Forecast for Wednesday, September 16th
Virgo Balsamic Moon
★Oracular Overview—honoring No Longer through the integrated embracing of What Could Be…
As we approach tomorrow’s Virgoan new moon, as the moon moves toward the sun and the sun exacts its t-square alignment with the Nodes—the ego aligns itself more appropriately with goals, toward Not Yet, and, perhaps more significantly, toward ways in which are more appropriately aligned with the improvement of self-serving capacities to further, and more deeply understand, the higher self and its values, its inclinations toward creative thinking, and overall visions of abundance.
Who are you becoming?
What does your best life look like?
Considering your current circumstances—what are your plans toward connecting the dots between your Now and your best life, between Now and Not Yet?
In honoring your horizons, and the broadening of them, it is customary to provide an offering—to honor new beginnings through an honest realization: that if your ego is calling the shots—your soul is left to whisper… if the ego continues on entirely untamed—wretched emptiness or confining limitation is the consequence, and we are seeing actual manifestations of this energy throughout the collective in all directions.
Please understand—the ego is absolutely necessary.
Though, the ego needs to be guided, not promoted to leadership.
Learning to empower the ego through soul purpose, to be healthy and balanced and in right proportion, is truly the way of feeling thoroughly meaningful and wholly driven by right action.
Today may offer an opportunity, however subtly, offering a celestial nudging toward listening to the soul, and more honestly rendering the untamed ego for what it is: more often than not—a misunderstood and misused distraction.
❝You don’t have thoughts; the thoughts have you.❞
——Eckhart Tolle
By degree, there is an inherent association toward “the need to keep a vibrant and pure simplicity at the core of one’s being as one meets the many tests of existence… though great, spectacular and resolute efforts are needed in order to achieve one’s higher goals of destiny, still the essential quality as one journeys on “the Path” is a pure, spontaneous, fresh and nonviolent approach to all encounters…”¹
Further, “without such a deep, heartfelt simplicity the seeker after spiritual experiences or Initiation is bound to find himself glamorized by his own successes, and to see his ego feeding on the drama of struggle and victory… and this would present one with a subtle hint of technique—it is a mental technique inasmuch as it is through mind that man can transcend the entropy of the universal process of existence… beyond individual prowess and social eminence, the individual whose innocence is fixed upon spiritual realization should genuinely radiate innocence.”¹
What exactly is Rudhyar suggesting here?
Not only is it that the Nodal energies are working its collective cosmic juju—lunarly Virgoan energies, too, are naturally emphasizing sensations of celestial virginality, meaning vibrations of self-empowerment on one’s own terms—for oneself, through oneself… virginality meaning ‘without any dependence upon an/Other in any way’.
Striving for selfhood is definitely in the air… striving beyond the self-bonded limitations discovered through the workings and demands of an untamed ego…
So what is the ego? And what is it to be without ego?—to not be bombarded by a bossy ego—what is ego death*?
Could this be what Rudhyar was suggesting?
The way I have been thinking about it: to be without an overactive ego is, first of all, a willing surrendering to the universal notion that we are all both everything and nothing at the same time.
It is absolute trust.
Or, as Rudhyar put it: it is a mental technique inasmuch as it is through mind that man can transcend the entropy of the universal process of existence… beyond individual prowess and social eminence, the individual whose innocence is fixed upon spiritual realization should genuinely radiate innocence.
According to Ventegodt and Merrick, the Jungian term “psychic death” is a synonym for “ego death”… and is a symbolism in action through translation, as in order to “radically improve global quality of life, it seems necessary to have a fundamental transformation of the psyche…”²
And this is to which I am referring—fundamental transformation of the psyche via psychic death… simultaneously nothing and everything, interconnected to everything else, endlessly—rather than the perspective of Self and Other, separately.
Too many examples throughout history exist toward the ego being mishandled and misused, underestimated, and entirely entitled.
L Brown (hackspirit.com) writes that when we are controlled by our ego, “or our sense of self and identity… the ego holds us back because it puts a lens of duality over the real world—instead of seeing life as it is, the ego tends to divide concepts into two opposite sides: left and right, right and wrong, love and hate, peace and war. These divisions bring suffering to our lives. Instead of seeing everyone as equals, the ego forces us to categorize others, making greater and lesser people, experiences, thoughts, places, and emotions…”²
Further, Brown offers that “the ego forces us to think that some things are wrong and some are right, thus breeding hatred and resentment amongst humanity. But there are some of us who live without these artificial borders, and these are those who have experienced what is known as the ego death.”²
What is the ego?—the “ego is an identity of our own construction—it’s our beliefs we have about our personality, talents, abilities, life experience, relationships etc; it’s the mental construct of our “self”—while it can appear that the ego is static, it isn’t. Rather, it is active, dynamic and changing…”²
❝One way to think about ego is as a protective heavy shell, such as the kind some animals have, like a big beetle. This protective shell works like armor to cut you off from other people and the outside world. What I mean by shell is a sense of separation: here’s me and there’s the rest of the universe and other people. The ego likes to emphasize the “otherness” of others. The big problem with the ego is that the ego loves to strengthen itself through negativity and complaining. When you listen to the ego and its negativity, it starts to control you and how you behave.❞
——Eckhart Tolle
In many ways, psychic death is much like the psychologically-inspired integration… integration, according to Jung, is ‘the process during which both the individual and collective unconscious are integrated into the personality; integration is a positive psychological development that indicates psychological maturity and may help an individual move past negative habits…’ the more integrated the mind becomes, the more resilient it is.
