The Etheric Moon Circle

love to you all new moon women... you are all very beatiful in your diversity

I shared a link to an older thread birthed by dear Trin some time ago (which is specifically on moontime, as in menstrual time...) in case you are interested it is worth the revival:
http://www.openhandweb.org/comment/15683#comment-15683

and (since it was so long and full of info, it had to be continued on a new link):

http://www.openhandweb.org/comment/21811#comment-21811

I experienced such spontaneous, heartfelt, intimate sharing yesterday in an informal, drop-in group open to whomever hears the call. I was asked to lead the same Openhand style meditation I led a week ago in another group. The word of the divine spreads and resonates...trust...unconditional love...acceptance...surrender...letting go...opening...expanding...crescents of soft moonlight bathing burned flesh...luminous slivers flowing through painful cracks...gently washing away the debris...what no longer serves.

"Put your thoughts to sleep;
Do not let them cast a shadow
Over the moon of your heart;
Let go of thinking."
~Rumi

Much Love,

Catherine

With the new moon and you all in mind, this morning I walked in a pine wood.
One tree seemed over laden with cones while her lower branches, carrying the cones looked dead or dying. It spoke to me of seeding the future and that this is our work now (also connected to the Angels poem on the other thread): seeding the future, in another form, in another place as this world ends.
As Kd says antisscipate nothing in the time that is next, not of your family and friends and their reaction to who you might be
just be as you are and feel what it shows you now. The next breath will be born from what is now. That's the gift I give thanks to the new moon for

Thank you, this is a really interesting thread for me. There's a part of me that would like to explore and connect with this and another that finds it hard to connect, almost like I don't feel tangible enough, if that makes sense. There doesn't feel much of a construct around anything at the moment...just the place where I'm at right now.

I read this from Open here and it's a big one I feel 'Between souls, words represent less than 10% of the communication, and yet the words - and the thoughts they represent - take over in most people's minds. So work to keep the dialogue as open as possible' - when I saw that those around me were not going to be able to connect with the experiences and shifts I was having - I felt to just stay open, without words and see what emerged, what came through those around me was unexpected, supportive and very surprising. So I try not to cast people out but to see what's possible from an open space - to form bridges - we mustn't underestimate that :)) We don't have to leave everyone behind.

This etheric moon thread is helping me to become more aware of my feelings and all their nuances and is much appreciated, given that I was karmically disassociated from my emotions for most of my life. The Moon is in Aquarius in my birth chart in the 9th House of spiritual consciousness. At the time of this new moon, the Moon is once again in my 9th House, which I'm feeling as an opportunity to let go of that which no longer serves my spiritual evolution, and open to new ways of being about how I connect and express to others. This new moon has aspects to Mars. As it approaches, I have felt an upwelling of anger and frustration at the ways I'm not connecting, aware that I'm trying to control the flow, attaching to how I would like it to be, rather than surrendering and respecting the way it is and how others feel. So I'm feeling into letting go of the efforting and what I'm holding onto, asking Divine Benevolence, "Show me where to connect so I can serve the highest good." I'm feeling a mish-mash of emotions about fine-tuning and balancing divine masculine and divine feminine energies. Mars is aspecting Chiron in this new moon. Chiron is the Archetype of the Wounded Healer and his appearance can bring up old wounds to be healed. Chiron was abandoned by his mother at birth. The theme of abandonment has run through my life in many shades and forms. Deep down it feels like the inability to communicate and connect and be seen and loved for who I am. I'm feeling the energy of this new moon as an invitation to further heal the wounds of this conditioning and connect with the divine flow to help others heal their wounds.

x Catherine

Hi Helen,

Well if you feel melancholy be melancholy - don't avoid, go right into it and let it express through you. Then look for any attachment - can you totally accept things as they are? At some point, you're sure to tire of it.

With love and support

Open *give_rose*

What belongs to private, belongs to private and I had written that to Helen in that form earlier.

Here I feel to share only that what Helen put into words up there is more than a personal story, life situation or a stage of her spiritual journey.

