New Moon in Sagittarius, Wednesday, December 20, 2006, 9:01am EST. From the Darkness to the Light

Introduction
I had a difficult time sending this New Moon newsletter out because it addresses very deep, raw, controversial issues about good and evil that seem way bigger than me or my limited knowledge or experience. In writing it, I met two very strong forces in myself which seem to represent the New Age Seeker part of me and the Shamed Catholic part of me. Because I’m clear I’ve met these parts in this writing, I feel very vulnerable sharing it with you. At the same time, at its core, this seems to be a collective issue of how to deal with ‘evil’ in the world. So, I take the risk to share it with you. Peace, love, blessings, Helen

Summary Scorpio/Gemini Moon cycle November 20th-December 20th
With so many planets in Scorpio accompanying the Scorpio Moon (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter-squared to Saturn in Leo), the cycle brought an extremely heightened awareness of deep vulnerability to wounded passions. The cycle revealed that difficult emotions can sometimes lead us to destructive, even hateful thoughts and actions in an attempt to control them. To understand the relevance of the Scorpio experience, mythology is helpful. The Greek god Pluto abducted the Maiden of Life, Persephone, into the underworld as his bride. Pluto’s function is to reveal the paradox that a desire for life is hidden in murderous emotions. The cycle peaked at the Full Moon in Gemini, ruled by Mercury, the Greek God Hermes, who, in the myth, follows Persephone into the underworld to protect her. Hermes’ role is to bridge the unconscious to the conscious thought process; Persephone cannot leave the underworld unless she brings consciousness of what’s happening there with her to the upperworld. Another way of looking at it is elementally. Scorpio is murky, swampy water. Airy Gemini stirs the muck to the top for examination.

Journey-ing to the underworld is a humbling experience. If we have taken the Scorpio cycle opportunity to dive deep, we have found that contained within our own psyches are the seeds of both good and evil. It is the human condition; all spiritual traditions address it as our reality. But even in the words are found the answers. Evil is an anagram for live. Contained within our darkest, destructive emotions are the seeds for life, waiting to be harvested by the light of compassion.

Sagittarius New Moon
The Sagittarius New Moon cycle brings much welcomed expansion and optimism after the challenges of the Scorpio Moon cycle. ‘In Sagittarius we have a Jupiter/Mars conjunction, plus Mercury, Pluto/Sun/Moon. Yes, Venus in Capricorn and a retrograde Saturn in Leo dampen the party a bit, but nevertheless, sure signs of renewed optimism, faith, joy, and generosity, are busting out all over.’ (1) Sagittarius is the archer: Ruled by Jupiter, half horse-hoofs prancing playfully over the earth; half human-bow and arrow lifted and directed towards the exact spot in heaven representing higher truth. With the same force that Pluto abducts the Persephone part of us into the underworld, Jupiter lifts our wounded animal attention up towards the light. The Cancer Full Moon of this cycle on January 3rd, links Jupiter with the compassionate energy of Kwan Yin: ‘ Jupiter is exalted in Cancer, the archetype of the Great Mother. Kwan Yin Bodhisattva, the Great Mother in the Buddhist tradition, is the embodiment of both Wisdom and Compassion. Kwan Yin is often depicted riding a cloud with her bow and arrow. Like the Sagittarius archetype, she teaches us that we can rise above evil, if we point our hearts in the direction of Spirit. Instead of directing our vengeance at the doer of evil, we release evil from the curse of darkness with the Light of Spirit.’ (2)

The Scorpio Moon cycle revealed the parts of us that are attached to negativity and destructive emotions; we may have noticed the tendency to blame, shame or actually hate these parts of ourselves or others when faced with such emotions. As we celebrate Winter Solstice, enter the North on the Medicine Wheel and celebrate the birth of Christ, this Sagittarius/Cancer Moon cycle offers us the possibility to use our wisdom and mastery through our choice to release our own evil from the curse of darkness with the light of compassionate love. The message here is that we trap our negativity in the darkness through our judgment of it. We make it evil by making it wrong.

