Mercury In Retrograde ends on October 2, 2022. Reflecting back, our souls experienced a myriad of opportunities to review, re-process and re-program during this Twilight Zone rewind time.
During Mercury Retrograde, this writer was revisited by old bodily wounds that afforded him with a renewed opportunity for resistant free zones of being present, letting go and the gift of awareness. It’s less painful that way and we suffer less when we are in this space.
In much the same way as people and left brain faculties, it isn’t uncommon for machines to break down and amplify emotional intensity in the humans that rely on them.
For example, we had a particularly stressful day at the school that I work at recently. One of our coworkers just about blew her cork during an intersection between a student’s dysregulated behavioral episode that was amplified by a copy machine’s oppositional behavior.
But as we have discussed in this blog before, co-regulation is an empathic experience where humans can harmonize with their environments and support each other in relaxing.
Thankfully, my coworker friend used her words and stood in her personal authority by speaking her truth and letting go of it. Tempting as it was during that crazy train episode, I refrained from cracking any puns. Sometimes, silence is a higher form of honesty. Remember that inner peace is always a choice even amidst chaos. It is a dimensional shift.
Paradoxically, as the fog lifts after Mercury in Retrograde, our days will get darker as our clocks are turning back yin-ward. Peak radiant foliage brings leaf peepers throughout New England in early October, while November is typically the gloomiest month in Maine.
But it won’t be the darkest day of the year till the Winter Solstice in December, at least in the Northern hemisphere.
Furthermore, the Hunter’s Moon will reach peak illumination on Sunday, October 9. In Ojibwe, this moon is called the Freezing Moon, reflecting colder temperatures. This Hunter’s Moon always comes after the Harvest Moon, which is always closest to the Autumn Equinox.
Our ancestors understood this moon cycle signaled the time to go hunting in preparation for a long season of cold winter storage. Moreover, our animal friends understood that it is time to fatten up before winter.
Farmers cleaned out their fields under the brighter moonlight of the Harvest Moon. This gave our ancestors effective night vision to see the deer and other animals that came out to root through the remaining scraps. Also, it was easier to see foxes and wolves coming out to prey on them.
When I meditate alone in the woods, I reflect on Lao Tzu’s observation that “nature is the best physician.” There is magic in co-regulating with Mother Earth and we all win when we make this part of our sacred rituals.
Looking ahead, an October-November 2022 eclipse season will feature a partial solar eclipse on October 25, which is also a New Moon in Scorpio. Solar eclipses invite creations of new beginnings and bright new opportunities, as New Moons also reflect.
A total lunar eclipse arrives on November 8, which is also a Full Beaver Moon. Lunar eclipses are more emotional, for they bring on final endings, like the climax of emotional tides of Full Moons.
In the Universe’s energetic medicinal deck of cards, Eclipses are like powerful fanned out wild cards that inspire us to pay attention to areas in our life that need to change. They uproot us, surprise us, and light a fire under our asses.
During the intensity of Eclipses, our lives are rapidly shaken up so that we can transform into our new selves. The one constant of Eclipses is that they are change agents for rebirth. A death of the old self is taking place.
It is an interesting synchronicity that the New Moon in Scorpio, Full Beaver Moon and Eclipse Season intersects with the Samhain, All Soul’s Day, All Saint’s Day and The Day of The Dead at the end of October and beginning of November.
Of course the modern tradition of Halloween captures some of the spirit of our ancestors, who recognized that the veils between the physical and spirit realm appear thinner during this time. The ritual of wearing masks is a spiritual portal into alternate realities in consciousness and transformation.
The thinning of the veils can play tricks on us. But it can be a real treat to reconnect with the spirits of our ancestors who have left this Earth.
Meditation on Bat can empower your ability to hear spirit, if you wish to do so.
Try not to get spooked by your fears because negative energies tend to feed off of that.
Election Day is also on November 8th. The figure 8 is the sign of Infinity. It may seem like the Tao centered politics of a New Aquarian Age and Paradigm is far off in the future.
But a simple shift in mindset reveals that the New World is already happening. The old world is fading away into the backdrop and falling away, like the leaves on the trees.
May the forthcoming Eclipse Season become an infinite Election of new politics in our collective lives, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Take care of yourselves everyone,
Ari