First Harvest

So I'm no astrologist by any definition, I don't know anything about degrees of planets and what influences are occurring on subtle levels from day to day. But I do know, innately, about symbolism, in fact metaphor I think is my first born language. I also know what I have lived. And perception, based on one's own lived experiences of their "reality," I think, is all a person truly has ever got.

The first time the earth talked to me I was 17, and smoking a lot of pot. It was summer, the air itself was a ripe and breathing green, I was on my mom's back deck and quite suddenly the joint on my lips was as true and as sure as the vines of forest rope that clung to the trees all over the woods in my backyard. I became, quite simultaneously, one with all that atmosphere. And more, and strangely, the poetry that came pouring out of me was of me, but certainly not in any way of which I was wholly cognizant. It was different, not good but also not of Smells Like Teen Spirit Riot Grrrl angst, all tight-wound hormonal and in need of an outlet that all my plastic-spiraled paper journals from then sing. It was deeper, whole, more naturally flowing. By the fall of that year I clearly recall, stoned or not, the way the woods affected my body--how I could feel the wind blow in the woods in my belly or raise up on my neck. I, who had fully dismissed "God" and shuffling into the auditorium for Catholic Mass around the time that I was 16 and coming to school on Monday's hungover, began speaking to this presence, to this power, to this energy coming from the woods. Now it's been years since I've smoked pot or blown myself all open wiley on acid. But I sit quiet alot. And for my own peace, I still talk, or let the earth, talk to me.

Tomorrow, August 1, is the traditional celebration of Lammas, of First Harvest. Now what can traditional mean exactly? We are talking ritual and customs that have been handed down from centuries and centuries of peasant, agricultural societies the world over. Handed down often in the oral, folk-style of sharing generation to generation from the elders, from those who had farming and cultivating experience that sustained them within the elements that provided their nurturance. So these customs we're not obligatory, they were natural expressions of living within the quite organic cycles of life. First Harvest was, quite literally, the first big gathering of the yields of the field, the first big celebration of "putting up" food for the winter.

Tonight is also the New Moon, or actually tomorrow morning at 6:13 am EDT. Which means it peaks this evening. And tomorrow is a Total Solar Eclipse. Dig it guys, I don't care how you slice it, (for me it's simple, the applicable premise that on our molecular level all is one is a practicable, grade-A spirituality for me, the kind I can get my hands around--you know, energy neither is created nor destroyed, simply changes forms, and attracts like kinds...) the energy of right now is very, very powerful.

Symbolically: The moon is the light that shines in the dark. The sun of course is the "Light", or what shines the day to day awareness. Dark, or night, is the unexplored side, the un or subconscious, the imagination, the spirit, the sleeping. Whatever. The "moon" illuminates this. Day is what we see, what we take for granted. Tonight the moon is there, but not. Tomorrow the sun is there, but not. And Friday is Llamas, or First Harvest. Symbolically: Time of reaping.

Yowza.

So, here we go: New moons, total darkness, this is when the sleeping gives birth to first light of idea. Eclipses, these are catalysts, like a pin-pop in the consciousness, something that shoves you awake. And Harvest time, well, this is when we see the first real picture of what we've grown in our life this year. And with the clarity of having the light yanked off then turned on again, real quick. New moons, especially harvest times, can be seemingly a time of great restlessness if one is not wanting to contend with whatever darkness they trying to avoid illuminating. With this eclipse, it will almost be impossible to avoid. Again, I dont know about any other influences, I just know the Oneness of Time and Metaphor. So be awake, but don't take yourself too seriously right now(trust me on this one!! that's the sure way to miss your soul's messages!) And get outside to just be still and soak up the power. Re-connect to the earth, to yourself, and once the Full Moon gets here in two weeks (Lunar Llamas) or so I almost promise you that any changes you are going through will have fully catalyzed, or at least the path will. And the clarity will be breath-taking.

Now's a time to start to clearly see and harmonize with the gifts of you that you are meant to give to this world.


Woohoooooooo!!
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