Well! I can hear parts of myself saying, well, wait just a minute here…right is right and wrong is wrong. Are you trying to say that these hateful parts of me (or my neighbor) shouldn’t be disciplined, judged, made accountable, punished and directed towards right action? I just have to tell them they shouldn’t do that and how wrong it is to do that...let them suffer retribution for their actions! Ok. Well let’s try that for a moment. Take a minute to remember the most hateful thought you’ve had over the past four weeks. Take a deep breath. Imagine that you're talking to this part of you. Now tell it how despicable it is, how bad it is, how ashamed of it you are and how you never want to experience this part of you again. What is happening to this part of you? Do you feel it shrinking in shame? Descending into more rage? Numbing out? The reaction to shame and blame is to push this energy back into the underworld, where it will fester and gather more negativity. Now let’s try something else. Imagine this same part of you and it is sitting down with a very beautiful person (God/Goddess) like Jesus or a compassionate Mother. God/Goddess looks at you with love and invites you to tell them about your experience. With such a receptive audience, you let it rip, shaming and blaming and raging. God/Goddess says…I understand you didn’t think you had any choice in that place. And you realize you didn’t think/feel you had any choice in that place! They invite you to tell them what it is you really wanted and why you believed you needed to get hard in that place. It may take a little while, but when approached with compassion, it’s revealed that all along this hateful place really wanted love, acceptance, safety, space…something really important! It’s also revealed that sometime in your existence getting hard actually served you, but now it keeps you from your desire to live and love freely. How does that feel? Have you noticed that shaming the evil makes it stronger? Have you noticed that loving it makes it softer and more willing to choose differently? And that’s the key. Softness actually liberates ‘evil’ to choose differently. Like the archer raising his bow to that exact point of truth, we realize what it is this part of us actually wants and aim for it with our choice, our free will. We have the choice to either shame it and make it more evil or love it and liberate its power towards the light.


Shifting Belief Systems and Jesus’ Gift
We are born into a set of beliefs which are held by our families, cultures, nations, etc. In order to be a part of our family, culture, nation, we agree to these beliefs. They form a ‘Book of Law’, as Miguel Ruiz writes in “The Four Agreements” or template of existence. And the template varies from family to family, culture to culture, nation to nation, religion to religion. Any belief which falls under our agreed upon template makes us feel safe and conversely, any belief which is outside the template causes fear for survival and sickening unease in the solar plexus (the point in the belly just below the ribcage from which our Will originates). Even if we know a belief to be wrong, if it goes against the template it will make us feel unsafe. Even if we’ve been born into a band of lying, thieving scoundrels and we desire to take a different path, we will meet fear, in fact-abject terror, when we try to change. So, it’s not very easy to evolve belief systems. As soon as we try to change something, we experience panic, dread and often turn back towards the comfort of the old belief system. Collective changes happen in the culture because individual seekers have the courage and strength to follow their inner truths towards heart regardless of personal discomfort, expanding the possibility of the collective template.

Jesus brought a message of compassion and love for the sinner. His sacrifice and gift was to allow Himself to experience the real human drama of betrayal and death while keeping His body and mind pure of vengeful thought and emotion, releasing evil from the curse of darkness. Imagine how difficult this must have been for the human part of Him! But through His will and focus of intention, Jesus kept His heart open in compassion: ‘Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.’ This was not a judgement-He understood the hateful action of His murderers were confused and suffering parts. As we’ve no doubt discovered, hate festers in the body and mind as suffering. His gift was to bring this experience into the collective as a possibility for us all. Before His sacrifice, the “Book of Law’ for humans did not include this possibility for compassionate understanding of evil on a collective level. It’s my belief that it’s taken 2000 years to understand that the significance of His gift is an opening in the template of each of us, regardless of family, culture, nation, religion. His gift allows the possibility that the human part of us can experience this Christ consciousness within ourselves…for our own darkness as well as compassion for those who are suffering in their own darkness.

