Full Moon in Virgo: Focus, Stop, Stabilize

The Melting Watch, Salvador Dali 1954

Today, we welcome a full moon in the mutable earth sign of Virgo, the Virgin. The energy of Virgo is earthy, but it isn’t solid earth; we are still in the time of Pisces, the nondual sign where life feels dreamy and dissolves when you try to hold on. Time has felt like taffy – it’s stretchy, and messy to the touch, even muddy.

This lunation continues to amplify 2021's Saturn-Uranus square that I wrote about last week here, "The Collective Crunch.” Over and over, we are being asked - nay, forced - to leave outdated programs and concepts by the wayside as a natural if challenging process of evolution. If we forget, and attempt to grasp, we are usually hit by a cosmic 2x4 that is meant to get us back on track – so best to surrender to what is, and ground best you can.

Sensitives and empaths are 100% clear: The collective walls have been melting for a long time. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. We are coming up on one year since most of us heard the words “coronavirus” and COVID, one year since pandemic and lockdown became household words, one year since the world came to a virtual stop. Anniversaries bring up deeper body memories for people. Our nervous systems remember, and the prickles can come in – “Are we in the clear? Are we getting back to normal? If 2020 went down like it did, what else could come down the pipeline?”

There is a feeling of skittishness and unsettledness in the collective air. Half of the world is anxious to get a move on, trying to get back to a busy lifestyle where activity, travel, busy-ness is the norm; half of the world is just entering into the cocoon that will hold them for the next years as they continue their internal evolution. It is like two sliding glass panel doors. We can call this old vs. new paradigm, or third dimension vs. 5D or ascension – it doesn’t matter. In fact, many of us are finding that words and terminologies are starting to melt too, but we do the best we can to try to find language to point things out.

There can be a feeling of seasickness, fogginess, confusion, or vertigo for those who are highly sensitive to the planetary shifts. Even for those of us who usually do a good job getting grounded through domesticity, nature, lovemaking, yoga, exercise, creative expression, etc. it has been a hell of a time to attempt to stop the time-space swirl. You might notice that appointments with others are cattywampus – scheduling has become a joke. You might notice that facing your to-do list is laughable. Either there is no energy to “do” that which is on the list, or the list itself feels like a rope strangling your neck.

Speaking of to-do lists – a very Virgoan invention: In my work with clients and students across the board the TO-D0 LIST is one of THE most stressful entities in a person’s life. I have found that if folks get rid of the ominous to-do list and learn to rely more on intuition in the moment, the stress level decreases tremendously. Of course, jotting down a few critical items for the day or week, or marking something vital on the calendar, makes sense; it’s the massive list of “getting sh*t done” or “to research” or “be productive” or “optimizing your life” that will strangle the life out of your life faster than anything. So throw the to-do list in the trash and trust your natural instincts to guide you from day to day.

As a human species, we have been like drunks on a bender, except instead of alcohol, we’ve binged on activity, productivity, efficiency,  improvement. Not only have we made ourselves quite ill, we’re in a raging addiction. It might take a few minutes, let alone days or years, to come down off the drug. Stop.

Instead of doing more to attempt to ground, emphasize focus and stabilizing Consciousness. This is all available 24x7 by simply sitting, lying down, or standing in place, then breathing, focusing on your feet, hips, breath, root. The main word is STOP. The monkey mind will rear up swiftly, so keep coming back to relax into beingness rather than doingness.

 This is not about doing more meditation, either. It’s about a full-on inner halt.

Then, and only then, will the room stop spinning.

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.

 

The Saturn-Uranus Square and the Collective Crunch

 

From French sculptor Etienne Meneau's Elastic House

This week, we are experiencing a transpersonal, global transit that is affecting everyone, consciously or otherwise. I am noticing it in almost every client I talk to, and as an empath, in my own body. Saturn in Aquarius is squaring (90-degrees) Uranus in Taurus. The aspect was exact on Wednesday, February 17 and is still in full effect.

There will be two more passes of this aspect this year due to retrogrades: June 14 and December 23. Essentially, all of 2021 we will feel this influence. The first pass was particularly strong this week due to the large amounts of planets in fixed signs resisting change. Liken it to having a strong dose of what's being asked this year, and a huge preview of what needs adjusting in your personal sphere this year.

