Ruffled Feathers and Spilled Milk

Farming with ducks and dairy goats, chickens and children.

Buddha Moon.

Posted on | October 27, 2022 | No Comments

Astrology is not my specialty. Sure, I set intention candles every equinox and solstice. When the seasons change it seems like an ideal time to reflect and readjust. Of course, every time I consider the 3 things I want to release and the 3 things I want to focus on, it turns out to be the same 6 things. Which doesn’t speak a lot for my progress. I’m gonna say it has less to do with my commitment and more to do with the dollar store white candles. Definitely the dollar store candles. I should probably upgrade and switch to this one:

Intentions candles are just another version of Sunday hikes when I try to walk off the stress of last week and tread in better habits for the upcoming days. Those habits usually last until Wednesday night or so. When I married a Baptist I was baffled by Wednesday night services. We were supposed to go to church twice a week? Now that I’m older I realize even God doesn’t expect us to go past mid-week without starting some of our correspondence with , “As per my last email…” Not without divine intervention.

Anyway, I am usually oblivious to how the celestial bodies are messing with my life until someone gives me a heads up. In early fall I was getting treatment from my craniosacral therapist for unbearable neck pain when she said, “I would ask if you have been stressed but that’s a ridiculous question when Mercury is in retrograde.” At $110/hour I figured I might as well get an astrology lesson too so I asked her to explain.

I’m incorrectly paraphrasing here but apparently when Mercury is in retrograde it seems like it’s moving backward even though it is really just moving slower when normally it moves faster around the sun than the Earth. If that sounds confusing then that’s the sensation of Mercury in retrograde. Communication, travel, and technology are in chaos and there’s nothing to do except console ourselves with clever memes like this (if we can get our internet to load):

So if your September 9th to October 2nd was a little rough, you can blame Mercury. I’m not gonna bore you with my trauma and drama but I did end up in a 3 1/2 hour therapy session on September 28th. And my therapist gave me 3 things to focus on and 3 new tapping points. I wrote those 6 things down and stuck that piece of paper under my intention candle. Let’s all hope 12 is my magic number.

Needless to say I was very concerned when a friend texted to tell me that there was going to be a New Moon Solar Eclipse in Scorpio starting on October 25th. And that its effects would last until the Total Lunar Blood Moon Eclipse on November 8th.

I know what you’re thinking.

We’ve been apart for 2 years and I have fallen off the cliff.

You’re not wrong.

Sometime during the Covid years when my job was imploding, my family was struggling, my community members were attacking each other, and the government entered FUBAR status, I went over the edge.

And in typical Wile. E. Coyote style I scrambled to get to solid ground. Lots of waving arms and spinning feet and dramatic music. Struggling frantically to get back to where I was before.

Oh, friends.

There is no going back.

Which kind of left me right here:

Now if someone warns me about Mercury in retrograde, I pay attention. And if you tell me the New Moon Solar Eclipse is here I’m definitely going to google that sh*t.

Feel free to do your own googling, but it seems like the best thing to do in this period of time is hang tight and lay low. Rest and accept. Smile and nod.

Most of you realize that non-reactivity isn’t my specialty. My therapist occasionally uses words like “catastrophize.”

But I have a Buddhist friend who provides lots of support during these moments. I only understand about 1/3 of what she says to me. But to incorrectly paraphrase, Buddhism involves feeling an emotion, looking at it (Oh, look. Anger/fear/sadness.), and then letting it pass by. No reaction needed.

Let me give you a real life example.

Think about when you’re leaving the WalMarket. There might be a person standing there, asking for your receipt as you exit. You might feel angry because why does WalMarket need to treat you like a thief when you just dropped $212.57 in their store. You might feel frustrated because you already dropped your receipt into a bag and you have no idea which one. You might feel sad because why is someone’s grandma having to work as a receipt checker at WalMarket. You might feel anxiety because you’re pretty sure that you scanned the jumbo pack of paper towels under the cart, but what if you didn’t and now you will be a thief and are they going to get those undercover cops or (Dear God, no!) make you stand in the 17-people-long-line at Customer Service to pay for the paper towels and what if you have friends, neighbors, or co-workers in the WalMarket and they see this going down and maybe you should just kick those paper towels off the bottom of your cart before you get to the receipt checker because what kind of monster uses paper towels anyway when all the forests are on fire but does that make you look guilty and…see catastrophize above. Heck, you might even feel disappointed because you went to all the trouble to have your receipt in your hand and now there’s no one standing there to check receipts.

If you’ve never been to a WalMarket then f*ck you, I mean, pretend they check receipts at Trader Joe’s.

But Buddhists just proceed through self check out and approach the exit. Maybe they have their receipt in hand, maybe they don’t. Maybe there is someone checking the receipts, maybe there isn’t. No need to get worked up over it. This is WalMarket Buddhism.

Probably. Maybe. The remaining 2/3 that my friend talks about may be relevant here. Any Buddhists can feel free to correct me inthe comments. But they probably won’t. Because they will just say to themselves, “Oh, look. She explained Buddhism wrong.” And then let it go.

So light your candles. Meditate. Go to church. Go to therapy. Don’t hit Reply All to any emails even if you really, really really want to and the person really, really, really deserves it. All we have to do right now is nothing.

We can do it! I mean, not do it. ( I hope.)

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