New Moon - New Movement

The New Moon is a time to go inward and explore the darkness. From the darkness sprouts all new life. A lotus must spiral through the mire before unfolding to the morning sun. A baby must incubate in the lightless womb for many months. Night falls daily, and we slumber in the absence of the sun. The New Moon opens a portal for us to release that which no longer serves us. This particular moon, in Cancer, asks us to consider the following questions: 

What nourishes you? 

What environment provides beauty for you? 

What aspects of your life need drastic change? 

Are there family patterns you are unconditionally playing out? 

We have the opportunity to weed our inner garden, plant new seeds, and create something so amazing, something we have only glimpsed in our imaginations. 

Tonight, for my New Moon celebration and inner gardening, I am leading an elemental journey through music and dance in the town where I grew up. I am here in South Carolina, getting back to my roots, and wriggling down deep to the source of my cycles, patterns and pre-determined personality quirks. Tonight as I dance, I choose to dance the demons keeping me from succeeding to the surface, so they can experience love and appreciation for the ways in which they have served me. As they arise from the deepest, darkest realms of my roots, may they be released with ease and grace. May my process feel beautiful and raw, an inspiration to the dancers around me; a source of strength for them to do that same. My prayer is for us all to feel at Home in our Own skin and bones. Temples in the flesh. 

Please continue reading to take in the words of amazing astrologist Pat Lilies, who write for The Power Path. 

I hope this New Moon blog inspires, ignites and encourages you to make any changes needed in your life. We are all in this together, and we one of us make a change, it's felt worldwide in subtle and sometimes obvious ways. Blessings and Beauty to you now and always <3

The following write up was excerpted from www.ThePowerPath.com

ASTROLOGICAL NOTES:

Written by Patricia Liles.  Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com

Cancer New Moon

Sun and Moon in Cancer ~ 23º

Wednesday, July 15, 2015 7:24 PM Mountain Time

(Thursday, July 16, 1:24 AM Greenwich Mean Time

The emotional dial is turned way up at this point in the year when the Moon is in its own sign, Cancer, and is joined by the Sun for New Moon.  Mercury and Mars also in Cancer are joining the party.  A party for Cancer includes all those things she rules ~ food, family and the comforts of home.  With the Moon as ruler and as the cardinal water sign, Cancer rules our emotional bodies, our receptive nature that waxes and wanes like the Moon’s light bringing constant shift and change.  The fourth sign of the zodiac is a curious mixture of security needs and the unending flow of adaptation to change.  Cancer rules the fourth house of the zodiac where she is guardian of the home, our foundations, ancestors, our intimate private lives, the mother.  Introverted Cancer rules the breasts and the stomach translating to nourishment and what will support family.  The watery, Moon-ruled nature of Cancer greatly heightens and sensitizes intuition, and she can feel the shifts in emotional tides before they are even expressed.  Often accused of moodiness, it’s just her responsiveness to the emotional currents that puts Cancer in a different stream than the rational, intellectual concerns of those around her.  Captain Picard in Star Trek always included his beautiful empath in his council for good reason.

Mercury and Mars (14º) are also in Cancer and are EXACTLY opposing Pluto in Capricorn (14º)! Oh my!

Mars has been highly interactive with the Sun and Moon in the last two months.  There’s something we need to pay attention to here.  Mars adds an element of haste and urgency to everything, we get too much on our plates and the energetic feeling is one of intensity.  Add those ingredients to the mental functions of Mercury and in the sign of emotional Cancer and you have a recipe for breaking out of deep emotional patterns, family patterns, patterns that run in the background, feeling patterns, patterns that hold your personal power small and rigid.  Cancer tends to develop defenses to protect its emotional sensitivity, so if defensiveness rears its head, check inside that exposed emotional artery for clogged energy that wants release. Avoid dwelling on emotional replays of past hurts and slights and use Mars’ energy for activities that enhance the feeling of Mars empowerment and action.  With Mars, God of War, opposite Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, you may see power struggles and resistance with others or within yourself.  There’s a push to win, dominate, break through or to accomplish something big and make big changes that free your emotional energy and really change up your life.

