Full moon in libra last night but we will be feeling it for the rest of the day and into tomorrow. Full moons generally indicate a light will be shed on something that needs to be adjusted or attended to in some way. Libra is about harmony. People with libra suns or rising signs are often physically harmonious, meaning, they are often beautiful. But this full moon is opposing Chiron, a small planet that, depending on where it shows up in your natal chart, shows us where our core wounds are concentrated. What shape your lack mentality takes. Maybe it’s resources, friends, your confidence. Libra is also about our relationship to our other, often our significant other, and all the benevolent and malicious qualities we project onto this other when we can’t see these qualities in ourselves. I feel that this full moon is saying, fuck the other, go for g-d and then watch everything fall into place. I don’t want to get too deep into an astrology explainer, so let’s just meditate on this question: where are you abandoning your self? And. Where are you abandoning your Self?
Humility is something I am thinking about lately, which may seem unrelated to my questions but, knowing that everything that rises must converge, I’m going to trust my process and toss them up. This morning during my indulgently long morning meditation, the concept of an unvarnished, pure form of humility graced my mind. I decided this is something I want for myself, this high quality humility. A few hours later I found myself walking into a building. Just ahead of me were two people greeting one another at the door. For a moment we all came together and so I flashed them a smile, real genuine-like. I recognized them both but I can’t say I know them. As they continued chatting the first held the door open for the second and I assumed this person would in turn hold the door open for me, we had just made eye contact, albeit briefly; but no, as soon as the second person walked through the door they let it close behind them, right in my face.
My reaction was that of incredulity. Not because I think I am on everyone’s radar, that everyone’s paying attention to me; I am a 45 year old woman, people of my ilk no longer preoccupying passerby by our mere presence. Fine. But as one human to another, at least extend to me the dignity of acknowledging I exist. Or just don’t shut the door in my face.
I immediately opened the door, part of me thinking the sound of it would bring the offender’s attention to their oversight, apologies would be made, my ego would be assuaged. No.They continued up the stairs talking to one another; me and my anger, invisible. I laughed audibly in a tone––50% amused, 50% scorned, 7% awkward––I could never replicate. (I realize the math is off here but when does reality ever represent actuality?) They didn’t hear me.
I realized I may as well be invisible. Something switched for me then. Relief washed through me. I heard humility, sounding just like my own thoughts, and it asked me: who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuckity fuck? You can, but wouldn’t it be interesting to not?
By the time I got to my destination my chuffed ego had cooled. I considered that I am: forgettable, ignorable, invisible, even when I’m staring you in the face, smiling toothily, walking behind you, passing through the door you just entered. We all are. I suppose I forget people all the time; I must, although how would I know?
This morning, while walking my dog Moonie, I remembered I had an Audible credit waiting for me which meant it was that exciting time of the month I got to download a new audio book. I reserve my audiobook purchases for spiritual texts––very specific ones; there’s so much spiritual trash out there––if only so that I can listen to them compulsively to maintain a vibe while I do other things like clean toilets or stare at the ceiling at 3 AM. I cannot even tell you how many times I have listened to Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, or Byron Katie’s A Mind At Home with Itself, although if I could, I wouldn’t.
This month I purchased A Course in Miracles, a text I was somewhat familiar with. I read parts of it over ten years ago and must not have been blown away since I couldn’t recall any of the book’s specifics other than it was “channeled” in the 70’s by the author, a gal named Helen Schucman. My inner skeptic has always been a bit incredulous that this spiritually significant person’s last name was Schucman; and, she was modern; she probably owned a microwave. This variety of skepticism is a pattern of mine and it’s been proven wrong many times. Out of desperation to expand the mind, the spirit, all of that, I’ve mostly learned to bypass it.
Not far into the first chapter, I was already dumbstruck by the book’s profundity; the breadth of description of, well miracles, was mesmerizing. Helen Schucman, in a very Jungian way, had tapped into the gateless gate, the dark within the dark, a rare divinity, pure subconsciousness. Worth addressing is the book’s preface: “How It Came,” where Helen describes the book writing process. She says:
“The writing was never automatic. It could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again. It made me very uncomfortable but it never seriously occurred to me to stop. It seemed to be a special assignment I had somehow, somewhere, agreed to complete. It represented a truly collaborative venture between Bill and myself and much of its significance I am sure lies in that. I would take down what the voice said and read it to him and the next day he’d type it from my dictation. I expect he had his special assignment too. Without his encouragement and support, I would never have been able to fulfill mine.”
I’m struck here by how Helen––the talent, the muse, the transmission receiver, the one really putting her reputation on the line: she was a clinical and research psychologist as well as a tenured professor at Columbia university––describes this process as a collaborative effort. Her collaborator, a coworker named William Thetford, was her transcriber. He did not, as far as I can tell, contribute to the actual writing of the text, a fact I find illuminating, considering the extent and credit with which Helen lauds his participation.
This generous lauding style reminds me of Saint Teresa of Avila whose many inspired sixteenth century writings, channeled descriptions on ecstasy and one’s inner heaven, are peppered with misogynistic self-debasements that are kinda embarrassing to read. Also coming to mind is the colossally gifted eleventh century polymath, Saint Hildegard of Bingen, who began her texts and letters with lowly, self conscious profusions of praise and gratitude she bestowed onto her male superiors. Scholars have argued that these women, living within a world dominated, ruled, and determined by male minds, were equally ascended and endangered by their genius, and that these little diatribes of humility were actually acts of self preservation.
I think this is true, but I also think these women knew something about genius the rest of us can’t see. Perhaps these moments of seemingly gratuitous praise are rituals of humility. Practices and preparations for the mind that, like a good throat clearing, dislodged the ego in order to be a muse and let the genius flow. In the same way their bodies were in danger lest the powers that be decided it was not g-d working through them but some other untoward, dark force, Teresa and Hildegard must have intuitively understood the immensity of their gifts were in constant danger of their own egos. They had to constantly deprecate or sidestep any ownership of their talents in order to continue to work from a pure, unvarnished psychic space and give host to such immensities of energy and inspiration. They knew the power of forgetting the little self to make room for a bigger Self.
So again, my question: where are you, like a good throat clearing, abandoning your little self? Further: where are you giving your Self over to new, uncharted levels of humility? Be a muse. Be a creator. Be humble. Unconscious Self abandonment is a horror story. Forget your self for your Self and let: galaxies, eternity, the entire cosmos, work through you.