February 2010

I must confess that this week’s Moon Muse ran away from me.  I sat down to write my insights and my mind drifted elsewhere.  It roamed outside the window, across the field, and up into the sky of future possibilities.  I then fell into a pleasant and deep sleep in which I found myself in a dreamscape covered in snow.  I looked up to find myself under a cherry blossom tree that bloomed in front of my eyes.  And I felt full of hope.

When I awoke, I realized my dream was a prophecy of this week ahead.  The timing of my sleep corresponded perfectly with Venus’s movement out of combustion in Aquarius, which came to me in the symbol of the flowers blossoming in the snow.  There is one thing we can always be assured of:  Hope will resurrect again and again.

This week truly embodies this message of hope and resurrection, which is always written about in heroic epics.

Our life is a hero’s journey that we set out on in a quest for love and acceptance.  When you strip everything away, you can see that we all want to be loved perfectly — which, like Dorothy and her quest to find home, we already possess but need to realize it for ourselves.

So Monday begins with an attraction to something that we think we don’t have.  This is due to the Moon’s placement in Taurus, connected to the beautiful, reddish star, Rohini — “the fertile cow.”  In the mythology, it’s said that Rohini was so beautiful that everyone and everything chased after her.

What has captured your heart so much that you can’t bear its ache any longer?

It’s the thing that causes us the most struggle in our life, but also brings a sweet, melancholic pain.  This feeling we can expect to endure in full force on Tuesday, when the Moon journeys into Gemini and radiates the Ardra energy — the storms, the struggles, the difficulties.

Whenever we do anything that’s really important, we can expect to encounter obstacles.  And when the obstacles arise, we start to doubt ourselves and our purpose.  This arises especially on Wednesday, when the Moon moves into Gemini/Cancer and projects the energy of Punarvasu — the hero on a start of a great mission.

But if we realize that we only doubt what is good in our life (you never doubt, for example, if someone says they hate you; but if someone expresses their love, you can never believe that), then we can move forward with confidence and complete our mission.  On Thursday, toss the ring you promised to bear into the fires of Mordor and return triumphant to your happy self in the shire of your heart.

On Friday, you can brag to your friends about how many dragons you had to defeat in your life to realize that you are free right now.

And like a good blockbuster, just when you thought you were “safe” from the monsters of your negative thoughts, Saturday comes in with a frightening roar — just to test your resolve.  Did you really overcome your self-doubts this week or not?

By Sunday, you receive your happy ending.  It was all just a dream.

Monday, February 15, 2010 (Waxing 2nd Phase in Aquarius/Purva Bhadrapada ~ “The Man Who Wears a Mask”)

When the goddess Parvati fell in love with Shiva and he expressed no interest in return, did she give up?

Absolutely not!

Instead, she stood on one leg for 40,000 years in an attempt to impress the die-hard ascetic.  But was he impressed?

No way!

Then she refused to eat – not even one leaf – for 10,000 years living on prana and sunlight alone. And at that point, Shiva felt her devotion and took notice. He then took greater and greater notice with each act of dedicated devotion until she finally won her heart’s desire.

When nothing seems to be working for you, will you make the choice to collapse or endure?

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 (Waxing 3rd Phase in Pisces/Purva Bhadrapada ~ “The Man Who Wears a Mask”)

The opposite of despair is empowerment. And today you feel empowered, especially when you realize that by refusing to give up you gain tremendous strength.

But how will you use your power? Will you curse your enemies or bless them?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 (Waxing 4th Phase in Pisces/Uttara Bhadrapada ~ “The Lucky Feet”)

I’ve always been fond of swimming, especially when I can dive deep in the water and skim along the bottom of an ocean or a lake.  I like to pretend I’m the Lochness Monster who can simply disappear when I sense danger or unwelcome eyes on me.

Today is a great day to dive deep when the storm rages on the surface of your mind.  Know that it’s perfectly fine to put off for tomorrow what’s troubling you today.

