Astrology: basking in the glow
By: Janette Dalgliesh – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
3-9 May 2020
What a week we have coming up!
It starts with the North Lunar Node moving out of emotional Cancer and into curious Gemini.
The North Node indicates where we reach forward to the next new thing we want to learn, to master, to achieve, to experience.
It’s been in Moon-ruled Cancer, sign of intimacy and vulnerability, for a while.
This week, it moves into Mercury-ruled Gemini, sign of communications, research, fascination and heightened curiosity – and will be there until January 2022.
It could not be more perfect, as we individually and collectively begin to ask ourselves ‘what will the new normal look like?’.
Of course, the answer is ‘whatever we DECIDE’.
And so, we continue the work of applying curiosity to help us figure that out, and then we put our focus there.
From a personal perspective, if you have been feeling confusion about the things you came here to learn and master – your life mission, your purpose, your mark on the world – you can expect to start finding it way easier to tap into curiosity rather than angst.
Don’t be surprised if you find insights galore and messages everywhere over the next couple of years. In fact, you could set a very clear intention for that to be your experience (I know I will be!)
And then – a glorious Scorpio Full Moon.
We know that actions taken from love, faith, beauty, confidence, relaxation and ease tend to work better than actions taken from fear, scarcity, anxiety, need or uncertainty.
But there’s a problem.
Even really experienced conscious creators can catch themselves putting on an overlay of the emotions we think we SHOULD have, because we have deep fear or shame about the deep emotions we actually DO have.
Hashtag askmehowIknow.
Our actions and our experiences always reflect our deepest thoughts and emotions – the ones we are probably most ashamed of, the ones we work hard 24/7 to keep hidden away.
It’s easy to fear that if we open that doorway just a crack, we’ll be overwhelmed, or we’ll be stuck there.
If this doesn’t apply to you in any way, shape or form – congratulations!
For the rest of us humans with all our messy human experiences and our human brains – the news is good.
The upcoming Full Moon is a brilliant opportunity to change all that, because it taps into Mercury (thoughts) and Neptune (emotions).
You can think of it as an opportunity for harmonious, compassionate and spiritual healing, as intuition rises along with understanding and an ability to articulate our feelings.
We can use this Full Moon to safely do the work of exploring our deeper emotions, allowing them to be heard (as they must), and then deciding what thoughts and emotions we truly want to experience instead.
Full Moon gives us the fierce light of the Sun, reflected from archetypal nurturing-mother entity Moon.
Moon knows our hearts more intimately than any other planetary body. She represents the very act of being vulnerable.
And Full Moon in Scorpio is all about shining a light into our own deepest, most hidden underground landscape.
Mercury opposition Full Moon opens up a better-than-average understanding and communication of feelings.
Moon trine Neptune supports us to feel into all our emotions because the walls we’ve set up to protect ourselves grow thinner and more porous.
Mercury sextile Neptune happens just three minutes before the Full Moon, so it’s powerful – and you can think of this as a kind of astrological lubricant for this whole thoughts-and-feelings
It may be tempting to use that mighty Mercurial intellect to merely analyse and distance ourselves from our own feelings, but that’s actually another avoidance technique.
FEEL into your body.
Let her tell you what emotions are habitually at play for you.
Be super compassionate about them, whatever they are.
All your emotions are sacred, and suppressing them takes a huge amount of energy all day long.
Our brains seek to avoid pain, and our culture seeks to avoid the so-called ‘negative’ emotions. So you’ll need to bring a ton of compassion to the mix.
As little kids, we don’t have the physical brain wiring to deal with big emotions, so we get overwhelmed – no wonder we develop coping strategies to deal with them. But you’re a big grown up person now, with SO much spare wiring in your brain, you have plenty of capacity to cope. And your brain’s not used to that, so you’ll want to be a little bold.
Leave judgement at the door, bring courage with you to the process.
Recognise that you are a human being having a human experience, and that is a neutral fact.
If you let your body truly feel a painful emotion, you’ll be amazed how swiftly it can pass through you and be released.
