Full Moon in Scorpio: Revisiting Death

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

 - Kahlil Gibran

A note to readers:
This is a reprint piece from 3 years ago, written from Berlin when I had just discovered my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In recent days, I've come to know of many significant deaths in my community - a few relatively unknown, yet no less meaningful, individuals have left the planet to return to stardust. These include animal friends as well. And some important figures, like the great coyote trickster visionary, Larry Harvey, whose founding of the Burning Man project was one of the great wonders of my world.

For the past two years, I have worked as a grief and bereavement counselor for a hospice organization. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to assist these individuals in Facing Death. In honoring the Great Transformation, I offer a deep bow to my late father, Uwe Wolf Reese (1934-2016). And a eternal thanks to all my teachers, my elders, and to the visionaries who have left this physical plane yet continue to guide, support, inspire each of us. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.

A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

 - Mark Twain

This week and beyond, we are under the impact of the recent Full Moon in Scorpio, fixed water sign of transformation and rebirth. Scorpio is always intense; this sign implores us to go deeper, and then plunge even further, down to the bone. The springtime Sun is happily chirping and singing in the opposite sign of Taurus. And we are confronted with the paradox of living life to its fullest while experiencing a part of ourselves that is passing away.

It is appropriate that I write this from Berlin, a Scorpio metropolis with its city charter signed on October 28, 1237. Anyone with a smidgen of history under their belt knows that Berlin has faced its share of darker days over the years, especially during the 20th century.

But it hasn’t always been horrific Walls, Reichstags and Kristallnachts. Seductive Berlin is comfortable in its own skin, embraces counter-culture, art, sex, grit, and brings us closer to the marrow of existence. That’s its appeal. Like Scorpio, the city transforms herself over the centuries. The Wall went up, the Wall came down, and Berlin keeps on turning poison into nectar by facing the shadow head-on.

Psyche, Berlin Alte Nationalgallerie

This is the tone of the Full Moon in Scorpio, when Luna pushes our experience to the quick. We can’t ignore our most intense emotions – they’re rising like flood waters. We feel the pain, and investigate. Find out what is underneath. Eventually, it will give way, and therein lies pure energy – light and dark and truth and awe and agape.  Ashes to ashes, we see the life that shines through in death. Only by staring death in the face, and not turning away, can we truly live. We are transformed through Scorpio, a phoenix emerging from the ruins. It is thorough. There are no half measures here. Scorpio redoes the whole kit and caboodle.

Death – the point of no return – is what truly plunges us into the Now. We undertake an entire renovation project of our house, from the ground up. A friend commits suicide and we are shocked into the Present. Extreme moments of life occur side by side. A relative has a beautiful new baby boy at the same time you discover another family member has cancer. At that moment, these people become more real to you – hyper-real. Your lover is moving abroad – they have a job they can’t pass up. Until then, you must have more physical contact, more sex, more touch. Every moment spent together becomes critical. Life and death.

If we want to be fully free, truly alive, we face the fact that it won’t last. Nothing does. We have only the Now to love, to laugh, to dance, to cry. To hold our beloved’s face in our hands, gazing at them, really seeing them. How long has it been since you’ve looked – really looked – into each other’s eyes? Are you seeing a projection of who you want them to be? If you see them for who they are, as they are, you’re bound to fall in love with them even more.

In order to truly live, we must know Death. Scorpio teaches through the realization of impermanence and the profundity of irreversible transformation. We exist in the space between. In this breath, we are here. In this moment, we are alive.

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.

Full Moon of the Yogi ~ Guru Purnima ~ Transforming Our Losses

Erin Reese Teaching Yoga on Guru Purnima 2017

Namaste dear friends:

Today is the Full Moon in Capricorn, a lunation known as Guru Purnima – the full moon of the teacher! Yogis and sages, Buddhists and Hindus typically pay respects to their teachers on this day and express their gratitude. I was deeply honored and grateful to celebrate this day by teaching a yoga class at a local hospice organization where I provide grief and bereavement counseling.

In 2010, I became a Certified Yoga Instructor at Swami Vivekenanda University in Bangalore, South India. While I don’t teach a regular yoga asana class, I practice regularly and am happy to offer this gift to those in need. This morning, on this important Full Moon of the Teacher, I taught a very gentle hour and a half class called “Gentle Yoga for Grief and Loss,” suitable for all levels.

