Happy Beltane and More Coyote Tails
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Week of April 29 to May 3
Taurus Super New Moon Window
Yesterday’s powerful eclipse, or Super Taurus New Moon, still buzzes within through tonight, when the tiniest crescent Moon appears in the western sky after sunset. If we have not yet created space to tune into our intentions for May, tonight through tomorrow night is a perfect window for New Moon intention setting.
The sign of the New Moon sets the tone for the month, and provides us with an underlying energetic we can return to for support through all the other aspects stirred up over the course of the month.
From a Taurean perspective when we set intentions, or focus our energy around what we wish to experience and create in the month of May, we want to FEEL this experience in our whole bodies, to put our full attention there in the moment where our intention comes to fruition.
So for example, in May an intention for me is to immerse my body in self-care at every level to heal and align in a positive new way after my recent accident.
I project myself to the end of the month, May 31 and FEEL my body, my skin, my eyes glowing with nourishment and health. My neck and back are 100% pain free. My belly feels calm and happy.
My energy feels radiant and sustaining. My heart feels open. I feel open to life. I feel how my body is a holy temple, and I know that I have anchored that understanding at the cellular level. I see how I am rooted into this Earth, and I delight in this experience of deep connection.
Happy Beltane!
We need the earthy, pleasure-centered energies of Taurus now, to ground out all of the expansive and earth-shaking energies triggered by the Grand Cross activation last week, and the “swirly” other-worldy energy of the eclipse window. Taurus helps us cultivate patience in the continued energy buildup of Mars Retrograde (which will station direct May 19).
Taurus leads us into Beltane tomorrow (Thursday, April 31) a much-needed opportunity to get really slow and fully into our senses–and to experience the intimacy of the world surrounding as well as the worlds within.
Taurus is a fixed, or “self-interest” sign with a very healthy dose of self-esteem. When we invoke Taurus we know how to receive the bounty life is continually offering up to us which we are usually far too busy to receive and experience fully. For Taurus the spiritual path is about bringing spirit down and into matter so as to savor and enjoy it deeply and completely, with all of our senses alive.
On a recent walk with a Cayelin Castell we visited a rose garden. I normally would have wandered through quickly but instead Cayelin shared with me her ritual of slowly walking through and holding, and taking in the scent of each variety of rose. She taught me the roses that were barely opened had the most potent smell. I realized there were as many different scents as there were roses. I will never approach a rose garden the same way!
In a bow to Taurus, I have recently taken to hiking in loose, calf-length skirts. It’s so sweet to feel the breeze kissing my skin, I feel more intimately connected to all the elements and it makes me feel happy and joyfully connected to my inner little girl.
Ultimately Taurus is about intimacy. Cultivating intimacy first with our own bodies, our own senses. What do we prefer? What feels good to us? We take time to explore these things, without being in a hurry. This attention opens space for intimacy with our beloved, with a flower, the robin’s egg blue sky, the many scents of spring.
Every zodiac sign teaches us to pray in its own language. A prayer inspired by Taurus is not spoken in words. A Taurus prayer is embodied. When we are willing to bring our attention fully into the present moment, to drink life in deeply with all of our senses, our very being is a prayer and an invocation of the holiness of the creation.
Integrating the Grand Cross
I still remember my bewilderment in the spring of 2012, with all the profound astrological events at that time-the Venus transit to the Sun, Annular Solar Eclipse, first Pluto/Uranus square. I knew this was big energy but when I was in the midst of it much of what I felt was simply overwhelm, and an increased awareness of my self-doubt and patterns of self-sabotage.
When I emerged from complete immersion in those transits and could see more clearly, I became aware that these windows of intensity represent “seeding points” where we are downloaded with a tremendous amount of new energy, insight, and “light codes,” which take some time to integrate and bring into full flower.
I knew intellectually that these events could bring up shadow, and that great light illuminates what needs to be integrated, healed, or released. Yet it takes time to become adept at shadow-work, and to catch it right in its tracks. So, I have been more aware of subtle layers of this Grand Cross initiation, as I’ve experienced it on my own journey.
