Leo New Moon, After Eclipsing

Photo Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

All this week, in every venue, talk eventually turns to the eclipse. Every news outlet, all social media, each conversation on the street begins with some comment about it. "Did you see?" "Where were you?" "We seem to have survived..." "Didn't realize the temperature would drop so significantly!"

With the Leo New Moon and the solar  eclipse happening at virtually the same time, the energetic effect of each increased with the power and impact of the other. Leo is all about the will, specifically, choice and action. After our experience of the new moon and eclipse, what action will we choose to take?

One of our most significant choices in life is whether we choose to see an experience as happy or miserable, as positive or negative. Our first reaction may be anger or upset or angst or fear. We cannot change the feeling. What we can change is how we move forward with it, how we see it in the larger perspective, how long we allow ourselves to sit in the stew of those emotions. We have the opportunity to use our will to move forward in whatever manner we desire.

The solar eclipse not only brought up emotions, some sensitive people had physical reactions as well. Like when we fall in love or we lose a job or someone leaves or dies, our system may respond with restlessness, a lack of appetite or an upset stomach. It's how we experience and cope with rapid change. Prior to the eclipse, discussions focussed on whether to be outside during the event, be with large or small groups, or be alone. People had celebrations, camped out, created rituals. No matter where we were or with whom, the expansive eclipse was a communal experience.

We are moving through one of those liminal places where what we choose as our focus ripples out to help form our communal future. The eclipse and this Leo New Moon are not only about our desires but also about our will to create and co-create the story of our future. Choose concisely, wisely and with care.

What did you do for/during the eclipse? What emotional responses did you have? What physical reactions did you experience? How did you choose to respond? What action are you choosing to move forward into? How do you want your future to be? What part of the story of our communal future are you willing to write?

Cancer New Moon 2017

Another New Moon ~ Wow. It seems like only a couple of days ago I was writing about the Full Moon. The pages of time keep turning.

Like all new moons, this one is about releasing, letting go, setting the intention for gathering back in. A Cancer New Moon feels like coming home because Cancer is nurturing and protective. Being ruled by the Moon, and currently influencing the New Moon, showers us with a fluctuating emotional current.

Mercury entered Cancer a few days ago. Since Mercury rules the mind and communication, this New Moon is poised to allow us access to more sensitive communications with those around us. We have an awareness not only of our own feelings, but also those of others. Stay mindful during this time of any tendency to overthink an action or situation. With the intense focus on watery Cancer emotions, this could lead to higher anxiety. If that happens, be gentle with yourself. Breathe and relax. Let go. Remember, that's the gift of the New Moon.

Neptune, the planet of compassion, is currently in its shift to retrograde. Neptune inspires dreams, imagination, creativity, psychic openness, and divinity. It connects us to both subtle shifting energy and high spiritual realms through its magic and etheric juiciness. Its creative domain is primarily visual arts, like photography and painting, yet it can also influence movement arts, music and literature. If we allow ourselves openness to to any of these arenas, Neptune and the strong empathy of the Cancer New Moon will work together to bring our gifts forward. This is not a time for us to hide within the hard Crab shell of Cancer.

What emotions tug at you during this New Moon? How are you experiencing 'home'? What creative gifts are coming to the foreground more strongly for you? How are your dreams or imaginings currently influencing you? What are you considering communicating to one or more people you care about? What is holding you back? What might you be overthinking? Where may you be attempting to hide? What do you need in order to show more compassion to yourself?

Sagittarius Full Moon June 2017

©2017 ML Monroe

This month's Full Moon in Sagittarius opposes the Sun in Gemini. This particular duality reveals Gemini's logical mind juxtaposed with Sagittarius's intuitive mind. This lunation invites us to find a balance between the two.

It's also about communication and attitude. If we look at our lives, private and public, over the past two weeks, we discover something has been building inside us. The cosmos demands we find ways to express those feelings.

