Summary Libra New Moon
This moon cycle, Libra New Moon to Taurus Full Moon to Libra Dark Moon, is ruled by Venus, goddess of love. Her energy can be understood as the principle of attraction that ensures good feelings. In Libra, Venus describes our attraction to other people, specifically harmony in relationship to other people. In Taurus, She is concerned with attraction to beauty, and the material resources that will ensure our personal security and thus the physical pleasure of positive sensation. Venus, by Herself, doesn’t ensure that higher love will be attained; she only provides the desire for good feelings that will lead a person to mature until they attain it. This moon cycle we get a double dose of Venusian desire.
In Esoteric Astrology, Venus hold a special place. Her mysteries have been lost for the most part over the past few thousand years; but are slowly reawakening through those who allow themselves to open to the desire that She gifts them with. Her gifts require a healing of the Divine Feminine in each of us so that the receptive principle is strong in us. She is calling us to remember that the desire for harmony will lead us to purify our love. She calls us to know real beauty in the physical world and so directs us to an appreciation of the abundance of the natural world. She directs us to feel pleasure in our bodies and so to purify the body of toxicity, negative beliefs and painful contractions that keep us locked in scarcity mentality.
This moon cycle is an opportunity to explore Venus themes about security and relationship; it becomes very important to reflect on where we are in the process of identifying and purifying our beliefs so that love is pure. If we are relating from immature Libra, we will have tendencies to look to the other to either define us or hold our negative projections. As the Moody Blues wrote in ‘A Question of Balance’ (very Libra!), ‘…All the love that you’ve been giving, has all been meant for you.’ In this kind of relating, we give to get. We believe we have to give to get. We may try to please the other to keep peace. We are dishonest in the cause of tactfulness. This kind of relating causes great stress in the body and cuts heart flow.
Full Moon in Taurus
About Taurus
Taurus, the first earth sign, awakens us to both the pleasures and the necessities of physical reality. The fire energy of Aries activates our spirit. We are excited about being alive. The earth energy of Taurus tells us our spirit lives in a physical body and we are in charge of taking care of it. Taurus introduces us to the practical reality of basic needs - food, water, shelter, etc. To get these needs met we have to establish a healthy relationship with the Earth plane. Unhealthy attitudes include neediness, scarcity mentality, greed, irresponsibility and unaccountability. Healthy attitudes include gratitude, abundance and sufficiency-for-all mentality, taking responsibility for ourselves and being accountable for our actions.
Taurus teaches us about the material world. Our initiation begins with establishing material values and taking care of our basic needs. As our initiation advances, we discover that all matter is conscious - including our bodies, animals, plants and the rocks, soil and minerals of the Earth. Everything is interconnected, interdependent and held together by Spirit.
As our perception opens to the oneness of the material and the non-material dimensions of existence, our values and priorities change. The more we are in touch with the spirit infused in our bodies and the Earth, the more we can experience the beauty and peace that Taurus archetype holds so dear. 1
Libra, as an Air sign, is mental. The first part of this moon cycle has provided an opportunity to explore mental attitudes towards relationship. Taurus, an Earth sign, grounds our understanding in the physical body, bridging the body-mind. We may connect our mental attitudes with body sensations: where we are holding emotion in our bodies. Likewise, we are given the opportunity to look at how we feel about abundance, scarcity and self-value and how our attitudes affect our ability to relate to the other. We are holding these feelings and beliefs in our bodies.
In every moon cycle, the seeds we planted at the New Moon become illuminated by the Full Moon in the full light of the Sun.
As a fixed sign, Taurus might point out areas in our lives where we are too addicted to comfort. Venus attracts us to comfort and pleasure, but doesn’t assure that it will be a mature expression of pleasure. If there has been a deprivation or over emphasis on physical security and comfort, there may be an over-reliance on material comfort as a substitute for the deep pleasure of feeling you have enough or are enough. In terms of the New Moon seeds, this full moon might expose how we use relationship for security. The Taurus Full Moon in the light of the Scorpio Sun emphasizes the 2nd house/8th house polarity. In a natal chart, there is always a strong clue to how a person will experience relationship by looking at the 2nd/8th house opposition (Taurus/Scorpio). There is strong connection between a person’s attitudes toward material resources, security and self-value (the 2nd house-Taurus) and their ability to get their needs met in intimate relationships: how easy or difficult it is to allow the death of the ‘self’ in moments of intimacy to allow the birth of a third energy when two people unite in intimacy (the 8th house-Scorpio-for this reason the 8th house is also known as the house of ‘other people’s resources’, but more on that next month and the Scorpio new moon).
With the Sun, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter in Scorpio in opposition to this month’s Full Moon in Taurus, there is strong support to excavate the deepest recesses of our beings to find the truth about what we believe about pleasure and comfort and abundance and especially our self value.
