LunarMusings

New Moon in Sagittarius 2009

A Sagittarius Moon is about freedom, expansion of the mind, philosophy, horizons.  There is a sense of adventure here related to openness, boundlessness.  And all of this brings about a sense of optimism. 

I love this New Moon, because it happens right before Winter Solstice, which I consider the Solar New Year and our own traditional Western New Year on January 1st.  Here is where we always take stock, assess the prior year and begin to lay out the foundation of the terrain to be covered in the upcoming year.

And what better energetic support to have during this evaluation then a Moon dedicated to supporting broader horizons and adventurous expansion? 

I need this.  And I have certainly been feeling it.  And where this last year has been about transmutation, the process has left me feeling like its time to break out and unleash myself. 

So today as I began to fill out my Planner Pad I noticed the most infinitesimal sense of excitement begin to creep in.   I'm making choices and strategizing and all of it is in the name of expansion, broader horizons, and adventure... both of the heart and mind. 

As this lunar cycle grows, we are on the countdown to the end of 2009.  And so or me, this growing lunar energy is a sweet momentum for the release, for the necessary 'goodbye', and for impulsing us into the newness of what is to come and what we will create. 

Can you feel it?

New Moon in Scorpio 2009

This post is a couple of days late because I just can't seem to formulate the stirrings in me concisely.  Scorpio New Moon is passionate, intense, mysterious, and at times overwhelming.  For me right now, its all under the surface.  A current that is moving at its own pace, at times tumultuous and at others a soothing rock, back and forth. 

I'm filled with longing and hunger for things I can't identify fully.  Danger is a word that keeps coming up for me.  I'm longing for danger.  For risk.  For the anxious thrill of standing on the edge of a cliff.  And all of it resides in this deep watery cavern in me that seems just out of reach.

Today I paint.  I dive into the colors and images that touch into this sense I carry.  And that feels dangerous too.  But its the work of this lunation cycle for me.

What are you feeling with this new moon?

New Moon In Libra 2009

"The two luminaries (Sun, Moon) are in Libra at this New Moon. That brings a rush of fresh air to clear our minds. It gives us special Libra equilibrium goggles, that show us how we're doing in relationships. It sharpens our vision of what's needed to bring more love, peace and beauty into our lives.

Libra is the sign of balance, but in a world of constant change, we reach that only in brief moments. The New Moon chart shows four cosmic bodies (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus) in Libra. So it's a moment when the lunar light goes out, and in the Void of the Dark Moon, we can have flashes of the way things ought to be. With cardinal Libra, we grow agitated to see our ideas made manifest. The New Moon can be a big moment where these ideas are pulled out of the dark of the spirit and imagination."

~from About.com

Renewal is what I feel in the air and within me.  Slow, gentle renewal that reveals small cracks in doors that seemed closed not to long ago.  With my birthday just having passed and the Fall Season birthing itself deliciously, I am waking up into a sense of possibility and tiny Yeses to that which I had dismissed or cast out of my life out of exhaustion or reaction or fear.  And I feel girlie, feminine, very Libra actually, which I love being. 

I strive for dynamic balance that is birthed from a place of presence, embodiment and continuous checking in with my deeper self.  I long to let my inner guide dictate what needs to happen now, rather then the shoulds that my mind throws at me, which then casts me into a state of rebelliousness and stress.  And I want to do all that with big splashes of pink on while doing it!

How are you feeling this New Moon?

New Moon in Cancer 2009

I was sitting on the Lanai (deck) early this morning doing my Sadhana practice.  It was raining with spots of sun shine breaking through and huge gusty winds.  Its nice out there on the deck because its fairly protected so even though there was rain and wind, I could be there without getting hit by too much of it.  In the middle of my mantras, I open my eyes and looked up and this is what I saw.

I don't know what more can be said here about this New Moon that isn't in this picture.  But it has always felt odd to me that on or close to the Summer Solstice which is the height of the Sun's fire, we have a Watery Moon ruled sign for the New Moon.  And being here in Maui, I have been engulfed by the heat of tropical fire along with the constant mist of humidity, the rocking of the expansive ocean and the rains that come and go at will.   This is such an elementally raw place. And what seems like a paradox, actually blends together in an alchemy of lushness that continues to hydrate my soul and ignite my being.

Its a Cancer New Moon and these are the words and themes swirling about:

Water

Expanse

Emotion

Sensing

Intuition

Blending

Nurturing

Family

Mother

Healing

Sentimental

Psychic

Telepathic

Union

Moon

Internal

Sensual

Moody

Feel

May this New Lunar cycle be a rich juicy one for all of us.

Blessings.

New Moon In Taurus 2009

 

The New Moon in Taurus will be at 8:23 PM PDT.  This is a luscious moon.  Taurus is earthy, decadent, invested in family, comfort, the home, hearth, financial security, sensuality and luxury.  Taurus isn't comfortable with fast changes due to its fixed earth nature, but oh, can this moon be a wondrous pleasure trove for the senses!

