New Moon Journal

Saturn and Uranus Opposition

This is a time of grand expansion, a opportunity to reconnect with the fragmented self and perform your own soul retrieval. Call back your power. Saturn entered Virgo in September 2007 and dances in opposition to Uranus in Pisces over the next year. This could be fun! (hey my Sun in Pisces is getting direct hits from this energy...)

We have one more New Moon in Virgo September 18th, 2009, next year at this time Saturn leaves and doesn’t return again until 2038.

Connect the dots and embody the Practical Mystic within, especially during the 2009-2010 New/Full Moons in Virgo, Sagittarius, Gemini and Pisces. Take the teachings deeper as Saturn finishes up the journey through Virgo...expect aha’s and shape-shifting.

Sailing the Capricorn Full Moon

Finally I succumb to the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (LG). The book calls to me just before leaving on our four day cruise to Mexico. What a delightful way to cook oneself just before the Full Moon in Capricorn. Set sail on the wide blue ocean (Cancer) on a ship (Capricorn) of strangers.

I tried to read the book a few years back and just couldn’t get through the first couple of pages; then in February after seeing LG’s wonderful TED video on creativity I decide, ”Hey Liz I’ll give you another chance!”

Dear Husband (DH) and I leave the quiet calm of Vero and head into our old hometown South FLA; just as we drive into Port Everglades the skies open up in one of those SouthFLA torrential downpours that drowns even the frogs. Rainwater even gushes up through the parking garage drains reminding me we are at or below sea level. Wading through a foot of water to cross the street attempting to enter the terminal, we are greeted by the chaos of drivers and their cars unconsciously splashing bystanders. Everyone is dropping off their bag and milling about as we move forward taking our place in line to board the ship. Shoes soaked, people pushing, no one smiling except the Philippine guy with the camera ready to take the boarding photos (we look like drowned rats)…suddenly reminded of why we moved out of SouthFLA a year ago.

“Only when human beings are able to perceive and acknowledge the Self in each other can there be real peace.”-Amma

The crowd's frenetic energy temporarily sucks me into its grip until I remember to ground and hold balance (Capricorn). The squish, squish, squish of my soaking sneakers certainly helps; we move through the lines, effortlessly board and land in our lovely balcony stateroom. Eventually we’ll overlook the sea but for now it’s a view of stacked port containers and roof air conditioners. Ah we’re here, let the celebration begin!

The Full Moon in Capricorn is your soul’s quest to create a safe structure within when you are emotionally thrown out into a sea of feelings (at the Cancer New Moon). No matter where you find yourself. You may be seeing tangible results from those intentions set and/or vision boards you created at the start of 2009. If not, why not I ask?

At the moment of my birth Cancer and Capricorn are intercepted in my birth chart, Mom and Dad at times reversed roles. Interceptions? In order to find the intercepted energy one has to enter the room, then go into a closet and close the door to have a dialog. In essence the energy of the sign and planets there are protected by divine design. But one isn't told that as a child.

Empathic by nature and then by trauma I didn’t know where I began and others left off; it’s always been a dance because the container of my body felt so elusive- I’d either merge too much and/or retreat and go into hiding. How did I compensate? Starting around the age 3…my relationship to food and my attempts to manage the anxiety of tuning-in, I am more aware of Weight protector in a sea of energies. Some of us drink, some people smoke…each of us is trying to find our peace.

You too are a ship sailing in a sea of energies…how you deal with the waves coming at you is what the Cancer New Moon and Capricorn Full Moon speaks to. Eclipses intensify the spectrum of feelings if planetary energies in your chart are set off. Expect a release at this Full Moon.

At this Full Moon in Capricorn my natal Moon sits at 14° of Aries, so I find myself on high alert. New and full moons call you to task; to manage the internal and external forces that cause us to go off course. Cancer asks us to take care, and Capricorn wants a structure for that merging energy. Healthy care taking. Keep in mind if we don’t get our Cancer/Capricorn needs met as a child we either merge too much or put up walls to protect.

At this Full Moon in Capricorn is your container (body, mind and/or emotions) more jello than mortar? Do you need to set a boundary or merge with the energies at play? Is it safe? Exactly where are you? Ponder on this…

Cruising through Eat, Pray, Love...

