Hello again. I hope you are all safe and well in your life journeys on this planet Earth.
I’ve soaked up much nourishment and nurturance from my rest time and have begun thinking about alchemy, intention and planting seeds.
One symbol of the Sacred Feminine is Luna, the moon – mother of mystery, receptivity and silence. She’s the cool, still, feminine principle in partnership with Sol, the active, fiery sun. These figures from Western alchemy are like the Yin-Yang partnership in Eastern alchemy where Yang, the active principle represents Heaven (or sky) and Yin, the receptive principle of Earth.
In Western alchemy sun and moon are personified as King Sol and Queen Luna, and it is their marriage in the alchemist’s laboratory that creates vital transformation that leads towards balance, integrity and wholeness. This alchemical marriage is a way of imagining the relationship between the masculine and feminine poles in our selves. Alchemy is an ancient system that suggests our life’s work is to transform the base material of our lives into gold – and the sacred marriage is one of the stages of this vitalising work. I’ll be writing more about alchemy as a transformational process. Watch this space!
Queen Luna influences the tides of our bodies, the cycles of our lives, menstruation, and the gestation of seeds – including the seeds of personal transformation. Through her own cycle from darkness to fullness and back again, Luna teaches the feminine mysteries of birth, life, death, and rebirth. As she traverses the night sky she offers us ease, rest and dream space, a time of receptivity, intuition and inner knowing.
Resting in her darkness our inner light is restored and our night vision is revealed as we become receptive to reflection, just as the moon reflects the sun’s light. Dreams are our psyche’s reflection on our day lives, as well as drawing from deep wells of mystery from the unconscious.
Luna’s indwelling mystery and receptive energy demonstrate the power of the imagination to manifest things out of darkness, just as a seed planted in the earth is influenced to grow by the moon’s cycle. Which leads me to the power of intention, inner vision and planting seeds.
The alchemist offers Luna an inner stillness and receptive attitude. Through her we are guided from within, from our intuition and heart’s knowing, our inner voice and vision. In stillness and patience our path is revealed and we are guided on that path by Luna’s inner light and our reflective attitude. The seed of our intention is dropped into the darkness of imagination, receptive to the right mix of conditions from which to emerge. Both Sol and Luna pour their light and vibration deep into the earth’s receptive dark where the seed rests.
The acorn knows her essence and potential is the great oak, and so too does our inner being listen to the essence of our intentions and responds to the call for emergence. There’s a saying in Taoist alchemy – where attention goes, energy follows. When we drop an intention into stillness and let it rest there with our loving attention the energy is nourished and activated. There will be a time for Sol’s action, but the creative process emerges first from the invisible realm of imagination without interference.
Luna’s gift is the joining of darkness (night) with darkness (earth), influencing life with the subtle inner gaze of a mother gestating a child. I like to call this night vision, a willingness to see in the dark – to be engaged with our imaginal life. Without intention we drift aimlessly, pulled towards whatever glitters in Sol’s realm. Luna responds to our inner vision, our intention, with the energy that moves oceans. Setting an intention invites Luna to shine her path through the great ocean of our being. Without this, our deepest energies respond to all the unconscious thoughts and stories that run unchallenged in our minds.
So here are some questions for you as we go forward into this year:
What is your overall intention for yourself this year? (What will you reflect on, nourish and nurture patiently into being?)
What seeds will you plant in the mystery of your own darkness and quietly listen to as your days, weeks and months unfold?
How will you make time and space for stillness, intuition and right timing for personal transformation?
Suggestions for practice.
Try moon-gazing before bed.
Invite your dreams to guide you and write them down in the morning. No need to interpret, the act of writing them is a sacred acknowledgment of Luna’s realm.
Consider practising yoga nidra, a restful and liminal vision space.
Write your key intention for the year in a journal. This is something you’d like to invite into being, rather than a goal. A goal is like an arrow, it has a linear trajectory and a specify focus and requires effort and action. It belongs in the realm of Sol. An intention is like dropping a pebble into a still pond and observing the ripples.
Write down 2 or 3 (no more than 5) seeds you are planting for your year. Things you’d like to see emerge in your personal transformation.
Keep reflecting on your intention through writing in your journal and watching your dreams. Notice what begins to emerge.
– With you on the journey, Violet
Recent Comments