New Moon in Cancer: The Self-Care of Sovereignty

 

Knowing Who You Are is Freedom.

Tomorrow, we welcome the New Moon in the cardinal water sign of Cancer, the Crab. Those who know Cancer folks or Crab energy know very well the paradox of this most sensitive sign. No other sign exhibits such tremendous sensitivity in the underbelly, yet has such a tough outer shell.

Cancer energy is STRONG. STRONG AND SENSITIVE. In its highest vibration, Cancer represents some of the best of sovereignty – individual freedom and governance – because it is in touch with what it NEEDS for proper self-care. It knows what it needs so very well because the tiniest straying from equilibrium is felt intensely to the point of physical, emotional, spiritual pain. Therefore, Cancer teaches us to listen – on all levels – to that which is true and good and right for us. When we do that, we are rock solid.

We’ve been hearing a lot about sovereignty in the last few years. It’s been used in many contexts. Standing up for oneself is the main theme. It means knowing what is TRUE and GOOD and RIGHT FOR YOURSELF and trusting that knowing, and acting upon it. It also means only doing that which you really WANT to do.

I talk a lot about this in my writings. Why? Because the external cultural pressure of conforming, of having certain beliefs, of censoring one’s voice, of putting certain things into one’s body or mind, of consuming a set of constructs about the way we are supposed to live, is becoming more and more insidious.

If I am honest with myself, I’ve seen this building for the past 10-15 years. The very groups who formerly professed a “live and let live,” or “let your freak flag fly” are adhering more to a Goliath-scope pressure to live within a very narrow realm of behaviors and ideals. Cancel culture and self-censoring is on the rise. Whatever happened to freedom?

The Self-Care of Napping: Learn from Fur Friends

I came out of the womb as a freedom-loving Aquarius. I was destined to be individuated my whole life. As a Water Bearer, I archetypally carry the torch for all people and peoples who need the freedom to be true to themselves. NOT AN EASY TASK when you get down to your own nitty gritty, ferreting out deeper layers of attachment.

The first step is to SEE THINGS ACCURATELY. It is vital to see cultural conditioning for what it is. Sure, you might initially resonate with what the mass consciousness is projecting on the screen; yet looking closely and listening, you’ll likely have your own intuition about what is good and true and right for you, and that may likely be counter to what you are TOLD to believe, to do. Check your heart, your body, your emotions, your gut. Even your "Spidey-sense."

Sovereign Tarot Friends Say Hello (Morgan-Greer)

Due to forces outside of our immediate vision, but actually right in front of our literal faces (screens), we are being projected upon with a gargantuan force that tells the people, THIS IS WHAT IS YOU NEED. THIS is who you are if you are a conscientious person, a good citizen, a person that deserves to live in this society, nation, world. And if you feel otherwise in your heart, soul, body, gut, intuition, you may be pressured to conform to the point of cancellation, ostracism, exile.

Why the attempted bullying? Yes, the messages may come with the smile of “it’s for your own good,” but is there is a sickly feeling underneath it? Many sniff something fishy, sense that there is a power-hungry element afoot. The need to CONTROL is ferocious right now. And that desire to control usually arises from a great deal of FEAR, or INSECURITY, or GREED, to name just some of the vicious, sneaky, diabolical forces in the collective shadow.

How does one start to plug into self-sovereignty, as a bridge to ultimate freedom? One tool is beginning to NOTICE when you are going against that which is true and good and right for you. You won’t be able to bear it much longer. Think of the sensitivity of Cancer, noticing every single irritating grain of sand against the soft underbelly. Or the princess and the pea. You’ll notice every inkling of movement that goes against the truth of what you need. The road gets narrower.

Here’s a great mantra:

“I promise to do only that which is good and true and right for me.”

You’ll get it down, no worries.

Your spirit will not let you stray.

Mantra. End of Story.

I am free.

The truth of who I am is free.

No matter what happens to this body, I am free.

The truth of who I am is free.

No matter what pollutants are fed, I am free.

The truth of who I am is free.

Wild and free.

The Self-Care of Swimming in the River You Grew Up In

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Have you read Truth Seeker yet? If you prefer supporting your local brick and mortar bookstore, you can order the book straight from your local bookseller. Otherwise, it’s available on Amazon Prime in paperback and Kindle here. I continue to be touched by the reviews (keep 'em coming, please), like this one from Jungian psychologist, author, and dream guide, Dr. Marilyn Steele, author of The Wild Feminine: Stories to Empower and Embolden (2012):

5.0 out of 5 stars A very human and very holy adventure tale by a brave explorer of the Divine Feminine

Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2021

I loved the humor and humility, the honesty with which Erin Reese tells of her travel adventures, her spiritual awakenings, her romantic dreams and experiences. There are fascinating people and magical encounters. There is soaring transcendent learning but also the down to earth, sensual sights and sounds of Mother India. I have not actually been to India, but the lovingly detailed descriptions and stories bring the scents, scenery and energies to life. So impressed with the amount of courage and faith the author brings to living a fully embodied, wild and sacred, Feminine life.

 Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary non-dual spiritual teacher, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin Reese offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. Erin also offers non-dual meetings and retreats on embodied liberation and freedom from suffering. Visit erinreese.com for more information.  

Follow me on Instagram for more frequent updates and photos and goodies! 

Full Moon in Capricorn: Slow Your Roll

When Your Love Takes You to a Barn Dance

 

Today, we welcome the full moon in the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn, the Sea Goat. The Sun in watery Cancer trines the fortuitous planet of expansive Jupiter in Pisces, harmonizing well with the Moon right now. Earthy Capricorn connects us to Mother Nature and Cancer/Pisces brings in the cooling, yin, feminine side of life This is good: we need a little ease as the recent yang Gemini (air)/Sagittarius (fire) eclipses and Mercury Retrograde, along with unseasonal heat waves, put many of us on edge mentally and physically.

What is happening under the surface is that the messages from the culture (i.e. mainstream) tell us that it’s time to get back to “normal.” The state of California,for instance, is declared “open” and it’s magically time to socialize, see everyone again, move about, get busy, spend money, and do a lot of things that weren’t available to us over the past year of lockdown, whether because they were officially shut down or the fear factor was too high.

The problem is that our animal bodies and our soft underbellies, and our intuitive souls, may not be ready to get back into gear. The empathic wisdom in all of us is attuned to something much deeper than what is being fed to us on the social media feed or the news… If you’re one of the empathic people or sensitive spirits who feels this, you are not alone. Trust your body’s wisdom. Just because the society tells you to come out of your lockdown hermitage and run around again, it may not be time to do that for you.

When Kitty Encounters Her First Stag

As the veil covering that which is hidden has been fully ripped open since the past year, empaths and intuitives are acutely aware of what is behind the curtain. The collective shadow is knocking hard on the door – some of us can’t sleep at night as our guides are speaking to us, our ancestors are teaching us, our souls are doing heavy lifting and processing in the nighttime hours. If that is you, it is vital that you adjust your lifestyle to rest more often during the day. Take more naps, lie flat on your back, and definitely schedule less on the calendar.

Explain to your family or friends that you are needing more time to rest. If they’re in tune to you, and attuned to themselves and their own processes, they will understand and support you in this. Speak up: you are practicing good modeling!

When You Finally Attempt to Garden

If you do travel, whether by air or land, make sure you build in ample time (like, weeks) before and especially after your journey to ground, to earth yourself. Let yourself be in an “ordinary” lifestyle and chop wood, carry water, hang your clothes on the line, plant flowers, take a walk in the woods. Driving in cars and getting on planes stimulates vata, the air element, which in Ayurveda can create pain or stiffness, anxiousness, and confusion in the body-mind. Slow down, do less, especially talk less. Bed earlier, cook your own food, sit quietly and feel into your spine and hips and legs.

Same thing goes for social events and visiting friends and family: before and after the event, make sure you have plenty of time built in for quietude. The theme is spaciousness. Our bodies and souls are begging for more space and a slower pace. It’s totally OK to let loose or attend highly stimulating events or crowded situations – we just need to ground, root, and center all along.

Last but not least: IF you have plans to go somewhere, to have a visitor, to do something, and you feel a sense of unease or even dread about said plan – stop immediately and reevaluate. Adjust, minimize, or cancel. No hemming and hawing. This is a time in our evolution that we cannot compromise that which is for our body-mind-soul’s highest good. If you’re still hearing the internal message that “it would be good for you” or “it’s not nice to cancel on someone” or “it’s good to keep your commitments always,” realize that it is completely outdated conditioning. What is good for you IS what is good for everyone else, for the whole. When you are tuned into your body, your spirit... When you slow down and listen... When you pay attention to your belly, your root, your heart... it is absolutely PERFECT to change or cancel plans. You can trust that is perfect for the collective and everyone involved.

Do not deny any insights you are having.

Do not gaslight your soul. Honor your soul’s truth, and be free.

Enjoy your precious Presence.

with love,

Erin 

When You Take a Long, Solo Hike to a Secluded Beach

 

 

THE KING (OR QUEEN) IS AWAKE!

from Rumi

 

There are people with their eyes open

whose hearts are shut. What do they see? Matter.

