A Rainbow of Peace

The Rainbow Peace earcuff is back in our store as of tonight. I love this 'cuff because it gives me an excuse to pull out many beautiful colors and weave them into a symbol that means so much to many people.

When I first made this earcuff, I had no idea so many people would buy it. It's one of the most simple designs I ever created, yet in the simplicity there is so much power in the meaning of the rainbow splash of color and in the peace sign. Whip out your tie dye t-shirt and guitar and go start a sit in somewhere or wear it as a quiet statement of your pride in your sexuality. Or even just because you love rainbows. Whatever the reason, may it's powerful message of Peace and Diversity be with you always.

Wednesday's Pick - Fresh Water Pearl Ankhs

A while ago we showcased our first Egyptian Ankh earcuff and earring sets on an appropriate day of the week - Wednesday. A variation on that design using fresh water pearls came to us when we saw these stunning royal purple pearls. How could we resist recreating these popular beauties with such beautiful, new gifts from the ocean. We couldn't!

To remind our readers, the Ankh has powerful associations including the Symbol of Life, Immortality, Spiritual Reflection, The Three Upper Chakras, The Masculine God, Divination, Regeneration, and as a Symbol of Magick. However you incorporate it into your worship - and you don't even have to be an Egyptian Pagan to use it, it will be sure to bring you the power built up over it's 2,500 years as one of the most well-known totems on Earth.

Aries Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: Shadow of Illumination

(Excerpt from the student research papers archived in the Coven of the Dragonfly Moon, Temple of Hecate)

We are entering the final eclipse vortex of 2013. The gateway opens this Friday night with a full moon burning bright in Aries, ruled by Mars, sign of cardinal fire, initiation, spring and action; and it closes in two weeks with the Scorpio new moon on 11/3, on the tail end of holy day, Samhain (AKA Hallow's Eve or halloween.)

Of all the signs, few have more intensity than Aries and Scorpio and to weave them together with the power of an eclipse is nothing short of terrifying and illuminating, not to mention transformative in every way imaginable.

I will address Scorpio as the new moon draws closer, today is all about Aries. Among other things, Aries is not fond of sharing, she likes to lead, so I will give her my full attention now.

My mentor's moon is in Aries. When she learned this, many years ago when her astrological horizons were just beginning to expand, it made so much sense. She had always related to her sun in Gemini, most who meet her can guess she is a member of the clan of Twins. But there was always something else that laid just below the surface and came out anytime a leader was needed or her independence felt threatened. Enter the revelation of an Aries moon. The moon in our astrology rules the feminine/emotional part of our chart, the energy we need to cultivate to meet our needs on emotional levels, it is also connected to karma, and where we spent the previous incarnation.

Following the lunar cycles, as well as honoring your own moon sign, are remarkable ways to reconnect with our feminine/intuitive/emotional cycles, bringing balance in a world that is greatly solar and masculine. Additionally, awareness of the lunar helps us to reconcile old karma and receive the support we need to move towards our soul purpose in this life.

The full moon is notorious for stirring up the waters of the world, including our unconscious. When an eclipse, a perfect alignment of earth, moon and sun, occurs, it is always within the full or new moon. The alignment on a full moon constitutes a lunar eclipse, which heightens, even breaks open, the lunar teaching already at hand.

An Aries Full Moon brings illumination and heat to the surface. It questions where we are compromising our autonomy, our truth, it also demands us to look at what we are (or are not) fighting for in terms of that truth. Aries is not a feminine sign, like Cancer or Taurus. Aries is ruled by Mars, God of war and without the appropriate guidance, the Aries lunations can trigger wars and violence as the natural imbalance and struggle between male and female is ignited.

When I say male and female, please know I do not mean man and woman. Both men and women have male/female energy and much of her, and others, work is geared towards a marriage of sorts between the sun/moon, yin/yang, action/reception, etc within each of us and the collective consciousness.

Therefore, an event like the Aries full moon, kissed by the penumbral lunar eclipse, is an amazing opportunity, on all levels and realms, to balance the warrior (Aries) the Goddess (Moon) and create healing.

Our guide this cycle is the element of fire. Fire meditation, burning ceremony, fire dancing, etc are all wonderful activities. The energy is so strong, though, that in order to receive it successfully, we do not want to over do. Aries brings out the agro in us all and something as simple as lighting a candle out under the moon, maybe doing some slow breathing and a few warrior yoga poses or stances from martial arts or Tai Chi, along with open meditation, can be just the ticket.

How can you honor the warrior and the goddess in a way that is receptive and supportive? How can you be open to receive the shadow of illumination being whispered to you on the lunar eclipse without letting our own ego and agenda muffle the message?