Coyote Tails Part Two
In the days just following my personal Grand Cross initiation of a dramatic car crash, I experienced a series of reactions, I am guessing others have experienced as well: The Spiritual High; Back to the Middle World; and Integration.
Hours after the crash as I tossed and turned in my hotel room in Willcox, Arizona, I felt the very potent presence of two energies vying for my attention. I see them as “old mind” and “new mind.” My old mind was plagued with worry and details–how would I find another car, how foolish of me to let myself get into this accident, what if my whiplash was worse than I thought, etc.
I got the sudden hit that my entire energy field had been blasted open at collision, and that I was in a hotel room–a very potent opportunity for picking up energetic hitchhikers. New Mind (which was infused with the wisdom of my guides, the grandmothers, and my own heart) told me I needed to let go of my worry, which opened me to all of that and instead, like a spiritual warrior, to focus on love, and light. I called in Archangel Michael for protection, and felt my center as a glowing beam of love.
I heard the words “you get to be alive: focus on that.” The next morning I wrote in my journal-“this is the first morning.” I felt joy coursing through me, and in the next couple of days, I was aware that the crash had opened me more to love, to vulnerability as a member of my shaking open, messy, vulnerable human family, all in this together. I received the love and affection sent to me by friends and family, and felt uplifted, and new.
Monday, less than three days after the crash and the morning after my partner and I drove 8 hours back to Albuquerque, I gave four readings, as it felt very important to support others in their Grand Cross initiations, and I also wanted to remain in the flow of spirit–one of the great gifts of doing this work. It also removed me from the practical concerns of finding a car, dealing with insurance, etc.
Tuesday morning I awoke recognizing for the first time that my entire body was shaking. I began to recognize I’d been in shock, and would need time to recover. I was coming down from my spiritual high, and recognizing the experience of my physical body was of trauma. Though this shock was on one level an opening and shifting into my heart and spiritual awareness, it was also a fragmenting experience that required my care and attention.
In the days following it has been as though the impact to my spine has released–one at a time–layers of old grief, sadness, and trauma to be healed. Grief that my strong Dad is dead, that he was not physically there the night of my accident. Sorrow about not having children. Resentment that I have so much “middle world” work to do when I want to focus more on spiritual practice and physical healing.
When our world has been deeply shaken–and I believe currently this is true for all of us–our path of integration is not linear or rational. We feel our hearts open wide, and it is a wonderful relief from our habit of separation, a blessed connection!
Then we experience pain or overwhelm, and we shut down again. Next we see how we are becoming hard and it breaks our hearts again, because we know how much bigger and truer it feels to feel, and to be vulnerable. Again we open.
We are finding our legs on this shaky ground. We find it in our willingness to continue to open up, step further into trust, let go even more profoundly the areas where we are grasping and clinging to the past, to illusions of security.
We find it by cultivating patience and compassion for ourselves and others as we revert back to old habits and patterns, even as we coax forward our more integrated and connected awareness and ways of being.
And we find our strength by reaching out to one another, and holding hands. Our path forward is not fully clear, but that is part of our collective adventure. Let us leap forward into the unknown together, holding hands, and sending forth prayers of beauty and heart-filled intent for the appearance of a great net that will hold us all.
In love,
Tami
How Are You Integrating the Grand Cross Energies?
We are all in the midst of powerful integration from our past month of intensity. If you would like support for your own path of integration, whether through a first-time Shamanic Astrology reading from me, or an update, contact me at tamibrunk@yahoo.com. I would love to serve you in experiencing the greatest joy, integration, and expansion in these powerful months to come!
ALSO, if you have not yet heard my Meet Your Grandmother Guide Meditation, I highly recommend it! This is part of what I have created for the Capricorn Venus Teleclass Circle, but I want to offer it to everyone for free. It is on Cayelin Castell’s home site, scroll down to the center of the page.