Mercury and Mars will each take a turn at triggering first Pluto in Capricorn and then Uranus in Aries from July 15 (New Moon) until July 25.  (Just what the Sun did last week). It creates a background of crisis/opportunity that is exemplified by Greece and the European Union situation.  Greece is a Capricorn country as is Brussels, Belgium, seat of the EU (and Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iran, Mexico).  Greece is exposing the financial, governmental debt game that they are resistant to and no longer willing to play in a win/lose paradigm ~ a perfect example of the crisis and exposure of no longer functional concepts in our social/financial/governmental/corporate worlds (all Capricorn ruled) by Pluto’s passage through this sign 2008-2024.

We have two annual retrogrades coming up soon.  Uranus in Aries moves retrograde from July 26-December 25 moving ever closer to a square with Pluto until December.  We’ve completed all seven exact squares of these two collective, transpersonal planets – the birth is complete.  Now we learn to live with the infant.  Uranus can open you to the unexpected in whatever house it transits through.  Fresh energy, inspiration, unconventional turns, and discoveries await you.  The rebel within you may soon make itself heard.

Venus also moves retrograde on July 25 having just entered 1º Virgo.  She will begin moving direct on September 6.  Retrogrades can help turn us inward and encourage extreme manifestations of the planet.  You may find yourself more creative in your finances, more organized in your personal space, more critical of your relationships, more willing to make health-oriented changes to improve your magnetic attraction.  Watch for Venus as Evening Star on the 18th meeting with the crescent moon as she marks her final gateway completing a long cycle and marking her descent and disappearance into the underworld before she reappears next month as the morning star beginning a new cycle in Leo.  For a deeper study of this beautiful cycle of the feminine see http://venusalchemy.com/venus-initiation-teleclass-series/

At this Cancer New Moon, realign with the feminine gifts of support, nourishment and fertility.  Bring your feelings to conscious awareness in every situation you find yourself in and heed the messages of your feeling state.  Honor the feelings of others.  Nurture the new beginnings of all you want to see grow in your life.
07/22 Sun enters Leo 9:30 PM Mountain Time

07/31 Aquarius Full Moon 8º 4:43 AM Mountain Time

08/14 Leo New Moon 21º 8:54 AM Mountain Time

Written by Patricia Liles.  Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com

Days 35-37: Gili Air

Ahhhhhh....white sands, turquoise water, full sun, good food, great company and mushroom tea! Ha! That about sums it up. The rest is just details about giant monitor lizards, bad psy-trance music and snorkeling. I really needed a vacation while on, um, vacation. I had been working for four weeks straight, three weeks teaching hoop dance at Sacred Circularities and one week assisting and performing at Bali Spirit Fest.  I hadn’t had the chance yet to just full on relax, and when I saw Tammy while riding down the street on the motor bike, saying “Im headed to the Gili’s”, everything in me screamed “I’m going with you!” And so, I did.

I packed a little bag, grabbed my hoops, extracted some funds from the ATM and hopped in a cab with Tammy and Sita to catch the boat to Gili Air. There are multiple Gili Islands, all of which I want to visit someday, but today we were headed to the Air  Around this time of year there is always a big after party for the Pirates Retreat, which is a small fire and flow festival that happens on it’s own little private island.  The Pirates after party consists of non-stop psy-trance music which to me is some of the worst music to my ears on the whole planet, except music that has negative lyrics. I have no judgement, it’s just far from my personal preference of musical choice. But it's all good, I'm not going for the music, I'm going for the people and the place. Plus, it's healthy for me to step out of my comfort zone now and again.

We arrived on Gili Air after an hour taxi ride from Ubud and an hour boat ride from the port. We took a horse and carriage (no motor taxis here) around about half the island to find a bungalow for the three of us to share. We found one called Puri Air and made ourselves at home. We unpacked and went across the street to have a sunset dinner. After dinner we decided we would ‘take a nap’ and then head to the party. I went to sleep around 8pm and I had my alarm set for 10:45pm. It never went off. Instead, we awoke around 4:45am and went to the party then! It was still bumpin' full on. We enjoyed the sunrise and danced to some not-so-bad psy-trance, practiced some hoops and watched the crazy kids who had been burning fire all night continue to spin away. It was actually pretty fun. I saw my friend Yul from Peru who I had spent two months in the jungle with out there. We told each other we would end up meeting and Bali, and there on Gili, we did! We danced and I hooped and we could only take so much of the crazy psy-trance and littered beer bottles. It was time we went for our breakfast. 

