Recently a book from the library found its way into my hands - like some of them do, you know... you go looking for one thing and that leads you to something else and then you find this completely other thing and "oh, let’s try that". Anyway it’s called "Food of the Gods" by Terrence Mckenna. In the introduction he writes:

"When habits consume us, when our devotion to them exceeds the culturally defined norms, we label them as obsessions. We feel, in such situations as though the uniquely human dimension of free will has somehow been violated.....

The obsessions of the ordinary person tend to focus on the here and now realm of immediate gratification through sex, food, and drugs. An obsession with the chemical constituents of food and metabolites is labeled an addiction.....

Habit. Obsession. Addiction. These words are signposts along a path of ever-decreasing free will. Denial of the power of free will is implicit in the notion of addiction....

And then "coincidentally" one of the astrologers i follow was talking about how the current astrological patterns highlights our obsessions and tendency to check out as things become more and more intensified. he urged not only examination of this tendency, but also simply to do what we can to move towards the things that make us feel truly good rather than simply numbing or distracting us.

So it had me looking at the upcoming “super moon” – which is when a full or new moon is closest in its orbit to the earth. 20 Jan will be a lovely super moon. Both the sun and the moon join together for it at 0 degrees 9 minutes of Aquarius - which in and of itself is saying something, for the zero degree mark of any sign acts as a kind of threshold and has the energy and potency of such. Being a new moon this is then double echoed as a time of new beginnings and new intentions. 

Aquarius is the energy of the visionary, it looks into the future and tastes possibilities not yet even dreamed of, and then it yokes itself to the task of translating that vision back to society, however resistant or unable they might be to hearing that message. Aquarian energy is often thought of as the medium through which the divine channels itself.

What though is being translated? 

Do you think its coincidence that other planetary bodies for this new moon form a configuration known as a yod - aka: the finger of god? 

Maybe it’s just that, a coincidence, but it is worth looking at....

A yod is basically an elongated triangle. In this case, Pluto (the energy of what is unconscious trying to become conscious) fuses through a sextile with Chiron (the wounded healer and teacher). Together they form the base - where the energy is coming from. The "finger" - the apex - points from this base to where it is "wishing" to go. That finger is Jupiter (philosophy and faith) conjunct Black Moon Lilith (our shadow and what we disown). 

The theory behind a yod is that the thing that is being pointed to, is notoriously difficult to assimilate from the perspectives of the base energies because they are at such incongruous angles to one another. The trick with a yod is to try and activate the midpoint of the base and use it to sort of catapult to that of the apex or finger. 

Interestingly we have both Mercury (communication and oracle) and Venus (love and compromise) conjunct at this midpoint. This is like having 2 angels standing and holding space saying "Here. Look here. This will help". When there are no planetary bodies at a midpoint, there is nothing to anchor the energy but our own intention. To have something there helps a lot.

Ok.... so that is the somewhat technical side of it, but what does it mean?

Who really knows...maybe nothing... but my personal take on it is that whatever we are carrying around that we are wrestling with that is both sticky and dark and more than a bit deeply held in our subconscious is ripe for some Healing (with a big H). We all know it. And yet we are having trouble manifesting it. We are caught in our own woundedness and haven't yet figured how to catapult into something that might actually help us to awaken to our own patterns and behaviors and actually commit to the intention of healing from them or at least not being absorbed and thwarted by them.

So how do we regain our free will from our personal cycle of destructive patterns and behaviors? …By embracing our own darkness through both faith and shifting our philosophies and preciously guarded ideas surrounding it. 

Each of us, every one of us carry around a belief in our unworthiness - some more insistently than others, but it is there in every one of us. And to support that claim, we point to all the things we 'do wrong' - often they are habits, addictions and obsessions - behaviors that we cannot seem to control and yet spring from somewhere inside of us. We feel trapped by them and secretly fear that they say something more true about us than anything lighter that we could point to.

Ok, so embrace our darkness and make friends with it somehow and stop viewing it as proof that we suck. Sure. Good idea, but how? Well, lean into love. Lean into the way that love allows for compromise. The way that love makes room, the way it invites in even the deplorable and the hideous and the scary and unacceptable. Try to love on ourselves this way. It takes not simply forgiveness and allowance but a kind of willingness to believe in something fantastical. Love on ourselves and try to look on ourselves from the point of view of the lover - make allowances for ourselves the way a lover would and then simply listen. Listen closely to the universe and see what sounds back.

There are no coincidences. We only think we are separate from the pulsing stream of nature in all its variety and possibility. We are not. Everything is speaking to us calling to us. We need to only listen for it, but we need to listen from the place of love if we are going to manifest what needs healing. 

Let’s face it, we all know that "listening" from the places of self-criticism and self-hate only push us farther into the desire to check out and escape all the confusion and tumult and demands of our life. So what happens if we listened from a place of love? What if we tried to open wider?

I don't know quite exactly HOW to do this, but i think that this upcoming new moon coming might be a good place to start. I think that it might provide some insights if we seed intentions along those lines. I say it over and over and i will say it again - every culture, every tradition claims that you must INVITE energies in before they can take hold - whether it be angels or devils, vampires or faeries. It is part of that whole freewill thing... we have to ask for help. We have to ask for guidance. It’s not complicated; we just need to take the time to do it.

So all that just to say, i am inviting you all to circle.... to take some time and do SOMETHING - it does not matter what, big or small, verbal or non-verbal... just do something for this new moon coming up and lets just see what happens. It can't hurt and if there is some remote chance that it helps well, wouldn't that just be grand?