After the last few weeks (heck the last year), we could all use a break.
A needed pause.
Things have been a bit turbulent, the air ripe with change.
It is time to take a breath.
Or maybe twenty.
Astrologically, the planets have mirrored this shifty time. The cosmic weather feisty and fraught with retrogrades, squares, and eclipses. Some of this energy is beginning to wane (Mercury went direct August 19 and Mars goes direct August 27), the eclipses have subsided (for now), and we are left with a brief moment of stillness. In astrology, this period is also called the “integration phase” describing the vital part of change where we assimilate and begin to live the new normal.
Inhale and exhale.
This doesn’t imply stillness is easy. In fact, sometimes it is more challenging without the cacophony of minutia to distract us. Yet, silence holds immense wisdom and offers more knowledge than a thousand voices.
There are answers from silence we can get nowhere else.
This Pisces Full Moon we are asked to reflect, assess, and listen to the whispers in the quiet itself. Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac representing the mystical, divine, and other-worldly part of us. It is our “knowing”. The kind of knowing that arises from our intuitive self, not our logical mind. It reminds us to look deeply at how we show up to these truths. Not focusing on why life is happening to us but how we show up to life. Pieces dances with both fate and density, comfortable with the melody of mystery. This is one of the gifts and challenges of Pisces. The ability to float in the question is peaceful in its understanding but uncomfortable in its immediate uncertainty.
Silence isn’t easy in our world that promotes noise. Stillness is uncomfortable in a world of busy. We humans tend to like certainty.
Yet, this is not where the magic is.
Sometimes the answers are not in the more but in the less, not in the doing but in the undoing. In the stillness, not the busy, the flow not the force.
It takes a tremendous amount of trust to take refuge in uncertainty.
We find some part of ourselves declaring,
“This is the worst it has ever been.”
“I can’t handle this.”
“There is no way out.”
We hear some part of ourselves asking,
“Why is this happening to me again?”
“Didn’t I already clear this issue from my life?”
“Why aren’t my tools ‘working’?”
I get it. Me too. A beautiful, yet frightened, part of us knows only how to find security through a sense of control. From a Pisces perspective, however, that is not where safety or security is located.
The soul whispers back,
“Lovely, you don’t know the whole story yet.”
“Be patient.”
“All will be revealed in ways you could never have comprehended.”
“You can do this.”
We are asked to get still and revel in the indefinite. To dip our toes in the sea of mystery.
To allow the answers to find us.
To trust.
Because when we let go, we do not fall into powerlessness. In fact, when we relax the facade of control, we allow something else, something more expansive, and more mystical to take the wheel. We begin to hear whispers of secrets we had once forgotten and echoes of our most divine selves. We start to understand certainty is merely an illusion of the ego that attempts to distract us from the truth of who we are.
When we resist, we fight the current, exhausted, spent, confused, and frustrated. It is the difference between opposing the direction of the river and allowing the flow to take us to our destination. We are going to end up in the same place eventually. One way just takes a lot more energy.
Some steps to find refuge in stillness:
Get quiet-Meditate. Dance, cry, paint, sing, drum, chant or commit to a distraction detox. Somehow create more day in your time. Do whatever it takes to silence the mind long enough to connect with that most ancient part of you. Become the observer, the witness, and place that pause between stimulus and reaction.
Ask and then listen– Pull cards, pray, call upon your angels and guides, get a reading, watch your dreams. Our soul speaks to us in whispers. Get curious about the messages being revealed. Listen to your intuition. The shadow of Pisces is checking out in unhealthy ways like addiction or victim thinking, so be careful not to look for answers in false idols. They may temporarily mask the pain but offer no path forward.
Look for signs-When we do the world becomes a beacon of symbols, the literal and the figurative working together to create the path ahead. People, books, and experiences fall into our laps. Synchronicities abound in miraculous ways.
Patience– There is no gold star for doing this life and learning any “faster”. In fact, we often take the long road when we allow our egoic will to take the wheel instead of letting the path arise to meet us.
Be confused- Your uncertainty may BE the answer. We get what we need to know on a need to know basis, and right now you don’t need to know. Be assured however, when the answers are required they will appear.
Ritual of release– Sometimes we need to let go of something so we can allow the space for something new to arise. An intentional release can be helpful to that process. (For more on that, check out Release and Rebirth).
Humor-Pisces get the cosmic joke. In fact, it is one of the most humorous of all signs. After an especially trying and confusing day I, as I often do, picked an angel card to offer some direction. In anticipation of clarity and guidance, I flipped it over. Nothing. Yep. Nada. Nothing was written on the card. I had picked the only blank card of the deck. The lesson, of course, was to BE in the uncertainty. I laughed at the irony. Fear is serious business. Humor offers the light of possibility
Trust- This is a practice of embracing curiosity and knowing there is something bigger at work. How would you respond if you knew everything that was happening was for your highest good? That is the ‘work’ of trust.
When we get out of the way, the way finds us.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
On this note of release, respite, and recharging, I will be traveling the next few weeks sans computer so will be taking a short hiatus from my New Moon and Full Moon reports. I will be back in October, and you are welcome to follow me on Facebook in the meantime.