This Full Moon then, is a time to reflect on attitudes towards harmony in relationship, pleasure and good feelings. Are we receptive enough to allow desire to melt defenses against pleasure? It is only in opening ourselves to the full power of these desires that we will find the strength to guide our wounded selves towards mature expression of harmony and pleasure. It isn’t only our individual personal happiness that will be affected by this quest, but the health of all humanity. As one person allows light to permeate their being, they become a beacon of love for all.
For the Full Moon ritual, allow desire to hold center stage in your body. Create a structure to hold desire for harmony in relationship, self worth, abundance, physical pleasure in ritual enactment. Dance would be an ideal way to hold this space. Walking in nature, relaxing the body, allowing yourself to feel pleasure would be another. Meet the parts of you who are contracted against pleasure with the unconditional love of the Mother.
Samhain
I got kind of giddy this morning as I realized that Halloween/Samhain fell right smack in between the new and full moons of this Venus moon cycle. ‘Samhain is the time of year when we honor the dying season. The remains of this year’s harvest begin to decompose and transform into fertilizer for next year’s crops, providing nourishment to sustain us. Samhain is an opportunity for us to focus on how death, separation or loss have affected us as loving beings. We can work with our disappointments and grief, clearing ourselves for a more open expression of love.’ 2 At this time of the year as well, we transition from the dreamtime of Autumn, the shadow, the unconscious in the West, to the wisdom and mastery and purification of the winter and the North. We may have started this cycle with conscious intentions about relationship and met the reality of our style of relating, bringing to conscious awareness the parts of us wounded in love. We may have discovered the parts of us that are ready to be shed in the death of this coming winter. What we have discovered may need to be grieved before it can be shed; it will decompose slowly over the coming months, transformed into the raw fertilizer of renewed conscious energy in the spring. So, I wish you all a peaceful death and release of those parts that are ready for transformation this season. I give thanks to the Ancestors who guide us and hold us in their wisdom.
Inspired by Venus' desire for harmony and pleasure, I'd like to share some readings from the We-Moon Calandar. The first is a meditation for chakra love activation and the second is an inspiring story of a woman who is a warrior for peace. peace, love, blessings, Helen
Chakra Love Activation
Beginning with the 1st (root) chakra at the base of the spine, traveling up each chakra until the 7th (crown) chakra, touch each chakra area, breathe deeply, visualize the chakra color as pure and radiating, and say each phrase. Allow yourself to be filled and overflowing with the light and love surrounding you.
1st chakra-red-physical center (coccyx)-I TOUCH LOVE-Breathe
2nd chakra-orange-sexual center (pubic area)-I CREATE LOVE-Breathe
3rd chakra-yellow-power center (solar plexis)-I EMPOWER LOVE-Breathe
4th chakra-green-heart center (heart)-I FEEL LOVE-Breathe
5th chakra-blue-communication center (throat)-I EXPRESS LOVE-Breathe
6th chakra-indigo-Intuitive center (center of forehead)-I PERCEIVE LOVE-Breathe
7th chakra-violet-spiritual center (crown of head)-I AM LOVE-Breathe
Women in Black
by J.E. Mara 2004-We Moon Calandar
Just days before Christmas, I arrive at the post office for my first Women in Black gathering. About ten women clad in black are already standing in a line. One is holding a sign: ‘Women in Black. To honor the lives lost to violence and be the peace we seek.’ Begun in 1988 by Palestinian and Israeli women uniting to reduce violence in the Middle East, Women in Black have stood together all over the world. I am glad I will be one of them.
Grief is in my heart for all the people caught up in the horrific violence in Iraq. What if bombs were falling on my town? Or soldiers bursting into my home? What if I had to break into homes? What if I had to kill someone?...My heart is heavy as I join the women standing silently. How will we be received? Some folks ignore us. Some send a smile or a nod. Most walk on with deadpan faces. How can I connect with them? I remember metta, a Buddhist practice of generosity I learned in meditation class. You repeat phrases of well wishing over and over; for yourself, loved ones, strangers, even people you don’t like.
I silently repeat the phrases in rhythm with my heartbeat. May you be full of loving kindness, to the women dropping a bill into the Salvation Army kettle. May you be well, to the man who stops to read our sign, then hurries off. May you be peaceful and at ease, to the woman in the wheelchair rolling herself up the ramp. May you be happy, to the man who says, ‘I’m with you’ as he strides by.
I am deep in the peace of this connection when it is time to stop. I ask what the other women did while standing. One thought of the people in Iraq, another mentally held hands with all the Women in Black around the world, ‘holding those who hold peace.’ When I joined these Women in Black I didn’t know I would benefit. I remember learning that while we never know wheter metta benefits those to whom we direct the phrases, we can certainly feel when metta opens our own hearts.
May you be full of lovingkindness. May you be well.
May you be peaceful and at ease. May you be happy.
1-New Millenium Being: Inner Taurus
2-We-Moon Calandar 2006-pg.159
No comments:
Post a Comment