By Amanda Painter
Are you feeling the tension? I sure am. Not only are we getting close to the Pisces Full Moon on Friday (exact at 3:05 pm EDT / 7:05 UTC), but that Full Moon will also be a penumbral lunar eclipse: the Moon will pass through the outer ring of the Earth’s shadow, called the penumbra, dimming slightly. More importantly, it will make rather intense astrological aspects to other planets.
Snail might have the right idea…Photo by Amanda Painter.
We all have different tolerance levels for frustration, different ways of releasing or dispersing it.
Some people are great at letting a little pressure out of the proverbial tire — gradually, consciously and proactively — to prevent a blowout. Others get caught up in waiting for ‘just the right moment’, unwittingly giving the pressure a chance to reach the red zone and pop, seemingly out of nowhere.
I’m actually writing this on Wednesday, and already today I’ve seen two friends (one being Ms. Moreno in her column here yesterday) write about how they’re finally learning the difference between ‘reacting’ and ‘responding’, why it matters, and how to avert the former and choose the latter. It occurred to me that it’s more than coincidence: it’s an integral part of the message of the Full Moon and eclipse.
The Sun is currently in late Virgo (in one week it will enter Libra for the equinox). On Friday, the Moon will oppose it from Pisces, conjunct centaur object Chiron.
Leading up to a Full Moon people often experience high interpersonal tension anyway, such as an impasse or confrontation. Chiron conjunct the Moon ups the sensitivity level of an already very sensitive Moon placement. This could feel like ‘too much’ psychically or emotionally. Yet, Chiron calls attention to needed points of healing; opposite the Sun, you might feel called to express that need more than you would normally.
Meanwhile, Mars and centaur object Pholus are making a conjunction in late Sagittarius — exactly square the Sun, Moon and Chiron. This is a called a T-square.
Essentially Mars and Pholus are hanging out in the metaphorical front yard of the Galactic Core, our galaxy’s ‘cosmic homing signal’. Think of Mars-Pholus as the buddies in the yard who’ll light the grill and really get the party started: if they stay tuned into their host’s — the GC’s — intention, everyone gets fed and it’s a beautiful evening. If they hit the booze too hard, things could get out of hand and, next thing you know, the police or fire department are pulling into the drive.
In other words, consciously using your intention to guide whatever you begin this week toward the higher good is key. Squares generally are felt as internal pressure to take action, so choose carefully which genie you let out of the bottle.
All of this suggests you’ve been feeling it inside and out this week, and that’s rarely fun. Especially on top of Mercury retrograde in Virgo (only one more week until it stations direct!), which can be frustrating all on its own; hopefully you’re encountering valuable insights to make up for the SNAFUs. But there is a way through it all.
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Two weeks ago, with the companion solar eclipse, I emphasized doing a little of what you love, setting new patterns and stepping into opportunities and synchronicities. I’d say that advice still holds, but I’d urge you not to get caught up in feeling like you ‘must make this count’, because that is likely to create more pressure. We’re already in the midst of astrology that’s chock-full of potential emotional triggers.
The name of the game is to look for the moments when you’re feeling calm, and express yourself then — rather than when you’re at the height of feeling triggered. The ability to do that requires using your head when your emotions (or ego) threaten to charge off.
It asks for your lungs and heart and shoulders to relax a moment. It asks you to notice whether your mind feels chaotic, or whether it feels alive with constructive, creative potential.
As my two friends describe, ‘responding’ rather than ‘reacting’ takes mindfulness and practice. You may not get it ‘right’ all the time, since we humans rarely do. But you can prepare a little as we approach the Full Moon and eclipse:
What can you do that respects your sensitivity? Who in your life is positively responsive to that?
What (and who) affirms your faith in your ability to set your life in motion and to follow through toward your goals?
What (and who) offers you ways to put your ideas to constructive work, and to serve a larger purpose?
What will allow you to discern the answers? Responding, rather than reacting, may be a good place to start.
Great column Amanda, thank you. I wanted to comment on “mindfulness,” and reacting vs. responding, to shift the “context” just a bit as it pertains to the astrology and our politics. I am all for “mindfulness,” but I often find people I work with using “mindfulness” as a way to subjugate their emotions. Their mind get so “full,” it becomes a game of mind control, rather than letting go of mind.
