Nox Amicus

At 3:53pm yesterday, January 21st, the moon was New. Look at me being all timely this cycle!

My last post focused on Action – and the differentiation between the Action to pursue a desire and the Action to understand the motivation behind it. What the intention taught me though was that Action happens – we can affect some control, we might be able to break a little inertia – but the Universe is going to Act regardless of whether it suits our plans.

This was echoed in a conversation with a trusted soul around the idea that “the future is unwritten” – and I posited that we have it within ourselves to pick up the pen. It was pointed out that while that’s true to a degree, every future is not ours to write. The Universe might accept feedback, and we might be able to craft our performance to an extent – but we are reliant on the sum of all the parts to determine what the narrative is.

The story being written now has some very complex twists and turns. It feels like every important facet of my life is in a state of flux. This is all coming at a time when my unnatural awareness of anniversaries is undermining my self-confidence. Ten years ago, during this cycle, my life profoundly crashed and burned through psychological abuse and gaslighting. I need to take care, because the echoes and memories can be vivid. But that was then –  I am not the person I was, and the people who surround me today are profoundly amazing and I am truly blessed. To reference “The Life of Pi”, I prefer this story.

But what do we do with the “ick” when it comes up? How do we navigate natural changes in our lives when they’re distorted and often amplified by a past that won’t be ignored?

The answer is the same way we might allay our fear when traveling through any storm. It’s all only Weather. Sure – it might be intense and even damaging, but if we can seek the right kinds of shelter, it always passes. The beauty of this is that rain can wash away the ick and the sun will literally show us everything in a new light.

So the theme for this cycle is Weather. We need all of the Weather – wind, sun, precipitation, and dryness – in all of their majesty. We need the challenges we’re presented with in order for us to grow. How we face those challenges can give us the opportunity to ask for the help we need. Storms bind our communities together, sunlight crafts a space to celebrate.

So everywhere you go, always take the Weather with you!

At 2:17am on December 23rd the moon was new. Earlier this evening, at 6:08pm, She became full. I’m not sure there’s ever been a half-cycle gap between a New Moon and my professed intention before, but here we are.

I find that I’m still digging into the feelings around Wanting from September’s focus. In that post, I wrote “Receiving is contingent on generosity, reciprocity, consent, and a whole variety of other conditions – but the Wanting is solely on us. We’re allowed, and even encouraged, to Want – regardless of the outcome.”

But what happens when we’re not truly certain what “we” actually want?

Following this thread of thinking, I happened upon something called mimetic theory, proposed by 20th century French philosophical anthropologist René Girard. In describing mimetic theory, Girard wrote that “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.”

This resonated with my October post on Reciprocity – where I had said that “what we Want might be what another desires to receive, and that what they are free to give fulfills our Wanting.” As I burrow deeper into this I see seeds from my childhood – where it was safer for me to want something that had a high probability of being provided, rather than follow my own bliss.

Last month I focused on Surrender – and my feeling when confronted with an unfulfilled want, it might be better to step away from the desire than continue to pursue it in what might be an unhealthy way. This was summed in the last line, to Surrender – but don’t give yourself away.

In that same focus on Surrender though, I talked about the Wheel of Consent and noted that ‘Giving/Taking/Allowing/Receiving are all Actions’. Perhaps the healthy option to divining desire, and perhaps even fulfilling it, is not by letting the chips fall where they may, but rather to affect a change in our Action.

Everything worth having is worth working for – but sometimes that work is less about the active pursuit of a desire, but rather the work to understand our motivations and what that want or desire actually serves. What do we want, and why do we want it? How do we answer those questions when our perception of our intrinsic wants might have been blocked or stunted?

So the focus for this cycle is Action – and for solace on the journey I’ll turn to Pete Townshend and The Who, and the second half of the bridge to this cycle’s song:

I don’t know where I’m going
I don’t know what I need
But I’ll get to where I’m gonna end up
And that’s alright by me

Townshend, Pete. “Let’s See Action.” Hooligans, 1981, https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/the-who/lets-see-action.