Sagittarius is spontaneous and adventurous so that is also at play during the influence of this Full Moon. As we approach the solar eclipse, this Full Moon gives us another chance to explore and deepen our understanding of ourselves.

The 9th House, where the Moon sits, is all about beliefs, spirituality, philosophy, travel and communication. It is the place where we seek understanding and expanded experience where we envision possibilities. At the same time, the Sagittarius Moon requires that we sort through all the incoming information in order to deepen our practices and to assess where we're headed in that depth. Whatever it may be, it is ours and ours alone. We are in the process of defining our individual purpose. With Jupiter in Libra, we even have the opportunity to work together with others to outline a larger, group direction as well.

What emotions are tugging at you? How do you moderate their expression? What are you feeling at the gut level? What do you believe? What are your spiritual practices? What activities are calling you? Have you written any of these down? begun practicing them? Who in your life calls you to join a larger group purpose? What is your next step?

January Full Moon in Cancer

©2017 ML Monroe

Today's Wolf Moon rests its haunches in emotional, compassionate, feminine Moon-ruled Cancer. For those, like me, who like the play of numbers, it occurred at 3:33 a.m. PST. Since this is the first Full Moon of 2017, it is setting the stage for the remainder of the year. It calls us into our truth and power.

A Full Moon in Cancer brings emotional responsiveness to the forefront ~ and that includes intuition, empathy and dreaming. You may process many emotions during this time. Let the emotions bubble up and let them go ~ they may not all belong to you. Safe surroundings and people could help with the feelings of vulnerability that surface too. Take time to recognize what newness is flowing into your life and allow it in, even if it's beyond your comfort zone. One caveat: be careful and aware of the reasons behind the choices you make. Though this is a time for newness, it is also a time for clear intentions.

A Cardinal Grand Cross joins this Full Moon, adding its energy and tension to the mix. It's formed by the Moon in Cancer and the Sun (and Pluto) in Capricorn on opposite ends of one bar, and Uranus in Aries and Jupiter in Libra on opposite ends of the cross bar.

With the Full Moon in Cancer (security, emotional needs, family, home) and the Sun in Capricorn (work, outside world) crossed by Jupiter (big picture beliefs and morals) and Uranus (the unexpected, freedom, innovation), there is opportunity for conflict and high emotion. The energy of this Grand Cross is not new and will be continuing for some time to come. It's time to plant the seeds that you want to see grow and flourish over the next several years. These seeds are not only personal, they are also communal and will ripple out to the world around us.

For you who feel Pluto's influence, it may uncover some buried matters or issues with others in authority or attempting control.

In numerology, 2017 is a '1' year [2+0+1+7=10; 1+0=1] which makes it a year of beginnings. In Tarot, it is the year of the Magician, the bridge between Spirit and Humanity, and the carrier of alchemy, the stuff of transformation. The Magician signifies that you have the power to make a difference as long as you consciously make the attempt.

What emotions are surfacing for you right now? What is challenging you? In what area of your life is there tension? Where do you feel vulnerable? Who do you trust with that vulnerability? What decisions are coming up for you? How clear are your intentions as you go forward? What is beginning for you this year? What is transforming?

Looking Back, Looking Forward

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past and plan for the future. Stephen Hawking provides his own perspective on it.

It's easy to think of the future as a spectrum of possibilities because we understand the opportunities we have to choose our next step on a forward-moving path. We perceive time as linear: from our point on the timeline back is the past; from our point forward is the future. The point itself is the present. Is it truly so cut and dry? Or are there bumps or cycles or turns in that timeline?

Have you ever, when first being introduced to a person, discovered you already knew they had three siblings? Has an unknown person sitting next to you on a plane voiced a question you just thought? Have you walked past a stranger on the street and turned back to find them turning to look at you as though in recognition? We've all experienced moments like these. We brush them off with comments like:

He kinda looks like my ex.
I must've muttered my question.
Her coat is the same color as my boss's.
Maybe we saw each other in the parking lot before
It couldn't be anything more than a fluke.

