The Dance of Courageous Surrender

This full moon conjunct Neptune and Black Moon Lilith invites us into deep contemplation of who we are aside from the details of our lives. Because an unnerving dissolution of self may occur when we surrender those things that define us, it’s an act of spiritual courage to embrace what remains when we do. Dis-identifying with circumstance, experience, wealth (or lack of it) and role (or absence of it) takes us beyond the ‘I’ ness of existence into the essence which pours forth from a liberated heart.

This essence has been given many labels. It has been conceptualised and theorised, denied and held up as a carrot on the stick of the spiritual path. Some believe it to exist, some cannot conceive it possible, others claim intimate knowledge. We each have our own relationship with our very core which, at this moon, we can encounter in its purest, most unadulterated form. In turning away from all that bolsters individuality and selfhood, we can turn towards the source of pure energy flowing through us from Life itself. In the final sign of the zodiac, this moon reminds us that the ripened fruit of our spiritual path is experienced at the core of our being, not in the external trappings of our lives.

Such an encounter with our core essence, however, isn’t always pleasant! Many have referenced the trauma of awakening, of the destruction it can wreak in our lives when the everyday deceptions of mundane consciousness can no longer exist alongside Truth. This is not a path for the fainthearted, and it’s not all about sweetness and light. But a genuine willingness to experience the Self beyond ego and identity is essential to waking up. Whatever we use to bolster our ego-self must be placed upon the altar of insight ready for when it, too, requires release.

Emotions may run high at this moon and sensitivities abound, so beware self-abnegation as an act of violence against a tender heart. We must attend to the suffering even as we release the very perspective that turns it into ‘me’. Energy is energy. It comes and it goes, rises and falls. We experience it as emotion and inspiration; motivation and illness; desire and aversion. In naming these things we make them real and build a self around them: a necessary act in a world that demands identity and substance from us all. But this isn’t the only world and we aren’t everything we seem. This full moon illuminates the paradox of self and no-self, of ego and essence, and the dance we must dance to know it all.

Sarah Varcas