The Power of Water

"We carry oceans inside of us." —Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Our New Moon this month comes in on a Friday, setting us up for a weekend of invitations. Seasonally, there's been a shift. Summer Solstice has just happened, three days ago on the 20th. We've got stretched-out days, thrilling sunsets, a standing Sun.
(The word "solstice" comes from the Latin word "solstitium": "the sun" and "to make stand.") In old Europe, this day was called "midsummer"; this is the setting for the famous play Shakespeare wrote, A Midsummer Night's Dream. This event is still a national holiday in Sweden and Finland. Go outside this weekend—flirt with the flowers in your neighborhood. Drink iced in the park.

Astrologically, this New Moon is in Cancer. Translations of the Cancer glyph have been breasts (the area of the body Cancer rules), to a crab claw, to up and down movement and motion, to the changing of the Sun to ascendent to descendent—a nod to the Solstice, which usually coincides with the beginning of this sign. Traditionally, the sign of Cancer knows a thing or two about emotions. The crab's home is water: the element in the Tarot that coincides with feelings, intimate relationships, love, spirituality, the subconscious, intuition, and creativity. When we are ruled by our emotions, we are rendered helpless. Swimming in a sea of nostalgia limits our perception. Drawing upon our intuition, using it as a positive force for our own dreams, is a useful initiation at this time. Actualizing ourselves through the vignettes that surface in the imagination is a way to transmute fantasies into outcomes. To support and nurture others through our findings is the highest calling of all.

The Moon rules Cancer, as well as the element of water. The tides rise and fall to her counterclockwise orbit twice a day; once when the Moon is closest to the water it is passing over, and once when it is farthest away. When the Moon is overhead it is high tide. When it is far away, it is low tide.

Water flows, it reflects, acts as a mirror. Water is receptive, changeable. A drizzle is a rainstorm is a muddy puddle is a pulsing waterfall. When water is a mist, our surroundings are hazy. When water is still we delight in watching the minnows burst around our feet in kinetic, shimmering schools. It possesses properties called cohesion and adhesion—water sticks to itself, as well as other things, very easily. Water takes up all kinds of different forms on our planet. Our blood, our tears, mother's milk, urine, amniotic fluid, our sweat—humans are on average composed of sixty percent water. Water is life. All life on the planet originally came from water, inside the ocean two billion years ago.

Generally, American culture tends to shy away from talking about emotions in any sophisticated manner, and doesn't hold space for them to be analyzed. Paradoxically, we are incredibly affected and controlled by emotion at all levels of our existence. Most elections are pumped through a fervor of feelings. (Even if they are called opinions, attacks, or strategy.) Much of advertising utilizes calculated emotional manipulation to sell the public items that promise happiness, safety, sex.

A few months ago, I reached out to the brilliant contributing astrologer of this workbook, Diego Basdeo. Both of us are Cancers, defiantly familiar and comfortable with the spectrum of emotions. I was sad and upset about people stealing my work with crediting me, intellectual infringement-type situations that kept popping up, seemingly without end. I reached out to him because he predicted this would happen a few months prior in a reading. He responded with "poise your water." I knew exactly what he meant. When are emotions are pouring in, we are sinking—washed out to sea, treading water furiously just to keep from drowning. It can be a challenge to not react when we are seeing red, to see what benefits there can be from widening our view, assessing our emotional state. Water can heal. Water can wash away, replenish, revive.

Anyone deeply sensitive, empathetic, anyone who feels emotions very consciously has their most powerful weapon inside of them. The intensity of the energy felt can be put forth into manifestation, energy work, behaviors and action. Rejecting the feelings will not help us. It certainly takes practice to make this shift. Practice. The next time you are struck with strong contracting emotions, begin with identifying and accepting any sensations taking place inside your body. Name them, and if possible describe what is underneath this. Think about the adjectives associated with your feeling: hot, seething, trembling, etc. Try to take this emotion out of context and translate the sensation into raw energy. Think about how this could be changed into support, into service for your soul. This is one way to turn pain into power.

If this emotion is in relation to another, don't react while still in a distorted state; wait a day or longer to respond. "Negative" emotions, like anger, shame, and guilt, also act as more information to help one get closer to one's desires. Are you angry because someone copied your work to promote their own without crediting you? Sink deeper into your authenticity, focus on the ways in which you need recognition. Give yourself that first. Then ripple that intention outward. Treat others with tender recognition. This creates a beautiful timeline into action, into compassion—energetic shifts. As we have discovered, no emotion is "bad" or "good"; they are all information to be utilized.

During this New Moon, think about inventive ways to alchemize emotion into outcomes. Anger is vitality, passion, sheer strength when indignation, defensiveness, or blame has been tempered out. Shame can be turned into forgiveness, humbleness, compassion. Leave the window open to let in whispers, via birding, for clearer pathways for the rivers of the sadness, rage, the howling hopelessness to flow through, over, out, into. Emotions are energy, energy is power. Channelling emotions into action is power. Poise your water.

The suggested affirmation is: "My emotions are my secret weapon. The richness of my emotional depth opens me up to my power."

This is excerpted from Many Moons 2017, Volume 1.

Buy Many Moons 2017, Vol 2 here. 

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