EAT: We walk into the Windjammer for a buffet lunch. There’s a feeding frenzy going on and a wall of energy hits me heart on. People seem to be walking from station to station in a hypnotic trance… mindlessly bumping into one another trying to get another something on that already piled high plate of food. Just moving through the sea of foodies- both fat and thin, makes me feel anxious and angry…the intensity of my anger surprises me…where did you come from, how spiritual is that, Michele?  Everyman for himself energy DH and I agree “Let’s get out of here, so we can read and be alone.” We find a lovely breezy spot on the upper deck, we talk and we read, I find myself journeying through Italy with LG...

The first 36 stories in Eat, Pray, Love is all about LG’s love of Italy and food, the community of souls and her need for connection, to find God within and around her. “I want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.” For today I am not seeing God in myself [not with this anger] or these people on the boat. My peace comes from looking out at the sea, and watching the incredibly moving blue water.

PRAY: Seeking. Second day at sea LG and I journey to the ashram, she's seeking to know God more. I want that too! Reading I start to question my own relationship with God. Do I need to go to an ashram? I wonder, then recognize I share a lot of the experiences she’s talking about. I’ve touched in and felt the presence, had aha’s and mystical unions with the Divine. All while being a mother and wife, my journey is different than her journey, but we all come to the same place seeking peace at different times. It's the judging that does me in, separates me. And for today...

Can I find happiness even after my scrambled eggs are mashed down by hairy-elbow-guy who didn’t look to see where he was going in the buffet line? Or the woman who decides to wash her sticky hands off in the community ice bucket by the ice machine. Yuck.

How am I blessed by the woman who woke up this morning and decided to slip into her too tight stretchy pants of red, white and blue USA flags and waving green dollar bills? Yes...WAVING GREEN DOLLAR BILLS. Reminding me it's a Happy 4th of July at sea with my shipmates. At this point I am praying for redemption.

I am in so much judgment. Okay I don’t like these people much, I’m trying, I pray. It suddenly dawns on me I feel spiritually arrogant… I think I’m better than these people just because ___________. You can fill in the blank. Can you relate to all this?

Then I remember a phrase learned long ago in recovery “if I think I am better than you or if I think I am less than you, then there is an inner child that needs some attention (healing).” This truth humbles me, takes me down another path of awareness. My peace comes from the laughter of my husband as I make a joke, looking out at sea and watching the incredibly blue water.

Sitting in a quiet spot on the upper deck, we are in line with the jogging path, there is a steady stream of people walking by. I decide to try and make eye contact with people, connect by smiling…no one but children notice. Even the children are surprised by my smiles. One four year old boy looks at me, I smile sending out love, in return he gives me a very guarded half smile. A reminder we learn too soon how not to connect. It’s all very weird. We are a community of souls on the boat. Our dinner companions, a lovely couple from Dallas Texas share that people seem to be pushy and mean to the help. DH and I laugh explaining that’s SouthFLA way.

I start asking our waiters something personal, have a conversation…and then watch their polite rote masks fall away, they share stories of being out at sea, threats of job loss, the time away from their families and children and new babies. Like our Hungarian waiter whose getting his degree in Environmental Sciences at FIU so he can move up into ship management, get more time off to be with his wife and new baby. My peace comes from these connections and as each story unfolds the light in their eyes touches my heart.

LOVE: Third day at sea we are getting into a routine. Feeding frenzy at breakfast is worse today because everyone wants to get off the boat and hit Cozumel. DH wants Cuban cigars and I just want to walk for nothing in particular, just want to be with him…we leave the ship, taxi into town. The slap haphazardness of Mexico is disconcerting, and the poverty leaves me feeling sad. How the trickle down economy is hurting these people. Hey lady do you want to have a drink..here's a free shot coupon, step this way.

As a little girl and young woman I had a tough time saying NO. Timid and quiet, raised to be very polite "good little girl"; in Mexico being timid won’t work. Merging with my True Self and the protectors for the middle-world I am ready for the psychic onslaught. Vendors with some very creepy vibes and their soul sucking eyes cajole us at every step trying to hawk their wares, “hey lady, hey lady, I have a gift for you. Come into my store.” Strangely enough the energy shape-shifts and starts to be a game each of us is playing for the other.I start to have fun with my strong polite "no thanks".

LG shares in the book the Balinese do not let their children touch the earth (structure/father/Capricorn) for the first six months of life; babies are considered to be gods sent straight from Heaven (womb/mother/Cancer). Babies are carried and revered as minor deities. Then at six months of age there is a blessing ritual honoring the four directions using Holy Water as their feet touch the ground. Imagine that, to begin life in such a connected way. Would we collectively need to drive ourselves to distraction- eat, drink, shop, smoke if we began with such love and appreciation.

