Nox Amicus

On Saturday afternoon the moon was new again; time to take stock of where I’ve been and what might be next.

The last cycle was about Presence. Through it, I tried to focus more on being in moments instead of fearing them or reacting to them without intention. I wasn’t all that great with it, to be honest. The band had a gig a couple weeks ago and I just couldn’t hold the moments – I was thrown off way too easily. Work has also been a stressor. There is continuing and abundant pressure (beyond the mere workload) – however well-intentioned – that is definitely triggering. I had a one-on-one call with my supervisor’s supervisor on Thursday and felt like, while close to the moment, I may have been a little too high strung. In many areas of my life, I feel like I’m playing defense. Sometimes for cause, and sometimes because of the fear that yielding anything will cause a loss of self.

So this cycle’s theme will be Voice. If I don’t use and believe in my own voice then how can I ever expect anyone else to? I have to speak without fear of consequence – so long as what I speak is true in my own heart. This is true in work where I am finishing a document today that could lay the groundwork for everything I do for the next two years. I am beginning a new creative project tomorrow where I will accept myself as a subject matter expert and produce YouTube videos, I will also work to meet my friends and the band with a fuller and more assured voice.

I’ve been biting my tongue in my sleep again – I can’t help but think that the metaphor is actually real. Let’s stop that now.

No song this month – instead, I realized that my vocal isolation booth (closet) had turned into emergency storage, meaning I couldn’t record even if I did have something to say. That’s changed now. The lyric page might be empty, but that just means the possibilities are limitless.

Another new moon greeted us on Friday morning so it’s time to see where I’ve been and where I’m headed.

The theme for the last cycle was “Elevation”. A lot of things in August were calling me to step up my game both personally and professionally. A major presentation for work could have long term ramifications on my current position, and I’m grateful that I was able to live up to my own expectations on that one. The company is going to do what they’re going to do – but to borrow a baseball analogy, I’d rather go down swinging than watch a pitch fly by. I definitely put the ball in play, so we’ll see how the fielders do.

I realized I needed to think a little bit bigger personally too. I needed to break out of my comfort zone – or really, define a new one, and reach beyond myself more. For the most part, this was successful. Basically, don’t be so quick with being self-protective, allow the option of “yes” as opposed to defending with “no”.

This month though, it’s time to pull back a little bit, so the theme this cycle is “Presence”. There were a lot of big moments in August – all summer, really – but I feel like I spent more time ‘managing’ them rather than fully ‘living’ in them. I notice this with the band a lot – I’m so hyper-vigilant about everything – my playing, the sound system, the state of the audience – that I don’t spend enough time living in the moments that I savor so much. So what does it take to be more present? What does it take to hold the space – not just for people I care for – but for myself as well? How can I be more in concert with everything, rather than just being subject to its whims?

This weekend is a good start for that – just quiet stillness for a couple days before life, work, and the band begin again. It’s been nice to catch my breath and have the opportunity to see some of the places I could have been better in the past month – and to try to strike the balance between staying grounded and moving forward.

Last night at 11:12pm the moon was new, and 46 minutes later Mercury went direct from retrograde. The whole Mercury Retrograde thing resonates with some people – the idea of communications being wonky and holding off on bigger choices until it goes direct again. I wasn’t really paying attention to it this time around, but as I sit to write this month’s intention, it seems relevant.

The last lunar cycle was about “Resolve”. For me, this was a concerted effort to be less obliged to assumed responsibility, and lacking an expressed “need” from elsewhere, giving credence and validity to my “wants”. I feel like I did this in spirit even when I didn’t have an opportunity to do it in practice. There were very few times I did or said something because I felt I was “supposed to” and many times when I expressed what was in my heart even though that might not have been what the audience wanted to hear.

Still – I’ve felt mired in something since I got back from Australia. The best word is ennui – just a listlessness and dissatisfaction. Some of that is due to the lingering issues with my knee, some of it is a result of clouds on the professional landscape, and some of it is just wondering where the next hill is.

When I was standing on the cliffs near Watson’s Bay, I had an opportunity to think about who I am – quiet, alone, and uninfluenced I felt like I was the one in the village who went out on his own and looked over the hill to see what there was to be seen. I wasn’t harvesting resources or building new villages – I was the one that said: “hey, that looks cool”.

I went for a quiet drive tonight and thought about this cycle’s intention – and decided on “Elevation”. I’m very much stuck in the weeds, feeling like I’m slicing through a savannah with a dull machete. There are hills to be found and scaled, and above the clouds there is clear sky. For those who are familiar with the Qabalistic Tree of Life – I need to focus less on Malkuth and set my sights back on Yesod.

Or as Michael Nesmith wrote in 1971 – “I lost the light, now I’m moving through the night, running from the Grand Ennui.”

Thanks, Nez.

This past Tuesday afternoon the lunar cycle was new again, so it’s time for another of these posts. I’d like to thank everyone who tunes in every month for these. They’re just mileposts on my journey, but posting them here helps me feel accountable – so thank you for your witness.