But someone whose love is alert,

even if the eyes go to sleep,

he or she will be waking up thousands of others.

If you are not one of those light-filled lovers,

restrain your desire-body's intensity.

Put limits on how much you eat

and how long you lie down.

But if you are awake here in the chest,

sleep long and soundly.

Your spirit will be out roaming and working,

even on the seventh level.

Muhammed says, I close my eyes and rest in sleep,

but my love never needs to rest.

The guard at the gate drowses.

The king stays awake. You have a king inside

who listens for what delights the soul.

That king's wakefulness

cannot be described in a poem.

- RUMI

Have you read Truth Seeker yet? If you prefer supporting your local brick and mortar bookstore, you can order the book straight from your local bookseller. Otherwise, it’s available on Amazon Prime in paperback and Kindle here. I continue to be touched by the reviews (keep 'em coming, please), like this one from an appreciative reader in Berkeley, CA:

 5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, inspiring, and a joy to read

Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2021

This book took me on a journey through India, and through spiritual awakening, with a front-seat view from the author's perspective. The honesty of the author's writing made it a joy to read, and her tone always remains humble and relatable, even when she shares her experience of awakening. I gained a greater understanding of the core principles on non-duality and I was moved by the piercing description of her love for her guru. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a spiritual "seeker", and to anyone who shares a passion for travel in India.

 Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary non-dual spiritual teacher, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin Reese offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. Erin also offers non-dual meetings and retreats on embodied liberation and freedom from suffering. Visit erinreese.com for more information.  

Follow me on Instagram for more frequent updates and photos and goodies! 

 

 

 

Sun in Taurus: Time Out to Tune Up

How's your nervous system?

We’ve just come off a radical jolt of a Full Moon in Scorpio week where themes of death and regeneration, purging and transmogrification shook most everyone up internally – if you are paying attention. Shedding, morphing, regenerating through shamanic experiences, radical release, and strange illnesses have arisen for folks to help us evolve, release, surrender to the collective evolution. The Sun in Taurus conjoined radical change agent Uranus to surprise and shift us all – a sci fi movie that is not fiction at all – these changes are happening, and our body-minds are along for the ride, like it or not.

What’s a body to “do”? Ride the ride, and take care of your self best you can while the Cosmos goes through this quickening dance. The Sun continues his sojourn through the fixed sign of Taurus, the Bull, for another two-and-a-half weeks. For myself, I turn to All Things Taurean to make myself feel better. The springtime sign of the earthy four-footed Bull is best honored with the five senses: smell, sight, taste, and touch.

Staying glued to a device, whether phone, laptop, TV screen would not be healthy these days. Our eyes need a break – they need to see things far off in the distance. They need dimensionality, perspective, varying hues of color, especially green, and movement that is not programmed bytes of zeroes and ones.

Snow melt in the canyon

Our noses need the smells of the forests, of chocolate chip cookies baking, of our lover’s neck in a nuzzle, of the blossoms on a walk.

Our bodies need to feel, to be massaged, to stretch and strengthen.

Our ears need breaks from headsets and Bluetooth. Many folks have had tinnitus lately, and it seems to clear up a great deal by stopping the use of constant headphones, especially Bluetooth. Another way to take care of the ears is to sit quietly in a room or out of doors, just letting the energy purge off the ears. I also love ayurvedic ear oil (nose oil, too!) as a way to care for the ears.

And taste – try new recipes, even if we don’t know how they’ll turn out. I love Google recipe searches for this reason – just put in “tilapia” and “instant pot” and few hours later I’m smelling a fish curry wafting through the house, waiting for rice at dinner time.

But most of all, most of all… in time of Taurus… do get outside.

This past weekend, my Beloved and I went for a three-day backpacking stretch along the Pacific Crest Trail. A shorter trek, we wanted to slip it in before the crowds head up to the mountains. Incredibly healing, I could barely stomach turning my phone on again once we reentered civilization.

Was it the best night’s sleep? Was I cozy and warm all the time? Was it easy hauling straight up a mountain face with a pack for 8.5 miles?  No, it isn’t the Ritz. But it’s got a much larger return on investment, believe you me.

High Sierra Salamander

I saw a beautiful salamander on the trail, many American dippers (aka water ouzel, the only true aquatic songbird!) in the river, at least eight snakes (luckily not rattlers), a deer bounding away up ahead. We ate cheesy potatoes for breakfast, took a freezing cold bath in a raging snow-melt stream, and watched the campfire dance at night, a beautiful nod to Beltane (May Day) fires.  I savored Nescafe, instant oatmeal, beans 'n rice, and maxed out on trail mix.