In other words, we always procrastinate when something really important is brewing in our life. It’s like our inner sabateur just doesn’t want us to succeed at anything.  Somewhere deep inside we think we don’t deserve the goodness that’s coming – so we put off those actions that could help us to move toward our highest fulfillment.

But today instead of putting off the steps you know will lead you to success, put off your feelings of limitation. Be lazy about worrying. It’s too much work to be afraid. Feel insecure about being insecure.

It really is too much work to be a lazy failure.

Thursday, February 18, 2010 (Waxing 5th Phase in Pisces/Revati ~ “The Wealthy, the Spiritual”)

When I was eight, I was given a task that changed my life. I was asked by our minister to light the candles at the altar for one Sunday service.  I got to wear a beautiful dress, walk down the aisle with a golden torch, and illuminate the sanctuary by lighting three gigantic candles at the front of the church.

I knew then that I’d found my life’s calling: whatever I would do from that day forward, I would light the light so others could see.  Nothing felt more natural to me or fulfilling.

You’ve already been shown your dharma at some blessed moment in your life. The light has already been lit. Now open your eyes and see.

Friday, February 19, 2010 (Waxing 6th Phase in Aries/Ashvini ~ “The Divine Healers”)

If you’ve ever jumped rope with two people swinging it on both ends, you’ll get what this day is all about.

You start off jumping in sync with the rhythm and then at some point you make a decision to change your pattern. You don’t do it right away.  You first think about it.  Then you feel the rhythm, sense the right moment to switch, and go for it!

Jumping rope in perfect timing is the same as being successful in life.  Sense the change that’s coming.  Think what move you need to make.  And then let go of your fear when the time comes and jump in!

Saturday, February 20, 2010 (Waxing 7th Phase in Aries/Bharani ~ “She Who Bears the Responsibility — Lightly!”)

If there’s one thing we women in the West wonder about Islam is why Muslim women choose to wear the veil.  To us it’s a symbol of repression.  In our culture, by contrast, everything is exposed for all to see.  That’s how we define freedom.

But what I think cultures that value the harem and the veil have figured out (that we haven’t) is that there’s perhaps even greater freedom in non-exposure.  Beauty is much more powerful when there’s something left to wonder about.

It’s like when you already know what you’re getting for Christmas, it’s no fun. But when you thought you weren’t getting anything and something appears wrapped, mysterious, and unexpected, the beauty that arises inside you is indescribable.

So if your relationship to anything or anyone has reached a point of absolute predictability, add a veiled surprise to it. Wear a mini-skirt under your burkha. Hang out behind the curtains in the harem naked. Show only your sultry eyes.

Sunday, February 21, 2010 (Waxing 8th Phase in Taurus/Krittika ~ “She Who Cuts Through the Superficial to Reach the Truth”)

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, friends. Today sucks.

If you want to feel better, visit your local humane society and walk a homeless dog. Read news reports from Haiti or Burma or South Dakota where orphans and disaster victims need our compassion. Remember the countless scores of humanity who’ve survived wars and slavery and repression. Light a candle for those still missing.

Or at the very least, know that even the most angry, ungrateful and mean person has a beating heart underneath their heavy armor.

Monday, February 8, 2010 (Waning 11th Phase; Scorpio/Jyestha ~ “The Eldest Queen; The Jealous Queen”)

The most primitive human emotions are greed and jealousy.  They arise in a flash, grip the belly, and impel us to curse our fellow beings with the belief that such curses will somehow benefit us.

Greed and jealousy are our instinctual responses to the astounding beauty reflected back to us by people, places and things in our world and our unfailing conviction that we don’t possess it ourselves.  As soon as we spot this elusive beauty, these green monsters take us captive –  hungry and burning, uninvited and adamant.

Today when you encounter someone who has a much better life than you do, who makes more money, who’s better looking, and who seems to have it all – look inside yourself.  Boldly march past the imaginary green monster in your belly with deep breaths.

