Mayan Astrology: Seeding Time

I know virtually nothing about it.

Tonight, while out to dinner, I was introduced to an art school friend of my companion, Elizabeth, who knew quite a bit about Mayan astrology. Elizabeth had described me to this woman as her 'other astrologer friend'. Astrology just seems to keep coming at me from every angle lately, which is part of the reason I find myself sitting here writing about it.

Now, usually, when Liz suggests I meet one of her old "art school friends", something in my stomach tenses, and I immediately resist, unable to forget the night I spent with her and said friends at a bar in Fredericton, NB, back at the turn of the millenium, listening to tall tales about nipple rings and abstract art being cliché, and lesbian chic (i.e. lesbianism as fashion statement and instrument of instant credibility-as-an-alienated-political-artist), and an awful lot of booze-soaked whining about repression and true expression. I can be a bitch, I know this, and I tend to half-assedly pre-judge people, but these girls were art-school caricatures, stereotypes so bang-on they were nearly parodies. Which is not to say that while I was completing my English degree I didn't utter phrases such as "generic fusion" or "subtle trope" from time to time, but come on.

Anyhow, for whatever reason, I had no such sensation of dread regarding this particular friend, and as it turned out, she offered me some pretty interesting insight into the Mayan astrological tradition.

Now, I still know nothing about it, but my interest has been piqued. Or shall we say, re-piqued. From what I can glean, in this system my sign is The Yellow Spectral Seed. Essentially, this means I am a "sower of seeds", and a disseminator of ideas that will eventually evolve into firm structures. Man, I should have so been a reporter. But this is interesting, because the fact of the matter is that I am certain I have planted a small seed of curiosity about the larger universe in my 29 years on this planet. Iknow I have gotten at least a few to wonder about the stars. Not dogmatically, or argumentatively, but in passing, in jest even.

Something I have always told myself when I get impatient with the progress of life's events is that you cannot yell at a seed to make it grow. You can't, in fact, do anything, short of tamper with its natural processes by using harmful growth-hormones on it. All you can do is wait, when it comes to seeds.

This has been one of the major themes of my life: "wait for it." As a Capricorn, I know all about delays, Saturnine detours, red-tape and frustration. It seems there is always just one more form to fill out, one more test to take, one more interview to survive, one more conversation that needs to happen, one last thing that remains unsaid.

This can be annoying.

Leave it to the Mayans, however, to help me put things into perspective.

There is something about their tradition that absolutely fascinates me. I have always wanted to learn more about their lunar calendar, and in fact, there's a blogging project for me: I can write one entry about each of the 13 moons in their system, and learn about it along the way.

I sense that there is something very important buried in their stories and beliefs, something I need to uncover in order to add a new layer of meaning to my already multi-layered life.

It is a tradition that, for some reason, eludes me. I have gone out of my way to try and learn more about it, but something always prevents me. This is odd, because I have been able to absorb the gists of pretty much every other culture I have taken an interest in, from Greek to Roman to Judeo-Christian to Native Canadian Wabanaki, Acadian and Inuit, to Hindu and Taoist, to Rosicrucian and Wiccan. But the Mayan eludes me. Perhaps it is just a matter of the right book not having come along yet, or it not having been quite time.

Perhaps, too, it is something I am simply not meant to master. When it came to learning Western Astrology, I was so immediately drawn in that I had gained a working knowledge of the system and its symbols within a month. Not so with Mayan lore. Funnily, whenever I do try to learn about it, I am overcome with very strong feelings, and visions of the sun, and the colours orange, gold and yellow fill my mind's eye. I think of cornfields and sunflowers and bright blue skies, beaten metals, animal masks, and ferocity of spirit.

It is a powerful sensation, and not altogether pleasant. Something in it unnerves and fascinates me.

There is a lot of information out there about the 13 Moons. As we move in 2007 , I will continue to explore their meanings. That's a resolution. Or: a seed.

The Pisces Moon (as promised)

Pisces Moon

Well, I did say I was going to write about it—I always do that, commit myself to things by either uttering them aloud, or writing them down. That’s something most Pisceans know better than to do. In fact, they are forever slithering out of engagements of all sorts, swimming on to the next cove.

They know reality is mutable, changeable, volatile (oh, and yet: how they hate the frustrated volatility their nonchalance so often incites). Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies, is one of the wise Fish’s mottos. Same goes for their schedules. Don’t pencil me in, and I won’t stand you up.

