Dear Friends,
This month’s new moon, a solar eclipse is upon us. If we’re fortunate, we might have seen the sun’s fiery ring encircling the moon’s silhouette.
My interest in varied philosophies and hypotheses continue and I love to weave the resonating threads together to amplify or expand my understanding.
And as I’ve said before, I love to share my learning with you!
Following the astrology thread, I hear that at the time of a solar eclipse, something is hidden.
For me, the something hidden was the New Moon Gatherings. I knew they were fast approaching, and I just couldn’t grasp them. They were so intimately linked with the International Days, that as soon as I released The Days, they too evaporated.
Solar eclipses are considered to be especially powerful, activating insight into how we need to change. This new moon in Libra, is symbolic of balance. Might it be asking us how we need to realign ourselves, so that we come back into right-relationship or balance with ourselves, with one another, with the earth and the Divine?
I see that for myself, the structure that served so well as I launched Navigating the Mysteries was pulling me out of balance and away from the work I want to do in the world. It was restrictive, rather than life-giving.
A somewhat lofty, but appealing image came to me, of a rocket launching into space. Having reached its chosen orbit, much of the outer casing falls away. Its purpose served; the remaining satellite is released into a more serene trajectory.
I have to smile! I have long aspired to be serene! The image offers me a joyful sense of freedom mixed with anxiety – like letting go of the edge of the swimming pool when learning to swim!
John O’ Donohue’s poem Fluent beautifully expresses my yearning,
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
It’s only when I get scared, that I grasp at the edge, a seemingly solid structure that offers some stability on the way to learning that the water will support me, if I will let it.
As Angeles Arrien says in The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom
“Rivers are nature’s teachers and exemplify flexibility, resilience, and perseverance, all resources and qualities that are both necessary and available to us in our later years.”
Suggesting that (re)entering the river is the supreme invitation of the second half of life. Angeles goes on to say that, by identifying where we have been indifferent and inflexible, we can
“return to a fresh innocence and resourcefulness as we fully explore the spirit of fluency, looking at our world with expanded curiosity . . . energised by hope, faith and vitality.”
That sounds good to me!
However, my dilemma remains.
I long to be an active force for good in the world. Especially now, when there are so many abuses of power, so much violence, seismic disruptions, displacement, fear, and grief.
One small thing that I can do today is share a request for support from Preemptive Love.
Perhaps join me in supporting them, as they support earthquake victims in Afghanistan and work to change the ideas that lead to war across the Middle East and beyond.
The more I learn, the greater my conviction that we as humanity need to let go of our fear based, competitive, violent and destructive ways of being.
David Attenborough, one of my heroes, consistently demonstrates that in the natural world, every diverse creature and plant has a vital role to play for the harmonious and balanced functioning of the world.
And he teaches that as all natural systems mature, they collaborate in a beautiful dance of interdependency. Surely it is time for humanity to mature and join the dance?
The short passage from 1 Corinthians popped into my mind:
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a [man], I put away childish things.”
2000 years ago, St Paul recognised the need for us to grow up!
I’m grateful to the latest telling of the Red Shoes in the Navigating Priorities workshops. The motherless child, delighted by her handmade red shoes, despite her difficult life is, one day, swept up into a gilded carriage, a gilded life where she is given shiny black shoes to wear.
Looking at the symbolism of red and black in European mythology, as described by Martin Shaw (mythologist, not actor), we learned that Red often represents immaturity or adolescence. There is much heat, aggression, desire to be visible, to win, to dominate.
On the positive side, Red initiates action – and represents a move towards individuation.
“Red”, Shaw says “is an essential, albeit not very subtle stage on the journey to maturity”.
Red is a season. Often culturally admired and enflamed, it is not supposed to last.
“For one in the red, the world is a place that needs to be conquered, wrestled, voyaged. The red initiates action but is naïve to the price of such action.”
If we apply this metaphor to the world, are we seeing red gone haywire – a persistent immature posturing, aggressively trying to dominate, conquer and win?
Continuing the maturation sequence, Black follows Red.
Black represents the descent, the dislocation from the previous state, a surrendering of egoic self-importance. The death stage of the life / death / rebirth cycle.
There is a sobering in the black and the possibility of the return to our humanity. Here, says Shaw,
“The traditional polarities of masculine and feminine, solar and lunar appear to have equal relevance in this realm.”
Is this powerful solar eclipse, a coming together of sun and moon prompting us to surrender our egoic self-importance, to integrate polarities and find ways to return to our humanity?