There can be a feeling of whiplash as these two big boy planets are having a loud and rather bitter argument. Uranian disruptive events, personalities, circumstances will challenge your sense of order, of what makes sense, of what you belief to be reasonable and disciplined (Saturn). Physical tensions could arise as there is an attempt to hold on to the old order.

Stability is all well and good but here we have the influence of evolution – Uranus the awakener – asking you to be not only flexible, but even radical in your willingness to change, if need be. Where do you need to break free?

Any rigid beliefs or constructs are being thrown up in your face. If your beliefs or desires feel blocked or thwarted from the outside, ask yourself what you are holding on to, and is it worth it? How flexible are you with time, lifestyle, energy, money, goals, focus? Are you being willful when Life is clearly asking you to adjust?

The more unconscious the need for change is, the more physical and mental stress you will feel at this time. It is a good idea to talk with someone or write about it openly and honestly, to face yourself and ask yourself the hard questions. You can trust that the release of these old beliefs, goals, ideas and structures will make room for massive amounts of creative, free-flowing energy and life force.

Take good care of your animal body and tenderheartedness during this time. With such huge collective pushes occurring from 2020-2024 (involving Pluto, Uranus, and Saturn), we will do best to stay in wonder and flexibility with all that wants to unfold in, around, and through us. Try not to hold on so tight. Trust the process. All will be well.

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.

P.S. If you missed the February Aquarius Transmission - Meditation and Messages - you can download the audio from my website here.

Topics include:

individuation in order to evolve
money as energy and ease

the embodiment imperative

the future is here and now

 

 

New Moon in Pisces: The Space Between

Today, March 6, we welcome the New Moon in the mutable water sign of Pisces, the non-dual Fishes. It’s a powerful lunation, and many of us have been feeling the oceanic overwhelm tendencies. Neptune-Poseidon, ruler of Pisces, is conjunct this New Moon, enhancing the depths. In addition, Uranus is changing signs today, entering Taurus for a seven-year sojourn. And, last but not least, Mercury is doing his retrograde dance beginning today and lasting until March 28^th, 2019.

If you’re feeling a bit like you’re floating down a stream with the sounds of a rushing waterfall the size of Niagara Falls up ahead, without a raft, let alone an oar, you’re not alone.

There is not much we can control right now. Of course, that’s always the case from the point of view of the Infinite. But this level of surrender in this time of Pisces is felt deeply on an embodied level. Your Soul is in charge. Not your separate volition.

Perhaps we catch sight of a branch jutting into the stream from the riverbank. We grab hold of it and stay afloat to catch our breath, hauling ourselves out of the turbulence in order to reach a new shore. One we’ve never experienced before. It’s all undiscovered terrain. And we are going to acquire new tools and techniques to navigate. It’s all fresh, unknown territory.

The Space Between is that time on the downstream float, where we have no idea what the outcome will be, or where Life’s River is leading us. How we make use of that time makes all the difference in the world. Will we endure it? Will we panic, fret, bemoan our fate? Or will we trust, breathe, even enjoy? This is the gap between actions, thoughts, projects, outcomes, directions.

“I cultivate empty space as a way of life in the creative process.” ~ Josh Waitzkin, U.S. chess champion portrayed in Searching for Bobby Fisher 

  

We’re so conditioned in our modern culture to do, do, do, that when we are in the Space Between, we fear – am I wasting time? If I float, will I be sideswiped by the unexpected? Must I continue to brace, to always be prepared? We forget that cultivating empty space is essential in the art of living. How else are we to attract that original thought to emerge from the Ground of Being? We need time – and space – to hear, and listen, to the muse!

Art Imitates Life: Stop, Look, and Sea

Untitled, Vija Celmins 1970

Last weekend, my partner and I visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in order to check out a Paul Klee exhibit. Just before I left the museum, we reviewed the museum map to see what else was on display. We saw a listing, “Vija Celmins: To Fix the Image in Memory,” ending March 31, 2019. The tag line, “Stop, Look, and See,” caught my eye. We wandered over to check it out, and were both pleasantly surprised. It was the best contemporary art collection I’d seen in a long time.

Vija Celmins (b. 1938) is a Latvian-American artist whose family escaped the Soviet occupation during WWII, first taking refuge in Germany and ultimately the United States. She settled in Southern California and ultimately in NYC. Having very little possessions during her art schooling at UCLA, she learned to paint only that which was in the space right in front of her: a hot plate, a table fan, a lamp, a space heater.