Seven wonderful women showed up. One of them had just lost her sister, and was far too distraught to move about on the mat; she participated in the whole class sitting in a comfortable chair in silence, breathing and being. Her energy and participation were just as palpable, just as meaningful, as those of us doing the whole postures. Yoga is very much a state of being, a way of becoming seated in the Self, the ground of being.

Other folks had various neck, knee, and back limitations; we made modifications with pillows and props throughout. Following my intuition and the energy of the group, I placed particular emphasis on relaxing the muscles of the jaw. At one point, the whole group of us began shaking and bouncing, moving out the excess stress and tension that grief adds to the body. Our arms upraised, we all felt the electricity in the room. I explained that in Buddhist teachings, we transform ‘poison into nectar,’ or amrita, and in this same way, through physical asana postures, we transform the stress and congestion of grief into life force energy, or prana.

Loosened up in body, mind, and spirit, the emotional body is much more able to flow and express itself without resistance. Grieving is hard physical and mental work, whether experienced through death of a loved one, or loss of a life chapter, or end of a relationship. Yoga is a supportive and gentle way to facilitate the grief process, and restore balance in a taxed emotional system. Many tears flowed easily in savasana, resting pose. Hearts were opened, minds settled down, bodies relaxed. 

Together, on this full moon of the guru, the teacher within and without, we came together to transform our losses and ease our personal and universal suffering just that little bit more…

Here is the list of poses we practiced in our 90-minute session:

Easy Yoga for Grief and Loss:

1.      Meditate and Breath

2.      Warmups: shoulder shrugs,

 shoulder rolls, neck stretches, neck rolls

3.      Cat / cow (from table top)

4.      Child’s pose

5.      Sphinx pose

6.      Legs up the wall

7.      Side twists

8.      Happy Baby

9.      Savasana deep relaxation

10.  Closing meditation. Namaste.

OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI

Today, I bow in gratitude to my Teacher, advaita master Ramesh Balsekar (1917-2009), and to all of my great Teachers, past, present and future. I bow to each of You, whom I learn from every day. I bow to Mother Nature and the Goddess Shakti, the Divine Feminine. She is my Mother, and flows through me and of me. I bow to Shiva, Consciousness, the Self, and Existence… here and now, here and now. Never not here. Here and now. Sat Chit Ananda – being *consciousness *peace. Namaste.

Namaste

Erin Reese, Master of Science in Counseling is an author, spiritual teacher, 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 at erin@erinreese.com.

New Moon in Scorpio: The Alchemy of Death

No new life can arise, say the alchemists, without the death of the old.

They liken the art to the work of the sower, who buries the grain in the earth:

it dies only to waken to new life.

~ Carl Jung

Today, October 30, we have a New Moon in Scorpio, most potent water sign of transformation. Here we have our allies the great serpent eagle and the phoenix rising from the ashes. A perfect fit for this Halloween-Samhain and Dia de los Muertos honoring of death and rebirth. Wise witches, healers, and alchemists know it is far less painful to embrace an inevitable disintegration process, than to resist it.

At this autumnal dark of the new moon, we may observe and experience important things falling away: people, relationships, ways of life. And the more we can even ‘settle in’ with the death and dying process, the easier and – daresay – more relaxing it becomes. Maybe not enjoyable, but probably more full-filling or meaning-full. Satisfying. Ripe.

When something dies, it is often overly ripe, far past its sell-by date. The German word reife relates to ripe, meaning maturity. Extract to the English word rife, which means unchecked or in a widespread manner. If something is overly ripe, and resists the death process, it is putrid, rotting, uncontrolled. Rife can cause damage, like a virus or cancer. Pruning occurs to reduce the chance of overly ripe things running amok. Balance is restored. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we awaken again to everlasting life through the death process.

I know: All this is simple, on paper, but to remember it when someone we love is in the dying process, or when our cherished intimate relationship is ending, or our professional life is taking a walloping turn – well, that’s another story. It is at these times, that the ancient principles of alchemy can help, with its motto "solve et coagula (dissolve and coagulate)". Two of the key alchemical stages signified by our New Moon in Scorpio are putrefactio and mortifactio.

The Putrefactio

The process of putrefactio is a transition stage. A gate, a station of decomposition. The matter itself is literally rotting. We know not what lies on the other side of the door. It is a secret, a mystery. One senses power and potential energy on the other side, a garden of delights. But the transition through the portal requires a trust to endure great shadow, to not bolt during this stage when all is in decay. We rely on the ancients, the seers, and our contemporary mentors and guides. Even our selves-as-teachers, who have already lived through various forms of the death process before. These previous experiences remind us that we do live on. Yes, changed in form, and garnered with hard-earned wisdom.

