The Moon & Me
You know the reason I hear most often about why someone cannot commit to something they want to do and know would make theme feel better? Time.
We are a culture addicted to busy. We love to define ourselves by our lack of time, as if that makes everything else we leave behind OK. Think about your “not enough time” stories:
I’ll get in shape after ______.
Maybe when the kids are ____ I will get around to ______.
After this busy season at work, I’ll be able to spend more time with _______.
What I find interesting in these stories (of which I of course tell myself—don’t think I am on a high horse, I can write this because I live this) is that we think there will always be that future time. Yet, we know that is literally never guaranteed. We have all had that “last” conversation with someone we did not think would be the last. There is very little promised to us in this life and the one promise we all absolutely have in common is death.
When I really committed to the idea that all healing work was about learning grief, everything changed for me.
One of my mentors, Sah D Simone, would call this being “death positive.”
Nothing will stop a dinner party quite like saying things like this: I understand work is busy Tom, but how do you know you will have next year to actually do the things that bring you any joy? And, like, think of all the holiday movies that are essentially about this lesson, to not sacrifice for the “shoulds” of life, especially not things we hold most dear like loved ones, meaningful experiences, and things that bring us purpose, pleasure, and joy. But we do it all the time. If you don’t believe me, just have a glass of wine with me. I will have us diving into all your scarcity Time stories before we finish the first glass.
Those of us who have almost died tend to think this way. We kind of have to:
I almost died when I was 23 years old. There is life before that and life after. Nothing could ever been the same, especially the way I related to the world around me. My ego took a huge hit, so young, vital, just having lived in LA and NYC, on the stage performing and with my whole life ahead of me. Suddenly in a coma in ICU with an entire team of doctors unsure not only what was wrong with me but how to save me. That will change your ideas on “I will pursue it when I have the time to…” really quick.
If life is change, then change always causes some levels of grief. We may consistently be needing to move through the grief process, but lack the tools to move through and then we get…
STUCK.
I have a wild theory that most of us are caught in a trap of ruminating in one of the cycles of grief, because we do not have the tools to consciously and gracefully move through. For me, I got stuck toxically in a relationship because I did not know how to recognize or move out of denial and bargaining. Once I started to get more conscious, I moved into a deep depression, then anger, then acceptance. But first I had to recognize I was grieving, that the time do process that grief was right now, and I needed the tools to navigate the process. I find when I work with others, I am really just giving them the tools to navigate grief more consciously.
This is where the Moon can be one of our greatest teachers, she never stays put, she is constantly in a state of change (which so are we, when are willing to really look). The moon does not try to grasp what was, but rather moves into a new cycle willingly. When the moon is too full, she releases what no longer serves. When the moon is new, she grows with the potential. It is never about “I'll release that baggage next month when I have the time” or “I’ll commit to that growth when this project wraps up.” Can you imagine? The whole state of the cosmos would disrupt. Change is the constant with the Moon. This is where the moon can guide is to look at time in a much more realistic way, release when we need to and grow when we need to because we have no idea if the sun will rise tomorrow.
When we acknowledge that life is a process of change, we have to then see the needed ability to navigate grief. When we underhand that grief is a fundamental part of moving through this life, we have to then acknowledge our concepts of “future time” are futile. We then have to “accept” the importance of living in the now. Just as the moon has phases, so does grief, and neither are never stuck on the idea of “someday.”
This month, the focus of October’s Well Being Book club, from the literary rx to the meditations and events, are all focused around giving us tools to navigate this being human, which is to be one accustomed to grief. In the novel Practical Magic the sisters all inherit the un-grieved grief of a woman who lost love in her life. The had to find a way, in the now, to process and release, so they could grow (just like the moon does each month). Think, we can pass down generational unprocessed grief (isn’t all anger just a frustration of what was lost?).
We will explore these concepts, from the literature and the spiritual component, in The Poetic Life meditation (10/22) and the Book and Supper Club (10/26). Befriending grief can be the most empowering thing we can do to actually feel alive. Life is simply paradoxical that way. Oh, and I will guide the astrology dinner to look at our Moon signs, understanding the wisdom of the moon archetype (and grief), in their birth charts. Hope to see you virtual or in person, celebrating the process of change.