Because, of course, the past is fixed on that timeline. It already happened so what we're seeing now, what we're thinking, what we're experiencing, can't be real. Reality fixes time in a linear, clearly-defined path, doesn't it?

If Hawking is correct, and the past is also indefinite, then perhaps we have met that person before. Or that sense of having experienced this moment before? We have a phrase for that: deja vu. We shake our heads, smile with embarrassment and mutter an apology.

When we look back at our lives, we rarely think of it in linear terms. One story reminds us of another that happened years before. Or the scent of cookies takes us back to several childhood holiday baking memories that run together like watercolors. Did I burn my hand when I was six? or eight? Did we make marzipan with cousins or alone?

2016 has been labeled by many people as a year of troubles to leave behind. Was the entire year that way? Or was it only sections of it? Are our feelings accurate? And what does accurate mean when it comes to emotions?

My personal experience of the year was a bit of a roller coaster. I had several high points, including submitting my resignation and beginning the next phase of my life. Several low points, including a distressing election season and a broken toe, happened closer to the year's end and made leaving 2016 behind much easier!

What were your high points in 2016? What were your low points? Did they balance out? Did their proximity to the end of the year change how you viewed 2016? What are you looking forward to in 2017? What experiences of deja vu have you had recently? How do you feel about them? How do you perceive Stephen Hawking's comment on time?

Love Law

I never cease to be amazed at the combinations that show up when I play Teabag Tarot. I often combine two teas in one extra-large travel tumbler.... and I have no idea what their messages will be. When these two arrived in the same brewing, I was bopped over the head with their message of the law of love.

Much discussion with friends and others focuses on the need we each and all have for love. Questions that surface:

• How do we search for it? 
• Who do we feel disappointed us? 
• When did we have a time when we had enough? 
• What does enough love even mean?
• How does that search for love drive us at work? at play? in our families?

When I saw these messages, it was more like a strum on the heartstrings than on the head. Why search for love when that is what we are? I recognized that it's been awhile since I was drawn into actively searching for love.... since I felt as though what I was, what I AM, wasn't complete or enough.

Even so, was I practicing that last statement ~ the one that says Love is the ultimate law of life? Maybe not completely, but more at this time of my life than I have in the past. There's a wildly caustic election battle going on around me. Even though I am appalled by many of the revelations surrounding one candidate, my emotions have been more curious, more fascinated, more intrigued than hateful or spiteful. Even when people accuse or shame others about their candidate ~ no matter which it is, I find my head tipping to one side, my thoughts wisping to Huh, my heart reaching out to theirs. Is that practicing that Love Law? I think so. I believe that any time we release the option to hate we are allowing love to flow. As long as we ~ as I ~ continue to do that, hope remains alive in the world.

How do you practice the Love Law? What triggers your search for love? How do you know when/if you believe you are the love? When do you know you're complete? How does that Love Law show up in your life?

Wheady Mile

From Byegones, May 20th, 1874:

'A wheady mile, a mile beyond expectation, a tedious one';...a long mile, a mile longer than it seems to be. And thus, too, every task or labour which turns out to be greater than was at one time anticipated, or anything that is peculiarly long, tedious, or wearisome, is a 'weady job,' or described as 'mighty waydy.' Anglo-Saxon wide, longus. The common word to wade is probably akin to this.

When the term wheady mile showed up in a Facebook post, the very sound of it struck my fancy. I determined to uncover how it might apply it to my life as well as to define it.

I am in the process of completing a wheady mile in my life.... one of those places and spaces ripe with the readiness to move on, yet I have not. This one involves my job. Being a teacher is not only what I do, but strongly who I am. Yet there are many pieces of the puzzle of public education today that have less to do with connecting with students and their learning than with proofing a product for college or employment. Each curve of the path lately turns back upon itself and provides shorter-lived moments of joy than previously experienced. It shouts to me of the need for shift. I am stepping away from the wheady mile and find a new path.

