©2016 Lynn M. Keefer
Libra New Moon Mandala
September 30, 2016
Out of Darkness The Light Shall Shine
The Month
Relationships. Half jokingly I say, “You can’t live with them. You can’t live without them.” While some relationships are nourishing, comforting and uplifting, others are devastating, challenging, and draining. In all sincerity, we cannot do the work of this physical plane in isolation. To become the people we are intended to be, we must be in relationship, in community. Community holds the mirror in which we see ourselves more clearly… more accurately. This mirror shows the measure of our love.
We come into this world in relationship… with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins. Our circle widens by including friends (for a reason, a season, a lifetime). Some of us build friend-based families around us from “sisters from another mister” or “brothers from another mother.” We build relationships with spouses, children, and grandchildren. We have relationships with the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker, role models, teachers, mentors, spiritual directors and guides. We have relationships in varying degrees to the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless and all the nameless ones whose paths cross ours day to day. We have relationships with the environment, our bodies and the 100 trillion tiny, microscopic bacteria that live within that tend to our inner physical workings. We even have a relationship with money. Many develop a relationship with God, Allah, The Divine Beloved, The Universe – whatever utterly inadequate name one gives to the source of all that is, the giver of all good gifts, the Being that invites us all into one common dance of Love.
Typically a Springtime thing, I found myself in a nesting mode at the beginning of the cycle – clearing out the old and making space, organizing and re-organizing and putting things in their place. I found myself looking at my relationships: Do they lift me up? Or drain me? Questioning the types of relationships of “birds of a feather,” “moth to flame” or “equals.” I looked at how the influence of past relationships continue to influence my life. One of the things that came on my radar was my discomfort with my body image. The thinner I get the more attention my body gets. I found it to be really uncomfortable to the point I began to sabotage my efforts.
Another was discomfort in new groups or situations. Thinking back to my own childhood, while most children were outside playing, socializing and being socialized, I was isolated – in the house practicing passages of music over and over until they became seamlessly fluid under my fingers. Thanks so some “deep diving” into the shadow-lands over the years I am aware of the reasons for that choice.
Lovie and I took a trip to Manhattan to hear the NY Philharmonic – one of the “special events” he has added to our calendar to look forward to each month. The guest artist that evening was world renowned and acclaimed pianist, Lang Lang. I was so moved by the beauty, artistry and “pure poetry” with which he played. And, at the same time sad because I understood the cost of his brilliance….the isolation, the loneliness, on the outside looking in… which may or may not have been part of the fabric of his life, but surfacing for me none-the-less.
I received this quote on October 20th, my birthday, through a blog post by Donna Drozda. It was entitled “The Root of the Matter.”
“Your main task as a woman now is to transmute the pain-body so that it no longer comes between you and your true self,
the essence of who you are.”
~Eckhart Tolle
The root of the matter…yes, indeed. This quote resonated so strongly with me. In October, if we are attuned to the lessons of God through nature, along with the darkening days we take the winding path that leads to the shadow lands, the darker side of ourselves where we hide our deepest secrets, our pain. The big questions for me as I reflect on this cycle were:
- What needs to die?
- What can I no longer live with?
- What do I need to let go of?
- What needs to be embraced by Love?
All in the service of Love.
This was a challenging cycle for me and as you can see from the delay in its posting is running well into the next. Sometimes the soil is tilled in one cycle and the answer will become more fully revealed in the next. I was truly blessed to be able to attend a women’s retreat weekend at Mary’s House in Cape May, NJ at the beginning of the Scorpio cycle with many of the women from my parish community whom I know “on the surface”. Having found my heart more closed and constricted during this cycle than I would have liked to admit, my prayer at the beginning of the retreat was for a more open heart. God never disappoints. We always get what we need.
The Mandala
©2016 Lynn M. Keefer
At first glance my eyes were drawn to the “webs” that seems to connect the elements in this mandala created by Sandra “Sunny” Mosley. These webs wanted to be an energetically charged orange on black. There is an inherent darkness in this mandala for me. But there is also an interconnectedness represented here, whose foundation is Love depicted by the two sets of four interlocking hearts. This foundational Love reveals the light within which shines throughout. The hearts closest to this light create mandorlas (not easily seen), almond shaped thresholds, which hold the space between two realities. Between what was and what comes next or the veil between the spiritual and physical planes. The octagram, or eight-pointed star at the center along with the 8 hearts speak to me of the deep abiding love of Christ Consciousness. This central symbol connected to the cross suggests selflessness, surrender, obedience to a Higher Power, death and resurrection. The outer “web” (or silver thread) holds together 12 orbs. In the center of each orb is an oval. The two together seem to “reveal” something. This depiction of Twelve (wholeness) speaks to me of two things at once… a representation of “all the people” and by extension all creation; And, the seeds of wholeness of being. We cannot truly have healthy relationships with the first without planting, growing and harvesting the latter in ourselves.
The Take Away/the Nugget of Gold
This cycle has been one of self reflection, of diving into the shadows of the dark deep where we hide our pain so well we forget that it is there, we forget who we are or at least who we had once been. When we invite the Light of Love into these dark and painful places and embrace the darkness found there, we become more compassionate, more whole… more w-holy. When the shards of the shattered mirror come together through the love of an embracing, witnessing community, compassion for self opens our hearts with greater love and compassion for others and the love of God is truly and beautifully revealed.
So… what can each of us do? What needs to die in us? Or be embraced by Love? What needs to heal so that our hearts can be bigger and broader, our love deeper and more encompassing? Ask. Seek. Knock. Have courage! In the darkness, the light shall shine.
Love, Hugs and Blessings,
Lynn xoxxx
[x_share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”true” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”true” reddit=”true” email=”true”]