You are no different from what is in front of you.  You are the beauty you seek.  Beautiful is your being.  Beauty are the steps you take.  Bright is the beauty that surrounds you and fills you with each breath you breathe.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 (Waning 12th Phase; Sagittarius; Mula ~ “The Innermost Core; the Center of the Galaxy”)

Frankly, I’m pretty sick of this Mars transit of Cancer.  The political arguments shouting in the collective mindspace have moved past boring and are starting to annoy me.  Petty squabbles with friends and associates are about as unproductive (and unimaginative) as Detroit.  And I wish the antsy feeling in my mind/body (projected onto the world’s mind/body) would end its insomniac rant and rave and get some sleep already.

Aren’t you tired yet of the cycle of passion/arousal/argument/isolation/regret?

Yes?  Then fulfill your promises instead of blaming others for not fulfilling theirs.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 (Waning 13th Phase; Sagittarius; Purva Ashadha ~ “Blessings Arise From Previous Sacrifice”)

Okay — since we’re all still wallowing in the same shit today, you may as well take a look at your regrets.  Why is it that you torture yourself over and over again for something you can’t do anything about?

Your mind is a nagging wife constantly reminding you of all the times you forgot to take out the trash.  And the trash keeps heaping up, forming mountains of stinking guilt all around you.

Get up — you couch potato of self pity! — and know this:  All your regrets would disappear immediately if someone just told you the truth about your life.  You’d wake up and see why you couldn’t help but make the choices you made, why it was so necessary that your first love broke your heart, and why losing your shirt gave you such a gorgeous tan.

But no one ever does.  So I guess I’ll have to be the one who reveals the secret:  It’s all absolutely, amazingly, and astoundingly perfect.

Thursday, February 11, 2010  (Waning 13/14th Phase; Capricorn; Uttara Ashadha ~ “The Arrival of the Victorious King”)

I often wonder about the cavalry and if anyone was really happy about their arrival.  Before they showed up with their constitution of moral law and order, the wild west was at least wild.  You could still sneak into someone’s camp at night, extract your revenge and then ride off — just you, your horse and a bleeding scalp.

But when the cavalry trumpeted in with its border patrol, encampments of barbed wire, roads and pavements, stockyards and slaughterhouses, we traded our unencumbered freedom for the nice guys of civilization, safety,  national security, and the homeland.

And in making your cub scout pledge, you’ve lost your wild self.

Where did you stash your freedom before your parents came home early or someone called the cops?  When was the last time you howled at the Moon with your heart burst wide open and didn’t worry about the stupid neighbors?  How long has it been since you rode out onto the open prairie not knowing what was coming – an ‘injun or a buffalo, an outlaw or pioneer – all wanting the same thing as you do right now: To feel the sun burning in your eyes, the wind blowing in your heart, and the blood pumping warm in your body.

February 12, 2010, Friday, Waning 14th/15th; Capricorn; Shravana ~ “She Who Listens; The Enlightened Tree Full of Ears”

Maha Shiva Ratri!

In the Vedic calendar, today is the most auspicious day of the year for tiptoeing past the sleeping tigers of your thoughts and emotions and taking a clandestine skinny dip into your transcendental Being, known tonight as Shiva.

Shiva is called Omkareshvara, or “The Lord Who Sings the Om Mantra.”  And tonight you can hear him.  He’ll be singing the three syllables of Om – A-U-M (with a dot!) — through the three stars shining in the translucent New Moon.   Most of us don’t realize that behind this endless round of creation (A), preservation (U) and destruction (M) – recurring every day in waking, dreaming, and deep sleeping – there lies a fourth state of consciousness.  But tonight we can.

It was there with you before you were born.  It’s here watching the antics of your life’s drama.  And with profound compassion, it will witness your last breaths.

Today is good for nothing else but savoring its sweet nectar.

February 13, 2010; Saturday, Amavasya (New Moon); Aquarius; Dhanishta ~ “The Dolphin Oracle”

Vedic astronomy and astrology calculate the passage of time through the zodiac by the precession of the equinox.  What that means is that every 70 years, the start of the Vernal Equinox moves backward across the zodiac by one degree.