Can wheady mile apply to emotional states too? I'm bone-weary of waiting for changes to happen. Sometimes, the distance between making a plan, implementing and fulfilling it, is longer than expected. As I await this expected change, ready to move on, other opportunities percolate into view. I recognize some of them from past moments along the way. Others are totally new and offer a perspective not previously noticed.

I also feel more awake and aware now. My dreams have shifted as well. I spend time in preparation within them ~ cleaning debris away from a three-way intersection; directing people on how to cross a busy crosswalk-less street; hanging rugs and tapestries on huge lines in the sun; herding people into well-stocked, comfortable trucks for an important and necessary journey. Each of these are snippets carrying a similar theme AND each part of the whole speaks to an integral shift. The feeling is akin to sitting in an unfamiliar vehicle, preparing for a road trip: mirrors checked and adjusted, seat adjusted, steering wheel set-up and all gauges checked. These are slight shifts from getting into my own vehicle ~ common adjustments to fit me rather than the previous driver.

What does wheady mile mean to you? Is there something happening in your life that feels wearying to you? Is there a shift needed? What messages from your dreams align with this?

Darkness Dreaming

Our dreams are the place where we meet each facet of who we are. Our past arrives there with all its regrets, joys and lessons. Our future peeks in with all its possibilities. Our alternate universe self shows us the 'what ifs' continuing on elsewhere and elsewhen. Our angst, fear, grief, anticipation, elation, and every other emotion creates the background music. Dreams carry us deeper and farther than thoughts.

Over the past several nights, I've awakened from strange and somewhat disquieting dreams. In many of them, I am leading or herding people ~ sometimes through a woods, sometimes through a crowd, sometimes through a dark room.... the settings were all different, the movement similar, always through. Relating these to a friend, we joked that I was either Moses or an Australian shepherd.

I call the dreams somewhat disquieting because when within them, I am happy. That juxtaposition of setting/action and emotional response lead me to the conclusion that there is a deeper movement happening. I see an outcome or source or destination that creates true joy within me.

This morning's was no different ~ I was seated, leaning against a brick wall. A basket of gleaned apples was being passed around. The apples were bruised and wormy, but mostly edible. I nearly let the basket pass when a voice nearby said, "Ya might wanna take one and eat. Ya never know when food will come our way again." So I took the basket, grabbed one of the apples and joked, "I guess the worm could be counted as extra protein." A few chuckles ran through the people around me. Through this entire exchange, I was feeling content ~ as though I knew something better was in the offing.

The disquieting part of these dreams is waking from them with the sense of peace within me along with the mental images and the logical recognition that the scene should be disturbing. I thought, What's wrong with me? That quiet voice nearby calmly replied, Not a thing. More to come. So I wait. Acknowledging as I do that stars can't shine without darkness. Ready for the next installment.

What images surface in your dreams? How do you determine if it's a dream or nightmare? What do you feel within the dream? Does it match what you see or hear? Do you listen to what comes in the Darkness? Why? or why not?

Cancer New Moon ~ 2015

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-charon.jpg

Today's sky reveals ~ or does not reveal ~ the Cancer New Moon. However, it's also the day that reveals the New Horizon's images of Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, up close and personal. What a remarkable event!

The Cancer New Moon is all about emotional fulfillment... finding what sparks your deepest love and most expansive passion. It may refer to partnerships. I'd say look beyond those because even partnerships are sparked by something within your heart. Be aware that this New Moon may bring with it more intense and rapidly changing emotions, perhaps creating some raw and exposed feelings. Breathe through them. Continue to love yourself and honor all parts of who you are.

The images from Pluto ~ and its moon Charon ~ arrive in perfect timing. In mythology, Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls of mortals into the Underworld, Pluto's realm. Since Pluto is the symbol of the hidden, of what seeks to be revealed, of the deeper darkness within, the New Moon is the most auspicious time to be in the presence of Charon, the guide into that Underworld.