After breakkie we rented some bikes and headed to the local reggae bar for some magical mushroom tea. Yes! 

We sipped on tea and did yoga and headstands and then got into the water. To me, this was the most the magical moment of the trip. The water was perfect in temperature, color, current and caress. My body really appreciated soaking in the salt and my eyes were happy with all of the brilliant sparkling ripples and waves. I felt like a mermaid! Sita and I just giggled and swam around. I recognized what a blessed life I live, and I would need to hold on to this moment of recognition later in the day when events took a slight turn downhill....more on that later.

After what felt like hours playing in the shallow waters of shore we decided to rent some snorkeling masks. We rode our bikes a little further down and came across our good friend Gail O’Brien who had just finished teaching at Pirates. She took us to her super cute little cottage and walked us around the garden. In her garden were these crazy huge monitor lizards that looked totally prehistoric and like they could definitely eat me if they wanted to! I took some film and footage from a distance. There was this one moment where I thought the lizard was going to attack a little cow right in front of us, but no! It just made a weird little farting sound and slithered back into the water. It was certainly an odd site to witness! All on camera. I’ll eventually post it on my YouTube :)

After some lizard watching we went for a snorkel with Gail. It was kind of sad for me to see that the reef on the shore was all pretty much dead from blasting it back in the day for fishing purposes. Now there are still some really beautiful fish, but the reef is grey. I experienced the same thing snorkeling in Australia, and in the Bahamas. I have yet to see live, vibrant coral reef. I know it’s out there, but it is a sobering reality to see how much of it has vanished. On the bright side however, there were sea turtles and beautiful rainbow spectrum fish, polyps and all sorts of interesting creatures that I dared not go near, but enjoyed hovering over the seascape and the beauty that resided there. 

After snorkeling with my lady friends we took our bikes all around the island. It doesn’t take long to ride around the island at all, maybe 30 minutes, but we took all day between tea and friends! We did some shopping and had a nice lunch. I got lots of nice little gifts for the kids back home, my parents, my friends and my lover. I realized I needed to go to the ATM after all of that and lo and behold, guess what I found was missing?! MY ATM CARD! I didn’t panic though. I remembered how perfect life felt only hours ago in the rippling light waves of the ocean, smiling and feeling at peace. I made all the calls needed and was able to borrow enough from my friend to get back home. Thank God for my sweet Beloved Kellen who went above and beyond to make sure I could access all of the funds I needed for the remainder of my stay in Bali, and baggage fees backs to the islands. It takes a community sometimes to help you out in a time of need, and I am very grateful my friends were able to say when I needed to ask.

We had a nice hoop session on the beach. I have become obsessed with practicing balancing the hoop on the tip of my middle finger over my head. After our sunset beach hoop session, we had a nice dinner of yellow fin tuna and caught a horse back to our bungalow in a downpour. Another early bedtime for us crazy kittens.

We awoke, had our morning meal, watermelon juice and tea, and then made our way back on the boat and in a cab to Ubud. I only had three days, two nights left, to be in Bali, with a few loose ends to tie up, so I checked into a cheap bungalow with a nice pool and decided that after all of this time with friends and faces, I needed to just chill. Me and the pool. That’s it.

I love this place so much and feel so honored to have been here for five whole weeks!

I am definitely returning next year with more time, more money, and more space in my schedule for unplanned adventure, as this spontaneous trip to the Gilis was just what I needed.

Truly, a blessing of blessings to lounge in blue water on white sands with good friends by your side. Looking forward to having my lover with me next year as this place is totally romantic. If you are looking for a lovely place to honeymoon at anytime, Bali is your best bet! Until next time, stay shining....

and Be The Love,

Shellie White Light