But also it is a strong current in the collective feminine as of now, during this very present time. In the last couple of months especially, tidalling in its effects in the world manifest. A very beautifully powerful great flow of black brilliance (as my best friend named it) that many women feel and experience in all its myriads forms, or personal facets, stories. Helen's sadness and feelings of separation is as much hers as any one of us (willing to feel).

At this New Moon or other time, it is a possibility to feel into this luminous darkness and into the questions it brings up into light for us all.

Reka, my birth sign is in Aquarius too. You really stumped me on "..it's my favorite time around Imbolc", I wondered, did you misspell something? What in the world is Imbolc? Had to go look it up :-)

Helen, I am experiencing something similar as you are with friends in my life. I don't feel as much sadness as I do a kind of deep acceptance of the let-go: the big sigh. Some of these friends have been friends for 30-40 years, we have a history of joys and sorrows together. I used to be a kind of "fixer", trying to reharmonize a situation, trying to bring awareness, stepping into drama to mediate it. I can't do that anymore.

It is not easy to stand on the shore and watch loved ones, dear friends, bash themselves into the rocks again, and again, and again.

For my grandmother's people, this month is the moon of the deep snow, the time of hibernation, of reflection. Fitting indeed that this new moon calls on bear medicine.

love, tigger

Hi Helen,

I've been there too - left everyone behind, and indeed they did think I was mad. Of course if they have a very conditioned perspective, they're going to struggle with an expanded one.

But there will be bridges that it's possible to build. You don't have to say everything that you feel. But you can continue to feel it nevertheless.

Between souls, words represent less than 10% of the communication, and yet the words - and the thoughts they represent - take over in most people's minds. So work to keep the dialogue as open as possible. Yet always feel into the truth that you are. Some people may naturally come back to you, others won't. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Wishing you well

Open

Looking at the future, with the eyes to see it and ears to hear it when it would burn out your eyes yet standing in a place of opening, receptivity and fluidity - is not this the core message of Openhand? This is some New Moon.

Sadness is our pathway towards sanity, as pain is our sword to power, and longing is our carrier to oneness. It's always the paradox: in doubt lies certainty...

I only have time for a quote about this special Aquarian New Moon coming up, and relevant to your sadness, Helen.

(Btw it's my favourite time around Imbolc, and in my birth sign of Aquarius ♒ )

"... Another archetype that illuminates the deeper themes playing out during the upcoming lunar cycle involves the asteroid Cassandra - who is conjunct the sun and moon. Cassandra was a prophetess that could see into the future. She originally was a priestess of the Goddess, but when patriarchy took over she became a priestess of Apollo. Apollo was struck by her beauty and wanted to have sex with her but she did not want to have sex with him and this infuriated him. He then laid a curse on her saying she would see into the future but no one would believe her. Hers was a journey of trusting herself and her intuition even when everyone else around her thought she was mad!

With Cassandra on the Aquarius New Moon there can be great visions of the future incoming: messages, visions, dreams and prophecies about our personal and collective future. This new moon can foretell the future- but we all must have ears to hear and eyes to see so we don’t miss it.

It is highly recommended to work with this new moon in a different way than you would typically do so. Instead of focusing on intentions, calling things in and taking conscious action- perhaps you can stand in a place of opening, receptivity and fluidity- allowing the current of the New Moon to take you somewhere new of it’s own accord? It's also recommended to use the Aquarius /Uranus energy to radically shift your life from the inside out first- rather than focusing on the outside and thinking it will change the within."

See more at: http://www.divineharmony.org/cosmic-insight-divine-harmony/divine-harmo…

Hi Tigger,

I'm with you totally that hanging onto the illusion of control does not generate feelings of safety. Indeed, feeling safe lies beyond all the veils of illusion In the seat of the soul as you so beautifully put it. I get this on an intellectual level but I'm not there yet on an emotional level. So I will keep softening into the fear that grips me.