Taurus is all about the manifest tangible.  The real, material existence.  And right now for me, this is the fun and delicious aspect of the process I feel I have been going through for a while now.  In the middle of my inner work with lifting and transmuting the walls I have around my ability to manifest in the world, this Moon comes and gives me a sense of play and pleasure around it all.

I have been so angst driven lately with uncovering and figuring out the message of the Magus in my life.  Trying to really understand why it is that I block the abundant universal flow from being free and clear in my life and in my body, I have been mired.  I have been in my head and frustrated.  But there are other way of working through a process.  Journals, words, talking, meditating, thinking... all good ways to work through things, but so is pleasure, sensation, movement, enacting in real time the luxuries of taking care of your home, setting up beauty in your space, caressing your lover in new sweet ways.

What I have been re-membering with the Magus is the process by which we energetically manifest things or situations in our lives.  In short, I have been refreshing my magical skills.  And due to some of the work that I have been doing lately I have bumped up against blockages that have really stifled my ability to manifest specific things in a direct and efficient manner.  And being so caught up with this, I have stopped having fun.  Taurus feels like permission to really indulge in the manifested physical aspects of my life.  And to really go ahead and manifest things just because they may be pleasurable and indulgent in my life.

This is big.  And exciting!  One of the things I have really been thinking about lately is my love life.  My Beloved and I are doing great and have established a pretty consistent pattern of living up here in our new Mountain living lives.  But the other day while entangle in that yummy lovers embrace I realized that our ability to engage in each other romantically whenever and wherever we want is also a colossal form of abundance.  And so it got me thinking.  ;)  How can I or better yet, how would I love for our romantic time to be?  What new and creative ways can we play at creating new rituals, new forms of connecting? 

This is also encouraged by the fact that Spring is here, and my lusty nature is just waking up in such fun ways!  And in ways that seem unrelated, but really aren't, this practice of manifesting physical forms of pleasure and fun, is an exercise in becoming better at manifesting monetary and material wealth. I know that it sounds like a stretch, but all of life is play.  Its all a game, and there is this potent sense of abandon and detachment when in play and in pleasure.  And its those very same qualities that infuse manifesting of wealth, resources and material with a very successful skill.  Its all the same.  And the answer is in the ability to savor, feel, receive through the sensory system of the body, not the mind.

So my intention for this New Lunar Cycle is to play with how and what I manifest.  To indulge in my Beloved in sensuous creative ways and savor the abundant magic floating in the air during this Spring time.  I have my very clear and specific list of the things that I want to draw into my life, and now I am actually going to infuse that list with play and fun.  We deserve that.  ;)

Blessed be.

New Moon in Pisces 2009

 

New Moon in Pisces this evening at 5:35 PM Pacific Standard Time.  This Moon is a very watery, nebulous, dreamlike moon.  Boundaries are fuzzy between the tangible and the intangible.  Much of our dreams, energetic dynamics and intuitive emotional drive is ruled by this sign.  Pisces is the deep deep Ocean floor of our subconscious, it is sensitive, imaginative, empathic and psychic.  I like to imagine that the Piscean energy in each of us is manifested as those invisible tentacles or feelers we have out in the world that detect vibrations, subtle emotional shifts in a room or interaction, and the reality in our dream states as they inform our waking life.   

This Lunar cycle for the next 28 days is a perfect month to dedicate to a meditation practice.  These energies are a potent foundation from which to dive deep into the subconscious and transcend the chatter of the superficial day to day.  Dissolving the boundaries of the mind by immersing into a mindful practice is a an interesting paradox worth exploring.

This year I have dedicated to the worship and study of MahaLakshmi the Hindu Goddess.  I have set time aside each morning and meditated on Her aspects as well as incorporated a mantra practice into my days. I am able to meditate each day for a few weeks at a time and then sometimes I fall off and go to an every other day practice, depending on what I'm doing with my days.  Its been a lose practice that has resulted in some profound revelations for me, but I have also reached a plateau and have been needing to take it up another level.

So recently, the group that I use to do my dance practice with in Orange County began doing Sadhana practices to deities that each student had made a commitment to.  My teacher/sister/priestess shared with me what was involved in creating a Sadhana practice so that I may continue to shadow the work that the group was doing even though I have been unable to attend classes due to my move.  So I have decided to begin my Sadhana with this New Moon.

Its a big commitment, and I have some anxiety about my ability to follow through with it, but more then that, my anxiety is about the transformation that will occur by doing such a practice. I'm always amazed by how I begin to feel the need for more, or for deeper, or bigger, and then when the path is revealed for me to do or have that, I get so anxious about it.  I'm about movement, transformation, and transmutation these days, so I am diving in.  I find comfort in the fact that I am aligning myself with the Moon.  Having a starting point and feeling that I have a heavenly body supporting me gives me a surge of bravery and dedication.  I like that.