Some now even use yoga, mantra, and meditation as a means to repress and supress their emotions, rather than to open themselves up to what is truly going on within them. In Sanskrit, the word yoga means, “union.” The objective of yoga is to give you the opportunity to bring all four aspects of you – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – into union. But that opportunity cuts both ways, these practices are also the means to see what is not in union…and to address it.
And that’s where respond, rather that react comes in. I know people like to refer to this arena as “emotional intelligence.” I gotta object to that one, because it’s not about emotional “intelligence,” it’s about emotional maturity. Or the dreaded, “M-word.” And we need to call it what it is.
Seriously (or cereally as my daughter likes to say!) it really is about emotional maturity. But no one in our society likes to use the “m-word,” maturity. It’s become a game of “you don’t call me on my poop, and I won’t call you on yours!”
An emotionally mature person will develop the inner awareness, skills and tools – and outer support, via a coach or therapist – to know how to respond, rather than react in any given situation. They will also know how critical it is to go back to that event/experience later, and see – heal, resolve, let go of – what’s beneath their original reaction. That’s maturity. Being mature enough to not allow your emotions to run you, but also mature enough to take care of your unresolved emotions and your emotional well-being.
For so long in our society, we have over-valued intelligence – wealth, money, power, and success – and ignored emotional maturity and well-being. Even all our non-physical illnesses are “mental” illnesses, when a lot of the time…they’re really emotional illnesses.
Enter Donald Trump stage left! Sincerely, no one ever wants to talk about emotional maturity, call it what it really is, so we call it emotional intelligence instead. If we did choose to talk about emotional maturity, certainly the press would be talking about one of the most emotionally immature politicians to ever become a Presidential candidate…Donald Trump.
In reputable news publications, Trump has, in fact, been categorized as a sociopath. Whether that’s accurate or not, I don’t know. I do know that there is no question that he is an extraordinarily emotionally immature person, who reacts rather than responds most of the time. Yet, no one calls him out on it. Nor does he appear to do any soul searching about his opinions and reactions. He is the poster boy for emotional immaturity…and yet, he is a legitimate candidate for President of the United States, leader of the free world.
If that doesn’t compel us to begin discussing emotional maturity, emotional illness, and what is genuine emotional well-being – not in the guise of mindfulness and emotional intelligence – I don’t know what will!
Kelly Grace Smith
Kelly Grace Smith — excellent points. (And I do have to note that I did not venture into emotional “intelligence” territory, but whether one uses that term or “maturity,” the topic is certainly part of what I was getting at. 🙂 )
For sure, I think that fully feeling our emotions and being willing to understand their causes is as much a part of emotional “maturity” as is not always flying off the handle and lashing out. Because, let’s face it: as human beings, even the most emotionally mature of us can be pushed past a limit, or can be triggered from a deeply hidden blind spot, and then send that emotion flying out sideways at someone in ways that hurt both them and us. So, when that happens despite all our efforts at being mature and understanding ourselves, I don’t think it means we’ve “failed” entirely — I’d say it means we’ve just uncovered our next layer of healing and growing, if we’re willing to face it.
So — Donald Trump (and his like) notwithstanding — I found that writing this piece was, for me, partly a reminder to myself that it’s okay to be angry, upset, scared or fed up with the things that are provoking me right now. But going ballistic in reaction probably won’t get me where I need and want to go — at least, not in the most constructive way possible. Yet I can still use that anger, upset, fear and frustration to help me clarify what is not working right now, what I can do differently in the short term, and what I need to move toward with mid- and long-term goals.
And I suspect that my two friends (from very different areas of my life, and speaking from very different life experiences) are also on a similar track. In fact, one of them is a highly skilled and talented actor — so you can be sure he is not going for “mindfulness” as a form of “emotional repression,” since his ability to feel deeply and express emotion is his artistic bread and butter. But, rather, it seems he’s getting a sense of how a new level of emotional maturity can serve him in his personal life, without restricting his art.
Anyway, thank you for offering the opportunity to consider these issues more deeply!
It also calls to mind a specific form of passive or veiled hostility I’ve experienced and witnessed in so-called “spiritual” or “enlightened” people/communities: the use of seemingly “mindful” or “conscious” *language* while actually attempting to control, bully, shame or manipulate/coerce another’s actions. I think I’d much rather encounter someone’s clear frustration, plainly expressed, rather than the attempted guilt trip to get me to conform to their preferences while pretending to be the more “mindful” person.
“but I’d urge you not to get caught up in feeling like you ‘must make this count’, because that is likely to create more pressure.”