I led an Openhand style meditation at a local non-denominational church yesterday, centred around letting go of whatever we're holding onto, of whatever we feel we need, to create space for higher consciousness to flow into us. The feedback I received was very moving and touched my heart so deeply. The meditation resonated powerfully with many of the participants who I sense long to let go. All we can do is keep softening into our fears, opening, expanding, and breathing the light of our souls through them. Openhand has so much to offer to so many who long to be free. I felt this profoundly yesterday when I shared information about Openhand at the church.

Thank you for your openness and generosity in sharing your experiences, Tigger. I have only tears, no words, for the suffering you've endured as a rape survivor.

I definitely share your experiences of coming of age in a much more patriarchal world than we live in now. Women back then forged the way to open doors for the women to come. Although my daughter and her generation have more choices open to them, other choices are narrowing with regard to marriage and having children. Have we truly made any progress, I ask myself, particularly after seeing a new documentary called The Hunting Ground, a searing indictment of rampant rape and sexual violence on American college campuses and the failure of schools to seek justice for the "victims" in the name of continued funding and donations. It's heartbreaking to watch, yet I am immensely encouraged by the courage of the young men and women who are speaking out and taking on the institutions. Overall, I'm feeling that we haven't come very far at all with regard to the oppression of women in society.

Helen, I appreciate your thoughts and reflections on welcoming men to this moon circle. I am open to inclusion. We're ascending and balancing the divine masculine and divine feminine together, sisters and brothers. I love you all.

x Catherine

Catherine, I wanted to let you know that your words: "I have been immersed so long in trying to survive in a patriarchy by taking on distortions of divine masculine energy and largely shutting down divine feminine energies" really resonated with me. In fact I could have written those words myself.

Your words in fact opened up a chasm of memories for me, things I've blocked, events I've disassociated. I crawled into the tub last night, turned off all the lights, and felt fractures of memories fall around me like confetti.

For so long now I've thought of myself as androgynous: part male, part female. I was sterile at 24 from a total hysterectomy, which launched me into menopause that in 1977 no one was talking about. I never grieved the loss of my womb because I had a very clear feeling that raising children was not what I incarnated this time to do. But it changed me in how I saw myself.

I don't know if younger women know what it was like to break out of the few choices women used to have:wife- mother, secretary, nurse, flight attendant, teacher. Careers like business, law, medicine, engineering were the bastion of males. When I started my business career in hospital medical/surgical sales for a very large company I was one of 2 women in a sales force of 200 men. The only other women in the company were secretaries. It was literally a man's world: a patriarchy. Sexual harassment wasn't even a term back then: it was the "normal" way women in the workforce were treated on a daily basis.

Catherine, I so understand your words: "my need to control in order to feel safe". Paradoxically, it has been my experience that even in the illusion of control we are not safe. I say this as a rape survivor. What I personally have learned is that safety is the in the seat of the soul.

Guess Helen, Catherine, and I qualify for "quasi-elders" of this circle :-)

love, tigger

Hi Fiona,

The link to "Born Free" you provided says it isn't available in my country, so here's a link that is with a photo montage from the 1966 film by the same name that won an Academy Award. My heart always soars when I hear this song! I feel such a deep longing to be free and unfettered. Thank you!

https://youtu.be/ov6aef8DTqg

Tigger, I'm always blown away by your beautifully poetic descriptions of your caring stewardship of Mother Earth and your loving and compassionate communion with all of God's creatures, great and small. How sad it is that losing our trust in the flow of divine benevolence and taking on the energies of control and manipulation have brought us to the brink of the Sixth Mass Extinction. The slavery and control bumps down from OC to homo sapiens, to nature, and to our animal friends such as these splendid wild horses.

In all of this, I feel my grip loosening on my need to control in order to feel safe in a world that continues to trash openness and vulnerability. It feels like I might burst apart in thousands of pieces if I don't. Memories are bubbling up about being terrorized and brutalized under the light of the moon down through the eons. I am fearful about letting go. The moon has witnessed the tragic defiling of the sacred feminine for too long. Like us, she longs to transmute her pain and celebrate the rise of the divine feminine.

x Catherine

Hi Catherine,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6c70hPa8iU

Lovely song *music2*

Thanks for this gem too...