But what can I say about the Pisces Moon? This year, my Solar Return Moon is in Pisces, so I’d better get comfortable with it. The last time my SR Moon was in Pisces, a few years back, I spent most of the year navel gazing and pondering what my purpose in life might be. Nothing seemed like quite a good enough reason to exist: I felt, in true Piscean fashion, like I’d already seen and done it all, and none of it had meant all that much. And yet, somehow, I enjoyed my melancholy. It wasn’t like true grief, or sorrow, or depression, but more of a shady spot beneath a tree—a nook I could duck into and think, and dream. My imagination was on high that year, as it often is when Pisces is adding its pale and iridescent colours to the mix.

Those I know with the Moon in Pisces are very much this way—always seeking an emotional escape. So susceptible are they to the harsh and grinding woes of society, and their significant friends and others, so empathetic, so influenced by whatever is happening around them (and just beyond them) for good or ill. . .they dearly guard their private time, making sure those few precious hours of freedom to daydream aren’t compromised by the demands of whom or whatever. We all, of course, need right-brain dream time in order to seed our visions of the future and sort out our pasts, and this is the lesson of Pisces: allowance is not always passive. Allowance is an act. To allow ourselves the freedom to regenerate and re-imagine our lives is one of the most generous allowances we can confer upon ourselves. And so, when the Moon is in Pisces, I recommend that we all do a little withdrawing, daydreaming, floating on our backs looking up at the stars.

Funnily enough, many people will react to a Pisces Moon by fighting the urge to look within, or to rely on themselves for emotional, intellectual, financial or material sustenance. This is when people really come at you with their needs. They’ll come at you with their needs (umm, demands) under an Aries Moon too, but under Pisces, the requests one is most frequently met with are either very vague, or so personal as to be almost unreasonable. Ah, the irrational Pisces Moon. This is when you will hear things like: “Well, my mother has been sick, and I’ve been caring for her night and day, night and day, and you know, if you could just run this one errand for me…” Emotional blackmail, you might say. It’s okay to give in and meet the needs of others, especially considering Pisces lesson of compassion. However, its important to remember to have compassion for oneself and not take on too much. As mellow as this sign has a reputation for being, when the Moon is in Pisces, it often seems as if the collective’s teeth (and hands) come out. This is likely because we are, in our uncertain, often unconscious way, reaching out, attempting to participate in the unfathomable give and take that comprises humanity.

Pisces, along with Capricorn and Aquarius, is one of the collective signs—a sign embodying and descriptive of social forces, of something “bigger” than oneself. Its influence can be overwhelming for Fire and Air signs, and exhausting for Earth signs such as me. Nothing pragmatic ever really seems to work under a Pisces Moon. There are no quick fixes for the sorts of issues that arise—nebulous, difficult to define issues. Nagging feelings. Unrequited love.

I realized upon reading over my first post that I cited the subject of the Pisces Moon as the perfect subject to help wet my feet. Funny, because, of course, Pisces rules the feet, the parts of our bodies that hold us up and help us to balance, all the while processing each and every little sensation to help us maintain our equilibrium. They have a thankless task, our feet, and, similarly, the Pisces function is often taken for granted. Now, as I write this, a few days since my promise to do so (typical Pisces Moon style: I set a task for myself, and then. . .just. . .drifted from it for a bit), the Moon is on its way out of Aries (the Ram) and into Taurus (the Bull). Had it not been for the dreamy state of mind I was in under Pisces, I wouldn’t have had the material on which to act (Aries) today, or to cultivate (Taurus) going forward. Lucky Pisces Moon, indeed. I’ll end off on this note: never take the thoughts, or wisps, or fragments, or shadows of shadows of ideas that occur to you under a Pisces Moon for granted. Something vital is surely trying to shimmer up from the depths.

Starry Signatures: Imagination or Bust

It took me a long time to decide to start this blog. I hemmed and hawed, waited and pondered. I am still not certain what all I will be writing about, but I decided to take the plunge. My reasons are manifold: as I get older, every day, I find myself less and less inclined to use my imagination, and as a result, my intuition recedes to the very depths of my subconscious, emerging in increasingly cryptic dreams and a frustrating restlessness that I can never seem to channel.