While we almost lose it from Mexican heat, DH and I get back to the ship with cigars in hand. I have a deep appreciation for how far I’ve come from that timid and shy little girl I once was.

LOVE Day Four: LG and I are now traveling to Bali to meet with her medicine man, the Healer. There’s a hungering within me to stand on the ship deck, to sing and rattle to the Ocean- the Holy Water that surrounds us and is within us, but there isn’t a place to do that in this world at sea. I’ll stand out from the crowd, and well it’s easier to blend in and be like the others. But who's that serving? Living on the edge leaves me wondering “what does it mean to be a Healer in this ‘normal’ world?”

My thoughts seem to flow now like the pages of the book coming now in little vignettes. Last night at sea, tonight the silvery moonlight shimmers on the water, the stars twinkle, the wind breezes by us standing on the bow of our ship as we head to port. Boundaries and right timing, a good solid first chakra energy is what Capricorn demands. Returning Home one of the first emails I read is "Plunging to the Heart of Earth Life" and I am caught and taught by these words:

“…That perpetual gap between the one who knows that they know and the one who pretends that they don't, that gap is being bridged. We are going to be developing in the next years a mediating self. An awareness self, who can navigate and circulate, moving ever more fluently back and forth between the cosmic and earthly worlds.

As that bridging happens, as that navigational fluency develops, we will be able to sense simultaneously that somebody in us is wise, aware, awake, in tune. And that somebody in us is somehow still lost. And the further we're able to sense and know and be with that, the more the one who's lost will find themselves, and the one who is navigating from a greater cosmic reality will be able to embody through the one who thought they were just a little self caught in the world.We're getting updated.

We're getting fine-tuned. We're getting brought alive. We're getting brought forward, brought through, consciously-wakefully. And it will take years for this to fully register and integrate. But it is already happening, and it is a tremendous advance.

Meanwhile, on the surface of things out there in the world, there's a tremendous destabilizing energy at work (like a feeding frenzy at a buffet). We're being pushed right out of the past but into no place yet. There's an anxiety, apprehension, a millennial fever of subliminally sensing that something big is happening, but what is it? And can we go with it? And what is it really asking of us?- Mark Borax, 7.09 Soul Level Astrology Newsletter

So that is where I'm at at this Full Moon in Capricorn, remembering, connecting and wondering…how are these eclipse energies working you? Your thoughts?

Blessings,

Rev. Michele Lessirard, C.Ht. is an artist, inter-faith minister, shamanic practitioner, astrologer and teacher. Since 1995 she has preformed hundreds of soul retrievals, teaches through out the United States and is recognized for her ability to communicate the visible elements with the invisible- the spiritual aspects that are mirrored through one’s day-to day relationships with family, home and work.

© 2009 The New Moon Journal http://www.newmoonjournal.blogs.com written by shamanic astrologer and teacher Michele Bailey-Lessirard.

Bloodtime, Moontime, Dreamtime

A sweet poetic documentary film trilogy by Emmy Award winning filmmaker, Roberta Cantow with a musical score by Bronwen Jones:

Michele pick up the rattle

Chiron is a wonderful planetary energy, when you tap into the Chironic energies; in essence you are dancing with the wound that causes most of the problems in your life. Those drama/traumas that get you when you least expect it. If reading this you hear yourself say “well the past is the past”, well then think again. The places where we hurt make us more human. As healers we are expected to understand the pain; your “blessed wound” is what makes you a healer in the first place. In your birth chart Chiron’s placement and journey through the chart gives you understanding of what is out of balance and how to go about fixing it.

It takes 49/50 years for Chiron travel round your birth chart-in astrology it’s called a Chiron Return. Each time Chiron enters a sign he brings the deeper message of your “blessed wound”. Chiron is a bridge builder…he builds a bridge from the personal planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) to the trans-personal planets (Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto).

“[This story is] for the children within us who knew there were nature spirits, shining ones and more and the children whose lives we touch. May we open our hearts to the compassion and love of the Spirit world.  May the joy of knowing we are supported be with us each and every day.”- Shamanic practitioner Elaine Egidio

June 2009: Chiron is now enjoined with Neptune and Jupiter at 26 degrees of Aquarius. Neptune rules dream time and the fog of our addictions- drinking, drugging, food, shopping, spending, rescuing, hoarding, etc.