My Beloved and I pondered doing the entire Pacific Crest Trail in chunks – he might do it solo with me joining in for certain stretches. I feel ready now to get out there solo myself, albeit for shorter periods at a time.

Another great thing about hiking for a few days in uncrowded trails is that it is a natural walking meditation retreat. It’s wonderful, if you’re with another, to allow at least a long distance between your pacing. No talking, texting, looking anything up on Google. It’s just you and the trail. And you have to pay laser sharp attention, or you might step on a snake. For reals.

Rattlesnake Spring

While walking and looking for snakes, thoughts often turned to the current World Changes, and how I am embodying this in my work and personally. I keep a lot of this to myself, though am hopeful that I can start to share this with others in private sessions. Having moved up to the High Sierra this past year, I have more time and space and access to a direct line of what is happening cosmically. The information I get is definitely far outside the norm (when have I ever been of the norm?) and it takes courage to admit even to myself what I am downloading. I am grateful for the few individuals that I am able to speak about this with. Talking to the trees and the sky and the mountains is a gift; they simply know.

Being in the woods for even a few days – absolutely no one around, early in the season, far away from restrooms, cell towers, and highways – is a blessing. It may sound hard, but perhaps you yourself can find a way to go for it, alone or with others. You may be uncomfortable, but the rivers will cleanse your bloodstream and the cold mountain air can clear your mind faster than any meditation practice.

Blessings to you in time of Taurus and always!

Heading Out on the PCT

Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary non-dual spiritual teacher, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin Reese offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. Erin also offers non-dual meetings and retreats on embodied liberation and freedom from suffering. Visit erinreese.com for more information.  

Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: Healing Separation and Division

Prayer I, Angu Walters (Cameroon)

Today, we have a full moon lunar eclipse in the mutable fire sign of Sagittarius, most ardent seeker of truth, the big picture philosopher, thrusting for wisdom.

Where, we ask, is the wisdom in our world these days? The people are in great pain. Our nation is pain, our world is in pain, our Black brothers and sisters are in pain, our collective hearts are breaking. How to respond wisely, skillfully?

Each of us will make choices based on what we feel is good and true and congruent in our hearts. Sometimes, within the same family, individuals will react differently to world events, protesting or pandemics. Partners may be on on different, yet allied, pages. Your girlfriend may be more politically involved and engaged than you. Your husband may be wired to read the news and dialogue constantly. Your best friend may be sick with rage while your neighbor seems to have left for another planet, opting out of everything all at once.

As for myself, I am a bit of a modern monk, with a hint of anchorite. I want to say a few words to those readers who also work from a more internal, contemplative realm...

We cultivate serenity in the midst of suffering. Some of us act as go-to allies, as healers or empaths. Our job is to keep cleaning up the internal shadow, and through that, we aid the collective to face its own shadow. Our task is to remain fiercely aware of calcified beliefs and duality, aware of all forms of entrapment, within and without.

Becoming attached to any point of view perpetuates divisiveness and strife. Our job is to keep cleaning up on the internal level, plumbing the depths. Resisting nothing: all places of horror and pain, disgust and rejection that we carry within ourselves. Our job is to face everything. The ego, the superego, cultural expectations, separations and division within the self. Everything.

"To be free means to open your heart and your being to the fullness of who you are, because only when you are resting in the place of unity can you truly honor and appreciate others and the incredible diversity of the universe." ~ Ram Dass

Trust the unfolding. If your guidance is to be an activist right now, do it. If you are outraged, use your voice. If you need to take a break so you can keep on keeping on, take a time out. You will be no good to anyone if you are strung out. Come back to center. Stay grounded. Remember your infallible connection to Source. This will nourish you in every way.

This is not a spiritual bypass. I repeat: this is not a spiritual bypass. This is because, until one is ready and actually doing the “work” to FACE EVERYTHING – everything arising in the world, the Self, Existence – every horror and racial injustice, evil, shadow, within and without. Nothing must be excluded.

This work is not for sissies. We are talking about freedom, in the here and now. One must be willing to allow the passing away of beliefs, concepts, ideas of right and wrong. Attachments to image, appearances, the ego. It’s a fire sale: everything must go.

Use your sword of discernment, activating the principle of viveka - the ability to discern the true from the false. When you come up against a calcified bit of consciousness, a belief that is ultimately entrapment in disguise, use your sword – yes, use it skillfully, but use it you must. Cut away that which is not true. It is from this place that we do our very best work, within and without.

Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary intuitive, spiritual counselor, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a spiritual counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. For more information, visit erinreese.com.