Full Moon in Libra: Steps to Sovereignty

Big welcome to this Full Moon moment – may you feel easefully open to illumination and clarification of your current experience…

The Full Moon is at 8° Libra, exact on:
Sun 28 Mar, 1.48pm (CDT)
Sun 28 Mar, 7.48pm (BST)
Mon 29 Mar, 5.48am (AEDT)

(The Weighing of the Heart, from the Egyptian Book of the Dead)

LIBRA & THE SCALES

When I think of Libra, I think of Maat, Egyptian goddess of justice, wisdom, the stars, morality and cosmic order on every level, weighing hearts at the end of life, against the delicacy of a feather.

For the ancient Egyptians, “the significance of Maat developed to the point that it embraced all aspects of existence, including the basic equilibrium of the universe, the relationship between constituent parts, the cycle of the seasons, heavenly movements, religious observations and fair dealings, honesty, and truthfulness in social interactions

“Maat bound all things together in an indestructible unity: the universe, the natural world, the state, and the individual were all seen as parts of the wider order generated by Maat.” Wikipedia)

Maat’s ostrich feather represented this worldview, this awareness that everything is interconnected, and that every act and choice affects the whole cosmos.

We are indestructibly united, as we always have been, but we’re becoming more conscious of how out of balance the scales are.

LUNAR PRAYER

The lunar prayer for this Full Moon in Libra is: “We are Sovereign.”

We are Free, Resourceful, Curious, Loving, Playful, Devoted, Sovereign, Transforming, Inspired, Committed, Hopeful and Open.

How I see it is, these lunar prayers (which I wrote for each main phase and sign of the Moon) are already true. Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl would affirm that we are sovereign, that we get to choose how we show up in the world, even in the middle of a concentration camp.

And this, too, is true: that there are systems in place designed to rob people of their rights and autonomy, to enslave and indebt them, and to make us all forget our embodied power. This is especially true for BIPOC folk, and anyone who falls into a category (or multiple categories) of discrimination.

Yesterday I hosted a conversation around ‘Dismantling Privilege‘ and after feeling indecisive about what to share here, weighing the value of any words I got down on paper (hello seeing-both-sides Libra!), this morning I awoke early, the Moon reaching through my window to shine right on my face, my circadian rhythm telling me it was go-time… and I knew what I wanted to offer: the fruits of listening to the folk who gifted their presence to each other in that conversation.

(Chapter Two of by Vicki Noble, Cellular Shamanism: Her Body is My Body, collage by Grace Funk)

STEPS FORWARD

At its simplest, this is what distilled for me, around how to dismantle (racist) privilege, how to rebalance the scales

What’s the pathway forwards? EMBODIMENT & CONNECTION

Western culture, capitalist culture, has separated everything into tiny, seemingly disconnected parts. Reconnecting all these relationships, most significantly with ourselves, our bodies, our emotions, our place, our roots, our story, is the antidote.

We can’t listen very well when we are disconnected, ungrounded, uprooted, dissociated, let alone make the very necessary systemic changes that will bring equality to our shared world.

Here are some faces of reconnection and embodiment, actions that can be undertaken right now:

    • Connect with the land. We all have a body, this greatest of tools for listening to the Earth. We are not separate from, we are interwoven with, the Earth. It’s not just indigenous folk who can converse with a place, but most of us have to sing up this skill from scratch, having not learned it from anyone. What land do you love and care for?
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    • Connect with your body. Hard to connect with the land if you’re not deeply rooted in your body and aware of how your body communicates. This is huge work for everyone, but especially women and anyone existing in any of the other intersections of discrimination, where we have been actively shamed out of our bodies, and where to remain deeply embodied has meant staying present to our own pain and the ways we have been disowned and attacked by our community. Any investment in your rites of passage, the “women’s mysteries,” conscious sexual expression, conscious birthing, conscious bleeding, offering blood prayers, conscious boundaries, conscious eating, conscious breathing, conscious dying… any and all of this is work that connects us with our bodies, and often with the land as well, (Read Chapter 2 of Vicki Noble‘s powerful work, Shakti Woman!)
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    • Connect with indigenous elders, communities and stories. One of the gifts of COVID is that there are more of these conversations happening online than ever before, and not only do we have the privilege of learning directly from indigenous teachers, but we have a simple vehicle for supporting them in their work (eg. paying for their webinar. etc). Tune in to indigenous communities in your area, in whatever way you can, and more generally, invest time in reading books, listening to podcasts, etc, that will help broaden your perspective and decrease some of your inherent blindness.
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    • Connect with your ancestral stories. Many of us are living with stories of loss and trauma, whether they have been spoken of in our families or not. Ask your grandparents what they remember of racial interactions. To participate in the annihilation of others is a multi-generational trauma that requires acknowledgment and alchemising, so that it doesn’t keep us locked in particular patterns of thought and behavior. Be a fulcrum, a turning point, for your family. Make art, do ceremony, take responsibility for the family ‘demons,’ write a new story (literally) for the generations to come.
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    • Connect with each other. This is a long-term effort. We need safe places in which to share and explore and not-know and live our questions. The more we can talk through this inner and outer terrain, the more we can journey forward (wherever that leads), and the less we waste time feeling stuck. Also, others can help us become aware of that which we are blind to, and help us live out our values by creating a shared culture of compassionate accountability.
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If you can attune to the conversation with Life that is going on in every moment of every day, in every cell of your body, and if you can trust it enough to act upon it, this is a most precious sovereignty that no one can ever take away.

More to the point, this is the groundwork for the deep listening, relationship-building and restitution this is required to heal our racial rifts and systemic injustice.

ADD_THIS_TEXT

Here are some questions that may be illuminating today, or useful in a circle or space you host..

Whose land are you on?

How did you come to be living here?

What do you love or appreciate about this land that holds you every day?

What practices or activities help you connect with your body?

What racist ‘family demons’ or trauma are you taking responsibility for?

What indigenous rights work or political activism is happening in your local area or with the indigenous folk closest to you geographically?

What’s your next step?

💛 💛 💛

Sending love, and big Goanna Dreaming… may we slowly rewrite our story, within and without…

xxx Grace