How one chooses to numb out when their pain gets too intense…wound= pain. Jupiter represents the energy of the teacher, Jupiter asks us each to expand into new territory, take a risk. Aquarius represents an original thinker, someone who thinks outside the box.

Chiron = Blessed Wound
Jupiter = Teacher
Neptune = Addiction
Aquarius = Stepping outside the box, being weird because you are not the norm.

Can you see the dance here of these energies? At fifty I breathed a sigh of relief that Chiron was through with me. Whew what a ride!

Yet starting this past December at each quarter turn-solstice, equinox, solstice I am deepening my understanding of long standing issues and taking the healing to a new level of love and understanding. Has that been happening with you? I knew I was in something and riding the wave once again…being rubbed raw to become real. Last week I asked the question…

When was the last time Chiron was at 26° degrees of Aquarius? I looked at the charts last week and thought "oh @#$#!"

Spring of 1959-I was three years old, the time of my first official food binge. I ate so many carrots I turned orange (yes I have clear memory of this, I remember a lot of my childhood). It was also the time I saw my first vision (clear sight). It was also the time I came in from playing and innocently told my mother I was talking to my friends- the nature spirits and shining ones. Mom’s harsh reaction and response to my declaration, “don’t be silly, there are no such things” sent me into a deep silence of shame.

She knew...
before everyone else
she knew

As a child she heard
and felt things
In people
their homes
in places
she knew.

The Unexplainable and
just plain weird
the good and the bad
she took it on
she took it in
she looked at it
sometimes digested it
she knew

She didn't fit
She threw fits.
She felt weird.
Because

No one could explain
this part life to her.
How do you explain
the unexplainable?
She hid it well
kept this secret
for a very long time.

Years later, now a young woman
Dad left her house
She felt it in her bones
the pain of never seeing
her Daddy again.
She cried all day.
Weeks later
the boating accident
then the stroke.
He's never been the same since.
She knew

Sitting in the meeting
the urge to leave.
Her child was in trouble
could she be imagining things?
She rushed home to find
Little girl and sitter
locked out of the house
in a thunderstorm
for over an hour.
She unlocked the door
daughter scared for her life
leaped into her arms.
She knew.

Dreaming
she saw her sister
sick and ill.
she woke up crying
two months later
the truth is revealed
about the tumor.
She knew

Finally one day
she visits The Healer
filled with spirit, laughter and joy.
Who became the mentor, teacher and friend
Re-birthed her gift of knowing
breathing in the truth "I believe in me" and
"I forgive myself for not believing-
I know what I know."

And so began the journey
to be okay,
with the knowing.
That comes and goes
Flows like the Tides
She knows...

It's the nature of women to know, it's part of our sacred feminine mystery; the betwixt and between that is not taught. Our mothers, our grandmothers are wounded, and this soul loss is passed down generation upon generation...are you the one to say "enough is enough, I want to know again?" How did your mother travel the psychic waters of Knowing? How do you discount your own knowing?

Put the rattle down

A cardinal scavenges the empty bird feeder sitting outside my parents apartment, and I feel the emptiness of the place without my mother's presence. I hear myself say "this is what it's going to feel like once she's gone" as a wave of grief embraces me.

I fill the bird feeders in honor of Mom. A week ago I made a SoulCollage card to honor her for Mother's Day. It's been less than twelve hours since I watched mom stroke out in front of me, leave and then come back to life.

That Sunday morning at breakfast a text arrived from my sister "I'm taking Mom to the hospital." Mom developed an appendicitis, and well they couldn't put her under general anesthesia because of the COPD/emphysema. They did a spinal tap and sedation not knowing if it would work. I drove up from Florida to South Carolina to be with Mom and Kelly. Each time I get the call or make the journey I can't help but wonder is this it?

What I heard is "stroke" from my Helping Spirits. My shaman self packed a small rattle and quartz crystal, some black clothes just in case. It was very weird. A decade ago Mom challenged my shamanic path and recovery, as time went by she shifted and in recent months when her hip was bothering her and she could not sleep, she asked for some long distance healing sessions. I was touched and honored.

From the first healing session the hip didn't improve, but her breathing did. She was thrilled. The second session the Helping Spirits said a soul retrieval was offered, and well I wasn't sure what happened in the healing experience for mom.

When I arrived at the hospital Mom's sitting up in the ICU smiling. Everything was great, her color was good, she was going home the next day. I thought okay my Helping Spirits were way off on this. Kelly and I left to have dinner, then I headed back to the hospital sit vigil during the night.