Last month was about clarity, the need for it and the search for it. The trip to Australia was exactly what no doctor ordered, but exactly what I needed in the way it unfolded. It was physical endurance, it was the exploration of other cultures, it was immersion in the creative arts, and it was an exercise in self-reliance and self-expression.

So what’s this month about? The word is “resolve”. It’s a complicated word, whether used as a noun or a verb. In many ways, the journey through clarity helped me resolve some lingering questions and self-doubts, and that kind of resolution can only carry-over and make us stronger – providing us with resolve.

That’s where I find myself today. I have had a tendency my whole life to make compromises I didn’t really need to make. My own issues from childhood led me to be the one who had to make sure everyone else was okay. No one asked me to be that, but it fell to me. My sister used to call me Switzerland because I was always the one not taking sides and hosting the peace talks. In doing that, my resources were always expended outside of myself.

I’m going to start to back away from that. It’s not my job to make sure “everyone” and “everything” is okay. I resign. I will fight injustice, I will support my friends and family as best I can, and I will battle for what I am passionate about – but I’m now in the business of rationing my energies. I can’t be all things to all people anymore.

That’s going to mean changes. It’s also going to be rocky as I make that adjustment because I know I am going to alienate people. But 53 years is long enough to worry about making someone upset.

What does it look like? A lot more time of me doing things that feed my soul and less time fulfilling self-imposed obligations that don’t make my life a better place. Personally, spiritually, musically, professionally – everything needs to be examined for its cost versus its benefit.

There are still going to be compromises, and there are still going to be some times when I will do things because someone else’s need outweighs my own. But the important thing now is that I will also guarantee myself a seat at this table.

Micky sang a song during sound-check that spoke to this shift. It was “As We Go Along” by Carole King & Toni Stern, and the chorus begins:

Open your eyes, get up off your chair
There’s so much to do in the sunlight

Let the sun shine!!

On Monday morning we had another New Moon. This was a little hard to believe because I felt like we’d just had one – but such is the nature of time right now.

For May I had chosen Integrity, because I seemed to be surrounded by such a lack of it that I wanted to make sure I was living my own life with as much honesty, mindfulness, and conviction as I could. It was tough – there were some choices and compromises, but the sun kept rising.

But things are still muddled. There are turbulent waters all around – spiritual questions, professional questions. I need space to think, but I haven’t really been able to give myself the healthy time to do that.

So this cycle I’m choosing Clarity. I know it’s the thing I need right now to navigate these seas. During a conversation with Laura around my plans, or lack thereof, for the Australia trip – it dawned on me that I’m actually on a kind of pilgrimage. Prompted by the chance to see musical and entertainment heroes, but I also get the chance to breathe. I am flying half-way around the world. Everyone I know will be asleep when I’m awake and awake when I’m asleep. I will be alone and have the chance to really listen to my own thoughts. This made me think of the Australian term “Walkabout”, defined as “a journey on foot undertaken by an Australian Aboriginal in order to live in the traditional manner.” The tradition I’m looking for is my own. What makes Sean tick? What makes Sean happy? Who is Sean when there’s no one to be anything or anyone else for?

I am blessed beyond words for this opportunity, and I really think it couldn’t have come at a better time. So for this next lunar cycle it’s about Clarity – and in keeping with the recent trends of adding a soundtrack to these posts – I don’t think anything is more fitting than this.

It’s been a rough week. It’s been six days since the new moon and this is the first day I’ve felt like I was able to write an unbiased New Moon post. Funny thing is, the theme that I’d intended on last Saturday followed me through the week and stays true today.

For the April lunar cycle I chose Patience, and in that post I said: “I’m going to just be patiently watching for the next few weeks, void of expectation, but mindful of the changes – and any calls to action those changes may prompt.” Turns out one of the changes was a wonderful surprise gig with the band. But this theme of patiently watching while void of expectation served me well during the troubles this week as well. I was able to find the space between stimulus and response, not react too soon or over-react, and seek advice from a select few places.

All of this brings me to this cycle’s theme – Integrity. For my purposes this month, I’m using the definition “the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction”. Last week I’d wanted to choose Integrity because it symbolized the Beltane joining of masculine & feminine, and the unification that the ability to draw equally from both of those perspectives can offer. This week it is still true because the unification of emotional drive and logical restraint served me very well.

There are always competing forces inside us – light/dark, feeling/thinking, right/wrong – but reality is always somewhere in the middle. Reality is rooted in the oneness, the balance, the perspective.

So for the next lunar cycle I want to continue to try to see the whole board. Still staying true to my own convictions, but accepting the fact that “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) applies to all things, great and small.

There was a cautious optimism coming out of my last New Moon post. I’d chosen “renewal” because of how I was feeling and processing the trip to Hawaii. There was so much of that which called me back to myself – and so much of the intervening years that called for processing and forgiveness. In retrospect we are rarely exactly who we would have wanted to be in a moment – but that’s what growth is for.

I’d had some ideas for this month – thoughts that planned to build on what had come before, deepening the sense of renewal and the promise of rebirth that spring holds. But for right now there is other work that needs my attention, so in line with that, I’m going to pursue Patience for this lunar cycle.