"It's time to throw off the fetters and gallop wild and free through the meadows."

Love Fiona

Hi Tigger,

I felt very connected to you when I saw the video. I had shivers throughout my body as I read your post. Thank you for the love and care you show to the horses and showing others how to do the same. I have a sense of how the work you do helps to heal the collective herd, it's of immense value.

With love and gratitude, Fiona

Hi Helen,

I wanted to share my thoughts on something you shared above as I could see myself and my own previous doubts reflected in it. You stated -

"But I know that I still have many gateways to pass before I am capable to and can be trusted to help others."

I now believe (after much exploration) that no matter where one is on their spiritual journey or in relation to the gateways, one is capable of helping others and being of divine service and will be invited to do so. Just by being true and following your soul, you can inspire and shine the light. The simple example of starting this thread illustrates how you are being of divine service and helping others in your own unique and beautiful way.

I have found that in helping others, I learn more about myself and that in turn helps me - there is a positive feedback loop. I am always drawn to those whom it is right for me to work with - sometimes it amazes me. For example I may be exploring a particular distortion and then a client or friend comes along and shares their process around exactly the same theme.

I feel that if I were to wait until I was fully capable I would never be ready. Take for example me having worked as a doula, many would say that I wasn't capable of such a supportive role as I don't have my own children (this lifetime!) and I had reservations, yet being a doula was a remarkable journey, it brought huge healing and gifts to me and I can also humbly say to those I worked with. I see it in so many areas of my life, where I felt the pull and just had to take the plunge and dive in and then through the experiences and "mistakes", I learn, develop and am of service.

One question has arisen in regard to where the trust to help others would come from? Who would be trusting? Hope that makes sense...

Thank you lovely Helen for encouraging and facilitating this exploration and expression from within me <3

With blessings, Fiona

Rena, Helen, Fiona, Catherine, Jen: I feel your collective presence and gifts. I am so honored to be in this circle.

The video brought up a lot for me. As some of you may know I actually work in the horse world. I see first hand how captivity and domesticity affects many horses. I have had the opportunity to work with a small group of wild horses that were rounded up in Nevada, teaching their new human "owners" how to feed a wild horse. These horses due to stress and the typical commercial feed diet quickly become metabolic with a disorder known as Insulin Resistance. In humans this is known as Type 2 diabetes.

On my farm we have 8 horses, all retired competition horses, as the farm is a retirement horse farm. Two are mine, the others are boarders. About 20 years ago I had a revelation about keeping them in a herd with minimum human contact. This gave me the opportunity to really observe herd dynamics and learn from the horses how they wanted to live and interact. People thought I was crazy not to keep them in stalls, manage the turn-out, etc. These retired horses in a herd live considerably longer, don't colic, don't get sick. They rarely ever need a vet. My retired Grand Prix horse is now 29 and we have been together since he was 4.

At the heart of horse stall confinement is the human need for control and convenience. I feel this in part why our culture does not honor wildness.

love, tigger

Fiona!

This is the second time this beautiful video has come to me since yesterday so I'm feeling the wild horses showing up again as an invitation to go deeper still, let go, and unleash my soul, and just be, wild and free. As we once were before Opposing Consciousness bound and gagged us and turned us into slaves. The song "Born Free" from the 1960's film has been singing in my heart since Kim first posted this on Facebook yesterday. The movie affected me so deeply when I first saw it way back when just as this video does. It's time to throw off the fetters and gallop wild and free through the meadows. It's time to break through to the other side!

"Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Stay free where no walls divide you
You're free as the roaring tide
So there's no need to hide..."

Thank you for this. So lovely you're here in this etheric moon circle!

xx Catherine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7kbTaMoJRE

I was given this video today that spoke volumes to me and I felt to share it here. The photographers are follwing their souls and doing what is divinely given, shining light and spreading beauty through the darkness. In the reflection through the horses, I can see how the wild aspect of ourselves (in male or female vehicle) is beautiful and how awesome to express this, to let it free.

