 [In loving memory of Etel Adnan]We have ways to distract ourselves from our destinies. I don’t know how, we just play it by instinct. We manage to take our attention away, into outer space, into a history book, into our own imaginations, or just a post-card, but we do, we go. (Shifting the Silence, 66) Do you remember a time, maybe years ago, maybe this morning, when the panic set in? The relentless question we play on repeat: what am I going to do with my life? I had a conversation with my brother the other day about the pressure we put on ourselves to somehow choose one thing that is supposed to fulfill us AND meet the expectations of our capitalist society for our entire lives. How this narrative is fed to children from the moment they start school, and how the weight of that expectation begins to grow fangs the older we get. I wash my hands, I dust off the dresser, I turn off the light, I open the windows to air out the room, and everything is right, is adequate. Then I stop. I try to ask myself who I am, what I am good for, into what kind of an order I fit, for what purpose I act, what road I must take, what this difference is between, say, you and me, and I am thrown again, for my loss, into some inconsequential activity, or, if it comes quickly, into sleep. (Of Cities & Women, 53). The result of this unreachable milestone often takes shape as a deep sense of worthlessness, a mastery of distraction, or both. Don’t get me wrong, distraction is necessary—the world is a lot, and sometimes we have to escape it. But when it begins to drag us away from our destinies, when it becomes unhealthy or even dangerous, distractions are more than distractions, they're addictions. There, in this anxiety, I see the pallor of discarded manuscripts, and there’s this glass of water you didn’t drink, it’s going to help some tropical growth in your sister’s lungs and I will feel sorry, it would be useless, then will follow the celebration of the moon’s darkest hour. (There In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and of the Other, 31) But sometimes there are moments, beautiful and terrifying moments, when we look around our rooms, ourselves, and notice the things we’ve allowed to clutter there. The wounds, the compromises, the big and small ways we punish ourselves for not living up to someone else’s idea of success. The water we didn’t drink, the berating inner monologue. We lift our heads out of the fog and finally see all the ways we've permitted (or even expected) lack. Today’s Full Moon and Lunar eclipse is the first in a set of eclipses that occur along the Taurus-Scorpio axis, with the last eclipse in this sign happening October 2023. And the incredibly powerful, creative, and crisis-inducing energy this moon is giving us is focused on one thing: relationships. This isn’t just relationships with others, though it could be. No, this moon is about the relationship between the physical and the manifested, between form and dream, between lack and love. Because to lack something, for something to be absent from our lives, creates a deep and painful longing—but one that can spring us into action. Heed my word, if you can, do deny your fate. I’m not asking for fullness, completeness, the fullness of resurrection, sit once more on your bed’s edge, let’s bring back the smells, the velvet, the bench, your breathing’s regularity, my heart’s pounding, the sweetest faring of the moment. (There, 63) This moon/eclipse asks us to remember that longing is an important and never-ending process towards our evolution; the etymology of to long being "‘to yearn after, grieve for,’ literally ‘to grow long, lengthen.’" We must expand and grow ourselves out of lack and into acceptance. But, just like losing a loved one or your poetry hero (Rest in Power, Etel) this process has many steps. Here are some ways we can make this moon and the next set of eclipses transform us:
To live with defeats, to share one’s room with them, to chase away gas fumes with one’s hands, to eat things that are swimming in oil, to remain standing for hours before news racks, these are the elements with which we counter the things which devour us. How can we attain whomever or whatever with such tools? We need to drink and vomit, to vomit an overused soul to make room for the possibility of a new one. (Of Cities & Women, 55) As Café Astrology writes of today’s lunar eclipse: “The Full Moon illuminates this conflict between form (Taurus) and transformation (Scorpio), and between collecting (Taurus) and sharing (Scorpio). Neglecting either end of the axis will surely backfire on us. Ideally, we should find a balance between the two energies, and this is what this Lunar Eclipse invites us (or pushes us) to do. This eclipse is about awakening to the need to enjoy the fruits of our labors and to connect with our desire to take care of ourselves and our needs.” I have this tranquil belief that we’re going nowhere, there is here, always here. I’m going to the kitchen, or to California. Strangely, it’s the same. Trees don’t go anywhere, and still, they do, they grow branches which move, leaves, which fall, they get fat, they wither, they even die. They move. (Paris, When It’s Naked, 71) Dear ones, remember that today is about both the small, creature comforts and about unearthing the dreams you’ve long buried. Remember that grief and joy can exist in tandem. Remember that nothing is permanent and that you’re infinite. And remember that the process you commence today is just that: the beginning. You don’t have to have it all figured out—none of us do or will. All we can know is this: we are enough; we are love. We have experienced ecstasy in the dark (the one with the other), mostly in the night, in the here and now of cities of heat and sweat. We also did die many times, didn’t we, of love and separation, so that when the end will come it will be a comfortable, though perverse, homecoming. We did reach the absolute, didn’t we, for a handful of hours, somewhere in between, in between, ‘you’ and ‘I’. (There, 67-68) Tarot Reading | Ace of Wands  “A gift of strength, of power, of great sexual energy, of the love of living…At the beginning of some situation, no card could signal a better start,” (78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack) What an auspicious and loving message from the cards! The Ace of Wands is a card of hopeful beginnings and coincides with the immense creative/sacral/sexual energy attached to this moon. Because to see and reimagine all the ways we are worthy, all the ways we want to grow towards fulfillment, is to channel a higher awareness. It requires a creativity not always present in this realm. Lean into this card’s/moon’s energy today by grounding yourself in devotion to the body. Eat, touch, drink, and care for the body with fiery love. After all, you’ll need to take of you to manifest the intentions you set today. *apo-press issue no. 1 |
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