So, maybe the extremes of psychic death need not be necessary—but its lessons more openly embraced and willfully reciprocated effort of integration applied to every angle of life, one by one?
Ultimately, the celestial lesson to be learned today, here in your Now, can be explored through “the need to consciously accept one’s own personal limitations in order to concentrate one’s energies and to live a centered and fulfilled life…” and that once again, the heavens are reminding us that No Longer is no longer… and these lessons can be more easily embraced through the surrendering of the soul, and the taming of the ego.
To be aware—brutally, unapologetically aware—through the awareness of integration—this is today’s theme.
Slow, measured, deliberate tortoise steps…
❝Become an observer of the currents of thought that flow through your consciousness. Just like someone sitting by the side of a river watching the river flow by, sit by the side of your mind and watch… It is the same as if you are sitting on the bank, watching the thoughts flowing by. Don’t do anything, don’t interfere, don’t stop them in any way. Don’t repress in any way. If there is a thought coming don’t stop it, if it is not coming don’t try to force it to come. You are simply to be an observer….❞
——Osho
Through today the Virgoan moon opposes Neptune in Pisces, only further distancing one from the raw reality of one’s circumstances, confusing and confounding the boundaries, blurring the details and delaying the perspective actualities… causing discomfort, disillusionment, or even disagreements. Truly, a moon in Virgo prefers to feel understood, justified, and reasonable—this may simply not be available today—it may be necessary to “go [off] alone to contemplate”, as shamanic astrologer Raven Kaldera³ suggests.
Further on this note, Kaldera³ titles today’s moon as the Monk’s Moon—a monk, surrendering his life to chastity and obedience, through rites of religious doctrine which symbolically suggest or directly and quite literally imply the surrendering of ego, and living strictly, and faithfully, through the soul’s purpose by the pull of Spirit alone.
Not to say that this is the appropriate path for us all… nor will taming the ego, for the average individual, lead one to a life of absolute chastity and solitude… nor in any way am I suggesting any such extremes in either direction.
However. A spiritual awakening is, indeed, in the air and in the ethers… and very likely on your mind and thumping in your heart.
A spiritual awakening of sorts—whatever that looks like for you—is upon us all here in the Now.
❝Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life… if you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature… be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.❞
——Carl Jung
The seven steps of spiritual awakening⁴ begin with awaking from the “dark night” quite literally, then further willful exploration, glimpses of enlightenment to trigger, provoke, and further one on one’s quest, continued soul growth, then surrendering, and finally, broadened awareness.
These steps can include organic periods of isolation and depression, even shame and guilt, as the process of awakening dismantles, entirely, everything you thought you knew or understood to be as it is—including, especially, who you thought you were/are—and this can be quite overwhelming, and everyone navigates through the process a bit uniquely, as we’re all coming to this place from varying sets of established circumstances.
To take away, in however small a dose, everything you thought you knew to be true about something can have devastating consequences—it is no easy task… and should be awakened to slowly, and deliberately, with patience and care.
Again, egoic death—or psychic death—is not describing death or dying, literally, but a more symbolic ending and a new beginning, or chastity and solitude, with the allowance of true fulfillment… and when this idea is embraced in reciprocated effort, one can then begin to recognize its effects in everyday experiences, in every breath, through every moment.
In realizing that it is quite harsh to deny the ego’s pull completely—what many of us would otherwise assume to be instinct—it is most particularly damaging to limit oneself of one’s ultimate potentials, as the ego tends to cling to What Was or What Is rather than toward What Could Be…
The soul is always considering What Could Be, and absolutely bored by and beyond What Was, and satisfied or satiated with What Is.
It’s thereby also quite damaging to resist seeing things as they really are.
❝Awareness is the beginning of becoming free of the ego because then you realize that your thoughts—and the negative emotions they produce—are dysfunctional and unnecessary.❞
——Eckhart Tolle
*contrary to popular belief/assumption—ego/psychic death can be embraced without the use of psychedelics…
¹Rudhyar, D. “An Astrological Mandala.” Vintage Books; ©1973.
²Brown, L. “Ego Death: 7 Stages to the Obliteration of the Self”
³Kaldera, R. “Moon Phase Astrology.” Destiny Books; ©2011.
⁴hackspirit.com; ©2018.
★These current energies we’re all navigating will continue to circulate and circumvent throughout the rest of the year, into next—for better or worse—how can you best plan and prepare?—and in what ways can you strategize your personal ideals? Let’s talk about it—message me directly to book your reading—I look forward to being an asset on your journey.
*Single readings available, as well as monthly forecasts… my availability is M-F—am/pm—and Saturdays by request
★SPECIAL PRICING OFFERS —$123 for single readings ($199) & only $321 (that’s only $26.75/month!) for monthly forecasts (regularly $365) through 12/31/2020
❝The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.❞
——Christopher McCandless
Image credit— @sammyslabbinck on Instagram