The seeds for this New Moon in Sagittarius are the seeds of compassion for the darkness in ourselves and others. As we enter the Winter season, we bring the optimism and faith of Jupiter, and the compassion of Christ and Kwan Yin to our process. We are entering the North on the Medicine Wheel, the place of mastery, wisdom, truth and understanding. The Sun enters Capricorn today at 7:22pm. Both the North and Capricorn represent the solar plexus and our relationship to our will. It is therefore the time of year when we come into our power as elders; no matter what our age, we use our accumulated wisdom gained in traveling the wheel another year to focus our intention and choose the way we want to direct our energies.

In working with the energy of the Sagittarius moon cycle, we are guided to moderation of excess. Below are listed some key words for the Sagittarius path to guide you during this Moon cycle. (From (2))
Peace and love, goodwill towards all beings during this holiday season and always, Helen

The Sagittarius Path
IMMATURE -> MATURE
-Over extended, too many projects -> calculates implications before committing
-Scattered, lacks follow through ->can focus and concentrate
-Unfocused -> can concentrate and take careful aim
-Monkey mind -> can organize thoughts and stay focused
-Impulsive, acts precipitously -> evaluates facts before taking action
-Glittering generalizations -> Straight direct communication, to the point
-Blunt, hurtful -> direct truth, helpful
-Gullible -> trusts the truth
-Prone to excess and risks -> expansive, attracts good fortune
-Puer, naïve -> seeker
-Projects blame -> looks inward for causality
-Fanatic -> wise sage
-Over-zealous -> devoted to and listens to the truth
-Dogmatic beliefs -> experiences Spirit directly
-Moralistic -> Inspirational
-Impatient-> patient
-Lose temper under pressure -> discipline replaces rage
-Judgmental -> shares wisdom
-Needs to be intellectually superior -> humbled before the wisdom of Spirit
-Needs to be appreciated -> grateful to be able to inspire others
-Fear of imperfection ->able to share humanness
-Limited viewpoint -> sees the higher perspective
-Righteous indignation -> lives the truth
-Preacher -> teacher

(1) Moon Messages
(2) New Millenium Being: #126: The Sagittarius Path: This article by Guru Rattana, pHD will be published at this link shortly. For more information, or the full article, write to me at: kaliheart@gmail.com

The Moon Cycle

Why Explore Moon Cycles?
As we feel the internal drives for healing, self actualization and service become strong, we look for roadmaps to guide and support the small steps we take day to day. Recognizing the wisdom of the natural cycles and awakening our natural resonance with these cycles helps to ground the healing work in the body, mind and spirit, bringing focus and strength to the physical world of daily routines and relationships; it deepens our relationship to the natural world. When we explore the opportunities and challenges of the monthly moon cycle, we bring focus to a process which often leaves us feeling overwhelmed by choices and possibilities, which often asks us to surrender to the unknown. With focus of our energy and intention, the healing process becomes a journey of exciting challenges, small victories that awaken self confidence and loving compassion to our process.
The moon cycle describes the relationship between consciousness and sub-consciousness, active understanding and reflective understanding, manifest and un-manifest potential, reflected by the light and dark phases of the moon. As we re-integrate the value of the Divine Feminine in our lives, the moon cycle guides us to honor both active and reflective perception.

How do we experience the energy of a Moon Cycle?
Where the moon is untouched by the light of the Sun, our experience is more internal than external, so as we start the cycle at the new moon, we're waking up to something in ourselves. That something is the theme described by the astrological sign in which we find the new moon. It's the time to plant seeds of consciousness around this theme; knowledge of the theme brings heightened awareness to the opportunities and challenges present in daily life and consequently awareness of our relationship to this theme. As the moon’s reflection waxes from new to full, our understanding grows as well and the theme is brought to full consciousness in the full light of the sun. The sign in which we find the full moon describes the potential for maturity of the theme, where we're being asked to bring our conscious focus. As the moon wanes from the Sun into darkness again, our attention turns inward, and we become more reflective than effective about what we've learned. This is an integration period. In the last days of the dark moon before new moon, what started as seed consciousness has had the chance to grow and mature before coming back in spiralic motion around the zodiac to the sign where the cycle began. The reflective, internal focus of this time allows integration of the theme in our deepest sub-consciousness to awaken seeds for the theme of the next new moon.

