Early in my morning and in all of our last 24 hours, there was a full lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses happen when the earth blocks the light of the sun and dresses the full moon up with her shadow. Every month the full moon is a celebration of illumination and completion, so lets explore todays celestial message and illuminate the shadow of the eclipse, discovering insight in darkness. Darkness always has something to show you. Think of the night sky. Your face turns upward to swim in the depths that hold and contain the varying bodies of light, the stars. you may even try to shield your eyes from any distracting light to see the stars better. Notice how we can nearly feel the signature twinkle of the stars in your chest, or seemingly hear an echo of their stellar pulses in your head. Even if you have only ever see the few brightest stars hovering over city lights you may catch yourself responding physically. Of course we are more familiar with the brightness of the one sun star, who lifts our moods and can make us strip or the other wondrous luminescence of the moon who can bath an entire evening in romance, but the stars are the ones that seem to wink and glitter like they have secrets to tell us and will explain magic someday! Artists that we are, we can mimic the effect of a starry night using a dark solidish material, prick holes in it and then cover a window in the day time. Tadaaa! The narrow tiny shafts of sun light become the sparkling expanse of stars. It could look the same, especially if we squint our eyes, but this is backwards from the night sky. While the pin pricks are the empty spaces light shines through in the material, the stars are the source of light, the something, surrounded by so much nothingness it appears as darkness! Often I muse about how we are universes turned inside out, each one of us. I picture our divinely perfect and crude material body sculpted out of everything found on earth and then, like turning a shirt inside out, the stars and planets fold inwards moving through the impossible and we are born. We find the Sun in our heart, fuelling our life! We discover Mercury dancing with our breath and words, Venus quietly rooting in our kidneys and balancing everything, simultaneously Mars and Jupiter conspiring for our greatness by throwing forth passions, reactions, plans and impulses to shape our path! If you haven’t noticed your celestial insides yet, maybe its time to take a moment and look again.
At first when we close our eyes to pray, meditate or just go within it can appear dark. Sit with it, and similar to your eyes adjusting to the night sky, your inner eyes, your witness, starts to see more over time, and what may have first appeared like a solid impenetrable block is not solid, but space and darkness so you can see all the small sources of light you contain, your radiant source of being-ness, your twinkling source of becoming and sparkle of endless possibilities.
Trust yourself, respect yourself, stay with your darkness and discover your light. You are always becoming, you are always a source. Even when the earth casts a shadow, you can be the light in the dark!
Love, Rachel