Solve et Coagula: Dissolve and Coagulate

In the mortifactio, we are reminded that the final death knell can be mortifying, bringing us to our knees. We experience the mourning during the blackest and the bleakest. The sensation of grief, whether pre- or post-bereavement, can feel like the wind has been completely sucked out of us. We are empty, deflated, and the world is on hold. Close cousins with depression and anger – totally normal reactions, by the way – the mortificatio stage can last for months or even years.

It is a soul-driven process, and the rational mind does what it can to move it along. Alas, the extent of the enmeshment or identification with the person or situation that is no more, may require a good long work of disentangling to make sense of the matter. Meaning-making returns to reclaim the pieces of Self that were projected onto the lost object. Healthy grieving is invaluable, filled with power as the soul does what it must to clear the ground for what is to come.

Navigating the mourning, the mortifactio, is deep work requiring great courage. It may require a guide, a person who has gone before and is familiar with the terrain of the cremation grounds. But even without a helper or wise teacher, the miraculous force of Life itself will naturally lead a soul to new ground, to plant a seed, and start again. Fresh compost tops the soil, the ripeness is now a readiness to receive the seed and eventually bear new fruit. But first we must endure and respect the alchemical stages of putrefactio and mortifactio.

Honoring, even celebrating the transition – the transformation – is the secret magic and the message of this New Moon in Scorpio.

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.

Further Reading:

• Experiencing the Mortificatio: Jung on Grief, Grieving and Mourning by Sue Mertens
• The Principles of the Yoga Philosophy of the Rosicrucians and Alchemists

New Moon in Scorpio: The Courage to Change

On Wednesday, November 11, we welcome the New Moon in the fixed water sign of Scorpio. Scorpio is the sign of rebirth. The sign of the serpent eagle asks us to face the symbolic deaths in our lives that help us rise up, more powerful and clearer than ever, like the phoenix rises from the ashes.

Real growth is not for the meek of heart. Massive transformation requires massive courage. This lunation is about finding the strength to endure, and mustering the guts, grit and fortitude to grow. It is not just about self-willfulness, though. We don’t just ‘white-knuckle it’ to get through, and we don't make knee-jerk decisions; we approach change with a new wisdom – a Scorpionic tenacity, heartiness, and mastery.

Finding Strength

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Think back to all the times before that you’ve faced your darkest fears and – somehow, somewhere – you've been lifted to a higher level of awareness, a better position in life. What got you through?

For some, it’s the support of community or family; for others, it’s the belief in a higher power – the faith that we’re being looked after by the greater good in Life. Some folks pray or meditate; others dig in their heels and take action, compartmentalizing emotions and soldiering through. For most of us, it’s a combination. But no matter what area needs bolstering, it must go deep, to the quick. This is because Scorpionic change occurs at the root level, the core of existence. There is nothing superficial about it. 

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” e.e. cummings

At this New Moon, we thrive when we ask ourselves the difficult questions: what do we need in order to thrive in the long-term? We may have to defer short-term comforts when we realize that what will truly help us soar requires a greater vision. We may have to hold out a bit longer for the gold; we may have to dig a bit deeper – but we will hit pay dirt so long as we don’t give up. Scorpio is the ultimate survivor, giving us the steadfastness to hang in there as long as we need.

When root-system rebirth is occurring in our lives, whether it be a relationship ending or changing form, a career goal taking everything we’ve got, or a health issue we can no longer ignore, it’s hard to remember that it all takes place in the Now. There is no rush. In fact, trying to do it too quickly – to patch it up before the wound is cleaned or even before there’s a thorough diagnosis – can create infectious problems later. Better we take the time we need for a complete inspection. Give it a couple more hours, days, weeks or months. Go for the x-rays, get the deep cleaning, have the exam, talk to your therapist. See what’s in the underbelly, assess the situation, take your time.

Remember: massive change requires equally huge helpings of patience, fortitude, and courage. Gather and draw on all that you need. As a result, at the absolutely perfect time, you will rise up, stronger and wiser than ever before.

“Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.” ~ Anais Nin

Where is the New Moon affecting your chart? Do you need a personal astrology update? Email Erin for a look at your horoscope.

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.