Interesting references:
Virtual Moon Phase Ephemeris: Will show you the phase of the moon at a click
Navy Online Lunar Ephemeris: Determine the exact day of the moon cycle
Lunar Phases Description: Discover the meaning of each phase of the Moon, including the meaning of the lunar phase at birth
Moon Goddesses: Determine which Goddess rules the phase of your birth.

Gemini Full Moon, Monday December 4, 2006, 7:25pm EST, A LIGHT IN THE DARK

No doubt there has been ample opportunity to bring compassionate consciousness to our dark places and connect to our passion for life this Scorpio moon cycle. And we will continue to have opportunities to deepen the relationship with this passionate energy throughout the duration of the cycle ending at the New Moon in Sagittarius, Wednesday, December 20th. My strong desire is that we all find our way through the murkiness of toxic emotions to the clarity of full engagement of our passion in productive, happy lives. As the cycle moves from seed consciousness to Full Moon, we are also, no doubt, becoming aware that we need help to move from toxicity to clarity. There may be a sense that Divine guidance is necessary to transform our wounded passions.

When challenged with deep passions, we sometimes connect to very young child parts of ourselves who believe they have no choice but to harden against the circumstances causing them pain; since we’ve never known ourselves any differently, we end up identifying and limiting ourselves when we meet circumstances that remind us of the earlier time. From this young child place, we erected a number of beliefs that limit our free expression in the present. First, we decide the world is a certain way, eg, ‘grown ups never listen’ or ‘in order to be loved I must shine brighter than everyone else’. Then we decide that we are a certain way, eg, ‘I must talk loud’ or ‘I must work harder than anyone else’. It becomes exhausting to maintain this vision of ourselves and the world after awhile. At the Full Moon Monday night, we will experience a change in focus, as the airy detachment of Gemini allows us to take some emotional distance from identification with the trauma hidden in these places.

The Gemini path is one of loving compassion born of ‘right thinking’. The glyph symbolizing Gemini the twins are two pillars connected at top and bottom. One of the pillars is open to the lower nature of body, feelings and mind and the other is open to higher mind or divine self. The meaning is that the lower mind has to fade and become submerged to the higher mind, which will then grow and glow.1 Gemini brings an airy chaos to concrete thinking, concerned as it is with seeing all elements that make up any given situation. There is a possibility that communication will lack emotional depth with airy Gemini, but if we stay focused on the opportunity at this Full Moon to bring consciousness to our thought processes, we can use Gemini’s influence to expand our limited thinking about ourselves and others in the wounded child places we have been working with this moon cycle. We will be challenged to see beyond the limiting beliefs of our small ego. And we will be challenged to go beyond dualistic thinking such as either I’m right or they’re right. We will be supported to expand our perceptions and connect to higher thinking about the situations and relationships that our passions are disturbingly engaged with which will allow our full positive engagement. Perhaps we are already more clear that these limiting beliefs don’t serve our higher goals; this Full Moon is the time to bring focused intention to lifting veils about these limitations, to invite our higher selves to bring light to the mystery.

For this Full Moon ritual, create an environment that will support an unstructured flow of communication, such as drumming or chanting. Allowing the flow to be open will create space for different perceptions to be experienced. In circle, share your present understanding of the relationship with your wounded passion and bring your intention to understand yourself and others more completely, clearly and cleanly.

Peace, Love and Blessings, Helen

1-The Twelve Tasks of Hercules