Last night was stormy, with lightning and thunder scaring away any
trick-or-treaters who were still on the streets. We didn’t see many at our door, just two
small spidermen and one slightly taller angel.
There’s still a whole basket full of Kit-Kat bars, and I’m going to have
to distribute them fast before I start eating them.
Mercury went retrograde last night, and this puts me in a haze of nostalgia.
I find myself reading old notes and
journals, browsing through lists I kept through the years. Why have I always kept so many lists? Clearly because I didn’t want anything to get
away from me – not information, not time, not memory. Time has definitely gotten away from me, and
memory hides in the corners of my mind too often. But what’s left is emotion. Reading a long list of memorable dates in my
life, I remember how it felt when those things happened. I see names of people I loved who are gone
now.
This morning my wife was telling me the difference between All Saint’s
Day (today) and All Soul’s Day (tomorrow).
Apparently today you’re supposed to waft good thoughts to the saints up
in heaven, while tomorrow you do the same for your beloved dead, your family
members. I wasn’t raised Catholic and have never thought much about the saints,
but I do believe in benevolent spirits, so I’m willing to put them in the same
category. I’ve frequently seen St.
Anthony do his thing when people in my wife’s family have mislaid something,
and I’m sure the others have similar skills.
So, hey, saints. Thanks for any
help with this complicated material world.
When it comes to my beloved dead, I do believe they maintain a relationship
with us. We connect to each other in the
same way that one breeze will greet another. Nobody can see it happen, but it does. We can’t see them, but we can feel them,
because we know these people, and we recognize them even when they’re
gone.
I believe that when we become spirit, we are distilled into our
essential selves – all love, all joy, all glow - but I don’t think we lose any
of our personality in this process. So
when I think of friends and family that are gone, they are still themselves,
with the same quirky expressions, the same vocal timbres, the same
preferences. What’s gone are all the
fears, insecurities, hungers and dreads that we earthlings carry around with
us. Without all that, who are we? Pure creative energy, freely dancing through
all time and space, and through the absence of time and space as well.
So Mercury retrograde and All Soul’s Day combine to bring me closer to
my beloved dead. And this month, the Scorpio
emphasis also encourages me to go deeper into the emotional plane. I can visit people I’ve loved, and find
healing and support there. But I can
also go into the inner caverns of my psyche, and visit with less comfortable
figures. With respect and caution, I can
approach the archetypal Wise Woman, the Crone. She may give me hard knowledge, knowledge that
I’ve sought but also avoided. She tells
me what I most need to know.
This inner work takes energy, time, and attention. But Mercury retrograde tends to make time by
putting obstacles in the way of all the new things we try to do. We succeed best when we do things that are
remedial, when we go back and learn from the past, when we correct the mistakes
we’ve been living with. (That’s why it’s
a great month for impeachment proceedings.)
However, just because it’s a meditative month, that doesn’t mean that
it’s a calm or stable one. The new moon
of October 27 was very volatile, and this influences us until the next new moon
on November 26. With the sun and moon
opposite Uranus, it seems clear that there will be a big shift during this
lunar cycle - a rebellion, an overturning of the usual order. This is one of the months in which the wheel
turns, and people will be dislodged from their comfortable positions and moved somewhere
much less familiar.
Your ancestors and your spirit guides can’t protect you from the wear
and tear of earthly existence. But it
may be that the nurturing you feel from them, and the advice you receive, can
make a difference. Just listening can
make a difference, because it reminds you that there are many, many worlds besides
this one. We can hear sounds from them, we
can see shadows from the forms that move there, and sometimes we can
visit. For me, as I traverse the margin
between All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day, I am grateful to all the saints and
all the souls who guide us through these worlds and beyond. Confronted with change, I want to learn from
them how to be sure-footed and clear-hearted on this journey.