I send each of you a potent month of dreaming, dissolving, meditation and Moon gazing.

Namaste.

New Moon in Aquarius 2009

This New Moon tonight at 11:55 PM PST is in the visionary sign of Aquarius.  This Lunar cycle is all about the Vision.  The grand visioning of things to come and things to manifest.  Where the last New Moon was about working on manifesting concrete things into our lives, this New Moon is about the dreaming up, the conjuring the filling in of the details into the grand vision of what we want our future to be in any or all aspects of our lives. And to do so in a manner that is outside the box... Vision that breaks barriers and thinks big and in an innovative fashion.   How this New Moon affects your own personal natal chart will spotlight which specific area of your life you should be Visioning for.

Today is the time to dream it and write it all down.  Write it down and take as much time as needed to fill in every minute detail.  What are you saying in this vision?  What do you feel like?  How do you act?  Who is there?  What is happening?  Why is it happening?  How can you live your life in such a way that is beyond the expected and settled for?  How big can you dare to dream?

For me, the last 4 days have been really juicy and very revolutionary.  I have finally purchased and started reading The E-Myth.  Its such a mind clearer for me, and a book that I honestly should have been reading a year ago.  I feel like in so many ways I have been floundering with my creative work, and not quite knowing how to turn it into work that can financially sustain me.  And then right at the beginning of the first chapter I felt a light bulb go off in my head when I realized, that I hadn't been looking at what I'm doing as a business at all!

And from there the revelations have started to pour in.  And what I have been circling around has finally been provided a form, a structure in which to birth itself into.  I just let out a huge sigh after typing that...

One of the things that this book asks you to do is Vision the end result of your business building.  What is the final goal?  What is the business once its completely up and running?  What does it do in the world?  How does it act?  These and so many other questions have had me endlessly writing, endlessly conjuring up a vision that honestly, has been waiting to take flight in me for as far back as I can remember.

I think that I really just lack business skills.  Truly, because so much of this book is pretty elementary to business creating.  I laugh at myself now, because my under grad was in Social Work, and where I can very easily assess you circles of support, what needs building, and what resources you may need me to connect you to, creating a business plan?  Not so much.  :)

So this is my Visioning for this New Moon.  I have notes, brainstorms, time lines, charts, and form.  My dreams are taking form... Its amazing and overwhelming all at once.  I also want to utilize this Lunar energy tonight and in the coming days to really stretch that vision... think outside the box and go big.  Go. Big.  And write it all down.  Thats my ritual for this evening.

I wish you all Courageous Visioning. 

Namaste. 

New Moon in Capricorn and Winter Solstice 2008

In the early morning hours, pacific coast standard time, the new moon birthed herself into the sign of Capricorn.  Earthy, perservering, ruled by Saturn.  This is the new moon that begins our year.  It all comes together.  The Winter Solstice on the 21st marked the beginning of our Solar year, the time when we make that slight pivot, and turn towards the light after being enveloped in darkness and the releasing of things no longer needed in our journey.  Then this new moon in Capricorn, a sign for setting goals, initiating projects and commencing once again a new journey needing to be manifested. 

Saturn, Capricorn's ruler, is a planet of constriction, limitations, and often times fear.  Its about making specific choices to single out and focus on, feeling the fear and letting it motivate you as opposed to stopping you dead in your tracks.  I don't really think its a coincidence that our calendar year ends and begins at this time. 

Last year when I created my Vision Board, I did a meditation to feel what words would theme this year for me.  2008 was the year of Ease and Freedom.  I remember how very tangible these words felt for me.  How important it was to allow these things in my life.  As is usually the case, when these words and the visioning I did took place I had no idea that the year ahead would look like what it ended up being. 

Sitting here, at the cabin in Idyllwild, working for myself, living with my Beloved as we create a creative, abundant and world adventuring life, I am amazed at what Freedom and Ease really look like for me today.  It makes me teary to realize that I am in the midst of manifesting something so much more then I had the capacity to envision even then.  It thrills me, because its a tell tale sign that whenever any of envision something for ourselves, what we end up with is always going to be so much more if we open to it.

This new year beginning for me is so different in feel and vibration then last year.  The word that has come through for me is born out of being in a different life altogether.  It comes out of existing in a different rhythm.

We had the opportunity to attend a ritual art performance in honor of the Solstice here in Idyllwild.  It was a perfectly cold evening, and I attended in a very quiet and deeply rooted manner.  My prayer was to be given the theme and direction for this upcoming year.  What I was given came unexpectedly, and when the word was spoken by Trine, the Yogini/Priestess/Artist/Goddess, an emotional dam broke in me that caught me by surprise.