In the process they moved Mom out of ICU to a regular room, and when I walked in her whole energy had shifted into panic. Mom's color was off..her heart rate was elevated. Her first words were "Oh you're here!! They left me here unattended for an hour, no phone, no nothing. I've been calling out for you [energetically]."

Her night nurse arrived and apologized [it was a shift change]; we got her settled in. Mom and I chatted...I asked "how's the hospital bed with your sore hip?" She smiled "my hip doesn't bother me anymore since you cured me." Now I have tried to explain "it's not me" so many times. I was grateful that the Helping Spirits stepped in to weave a miracle for my skeptic mom. LOL.

As the evening progressed Mom started sharing..Oh I feel dizzy, I feel hot, then cold, oh my stomach is queasy, my head hurts...from my dad's stroke in 1985 I know the signs. At the same time I am hearing "here it comes" then in front of me I watch mom lose consciousness and leave while the stroke occurred.

I run to tell the nurse and immediately there is a code team around her bed. I stand in the hallway calmly watching and praying. It's an allergic reaction to a drug, they gave her some Benadryl, yet it has all the hallmarks of a mini stroke. She can't talk or focus. Mom comes out of it four hours later. She doesn't remember a thing. It's a TIA.

When the Med team leave the room I went to rattle...then I remembered Craig. Craig's a shamanic practitioner and friend who shared his heart-felt journey of his mothers death from COPD. One person commented at the time, it's okay to be the child and not the shaman.

I gave myself permission to be the daughter and not a shamanic practitioner. I surrendered. I put my rattle down, let go and accepted things the way they were...no matter the consequences. Mom recovered, and came home 48 hours later. Her body a bit more frail, her short term memory a bit more tattered, and she now uses a walker when needed...but for today she's still with us.

We are, my sisters and I, watching my mother's body shut down but her spirit is strong. For us COPD is long fifteen year plus journey, a slow painful death in measured ways... of stops and goes. I don't wish this experience for anyone.

I came home to South Florida raw and full of feelings after witnessing so much, so many miracles. I listened to heart music and grieved. I painted. I created. Walked in Nature. The rains returned just in time to end our severe drought. A metaphor. I didn't get around to write for the Gemini New Moon, didn't have the energy or clarity. The Sun and Moon in Gemini met in my 8th house, the house of surrender, death and dying. More lessons about being a daughter, a human-walking the shamanic path, accepting the power of knowing, not knowing and letting it all go.

Smell the roses

Who in your life was born under the sign of Taurus? At this New Moon in Taurus what lessons does that person have to share? How have they inspired you, tweaked you, challenged you? I wonder...

My Nana, still going strong, is 101 years young in a couple of days. Today I made a SoulCollage® card to honor her birth (1908 what was life like back then?) and presence in my life. Over a decade ago while in BB school of healing I needed family members to practice on between sessions; Nana was the first one to volunteer. *smile*

In this healing method, of laying on of hands, one starts at the feet and moves sequentially up the body...it's intimate, it's awkward for a newbie who has to take notes. At some point we both merged, the room became infused with the scent of roses and in that sacred moment I woke up to the wisdom my Nana's body and spirit held; a gift that even now remembering leaves me humbled. She healed, I healed as the Ancestors sang.

A SoulCollage® Card to honor Nana

I am the One who is strong and stands proud.
I am Grace, affectionately known as Nana and Nanny
As a daughter I was deeply loved
Today I am surrounded by the love of family…
my children, my grandchildren,
great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren.

Born April 27, 1908, I am 101 years young,
I once dreamed of being a teacher.
Then fell in love, married at sixteen
and birthed three sweet babies
In a time when young women were told
To stay home, to keep quiet,
To just put up with the things men did,
I didn’t. Why should I?
Strong willed... I do things my way.

Though divorce took my children;
another sweet baby came my way.
I am forever a Mother of four ~
Carl, Betty Anne, Myrna and Janie.

In the world
I worked    I played   I loved.
I traveled   I dined    I wined   I shopped    I lived.

As young adults my sweet babes came back.
Making up for time lost, we mended wounds,
forgave and loved each other even more.
So while I endured great sorrows, I found great joy.
My presence in your life teaches many things...

Life gives you a bit of everything,
I leave a legacy of strength,
determination and faith
to persevere in times of trouble
Keep your head held high,
things will turn around.
You’ll see.

While the earth shall soon dissolve for me,
As an Ancestor remember my legacy
I am the One who is Amazing Grace,
with you always in heart and spirit.
Smell the roses as you carry on.