In the age of instant gratification and twenty-four hour news, I think we lose track of the value of waiting. We’re so busy saying ‘I want to do this now, know this now, be there now, change this now’ – that we forget that sometimes the process is the thing, not what the process leads to. Sometimes the final product is irrelevant, it’s the waiting and crafting and tempering that is the real work, and sets us up for so many more successes than the one thing we thought we were working toward.

I have the rarest of occurrences this month – I have three weekends with no commitments. I think there’s a very good chance I’m going to keep things that way. In the quiet and the waiting will come either questions or answers.

There’s a principle in physics called the Observer Effect, which holds that the act of simply observing a phenomenon changes both that which is being observed as well as the observer. I’m going to just be patiently watching for the next few weeks, void of expectation, but mindful of the changes – and any calls to action those changes may prompt.

Ten days ago we had another New Moon – but it happened on the day we were flying from Oahu to Kauai; the middle of the vacation. Also – I had no idea what March’s theme would be. Collaboration had gotten us there – but what would being there bring?

As I look back on the trip though – and at moments, challenges, and adventures – I think the theme right now is Renewal; which seems fitting for this time of year. I realized that this was the first time since 1978 (I think) that I was in Hawaii with no other family than my brother, sister-in-law, and their family. There were shadows here and there of what Sean was like before high school… and a lot of “stuff” that’s gotten in my way in the past 40 years came into perspective.

A lot of it is just too “inside baseball” to post publicly – but sitting at dinner I got a clear sense of “my” family. Through the trip, there were snippets of “you can’t go home again”, but then there were moments that suggested that we’re never really gone. Mahalo nui loa to Bob, Carol, Joshua, and JJ for their ho’okipa and opening my eyes to ohana again.

So as I move through this month, Ostara, and the equinox – I want to try to leave my shadows alone for a while and keep my focus on the light of the sun. It feels like it’s time to bloom again.

I’m a few days late on this one, the new moon was actually Monday afternoon at 4:04pm. It’s funny too – last week while I was away I was convinced I knew what this cycle was going to be. But as it happens so many times, the universe had other ideas.

Last month the topic was Respect. Respecting one another, our choices, our paths, and what we desire and need from each other. This give-and-take of accepting and testing boundaries has a musical component. When you’re playing with other musicians you develop a sense of where someone will want to go, and you learn how to follow them. This is also reciprocated – they sense where you are, where the energy is taking your spirit, and they either join you in flight or keep track of the ground and let you soar. I’ve been finding great joy in this symbiotic nature of music lately.

So for this cycle, rather than go where I thought to go, I’m making a choice to go where I feel to go – and that means this cycle is about Collaboration. For someone who treasures quiet time alone, I’ve come to relish some of the times I get to collaborate with people. Sure, there’s the band and musical endeavors, but what struck me about this last trip to Denver was the different souls I get to collaborate with at work. I was discussing a possible workshop with one friend/co-worker and we were strategizing who would attend if only one of us could, and I said what was in my heart – “we are a two-headed monster” – we were stronger in that setting together. I also got to have lunch with a community of co-worker/friends – four of us talking a bit of work, but then trading favorite books we were reading. This blending of personal and professional – of spirits and tasks – makes for stronger connections and better collaborations. To be free to be joyful, or not – invites others to do the same and builds a space everyone can share equally.

Regardless of the size or context of our communities, where there is success, there is collaboration – and in this cycle, I want to do my best to recognize it and celebrate it – whether I am involved or am just blessed to bear witness to it.

Happy New Year – and welcome to the first new moon of 2019. I started this process two years ago this month; and I like the fact that I can go back and see where I was, what I was facing, and examine how I chose to deal with it. Thanks to those of you who choose to come along for my introspective journey every month!

Last month was about Honor. Honoring commitments, honoring memories, honoring sacrifice, and honoring talents. When I was thinking about what this cycle might hold, it felt like Honor needed some sort of companion. As if to say that Honor is the theory – but I needed to understand the practice. So this cycle will focus on Respect.

A week or so ago, a somewhat obvious lesson presented itself. The details aren’t relevant – but the learning was that we all have different paths, and as similar or compatible as they might seem to be at times, no two paths are identical – and that’s what makes us all unique individuals. It’s like two musicians might play the same instrument in the same song – but they will sound totally different because of who they are and how they play. We don’t all play the same way, and it’s unfair to expect that someone might.

But that expectation is also unfair to ourselves. How much time and energy have we spent waiting, hoping, encouraging – someone to see the benefit of the path we laid out before them? We know it’s right – why can’t they see it? Because they are not us. They do not have our experiences, our history, or our perspective. This doesn’t make them wrong, it just makes them not us.

So this cycle I’ll continue the work of being more respectful of the paths other people choose to walk, particularly when it comes to my interactions with them. I will also respect my self, my path, and my energy by not investing more than is healthy. My history has caused me to stay present ‘just in case’ – but this has historically carried a very high price. It’s time to respect my resources and conserve them for where they are actually needed or can bring the best result.