My time now in this upcoming cycle is about Transmutation.  T r a n s m u t a t i o n.

This is different the transformation, although that is what will be taking place as well.  I am still holding this word close to my heart, still letting it unfold within me.  I am aware that this is about a cellular, vibrational, physical, elemental, spiritual shift into another being altogether.  And I am also aware that this would not have been possible had I still been entrenched in the life I was living in Long Beach.  It was a good life, but it was a noisy, cluttered life, still being lived with too much commitment to fear and habit.  Things are different now.

Interestingly, I don't have a list of things that I am going to call into my life in this next year.  Those are already there, and will come.  What is more tangible is the inner work.  The stillness, the dedication to a particular Goddess for this up coming year.  A journey is what this year will be about. 

I encourage you all to be still and find your word for this upcoming year.  Make a sign, create an altar, a vision board, a list...  This is the night to ritual around these things and set in motion the energy to manifest them in your life.

Blessings and Jai Ma.

New Moon in Cancer 2008

Happy New Moon!  I am going to deviate from what I normally do for these posts.  Its been a wild ride of a day, and feel more compelled to touch on my energetic experience then what house the moon is landing on, and what a Cancer Moon creates energetically.  More then anything, I just believe that we all intrinsically know whats going on with the Moon and how its affecting us, we just don't always know to identify it as such.

Its been a whirlwind of a day.  Lots of communication with people, emails flying back and forth at a break neck speed, business phone dates, delicious 2 hour phone call with this amazing lady, creating in a large and visionary way...  So much.  There are deep shifts wanting to occur.  I feel them inching their way towards me.  Messages, mirrors, secret whispers heard in my dream time, observances, inklings... all ways in which the Universe is setting the tone, answering my call, and opening the way for me to move through.

So tonight, on this New Moon, rather then do the work of looking at charts, reading up on signs, I am going to do my personal work based on the messages that are coming towards me right now.  I found a link to the following on someones blog.  Sadly, I can't for the life of me remember what blog I found this on, and if its you, Hi!  Thank you for this and please drop me a line. 

This is long, but so spot on with what it is I'm learning and living right now.  I think it will fit for you too.  This is a Manifesto for a design company.  Their work is innovative, completely outside the box, and the site is worth a browse.  So here it is:

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.

1. Allow events to change you.You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.


2. Forget about good.Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.


3. Process is more important than outcome.When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.


4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.


5. Go deep.The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.


6. Study.A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.


7. Begin anywhere.John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.


8. Harvest ideas.Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.


9. Keep moving.The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.


10. Don’t be cool.Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.


11. Ask stupid questions.Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.


12. Collaborate.The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.


13. ____________________.Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.


14. Stay up late.Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.


15. Work the metaphor.Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.


16. Repeat yourself.If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.


17. Make your own tools.Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.


18. Stand on someone’s shoulders.You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.


19. Avoid software.The problem with software is that everyone has it.


20. Don’t clean your desk.You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.


21. Don’t enter awards competitions.Just don’t. It’s not good for you.


22. Read only left-hand pages.Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."


23. Make new words.Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.


24. Think with your mind.Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.


25. Organization = Liberty.Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'


26. Don’t borrow money.Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.


27. Listen carefully.Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.


28. Take field trips.The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.


29. Make mistakes faster.This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.


30. Imitate.Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.


31. Scat.When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.


32. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.


33. Explore the other edge.Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.


34. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.


35. Avoid fields.Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.


36. Laugh.People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.


37. Remember.Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.


38. Power to the people.Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

This entire list speaks to me, but there are a few that are very significant, and I am inspired to write about a few of them in the coming weeks.  I am on a plateau looking up and reading to take flight up towards another level.  I am aware that along the way I will be tripping up against my upper self limit line.  My work for this Lunar Cycle is to be conscious of this truth, be present with it, and let it go as I pass it by.  Self sabotage comes with unconsciousness.

Blessings! 

New Moon In Aries 2008

This New Moon occured last Friday, April 5th. 

This is the first New Moon of Spring.  Aries is the first one out the gate, the child, new beginnings, fire, passion, individuality.  This is the beginning. 

And I am feeling so inspired this year by the energy of Spring, that I am going to not go by the usual format I have used in the past with my New Moon reports.  Instead I am going to drop in some questions:

As you emerge from the slumber of Winter and into the newness of Spring, what do you bring forth with you?

What are you offering up as your gift to the world?

What is Spring Fever igniting for you?

What are the ways that you can tap into the deep feelings of emergence that Spring is here to gift you with?

And what do you look like, feel like, sound like, move like while in the state of birthing yourself into a more vibrant, evolve, aware adn beautiful you?

I send you gorgeous flowers for you hair, a deliciously lusty lovers kiss, and countless opportunities to walk barefoot on the grass.

Blessings,

e