4.27.2009

Sky Signs: Taurus New Moon Conjunction

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite a new moon last night (Sunday, April 26th), but the moon was certainly at a minimal sliver of silver... Around sunset in the west, the conjunction of Mercury, Moon and the Pleiades stood out to the naked eye!

Today, I meditated on this astronomical event more deeply so as to understand it's possible significance(s)...

Of course, the Pleiades is the snake's rattle constellation for the Maya, the portal to their star ancestors. It's importance is magnified at the Summer Equinox when it's apogee overhead marks the half-year point before the mid-winter opening of the Xibalba Be "dark road" portal to the heart of the galaxy (the land of the ancestors).

The moon confers knowledge of cycles, of transformation, of the Dreamtime and of feminine creative energies. Watching over us at night, the Moon initiates us into the knowledge of the hidden rites, of the great secret of being beyond ego self.

Mercury is the messenger, bringing communication to and from the Gods. In many medicine wheel traditions, the messenger of the Spirit realm is the fleet-winged, nearly invisible Hummingbird.

Thus, this is certainly a moment of high connectivity between us on earth and our ancestors. A time of "Thinning of the Veil". To honor this event, I created the image:


It is based upon the celestial locations recorded photographically last night during the conjunction. The Pleiades is above the moon, here shown in it's rattlesnake form. Below the moon and sightly to the left can be seen the small glowing dot of Mercury. This point marks the focus of the interaction between the hummer and it's flower. The plant is a Datura metel cultivar named "Double Purple" which I grew last year, my favorite Datura flower. (Datura, of course, is known as "Devil's Weed", or in Spanish - la Yerba Del Diablo - but it is known to the Chumash people of California, the Mohave, Yuma, Cahuilla, Zuni and others as toloache from the Aztec toloatizn, "to incline the head". It is used to induce sleep, dreams and divinatory visions.)

4.24.2009

Upcoming Wesak Full Moon

This morning as I was driving past the local reservoir, I could see the almost mirror-still water through the pine trees. Breaking the calm with just a hint of a breeze, I saw a pattern of interfering ripples creating a sort of expanding checker board effect across the surface. Immediately my inner eye filled with Shri Yantra - the visualization of the sound of creation, the sound of universal breathing in and out: A-U-M (OM).


I continued along the winding road under the tall trees with their reaching branches just beginning to leaf out. Spring. I could palpably feel surging life energy, reaching up from the earth to the sky, tree sap rising from roots to limb, sunlight blessing newly unfurling leaves. Another breath in the cycle. OM.


Today is the Taurus new moon. In two weeks will be the full Buddha Moon of the Wesak festival (in the U.S. held at Mt. Shasta, the sacred heart of the western world; in TIbet held in the Wesak Valley at the foot of Mt. Kailash, the sacred heart of the eastern world.) Wesak is the time of gathering for masters and initiates, teachers and students, a time for celebration and for sharing of creative, compassionate energy. It is said that the Buddha appears to all, dispensing energetic blessings of renewal and well-being. To honor this lunar cycle, I created the following piece:

Healing Emanation

4.12.2009

Grandmother Earth Machu Picchu

In his book "Island of the Sun: Mastering the Inca Medicine Wheel", Alberto Villoldo recounts his trance/dream experience of the great Grandmother Apu of Machu Picchu. In this meeting, she taught him how to project his consciousness to merge with that of the condor, to fly high into the sky on the winds of this sacred bird.

Read more of this article posted at ShamanDreaming.org.