It is the nature of my oh-so-prototypical North American existence: my nine-to-five, my happily-shacked-up and essentially sane and solvent life. Don't get me wrong: I'm not knocking stability. I'm a Capricorn with Cancer Moon, and no one with that starry signature has ever knocked stability. But my Sagittarian inner planets ache for adventure and new experiences. (If the language of astrology is unfamiliar to you, stay tuned.... it is this imaginative and highly symbolic language that has inspired me to begin this blog. As a young woman, the stars and the lore assigned to them by nearly every civilization on earth captured my imagination in a way nothing before had, or has since. It is my intention to rekindle my relationship to the celestial alphabet, and hopefully inject a bit of it into the vocabularies (and imaginations) of my readers-- should I be so lucky as to attract any. I really have no idea what I'm doing-- launching a blog on a wing and a wish, with a very, very vague purpose. What I do have is a strong feeling--a strong need to begin the long process of articulating my impressions, insights and questions about the world, its people, and my life.

This is how all great poems begin. A strong feeling. An urge. A need to articulate.

I have always written poetry. What is a poet without her imagination? She is the author of business correspondance. Oh, and I excel at that. I do. Pls adv of your sked. arrival time.

So much of our culture today is "uninspired". We say it all the time. "That was an uninspired piece of crap." We recognize the lack, but how do we counter it in a day and age when crazed marketers have capitalized upon nearly every imaginative symbol humanity has ever. . .well. . . imagined?

What is a society without its imagination? It is a department store, I guess. A discount bin. A heartless marketplace. I've got nothing against the marketplace-- I just often struggle to locate its soul. Perhaps this is a failure of my own imagination?

"No imagination, that's what makes a beast." Who first said this?

In any event, its time for me to proactively tap into my own imaginative stores. No better way for me to do that than to consistently write. Write every day. (Will I live up to this? We'll see...will I stumble upon subject matter rich enough to keep me here, toiling and wondering on the electronic page, rich enough to attract equally curious and imaginately hungry readers? Man, I hope so.)

And so: first entry.


Starry Signatures

When I first began to study astrology (don't knock it til you've studied it) the incredible, seemingly inexhaustible symbolic language of the stars confounded and fascinated me, much the way our great loves fascinate and daunt us. We want to know everything about them, and never tire of exploring their every facet, often suspecting that some vital piece of information may be eluding us.

Astrology first piqued my interest when I was nineteen years old and very lovesick. There were two boys I liked, and I couldn't figure out my own heart. This may sound very childish, but I have never since lived on such high emotional alert, or tried quite so hard to understand myself. I didn't want to hurt anybody, and I didn't want to be hurt, and I spent most of 1997 in a state of extremely productive turmoil: questioning, wondering, second-guessing and analyzing myself, my friends, and my potential lovers.

This actually sounds torturous to me now-- all that agonized emotional questing. But as I get older, and am increasingly likely to go with the flow, hold the course, and just hang in there, waiting for a break, a change, a day off, time to think, or the opportunity to reflect...I actually miss being so deeply engaged with my life, so profoundly aware of myself as a conscious being, moving and changing the course of events in accordance with my own, well-analyzed fears and desires. It was an extremely creative state of existence. Now, I worry that my tendency is to be less creative and more detached from the flow of events. The state of modern society, and media inundation has made me into a rather passive observer, and that sucks.

How can I, as a "grown up" (ick) tap back into the same sort of invested-in-the-outcome passion that drove me to persistently study and try to decipher the coded messages of the stars?

I don't know, but that's okay-- Nobel prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska once wrote that her poetry was born of a perpetual "I don't know", a state similar to what 19th century, second-wave Romantic poet John Keats described as Negative Capability-- being at peace with the mystery of existence. The lack of absolutism and dogmatic pronouncements. The incessant questing for answers of my youth has given way to an open-mindedness pertaining to the mysteries of existence, even as I get increasingly uptight and control-freakish about my own trajectory.

So, I don't know, but the primary aim of this blog is going to be to attempt to examine everyday events, social issues, random one-off situations and media stories with that same critical, imaginative, and wondering eye. It was passion that enabled me to learn the ins and outs of astrological symbology so profoundly and with such relative speed. Of course, like anyone away from home, I have forgotten the nuances of the language I was once so comfortable with, and it may take me a little while to get them back....

As I prepare to launch this, the Moon is teetering at the tail end of the zodiac, at 29 degrees Pisces, about to move into Aries and make a 90 degree angle with the Sun in early Capricorn.

Interesting that I should begin something new with the Moon at 29 Pisces, a degree of ultimate culmination, as Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, and 29 its final degree ( the zodiac is divided into twelve 30 degree slices, or signs).

I suppose this moon degree is an apt descriptor, as my decision to begin this project is the result, or culmination, of a long, restless process of consideration, trying to liberate myself from an inspirational quagmire.

So I am going to post this. When I return, I will write a little more about the Pisces Moon. I can think of no better way to get my feet wet.