Eventually, she became transfixed with black and white seascape drawings, minutely recreating open ocean waves from intricate photos of waves, over and over again. Using only a graphite pencil on paper, Vija insisted on going into finer and finer depths, to perfect what she saw in her mind’s eye “to fix the image in memory.” The level of detail of her waves is stupendous.

Untitled (Regular Desert), Vija Celmins 1973

Eventually, Vija discovered the landscape of the deserts, and repeated the effort to draw the rocky desert floor, again and again, finer and finer down to the tiniest grains of sand. Each individual rock was recreated, never stopping until the scene neared perfection. Then, she turned to the black night sky, the stars, and with her pencil and paper, revealed the cosmos over and over and over again.

Untitled (Cassiopeia), Vija Celmins 1973

The artist's work is stunning, inspiring, and instructive. Can you imagine the hours upon hours upon hours it would take to depict the tiniest rock in the desert, the placement of a star in the night sky, the protrusion of a single lapping wave on the ocean?

To an artist self, what is time? And even more important, is this a waste of time? Vija has dedicated her entire life to exploring what is in the space, in the finest detail. When we remove the judgement of time, the illusion of needing to prepare for a future, to to produce, be productive, we are left with the Now. Pure Presence.

And it is art that plants us firmly in that Now. Writing, music, drawing; poetry, dance, cooking; lovemaking, gardening, Nature-walking – it is art created in the Space Between. This is where the magic lives.

The Space where Nothing and Everything Occurs

I’m reminded of the Christopher Nolan movie Inception (2010), with Leo DeCaprio and Co., in which the dream architects construct a dream within a dream with a dream-scape. The film’s crescendo extends a few seconds into a several minutes. 

A van containing the sleeping heroes lurches backwards off a bridge into a river. Layers upon layers of happenings are occurring simultaneously, down to the micro-minutia, in the deepest seas of the unconscious. Time is slowed down almost to a halt, while the other members of the team figure out a way to wake up the dreamer to save the heroes’ lives. Invoking The Space Between.

When things feel they are dangerously speeding ahead, we can find time by taking a breath. We can not only slow time, we can stop it, by instantaneously and spontaneously dropping into the Now. The Now is centered in the belly, the heart, the seat of the soul, the Ground of Being. This is the space and the place where Nothing and Everything occurs all at once.

When there is the pause between jobs, projects, duties, tasks, busy-ness, with our action-addicted, extrovert-biased society, we get antsy. The Unknown, the Void – what to do? I’m nervous! Let me reach for a drink, a smoke, a TV show to binge watch, a chocolate bar. Let me make another plan, fill up the space! The Space must be contained lest I lose my identity, sense of Self! Right?

It is at these times we can experiment with living sans identification. Floating, flowing. Allowing, seeing, witnessing. What. Arises. Next.

Never fear. Something will happen. And you’ll notice, it is exactly perfect.

If you’re experiencing anxiety, perhaps that is exactly what is also meant to arise. Perhaps it’s okay to have an “off day” or three, while something New is being borne.

It is in the discomfort of the Space Between that genius flashes of insight, life-changing, often emerge.

Recently, I was deeply disturbed about a project I needed to quit that involved a great deal of responsibility and other people. I went to the seaside to contemplate in Nature, no distractions. Boy, did I have a couple of restless nights as my psyche wrestled with the issue. No fun! But after three days in my hellish “vision quest,” I woke up calmly on the final morning, and drafted a resignation letter to leave the project.

Instantly, I began feeling better. Heart rate dropping, irritability diminishing. I knew what I needed to do. It’s been a lifelong practice of learning to disappoint other people to be true to myself. I have the tools and the courage to do it, when necessary. But it required that discomfort in the liminal space, the Unknown, to have my psyche work out the issue.

Remember, discomfort does not automatically imply you are doing something wrong. Sometimes, sitting, waiting, experiencing without knowledge of goal or intended outcome, is exactly what is needed.

At this time of the New Moon in Pisces, in which the known and the unknown ebb back and forth like waves on the open ocean, give yourself time to float. Step into the Space Between, the Now, and allow the miracle to emerge.

A Sunday at SF MOMA

Erin Reese is an author, spiritual guide, astrologer, and modern psychic reader based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works with clients all over the world. For readings and spiritual counseling by Skype, phone or email, contact her directly. She can be reached at erin@erinreese.com.