Our world hangs in a delicate balance today. Coming through the 2012 portals and the mutability of 2013, there has been dramatic upheaval personally, politically, environmentally and socially. The difference between tilting towards destruction and shifting into restructure is exactly the teeter totter game being played by Aries and Scorpio this month. But they do not play alone. We all have weight in this one, but it's tricky. It starts in our hearts, in our emotional and subtle bodies. Don't give into the desire for drama this week. Slow down, ground, listen, breathe. But do all those things focusing on the fire within, your passion, your flame, your power and truth. Fan it, play with it, dance with it, let it sing and write and cry.The illumination will come. So will the healing.

Many blessings to you, and all beings, on this sacred full moon.

Mercury Retrograde - Are You Prepared?

Did you know the HMS Titanic sank during a Mercury Retrograde?

How about the Bush election fiasco in Florida with the infamous "hanging chads"? Mercury shifted out of retrograde at about 9 p.m. - just after the TV news stations wrongly predicted that Gore would win in Florida. The book, Mercury Retrograde, Your Survival Guide to Astrology's Most Precarious Time of Year says, "For more than a month afterward the breakdown in voting systems bred chaos and court battles."

Fascinating? Absolutely. A train wreck if you don't know how to handle it? You better believe it.

The week leading into Mercury retrograde is often fraught with even worse problems than during the Retrograde itself. I got a grim reminder of this when my computer's hard drive failed this morning. When I saw in my Facebook feed that the next one is coming up on the 21st of this month, it totally didn't surprise me.

Most of my friends cuss out this time in the astrological cycle, railing that they can do nothing about it. Not true. While you can't ALWAYS be prepared for the communication and mechanical train-wrecks that happen during this unstable wobble in the planet Mercury's orbit, we CAN shift our activities to those that produce very positive results...reflecting on where our life is going, our business strategies, product lines, renegotiating and reviewing contracts of all sorts and so forth.

If you want to be prepared for this one and others that will hit approximately SIX TIMES EVERY YEAR, you better get started and read up on it. I highly recommend the book, Mercury Retrograde, Your Survival Guide to Astrology's Most Precarious Time of Year! Get and get reading so next time you won't get caught unprepared.

New Moon Purging

Tonight is a night many Pagans observed the New Moon, having precious little time in our busy world to do it on the weekday. Tonight I attended a new group in Hollywood to see if we would be a good fit for each other.

The New Moon is an introspective time, one to contemplate one's inner work and the things that hold us back. It requires that we be honest with ourselves about our shortcomings and issues and work towards moving past them. In this Libra Moon, the New Moon right after the Autumn Equinox, the Children of Hecate especially, and many strong Pagans who follow other paths, begin the work of letting go of what no longer serves us - bad habits, tempers, intolerance and so forth.

Even deeper, but easily discerned for those who are honest with themselves, are those things that bring out anger in us about others. This is a very clear sign of those things that bother us about ourselves - the shortcomings and failings we possess. Our physical reality, including our surroundings, our work - right down to the friends and lovers we take on in life - mirror our inside world. That is why they distress us so much to see them in others - they remind us of ourselves.

Tonight we each charged a black candle with all the things that hold us back, the things we want to get rid of in preparation for Parting the Veil next month at Samhain. We were instructed to burn it down to the ground outside to symbolically release those negative things we put into them during ritual. I have not participated in a ritual with others for a long time, let alone done such intensive work. Tonight changes that.

May your deep introspections be enlightening, beneficial and blessing.

)O( Luna

 

The Blessings of the Autumnal Equinox

After the brutal heat we've been experiencing in Southern California for the last 4 1/2 wretched months, the Equinox brought it to an abrupt end this two weeks ago, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Most Blessed Goddess and God!

This time of year is only rivaled in my heart by Samhain/Halloween as the most sacred and blessed time to be alive. Besides the desperately-needed relief from the heat in the southwest, the profound change in weather signals a collective calm, an exhalation by Nature and her Children, a time to catch our breath between seasons, reflect on what has gone before in the year and what is to come.

In touching base with a local women's New Moon Group, their leader sent out a beautiful reflection on how precious this time of year is and what it has brought into her life. She says, in part, "This is the gift of the Goddess in Libra. Libra, mutable air, sign of the scales, ruler of the autumnal equinox, is charged with bringing harmony and balance. In between the extreme seasons of summer and winter, she offers compromise and one more chance to balance our stores and our perceptions, before the year ends.

"Air is a mental energy and no task is more suited to cardinal air than that of reflection. Taking the time to look at the past year without criticism or judgment, to see it for the transformation it was and the potential for growth it created. Libra asks us to look at the present moment, as well as the past, with grace and gratitude. To see if we can really rest in our center as the year wanes, letting go of what no longer serves and turning our intent for the seasons ahead to what the Goddess is asking of us, right here and now, rather than what we think she wants."

Like the author, my life was turned upside-down in the latter part of last year, continued to rocket ahead and change EVERYTHING in my life until this Equinox, where life, the Goddess and Libra are allowing me a breather to see where is has thrown me and where I need to go from here.

If you, dear reader, have encountered this as well, you will see what I mean.