I appreciate this (and you) greatly. 🙂
Amanda — it’s totally a reminder to myself as much as to anyone else. 🙂 I have often been guilty of stressing out that I’m going to “miss” whatever astrological opportunity is coming up. Thankfully, astrology always offers another way through, though it might look and feel quite different the next time it comes around.
Amanda, for sure! Your observation about enlightened/spiritual communities and individuals using language, or mindfulness, etc. to bully, shame, manipulate, coerce, I too have definitely observed this. It all really returns to the Pharisees in the end!
Folks who claim they know, claim they are more or better…same poop, different century! Spiritually, when you genuinely come into your power and your true value…that’s always, always, always balanced w/humility. And you have no need to claim it or prove it…
Kelly Grace Smith
Thanks, Amanda. As for mindfulness, here’s what I have been thinking/writing tonight:
“I am listening to “Lilly’s Theme” from the Harry Potter music; eerie to say the least. While looking for my Dad’s birth certificate, I saw several death certificates peeking out of folders and realized that in a year, four people have passed away that were part of my created family: my grandmother, my father, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law. Those death certificates feel weighty in my hands and in my mind. What lingering legacies have they left in me and my husband? What genetic memories do we carry from their lives, what traumas, spoken or unspoken?
Odd how science is catching up with what Pagans, New Age, Astrologers, Numerologists, intuitive, spiritual folks have been saying all along; trauma IS passed down in the genes from grandparents to parents to grandchildren.
I know what I am doing this Samhain.”
The world is crazy right now and at first, it was affecting me deeply; to the point that I was actually feeling weepy and depressed for at least 2 years now. I scheduled a quiet weekend with my husband to get away from our house that is still full of adult and teenage offspring. I poured out my weepy feelings to him and as he always does, he held me close and was that rock in the storm that I needed. Then he said that no matter what, he was always here for me and that he understood my feelings. That made such a difference; to be able to share my sadness and know he would just listen and not try to fix it or ignore it. We awoke the next morning, had breakfast on the little patio together while looking at the beautiful red rocks of Sedona and the green grass and weeping willows of the resort open space. I felt a peace settle in me and he felt it as well. He needed this retreat, too.
Back when Mercury went RX, I felt myself turning; turning back to a time when I was more in touch with my intuitive, spiritual side. I was reading a book by Starhawk and it brought back memories of that time in my life and suddenly I realized I needed to reclaim that. I had given it up for the work of raising a family but they are (almost) all raised so I can now go back to that, back to that earthy energy that stabilized me and kept me calm.
I have been meditating or taking time for quietness and appreciation of the beauty of the earth that surrounds me here in Flagstaff. This is a beautiful place and I am choosing to absorb it again.
I breathe deeply, feel the turning of the earth, feel the flow of earth energy; that grounds me and keeps me responding instead of reacting.
I am ready for the eclipse.
“I breathe deeply, feel the turning of the earth, feel the flow of earth energy; that grounds me and keeps me responding instead of reacting. ”
Carrie: yes. So key, the breath, the grounding into that earth energy. Sure, there may be times when too much earth can weigh us down. But I suspect that in our current collective mental/emotional/digital environment, we need earth energy more often than we don’t. Especially with this eclipse. Whoo-boy, has this been an interesting week!
I wish you luck in reclaiming that inner life you speak of. It sounds like you know how to do it.
🙂
(((((Carrie)))))))
So interesting, your pieces Amanda. I must chime in, if you will, as I’m making IMPROV my daily practice. I’d been noticing how, try as I may, I’ll get presented with some random weirdness and whatever I’d wanted to do in such cases (as in people coming to me for cash, which we’ve discussed) whatever plan I’ve designed doesn’t work. So I shelved that and instead I’m feeling my way forward and in the moment listening with every cell of my body.
Mindfulness seems just too mind-centric for me. Moment-full-ness, that’s my thing. 🙂
LOVE THE PEOPLE WALKER. BRILLIANT!! Sorry I didn’t think of that myself! sooooo aquarian.
MM.
“Moment-full-ness, that’s my thing.”
Mary, that sounds wonderful. Clearly it takes being *present* in that moment; I suspect a lot of when we “react” rather than respond has to do with some part of us momentarily not being fully present in the current actual moment — we’re reacting out of some past moment (or even a fear of a future moment), or some place that’s behind the 12th-house veil making it hard to see and hard to distinguish from This Present Moment in all its fullness.
Good luck with the improv!