Monthly Archives: April 2007

She walks in beauty, yes,
but not just like the night.
She moves through the day as well,
a knowing goddess not a guess,
divinely sure of what she tells.
Time and tide and blood
are at her beck and call,
measuring her journey
through the stars, responding
to her signs and phases
even as she points the way
to any heaven that is held
close to the heart,
any distant hell that needs release.
She gently shows us where we are,
whether in or out of sight.
We push back the curtain
or pull the covers to our head.
Either way her lady finger gestures,
lures us to the dreams, desires
reflected in her light.

So much is made of the Moon . . . in myth, in astrology, in magick . . . In astrology the Moon is our emotional self, our instincts, our memories, what we need to feel safe and to feel good in our own skin. Some teachers such as Abraham-Hicks talk about our emotions as guidance. Specifically, our emotions give us a reading at any given moment about where we are in relation to where we want to be. The idea is that our feelings tell us whether we are moving toward or away from our true desires.

So I found myself wondering, what about the Moon as Emotion? I asked the Shower Team, if emotions are guidance, why does it feel sometimes as though my feelings are feeling me—as removed from me as the Moon in the night sky?

The Moon is a perfect metaphor for the guidance that is your emotions. The Moon reflects the light it’s receiving, relative to its position in the sky, to the way it is turning and what it is facing. The Moon is always making its journey and reflecting a focus relative to where it is and where it is going. It is always telling you something about the distance between what is and what can be. The Moon’s phases are pictures of that emotional journey . . . pictures of desire . . . pictures of resistance to desire . . . You can see new desires being born . . . desires waxing and evolving . . . desires manifesting fully . . . resistance to desire releasing . . . waning . . .

As the Moon makes its journey through the constellations, you can observe and feel the desires and resistance relative to that focus, that topic . . . You have endless opportunities to observe your progress along the emotional journey toward any and every desire that is active in you. Or you have the choice to sleep through it all—to never look outside your window to see how you’re doing. The Moon continues its journey regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not. The Moon does its job whether you observe or acknowledge or respect it or not. If your feelings feel like they’re feeling you . . . all you really have to do is wake up . . . look through the window that is your focus and notice where the Moon is and how it’s doing. You can know then and any other time you choose, what your feelings are about and where they are taking you. Your mood is only a mystery as long as you are choosing not to notice or pay attention to its position in the sky that is your own cosmos of dreams and desires

Metaphor, like the Moon, can be a lovely and mysterious thing. While some of this continues to sink in, there’s something comforting about the thought that I can get a clue, no matter how clueless I’m feeling. That I can always figure out where I am—and in the process, find my way . . . if I’ll just look out my window, so to speak. It’s an idea that leaves me feeling a little more hopeful . . a little less lost . . . and for the moment, just as the Moon is every so often, complete

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I went through a period not too long ago where it felt like my dreams were sort of beating me up Instead of nodding off and hopping on the train to my happy place as usual, I had been dreaming hard and intensely and not so happily—and waking up feeling anything but rested.

It surprised me, given how beautifully most areas of my life have been unfolding. When I mentioned this to a wise friend (one I don’t shower with), he suggested that it had something to do with putting pressure on myself rather than really tuning into my desires and letting them lead.

So, I turned up the water pressure and as I was lathering up, asked the Shower Team about pressure . . .

You can give yourself a hard time even when you’re sleeping. Dreams are not an escape but a dramatizing of what is most active in your perspective and your focus—and how you are allowing or resisting what you desire. If you are making demands on yourself rather than allowing what you want to unfold, then the work never ends—even when you sleep.

What will help you relax and enjoy your dreams—both the waking and the sleeping ones—is to recognize that pressure is a lie. It is the lie that would try to convince you that anything you really want will emerge out of struggle or out of any trophy that anyone else can hand to you. It’s the lie that says, “If you want this, you better bust your ass to get it.” It’s a pervasive lie. Nearly everyone believes it. Sometimes it’s even a well-meaning lie, sort of like a parent who thinks they have your welfare at heart but who in their efforts to guide or protect you, are really just teaching you that life is hard and you’d better be prepared to sweat bullets to get anywhere.

We challenge you to look back over your own experience and locate anything you received or accomplished or created that came about through pressure. We promise you that anything that has come to you that you truly valued or cherished or were thrilled by came about in spite of pressure not because of it. We also promise you that the carbon resting in the Earth’s tight embrace is not crying out about how hard it is to become a diamond. That process is as much a natural and easy unfolding for those involved as the blooming of any rose and the fulfilling of any desire that you can relax into receiving.

So, you’re encouraged to think of Pressure as an Old Fool. Well meaning, perhaps, but clueless about how things really work, trying to look out for you but really best ignored if you’re going to get where you want to be. Recognize the wisdom and the charm of your desires. Feel how playful and perfect and compelling they are. Your dreams and desires are the coquette (or in your case, the hot stud), bidding you to come hither, to play this joyful game and to coolly and casually charm the pants off Pressure, leaving him (or her) exposed for the clueless curmudgeon that he/she really is. Remind yourself that there is no shortage, no lack, no brief window of opportunity, no door about to swing shut, no timecard about to be punched. Lose the silly scorecard and laugh about it, and the game will get so much sweeter . . .

Maybe in the end, the idea is to line up way more coquettes (or hot studs) than old fools. It feels like a worthy approach and reason to feel, for the moment, complete.