Today the Sun in Virgo opposes Neptune in Pisces, an activation that continues through Sunday’s Virgo New Moon. As I continue my travels through Maya country I am reminded of the first time I heard the Mayan phrase “In Lak’ech Ala K’in.”
A common translation for this is: “I am another one of you.” It speaks to the unified field of consciousness we can step into when the wisdom of Neptune in Pisces is illuminated–as it is now, by the radiance of the Virgo Sun.
I was standing in the Sacred Valley of Peru, and a vibrant young Colombian woman stood before me, her eyes shining. We were attending the “Call of the Condor” Vision Council and Bioregional Gathering where ecologists, spiritual visionaries, permaculturists and indigenous elders all gathered to live for a week within a temporary ecovillage and teach and learn from each other.
As we looked into each others eyes, the green mountains and mind blowing blue sky above us, I knew this woman I’d never met was my sister. I felt pass between us this profound love and understanding that we were truly of one heart. “In Lak’ech Ala K’in” we said to one another hands joined.
This simple yet profound teaching bridges the barriers of human race, religion, age, culture, nationality, language and life experience. It also transcends the species barrier. When we remember to see a tree as our brother, or the ocean as our mother, we will remember what it means to truly be human.
This mirror does not only speak to the reflection of beauty and truth and wholeness, love and light. We also see and feel our relationship to the suffering and anguish in the world around us and allow that to break us open into even more love.
Public Beach Outside of Tulum
Here in Tulum which is my current base in the Yucatan, I biked to the public beach one morning. As everyone had warned me, there were piles of sargasso (seaweed) all along the shore, coloring the once beautiful ocean red. Everyone knows the cause for the seaweed is climate change.
A new Maya friend who works at one of the big hotels told me with pride that the beaches near the hotel are clear because of all the backbreaking work he and the other staff had put into cleaning them–every day, because the seaweed keeps returning.
He also told me that they are not allowed to use the private beaches, they are only for paying customers. His words cut so deep. I saw the fire in his eyes as he told me this. These beautiful beaches, many of which used to be accessible to everyone are now only accessible to those who are able to pay upwards of $200 per night.
I found a small cove where the seaweed was not so thick and I waded in, singing to the waters. I offered tobacco to the directions and I sang the songs I knew. I found myself crying and speaking to Mother Ocean and saying–I am like you! We are the same! My womb, like the womb of Mother ocean, knows pain, knows violation.
And we are still beautiful in our brokenness. The ocean wants to be loved with seaweed or without seaweed. The clearcut land wants to be loved as much as the old growth forest. There is beauty in all of it. I am you and you are me.
Sunrise on Bacalar’s Lagoon of Many Colors
And yet, there are still places inside each of us, and in this vibrant green earth, that remain whole and healthy, and are to be guarded well and fiercely. I have just visited one such land in Bacalar, land of the Lagoon of Seven colors. The healing and vibrant waters here as well as the thriving pueblo community hold you in an embrace that is healing and nourishing to the spirit.
This place, like every other sacred land, is endangered. My sister Tracy Barnett wrote of this danger last year in an article for the Washington Post: https://tinyurl.com/yddhb6xf
How do we grow the love in our hearts so big, how do we feel our connections with all life so profoundly that like our indigenous brothers and sisters, we are willing to dedicate our lives to their protection?
This question can and must also be turned inward. How can we fully face and claim the parts of ourselves we believed to be broken, or damaged, and see within them their full beauty? How can we also perceive the parts of ourselves that have remained true, whole, and healthy, and guard them fiercely from violation and devastation?
I have fallen in love at least a dozen times since arriving here. With the land, the water, the trees, the man at the gas station whose face broke out into the most gorgeous smile when I said hello to him. So many other bright spirits, each with their perfect brilliance, joy and brokenness.
There is an ecstasy, a true experience of joy that comes with allowing ourselves to love the world, and our own selves without condition. Sun opposite Neptune invites us into this practice of coming home to the family of life and our own unbound hearts.
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