These two lines particularly stood out...

"Heart of the problem is that there is no value put on wildness"

"...show the beauty, as I feel that beauty will inspire change"

With love, Fiona

Helen, Réka, Tigger, Jen!

I'm truly thankful to be in this moon circle with such amazing sisters. Each of you inspires me in your own unique, special way. Réka, I resonate with what you say about the full moon attuning us so acutely to the pain and suffering of suppressed and unexpressed yin energy. You have, indeed, scented me out correctly about needing to heal wounds around the sacred feminine. I appreciate that you get where I was coming from re Bowie's distortions. It means so much to feel understood. Thank you.

These days I'm sinking deeper and deeper into how feminine power feels to me. I have been immersed so long in trying to survive in a patriarchy by taking on distortions of divine masculine energy and largely shutting down divine feminine energies. As women we are called to express such surrendered vulnerability, openness, and strength in our sexuality and in giving birth. How battered we have been down through the ages for being who we are. It takes such enormous courage to soften and surrender inside, let go of control, and honour, trust, and flow with the deepest whispers of our hearts and souls. I'm gradually making friends with the splendour of the moon as she shines the light on my distortions and illuminates the path to freedom. I'm taking more time to be quiet and still and to listen to the unmanifest.

Tigger, my heart goes out to you. I'm becoming more mindful about asking Divine Benevolence to show me what I need to see about myself when I'm caught up in painful experiences. When I pay attention and soften into patience, the answers come. Wishing you well, dear sister.

"The sky was lit
by the splendor of the moon
So powerful
I fell to the ground
Your love
has made me sure
I am ready to forsake
this worldly life
and surrender
to the magnificence
of your Being."
~Rumi

The moon truly is such a magnificent expression of the beauty of the sacred feminine.

Much Love,

Catherine

Good Morning/Afternoon Everyone,

I just wanted to post and tell you all how much I am enjoying this gathering. In ways I feel like a child sitting among a group of wise women and that feels very healing as there is this piece inside that yearns for that communal connection with other women, that longs to feel full and complete and matured in this woman's body - comfortable in it and able to express fully through it...that yearns for the place where we are surrounded by the aligned expression of our masculine and feminine energies and how it relates with the masc/fem expressed through the male form as well - I feel the sadness of that missing and the growth of integrating these aligned energies. I have felt within me a rejection of the feminine, a disconnection from the womb - a hardness that has protected that more flowing and open space...I know I am not alone in this as we look at the larger picture. This is starting to shift within me slowly...I recently felt drawn to take some belly dancing classes - I am really excited about it - feels like a beautiful way to connect to my body - to embrace femininity, sensuality, full embodiment, empowerment. The moon cycle within has been disturbed and unflowing over the last few months and this month came on full force...and I felt that like a weight - so tired and unmoving - like a thick encasement all around me. It's starting to lift now but there is still an urge to stay slow and quiet.

Thank you all for your beautiful sharings - I so enjoy listening to them and gleening reflections from each of you.

With lots of love,
Jen

I am so very much enjoying this thread of thoughts and feelings and experiences.

I walked the dogs on the full moon, saw it framed between palm trees in a picture-postcard sort of image. I stopped, and felt the lumination the almost pulsating throb of energy. Like a heart. Like a big white heart. I could feel the dogs' energies in my hands, through the leather leads, like reins. The dogs stood quietly, drinking in the moonlight, and attuned to the unfamiliar sounds of suburbia: a noisy street several blocks away, people talking (why is it that humans speak so loudly in condensed spaces?), cars driving fast. But for a few precious moments the dogs and I were a triad with the moon. And I thought of Helen and Fiona and then all the woman in the world looking up at the moon and breathing the white heart.