Every major shift in the history of humanity begins when the start of the equinox moves to the next zodiacal sign.  And this shift is always accompanied by new paradigms of spiritual knowledge and technologies that reflect the energy of the constellation.

The Age of Leo revealed the riddle of the sphinx and the mystical technologies of the pyramid.  The Age of Aries sounded the message of Moses from the ram’s horn.  And the Age of Pisces brought us fishes and loaves.

What will happen in the next Age of Aquarius when the fishes spill out onto the dry land?  Who’s the new prophet who’ll herald the change?  And why is s/he taking so long to arrive?

February 14 2010; Sunday, 1st Waxing; Aquarius; Shatabhishak ~ “The One Hundred Physicians; the One Hundred Healers”

There’s an expression I often heard in India: When you take one step toward God, God takes 10,000 steps toward you.

Go ahead.   Take one small, tintsy step toward self-healing.  For one moment simply trust the amazing intelligence behind everything in your life – a design so complex and perfect you could never have come up with on your own – that’s constantly managing the grand course of life from the super nova to the ant.

You don’t have to solve every problem.  In fact, all you have to do is look for the window that opened after the door closed.

On one level of experience, you think you’re in charge of the timing of your life’s events.  Your belief is confirmed when your desires align with the ease of the present moment.  You wanted it and it happened.  You call this “being happy.”

But then other times — no matter how much you want something — it just never seems to happen.  You feel frustrated in those moments.  And even devastated in others.  You call this “being unhappy.”

When my father died suddenly and unexpectedly, everyone commented at his funeral:  “He had so many plans!  This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

Life happens while we’re making other plans.  And our plans are always the expression of our deepest desire to control time.

If you notice from the moment you were conceived, you’ve been totally under the control of time.

Your cells divided according to a rhythm.  Your mother’s contractions came in rhythmical intervals.  Your first breath started a sequence of timed inhalations and exhalations.  Your heart beats – an endless instinctual drum.  You awaken, remain conscious, and go to sleep only to repeat the same pattern every day of your life.

And all this happens at the same moment that day turns to night, as the Moon moves through its phases, as the stars predictably rise and set, and as the planets never deviate from their orbit of the Sun.

Every moment in this grand succession of time has intelligence – an intelligence that creates, preserves, and destroys — which has absolutely nothing to do with how you think about it, what you want to gain from it, and how you experience it emotionally.  And you can only perceive the intelligent design inherent in time when you surrender to the present moment with an openness to learn from it.

Surrender opens the gateway to the higher intelligence in time, which is akin to knowing the mind of God. When you surrender to the present moment without preconceptions, you allow the profound wisdom that’s at the basis of time to culture your awareness, to raise you out of limitations, and to cause you to ponder the miraculous.

This usually happens by no effort on your part at all.  The decision to surrender is made for you.  You have no other choice but to let go when bankruptcy, death, terminal illness, painful breakups, car accidents, and invasions of foreign armies are upon you.

You realize you’re under the grip of something far more powerful than your little mind and its limited ability to fulfill your desires.

Yet, though painful and unwanted, these moments are amazing portals to profound realizations that transform you forever.  You’re forced to accept something beyond your rationalizations and desires.  You’re brought to your knees.  You let go.  And you see something you couldn’t ever conceive of before.  It fills you with awe and wonder.

In Chinese the word for disaster is also opportunity. In this moment, which is it?

Monday, February 1, 2010 (Waning 4th Phase; Leo/Virgo – Uttaraphalguni ~ “She Who Reaches for the Highest Fruits”)

Today affirms my belief that with a little class everything appears better.  For example: Suppose you only have a cardboard box for a table.  Toss a tasteful tablecloth over it – and voila! — you’ve elevated yourself.

Class has nothing to do with money.  It’s a cultured state of mind that sees life as an elegant dance performed with grace.

