Nox Amicus

At 11:32pm on May 7th, the Moon was New. Yes, I realize that was just a few minutes ago – I am actually on time with this one!!

During the last cycle, the focus was on Awakening. At the end of that writing I had said that it was time to “put my feet on the ground, make some coffee, and see what this new dawn might bring.” I realized at the time that the intention was a bit vague; I had set to define it as a very liminal space, knowing that the real work would kick in once the coffee was brewed.

It is said that the Waning Gibbous phase of the Moon is a time for self-reflection and rebirth, and this held very true for me. During the phase, a most trusted soul recommended the book “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation” by Joseph Campbell. I started listening to the Audible version of the book as I was driving to reconnect with a spiritual sister over dinner. Listening to the book, I began to see that the absence of Wonder, the loss of Direction, and the need for Awakening, were all the result of being energetically “blocked.” There is no way for me to do justice to the concepts by paraphrasing, so I will quote the book here. 

We “can become so involved in concepts and local, temporal tasks that we become bound up and don’t let this energy flow through.” 

“So the psychological problem, the way to keep from becoming blocked, is to make yourself—and here is the phrase—transparent to the transcendent.”

“What myth does for you is to point beyond the phenomenal field toward the transcendent. A mythic figure is like the compass that you used to draw circles and arcs in school, with one leg in the field of time and the other in the eternal. The image of a god may look like a human or animal form, but its reference is transcendent of that.”

Campbell, Joseph (2018-11-12T22:58:59.000). Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell). Joseph Campbell Foundation. Kindle Edition. 

It was at this moment that I realized that I had been absent from my spiritual path for longer than I remembered. I had grown so enmeshed in the local and temporal that I lost track of the need to reach beyond the bounds of my ‘self’. Sure, I had done cursory check-ins with my deities, but never dove deeply into those conversations. So, during that drive to dinner, I put the audiobook on pause and started a conversation.

During this conversation, the question was posed to me: “What do you want? How can I help you?”. And I did not have an answer. My conscious mind could not mine my subconscious for what my heart actually desired. Then I realized that I was being so guarded that I had closed myself off to my higher self as well.

I discussed this with my spiritual sister over a dinner that could not have been better timed for me, and I felt the pathways begin to open. Later that weekend, I participated in a spiritual gathering where, while I was not the focus, I heard the universe’s questions with a familiar clarity.

This brings us to the focus for this cycle, where I will work to bridge the gap between my physical self and my higher self. In many ways, I feel like this is breaking a spiritual fast – so the theme is Breakfast. I Awakened during the last cycle, made the coffee, so now it’s time for Breakfast. I want to try to spend more time in meditation, and focus on hearing the voices of my own spirit, rather than having them drowned out by the cacophony of “life”. I am hopeful that a result of this process will hold the answer to “what do you want?”

The song for this cycle is unexpected but perfectly fitting – it is “Call and Answer” from the Barenaked Ladies. I have always loved this song, and until the last few weeks I thought that it was about a relationship between two people. As I started making Breakfast, I began to hear it as a song that could be sung by my higher self to my temporal self. There is love, care-taking, and a beautifully encouraging directness – to rebuild.