it is time to switch gears, to not solely employ logic to a given situation, but to step away and do something that is markedly unproductive. There are answers and perspectives that reside outside the scope of our rational mind. By finding the place or the activity that allows our thoughts to slow down and become quiet, we can find the space to integrate, be renewed, and even inspired. It is a time to feel our way though, rather than think our way through.
Mercury Retrograde (September 9 – October 2) began the day before the Full Moon. Our mind is energized but are further cued to turn inward, to reflect and to take time to mull things over. In the sign of Libra, we are mulling over relationships dynamics and how they can be more fulfilling and a win/win for all involved. Relationships are not just with people, but with the earth, the water, the air and that lives outside us. As Mercury retrogrades back into Virgo, we will again give attention to shifts we can make in our daily routines and self care that will serve us, but with an added eye to how to maintain the relationships that matter most to us.
Mars is in Gemini has entered the shadow phase of its upcoming retrograde cycle. Mars is the warrior, ready to fight or take action. It has begun a 7-month sojourn in Gemini (ruled by Mercury, the mind). Typically, mars spends 3 months in a given sign, in its extended time in Gemini we can find ourselves scurrying about and multitasking more than usual. Giving extended focus to one task can have us feeling restless or agitated. We are less inclined to be mindful and more inclined to shoot from the hip. Mars is assertive we can easily get fired up in our communications, and feel more inclined to be combative.
This Mars Retrograde cycle is not about giving rein to Gemini’s spontaneous nature and instead, is having us look at our communicate style and questioning the patterns and habitual ways of thinking. We are invited to slow down, exercise patience, and be mindful in our daily lives and interactions. Through the coming months, we can shift out of an automatic way of processing and sharing information. This leads to greater awareness and facility in how we communicate so that our thoughts and words are more generative and can create the desired effect. Upcoming newsletters will feature more on the Mars Retrograde (October 30, 2022 - January 14, 2023) as we move through the last months of the year.
Love helps you to see
Into the invisible.
Rumi
We are more Inclined to Find ourselves in an Altered State,
Feeling and Moving with the Cosmic Creative
The Pisces Moon conjunct its ruler Neptune
Neptune lends an air of magic to the Full Moon and further amplifies the Full Moon’s invitation to quiet mental activity and reliance on our minds to think our way through something. The rational mind is inundated with feeling and imagination, and our thinking is not as linear or rational. It is altered. Magic is outside the realm of the rational and more in the realm of love. If we listen to what is in our heart, we open the door to receive guidance or insight that is well beyond what we could do or solve for ourselves. We have only to give shape to the question. It is not up to us to necessarily figure out the details, but to open to how things want to flow.
To receive the benefit of Neptune’s presence with the Full Moon, we need to surrender and not hold the reins of our life so tightly. It is not about making something happen, but about allowing ourselves to feel what is moving within and through us and to be absorbed in a way of perceiving that is altered from how we typically might solve a problem or map out a plan.
If we stay plugging away at an issue, like a dog with a bone, we may become increasingly agitated trying to figure something out. It is the opportune time to take a walk, look at the stars, or lay on the ground and watch the clouds. We are to create the space that allows us to be aware of our feelings and our relationship with the living world around us.
We may very well find that some illumination has been just hanging out in the wings waiting for us to slow down enough, become quiet enough, open enough, so that it can come in. There is something we are ready to hear if we can just quiet mind’s incessant chatter and our habitual need to be entertained by technology in our down time. The natural world is always ready to talk with us but can be drowned out in the conversations, communications and information that bombard us through our technological devices. We have only to open to what it wishes to gift us in relation to the dream, the problem, the task that has been of utmost concern.
The shadow side of Neptune conjunct the Pisces Moon comes in how we seek the magic. Neptune rules addiction, escapism, film and TV. The momentary magic that we get from a substance or modern entertainments can have us feeling more confused and overwhelmed with our daily lives when we return to the tasks that await us. Whereas a quiet walk, soak on the bathtub, meditation practice or watching the movement of what’s happening in the sky above, can renew and illuminate.
For those of us who have a spiritual or creative practice, this practice can yield a breakthrough in our connection to the divine and to the muse that flows through us.
Digesting, Integrating and Acceptance of the Changes Unfolding
Uranus and the North Node Sextile the Pisces Moon
The Full Moon shines a light on the changes that opened up over the summer ( the Uranus/North Node conjunction) helping to disperse the confusion surrounding the endings and beginnings happening in our lives. We can find insight, understanding and acceptance about why our life is unfolding in the way it is. By giving ourselves time to digest and integrate, we can feel more settled with the changes that have begun or we are anticipating sometime in the near future.
The House in our natal charts where the Pisces Moon resides cues each of us to the area of life where there can be illumination, expansion and understanding. It also cues us as to where we may be spinning our wheels and need to step away so we can receive something beyond what we can give ourselves.
In Summary,
The Pisces New Moon invites us to step out into the natural world for an extended period of time to engage in an activity that seems like we are doing nothing, but in the end, may give us more than we could ever imagine could happen by giving ourself to just this.
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