Feel your feelings.
And THEN, bring Mercury into the mix and ask ‘what thought have I had which gave rise to this emotion?’
Once you know the answer to that, you can choose to practice some new and different intentional thoughts.
For example, if the old thought was “I’m never good enough” the new thought could be “I’m the best there is at what I do, and I’m getting better every day” (this is true because NOBODY on the planet can do exactly what you do, because they are not you).
If the old thought was “nobody loves me” the new thought could be something like “I am loved by more people than I know”.
Aim for a new thought that your brain won’t instantly reject. Find the new thought that is a stretch (not yet your default) but plausible.
For each new thought, ask yourself “If I believed that, how would it feel?”
Sit with that feeling in your body, and notice how different it feels. Bask in it!
Create ways to practice that new thought until it’s part of your everyday mental and emotional landscape.
Lunar events always lend themselves to a little ritual, so here are some suggestions for how to create some lasting change with this Full Moon.
- Carve out time when you can be uninterrupted. This might seem harder than normal right now – tap into your most resourceful self and see what options you can come up with. Do it in the bathroom and lock the door? Close yourself in your office? Make an arrangement with your partner to take the kids and not interrupt you for an hour? Get up at 2am?
- Prepare your resources. For me, that means candle, blank journal pages, favourite pen, water and a box of tissues. Feel free to add in a favourite essential oil blend, your favourite stone person for insight, etc.
- Light the candle, deliberately inviting the illumination and warmth of the flame.
- Think about an area of life where you’re not getting the results you want. What emotions do you have in relation to that area of life?
- Let them flow through you. Ask them for any insights they may have for you. You can imagine meeting them as entities, in a safe space where you are protected and shielded from all harm.
- Ask yourself ‘what thoughts have I been thinking which gave rise to these emotions?’. For example, if you’ve had simmering resentment because of the way someone habitually treats you, the ACTUAL thought might be “it’s not safe for me to have strong boundaries”. If you’ve had shame about a trauma from the past, the ACTUAL thought might be “I should be over this by now, what’s wrong with me”.
- Jot down the insights and the thoughts you have noticed.
- Mop up any tears, and drink the water, allowing it to bring the energy of clarity, ease and flow to the work.
- Lean in to Mercury and his ability to inspire curiosity. Ask ‘what would be a more useful thought to have?’. For the resentment, a new thought might be ‘I can choose what behaviour I permit in my world’. For the shame, a new thought might be ‘I am a human having a human experience – I can have compassion for myself and be a strong person at the same time’
- Write the new thought(s) into your journal. If there is more than one, put each new thought at the top of a new blank page.
- Once you have the thought(s) captured, do a Bart Simpson on them. Write out the new thought to fill the page, over and over again. This helps embed the new thought via your body, and uses a different part of your brain. You can do this in the same sitting, or you can do this later – within the next 24 hours is ideal, if you can.
- Create a daily habit to practice the new thought(s). You can link it to an existing daily habit – e.g. recite in your mind while you brush your teeth; create a 20-second handwashing mantra to recite every time you wash your hands.
You came to the planet with important work to do, an important light to shine.
If you’re expending a ton of energy suppressing old, painful emotions, you only have half your energy, half your light to shine upon the world.
Don’t let that continue.
Bask in the glow of this glorious Full Moon, to reset your emotional landscape in a meaningful and beautiful way.
Exact times (US Eastern timezone):
- 5 May, 1:48 am – North Node enters Gemini
- 7 May, 6:45 AM – Full Moon at 17º Scorpio
Janette Dalgliesh has one mission in life – to wreak more joy in the world. That means no more walking through the day like a zombie, doing the job-from-hell, twisting yourself into a pretzel to suit other people, or putting off those secret dreams you’ve had since childhood for yet another year. Janette uses her unique blend of astrology and neuroscience-based coaching to help people take charge of their own lives with love, inner peace, fun and deep contentment – no matter the external circumstances. You can connect with Janette via her website Resonant Joy, or over on Facebook.