So go ahead.  Wear your grandma’s pearls.  Pretend you’re Aubrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Allow a waiter to unfurl a napkin in your lap.  Graciously allow someone to cut you off in traffic.  Eat your pizza with a knife and fork.  Leave the most difficult person in your daily life a well-crafted note of appreciation along with a finely wrapped piece of chocolate on their desk.

It’s the little things, people –  little touches of class that separate us from the savages.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 (Waning 5th Phase; Virgo/Hasta ~ “The Healing Hand; The Miraculous Hand”)

Days that feel truly productive are few and far between.  Today is one of those rare moments when you feel you can actually get something done.

Make lots of efforts and know that you can manifest anything you want in the palm of your hand.  You can make, fix, do, or be whatever is needed.  No effort is ever wasted – it just may take more time than you have patience for to see the results you want.

Don’t worry about it.  Just chop wood and carry water.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 (Waning 6th Phase; Virgo/Libra – Chitra ~ “The Illusory”)

It took me many years of my life to realize that we only see what we want to see – or how we’ve been conditioned to see.

Like when the Portuguese arrived in the New World and the native people couldn’t see the ships coming because they had no prior experience with such things.

Imagine what surrounds you all the time that you can’t see!   There may be alien spacecraft hovering in the sky.  Your long deceased grandmother may be sitting at the table across from you.  A majestic and luminous angel may always walk by your side.

But we’re too busy looking at our own flaws or those of the people who annoy us to notice. Those we can see very clearly!

Today practice seeing what you can’t see.  See beyond the limitations of your pre-conceived notions about people, places and things.  Maybe he really isn’t a jerk.  Maybe she really isn’t selfish.  Maybe this world is just a dream happening in a gigantic mind.

Wonder what it will be like when it wakes up!

Thursday, February 4, 2010 (Waning 7th Phase; Libra/Svati ~ “She Who is Independent and Free”)

In the days of Rama (the epic hero and godman of the Ramayana), no one believed that a mere monkey could defeat a powerful demon.  And yet, one by the name of Hanuman did.

In the days of the ancient Israelites, no one believed that David could defeat Goliath.  And yet, he did.

And in the days of Middle Earth, no one believed that a humble hobbit could rescue the world from darkness.  And yet, he did.

So why do you think you’re so helpless?

Gather your courage.  Surrender your pride and insecurities.  You have absolutely nothing to lose.  Take a momentous leap of faith.

Friday, February 5, 2010 (Waning 8th Phase; Libra/Scorpio – Vishakha ~ “A Fork in the Road”)

I learned something astounding recently.  All of the significant discoveries of medical cures and life saving technologies first appeared in the dreams of the scientists who invented them.

It made me realize that you don’t have to solve all your problems by trying to figure them out.  So stop wasting your time fretting about how you’re going to make it all happen.  Just ask for guidance, let go, and pay attention.  The answer is always somewhere deep inside of you.

You just have to get out of the way and let it appear.

Saturday, February 6, 2010 (Waning 9th Phase; Scorpio/Anuradha ~ “Another Devotee of God”)

Do you ever feel lonely?  Or that no one really knows you?  Or that you wish you could experience true unconditional love?

Yes?  Then join the club of billions of people on this planet.

We live together and yet we’re alone.  We come to this life alone and we leave it alone.  We’re born without possessions and we die without owning a single thing.  Everything that defines us are just concepts.  Even our own name is a fiction invented for us by our parents.

There’s a very thin line between despair and ecstasy.  Every great lover of God has walked it.  Do you dare?

Sunday, February 7, 2010 (Waning 10th Phase; Scorpio/Jyestha ~ “The Eldest Queen; the Authority”)

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

If you want to be right, then you have to raise your sword.  Craft the well-reasoned argument.  Produce the evidence.  Don’t back down.  Call out every inconsistency.  Dredge up past history.  Collect an army of supporters who all agree to back you up.  Refuse to let go of your position.

But it’s Sunday, after all.  It might be easier to just be happy.