Greetings all, this post marks an ending and a beginning. How apt for the Pisces New Moon day.
Pisces, being about endings, completion, surrender and New Moons being about seeding the new beginning of the next lunar cycle.
It feels to me that life these days is a lot about endings. The reverie, nostalgia, the sadness that are part and parcel of endings seem all-too familiar emotions to me. So much has ended these past three years as our world has entered the birth canal of a major transition. Personally and collectively, we have all come face to face with the loss and grief of something. Today is symbolically and cosmically very much an ending time. The Sun and the Moon in the sign of Pisces are telling us to finally let go now, in preparation for the new beginning of the solar year on March 21 – 0 degrees Aries. Now is the time to seed the new by releasing the old. It is a time to relinquish aspects of ourselves and our lives that have outgrown their usefulness. The days either side of the New Moon itself, (on the 19th or 20th depending on where you are), are part of this period of release. These three days are perfect to turn inward, to meditate, to tune in to our deepest intuitive voice and listen to what it has to say. Contemplation is the Kosmos’ suggestion to us, as Saturn looms over the Sun and Moon at this New Moon. Saturn, along with representing control structures, speaks of the need for self-discipline. Contemplation, as distinct from day-dreaming, requires self-control because as we turn inward we are focusing our attention and this is no lackadaisical pursuit. Not, that is, if we intend (and New Moons give us powerful intention energy) to mine our consciousness for something worthwhile.
So what might your ending be? I can think of several. One ending, and in this case one not of my choosing and one I would have kept had I any say in the matter, is that of the social whirl of family and friends over a beautiful summer. (Then again, perhaps the body is ready for a break from wine and song, laughter and late nights.) Maybe. Summer is fading and loved ones have left – right on cue. It feels as if the seriousness of life is again beckoning and a glorious summer of happy days with people I love is retreating. Some endings are forced on us. Others we choose. But always, we get to choose our response to whatever is leaving our lives. And so, my self-chosen discipline at this New Moon is to let go with a light heart. As Lao Tsu said, all is flow. A beautiful encapsulation of pure Pisces energy…..all of life is flow. Everything flows. If we try to hold on to the flow, suffering is the result. We feel the sensations of emotions (feelings) in our bodies and instantly thoughts are generated as we try to make sense of what we are feeling. This is the trap. The mind begins to conjure stories and always these are backed by our unique conditioning. Our regrets, guilt, sadness from past experiences and our anxieties and fears about the future. The mind is a wonderful and useful tool in helping us make sense of the past and prepare for the future but for most of us this aptitude becomes a curse as we suck energy from the present in our backward longing and forward projections. Both take us out of the natural and healthy flow of this moment in time. Can we intuit the truth of the sensations as they arise and allow them to flow by controlling the impulse to construct past and future stories around them? If we can do this, we discover the uncomfortable feelings of emotional sensation move through us and out; they dissolve. This is surrender. This is the energy of Pisces and this is our mission for these few days.
We need to re-mind ourselves that the stories we generate around our feelings are heavily conditioned by our past experiences. In other words, they are not truth. In the philosophy of Tantra this is called second order reality. First order reality, by contrast, is the pure awareness of consciousness before we have a thought about it. Can we be in this space? For example take the sensation of constriction in the heart area or sadness, when a loved one leaves. Can we notice the sensation, breathe into it and clear our mind of all thought around it. Yes this takes discipline. We are so programmed to generate thoughts around whatever we are feeling that it has become deeply ingrained. I’m here to remind you that you are supported now in re-programming your body-mind to break that habit. This is the time of year for ending, releasing, surrendering, completing. The Sun moved into Pisces just yesterday. We have four weeks to maximise the energies in order to free ourselves of all that baggage that is sucking our energy and keeping us from the expansive beauty that is being in the flow.
I have several ideas for my new beginning, for the self-discipline I intend to muster in order to set in motion a positive new year. I will use this Pisces New Moon energy however in releasing what no longer serves me in order to clear the decks in preparation for March 21. Practically, this involves sitting in contemplation and meditation, quietening the busy mind and allowing whatever surfaces to come up, be felt, and then released – which happens naturally when no stories are involved. Much of what comes up is familiar, my own time-honoured reactions and responses to sensations evoked by memory or anxious projection. It is no simple thing to allow the flow to deliver up what it needs to in order to be digested. But digest we must, if we are not to be held hostage by the fantasy of our stories. I will talk more of this in future posts. I’m learning too.
On another note, a reminder dear people, of the essence nature of Pisces. Pisces is the most ‘spiritual’ of the signs – because it is about Oneness. Unity, of all of life, is the deepest message of spirituality. Beneath the masks of our individual, separate egos, there is the oneness of our true nature. We are each nodes of conscious awareness. No different from the conscious awareness that is Shiva, Goddess, God, the Divine – whatever name you like. We are part of the ground of being that is Shiva and the power of manifestation that is Shakti. We are all One. If we do no other practice than to sit in contemplation of the feeling of the consciousness flowing in our own bodies, free from any commentary on it, we will use the Pisces energy well. That consciousness is the consciousness of our creator. It is our essence nature. It is our origin and our destination.
Let us take the time to sit in stillness and sense the reverence, the sacredness that is our divine consciousness. Compassion and love are the foundation of the conscious awareness of the Kosmos. If we can only release our habitual ego, with all its earnest striving to be special, to be noticed, to be separate, to survive (!) we will find ourselves in the freedom and flow of that pure love and compassion.
And so this is my Kosmic Medicine offering for now: surrender up your ego-self with its endless stories and defence mechanisms and wounds, scars, resentments; its samskaras (impressions). Let them all go and rest for a time in the peace and purity of the present – free from all attachment to past and future. This is the most perfect time to take on this task. We can be much freer and clearer by March 21, ready to seed our intentions for the year ahead. The planets are moving us out of the age of Pisces (hallmarked by religious control, the gods of old that morphed into the new gods of money and science – equally if not more insidious) and into the age of Aquarius – with its overarching theme of power to the people! If we to be up to the task of living as empowered loving beings, we all have some work to do in cutting the ties of mental and emotional control that have kept us captive these past two thousand years.
Intend it now. Intend love and compassion and the freedom of flowing with life. The Goddess, pure loving consciousness, will support you. Here is to 2023 being the year of our most profound personal empowerment. It is poised to begin.
With love and blessings from one messenger.
Til next time….
A Cosmic Ride 