I have always loved the moon, felt a kinship, a fellowship with her. When I had wolf-dogs, we'd go out on the full moon and have what I called "sing fests". Sierra, Ravenwolf and I would tilt our heads back and sing to the moon.

As I was reading this thread this morning, I came to Reka's video. As soon as it started, I put my head phones on, closed my eyes, and was transported. There was water behind my eyes, of deep joy, of deep connection. I saw the four Bird Humans again, and then one opened its wings in front of me, great span of white feathers and long human legs and the message: see me, see me, see me. When the music ended, my eyes were watery with such profound feelings and I felt an incredible one=ness.

Not five minutes later, I was faced with an unexpected challenge...someone had gotten into my locked car and stollen my purse, all my identification, credit cards, a lot of cash, all my check books. At first the anxiety, the need to just scream or cry hit me like a freight car. In trying to soften I found it hard to connect with my mind. When I called the police they informed me that there was a ring of thefts on keyless entry systems (which my car has): they can open a locked car, grab anything, and then lock the car.

I found myself stepping out of myself, as I went through the tedious, time-consuming process of banks, department of motor vehicles, credit card companies, asking myself: what is it that is really bothering you? Is it the loss of the purse that a dear friend gave you several years ago because I loved the color pink? Was it the wallet, given by my mother to me after my Dad died? What is it that is hurting me so?

And I realized in the afternoon shadows today, that it was the darkness being revealed. The shape of a consciousness I cannot fully fathom.

love, tigger

... happens to be the sacred number of "the queen mother and wise woman" -- according to Carl Gustav Jung (just saying ;) )

I see me in you for sure, as one can only light a spark from a fire already burning within (St Augustine)

yet there is one gate we women find so hard to pass through (if I am allowed to say so): the one of self vindication.

You are powerful and special, already. No need...

Hi Helen,

Heartfelt gratitude to you and Réka for your insightful and inspiring comments and for your invitation to join the etheric moon circle. When I first read your post a few days ago, I felt incredible tightness in my body. I could hear myself saying, "I'm definitely not the right sort to join this circle." So I've been feeling deeper into the layers of my conditioning around my initial "reaction" and felt to post a few comments today.

What I've come to realize is that I have feared the moon throughout my life, just as I have feared acceptance and surrender, the essence of the divine feminine. Interestingly enough, the moon is at the apex of my astrology birth chart in the 9th House of spiritual consciousness with the rest of the planets pointing upwards towards it. From a synchronicity viewpoint, I feel this as an invitation in this incarnation to soften into my over-energized warrior ray 1 energy and "give up" the constant need to struggle, fight, conquer, survive, and achieve. Ultimately, to feel the peace and harmony that arises from balancing the divine feminine and divine masculine energies.

In my coaching session with Kim this week (thank you, dear friend), I realize that I will never be a soft, surrendered, ray 2 kinda female -- although sometimes, as a woman, I find it to be a most appealing option! For, indeed, I have a strong ray 1 warrior energy. I'm feeling that the moon is inviting me now to become the aligned warrior: powerful, passionate, committed to positive change -- trusting in the flow of divine benevolence -- without the need to control or manipulate outcomes. That which serves all life.

Full moons typically find me excruciatingly anxious, hyper-vigilant, awake, unable to sleep, acutely feeling the collective pain and screams through the ether, including my own, desperate for release, desperate for transmutation. Yet I've been resisting the call to go within, express, surrender, and let go, preferring to escape and deny.

A few months back on social media, I put together a photo of a wolf howling at the moon with these words ascribed to "Patty" that go straight to my heart:

i howl to sooth
a thousand hearts broken
stop and listen to me
as I sing my song
for all who can't cry

It feels like the right time to make peace with the moon and the disowned parts of myself. Thanks for providing a vehicle to help me do that.

With love and appreciation,

x Catherine

Hi Helen,

Thanks for the Etheric Moon Circle. It's great to read your experience, it sounds very powerful. I was aware of the magical wolf moon over the past couple of days - thank you!

Lovely to hear from you Reka too *bye*

With love, Fiona