What passion is bursting forth in your life right now? How is the hidden part of you peaking through and showing itself? What is the coinage you will use to pay Charon to cross into  the Underworld? What will you bring back?

Virgo Full Moon, March 2015

©2015 ~ Mary-Lynne Monroe

Another Full Moon ~~ In case anyone hasn't caught on, I love the moon! Today's moon is a perigee moon ~ the farthest away from the Earth. So the moon appears to be smaller.

This moon overflows with emotional energy, possibly even intense or volatile moods. It's important to bridge the emotions rather than playing into the extremes. The shadow side may come to the fore ~ be aware and prepared.

Since this time frame, and consequently the Full Moon, are all about change, the swinging emotions are part of the package. It's important to remember that change is always uncomfortable. If things are comfortable, they're likely stagnating ~ or change is being ignored.

Patience is another watchword for this moon. Accept the fact that everyone is human and makes mistakes. There is opportunity for flexibility and awareness of synchronicity. Everything is possible if patience and persistence prevail.

What emotional energy is flowing into your life? Have you seen the shadow side of your emotions? What change is happening in your life? How are you handling that change?

Listening

from http://www.divineharmony.org/cosmic-insight/weekly-astrology-forecast:
"The only major aspect today is ... when recently-turned-direct Mercury in Scorpio trines retrograde Neptune in Pisces, .... Mercury/Neptune is inspirational, creative, intuitive, spiritual and compassionate. Aligning our minds with our Higher Hearts is recommended right now! Pay attention to dreams and psychic impressions as important information/messages can come in from the most unlikeliest of places! With Neptune stationing the veil between the worlds is thin this week. ... Take time to listen to your Inner Voice and attend to your emotions."

What an incredible time this is! Think about the Mercury ~ Neptune combination as they are aligned in this very moment, in Water: Deep Emotions and Deep Intuition running and flowing together. Listen, Listen, Listen. Feel deeply in your Heart and in your Gut, and ground yourself on the bedrock deep within both. Be aware of what you feel, sense and experience. Check it with your Higher Heart to be clear that it is Your Deepest Self and not the voices from between the worlds. Listen carefully. Make sure the Voice you hear comes from Within ~~ and let it lead you into the Truth and Beauty you seek. It is a powerful time for  Spiritual Movement!

Where is your Inner Voice leading you? What are the next steps to get there?

Lunatic, Are We?

The current moon is close to full. This really does look full, doesn't it? In another two days, it will be even larger and rounder. Amazing process to watch when it gets this close!

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term "lunatic" came from the late 13th century and meant "affected with periodic insanity, dependent on the changes of the moon," from the Old French lunatique, lunage "insane." (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lunatic)

When standing on my lawn or in the middle of the street or on the balcony of a hotel or on a sandy ocean beach, camera in hand, snapping photo after photo of the various phases of Lady Moon, I ponder whether or not I fall under that definition. Personally, Lady Moon is one of my most photographed beings in the galaxy. Almost a year ago, I began taking snapshots of the Lady in her full or nearly full preen. She is absolutely gorgeous! Her poses in the night sky are awe-inspiring and I never tire of staring at Her either in the night or in my pictures.

What natural phenomenon do you like? Do you take pictures of it? Why? How do the pictures influence you?

The Day the Earth Smiled ~~ View from Saturn

On July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured Saturn's rings with Earth and its moon in the same frame. Earth, which is 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away in this image, appears as a blue dot at the center right; the moon is a fainter protrusion off its right side. The other bright dots nearby are stars. Of 323 images, this is the only one that has the Earth-moon system in it.

Imagine that! This is the stuff science fiction stories are made of! Look at that image ~ and the arrow pointing to the itty bitty dot that is us. We look around our world and perceive ourselves as big and important. We create wars to prove who can be more impressive. In the vastness of the Universe, just how much do we matter?

Yet on this little dot of a planet, all our strutting and showmanship matters because this little dot is where we live and have our being. What emotions are stirred up by this image? Moving forward from today, what will you do differently because of them?